I spoke with Rita yesterday and she has had a hard week. Her aunt, who she very much loved, just died.  Her aunt went to Rio some forty years ago with the wave of Northeasterners who went South in search of work, and she stayed.  But she always returned to Salvador to visit the family, and she, with Rita’s mother, became Rita’s models for how a strong woman can lead her life: loving the men around her but not letting them control her, remaining independent at the same time connected to her family and community.  Rita said that this aunt was part of what made her who she is.

So, she flew down to Rio with one of her cousins to represent their family at the funeral.  Because she is so busy at Bahia Street, she flew down on Sunday and returned on Monday.  She arrived at Bahia Street to discover that a young man who has been helping for over a year on the building, a fellow everyone adored, was shot over the weekend.  It was over a DVD.  He and a neighbor had an argument over a DVD that both he and the neighbor thought was theirs, so the neighbor went into the street, found two assassins and hired them to shoot him.  They walked in, shot him and that was that.

Rita had spent much of the week trying to calm the girls and staff, while dealing with her own sadness over both the young man and her aunt.  It was hard to hear Rita, always so strong and positive, sounding almost bitter.  “It is as though we are insects, as though our lives are worth no more than a cockroach, that we can kill each other so easily without even thinking twice.”  She is also stressed because the mother of one of the girls died recently, and she is trying to stabilize a living situation for the child.  Also some of the girls’ homes were destroyed in the flooding a month ago—although Rita is grateful that no one was killed this year.  (Last year a mudslide caused by rain came down and crushed the sister of one of the girls beneath a wall.)

I worry about Rita’s health.  Not surprisingly she has high blood pressure and other effects of stress.  She eats carefully, drinks very little these days, does swim-aerobics, but she also has stressful situations daily.  I am pleased to say, however, that she is actually taking a two-week holiday in June, a space for regeneration that she does not do enough.

One of the reasons Rita can take a holiday is because over the last few years several young women have become leaders within Bahia Street to the point that they can support Rita and even run the Center for periods while she is gone.  Two are young women who have come through the Bahia Street program:  Michele is a former Bahia Street student who is working at Bahia Street while also attending university.  The other came while quite young to work in the kitchen.  Then, with Rita’s direction, she moved to directing the kitchen program, then moved to the administration office as she got her high school degree and learned how to use a computer.  Then, again with Bahia Street help, she finally passed her university exams (after three tries—she almost gave up, but Rita wouldn’t let her), and she is now working at Bahia Street in a leadership role while at the same time attending university.

Recently, Rita and the girls wrote an invitation to First lady Michelle Obama to visit Bahia Street if she comes to Salvador because the Obamas mean so much to them.  She sent me the letter she had written, asking me to translate it.  I would like to share just a bit of what Rita wrote.

In November of 2008, I went to New York to the United Nations, to receive the World of Children Award in recognition of the work of our project Bahia Street….  In 2009, I returned, to Washington, this time to receive the Ivy Humanitarian Award for “extraordinary work” in my involvement in helping young women of the Americas.  During this time, I also had the opportunity and honor to see the White House and was even happier to be allowed to visit it to see its interior rooms.  At that time, I thanked God that he had been so extraordinarily generous with me to permit me to see this place and to give me the understanding that in the fight for equality and recognition of our black people we had only just begun.  Indeed, I left with more strength to continue my work with our young women in Salvador.

It would be an honor for us to invite you to visit our project Bahia Street. I would love for you to see within our city the reality of the resistance of the population that is behind the political and social culture of Salvador, a resistance that has continued to manifest itself through our internationally-known traditional black culture in capoeira, candomblé and local foods.  I would be very honored for you to see our work, which is of great importance to the women of our city.

We are in a flurry of activity here in the Seattle, the Summer Beat event that everyone loved so much last year, is happening again June 11 (details are on our website: ) so I hope to see you there.  Also, for those who have not heard this incredible news yet, University of Washington Press (UWP) has accepted Dance Lest We All Fall Down for re-release (with an updated Afterword) to come out this October!  It has a new cover that echoes the old one.  A small group of people is now meeting to get the word out about Dance (if anyone would like to join, just email us), starting with a launch party in mid-October.  With this publication, Dance really has a chance because it can now be reviewed, sold in all major bookstores, be a focus of radio interviews—whatever to get the word out.  If any of you have ideas, I would love to hear them. You can pre-order it now, through UWP’s website and on Amazon.com.

We are in volatile times, both of the earth and economies.  But the violence, fear and destruction of inequality is like climate change; it can indeed destroy us all, but it is also something we can work to change—particularly if all of us—rich, poor, young, old, in whatever nation or state—work together.  This is what we are doing at Bahia Street, Rita, myself, you who are engaged through reading this letter and your other involvement, whatever it might be, the girls at the Center—all of us together across borders of difference, sending shoots that are growing into plants that can then become strong trees.  It is wonderful to be a part of this.  Thank you.

Abraços,
Margaret

Tuesday night I walked from my Central Area home to the peace vigil at the Federal Building. I left about 9:30 PM, carrying my pillow and foam pad for sitting. I had dressed in my warmest clothes.

Halfway down Jackson Street, I met two men, both also dressed warmly. One carried a bag over his shoulder.

”That’s great,” the taller one said, “you’ve got it down. Even a pillow.”

“Yeah,” said the other, a shorter, stockier man. “I wish I had a pad like that, it looks great.”

“It’s my backpacking gear,” I said. “Are you spending the entire night?’

“Yeah, I got some warm gear too,” the stockier one said, slapping his bag, “but it sure is heavy.”

“That’s a lot for just one night,” I said.

“One night? This is for three.”

“But this is the last night,” I said.

“Last night? What?’ The two looked startled and nervous.

Then we all looked at each other. “I think we’re going different places. You going to the First Avenue Service Center?”

“No,” I said, “I’m going to the vigil.”

“Oh, that’s those protester guys.” the taller fellow explained to his friend.

“What’s the First Avenue Service Center?” I asked.

The two proceeded to tell me that it was where one waits for a job call, done every morning at four-thirty. The stockier fellow said he had been working as a gardener for three years, but was homeless because he couldn’t afford to pay rent in Seattle. He’d lived in Bremerton for a couple of years and commuted, but then the ferries got too expensive, so he came to Seattle. He was sleeping on the streets and the Service Center until he could save up enough money to pay the first and last month’s rent required to get an apartment.

By the end of two blocks, we discovered we had friends in common.

“Enjoy your vigil!” the stocky fellow shouted as we parted at the bus stop.

“And stay warm,” I replied.

“Nice guys,” I thought as I continued on my way.

I wondered if we would have spoken if they had not initially believed that I, like them, was homeless, if instead, we would have exchanged guarded glances and kept barriers firmly in place.

Just then, I traversed Fourth Street. Crossing in the crosswalk with the light, I was nearly mowed down by a police car. He had apparently been waiting at the light, but had now put on his lights and was running the red light, bearing directly toward me at top speed. With my bad eyesight and because he was using no siren, I had not perceived him until nearly too late.

I leapt to the curb, heart pounding, completely unnerved. The police car had continued to aim itself directly at me, unswerving, as though the driver actually meant to hit me. As I stood on the curb, it sped out of sight.

As I recovered and began to walk again, I wondered at the police person’s motive. I had never encountered this kind of behavior before. Had he played his game of chicken because he thought I was a homeless person or because he thought I was a protester on my way to a peace vigil? Either way, the behavior was extremely disturbing.

“Hey there.” An older man with a grizzled, long beard greeted me as he prepared his bedroll in a doorway.

“He definitely thinks I’m homeless,” I thought. I smiled and nodded at him.

As I approached the vigil, the sense of peace was perceptible. Twenty or so bundled figures sat before candles in silence to one side of the Federal Building Plaza. A few apparently homeless people also inhabited the Plaza space, one of them muttering to himself.

One meditator quietly asked another if she would walk with her to the restrooms down by the ferry docks. Her voice carried a mixture of determination and fear. The other meditators sat, bundled in their blankets, most of whom had probably never spent a night in downtown Seattle before, certainly not outside. Then I watched the homeless people who had assuredly known many nights much the same as this one. I wondered how obvious it was to which group I belonged.

I laid out my pad and pillow, sat down. The sounds I heard were the wind, cars and the soft murmurs of the homeless man somewhere behind me, talking to his invisible friend.

These circles of communication revolve on an axis of ritualized phrases, patterns of call and response that reaffirm our position as a member of a community. They bring a stability we take for granted; it is only when the cadence of communication breaks that we notice, when we make a statement to someone for which we expect a certain response and we don’t get it. Much miscommunication between people of differing societies is perhaps related to differing speech rhythms that each takes for granted and then misunderstands.

Some years ago in London, a Brazilian boyfriend brought me a cup of tea while I was at home writing one day. He did this often for me. I looked up from my papers and smiled. “Thank you,” I said.

He turned quickly, said nothing.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

He looked at the opposite wall. “Why do you always push me away?”

“What?”

“You are so formal with me. I am your boyfriend. Why do you treat me like a stranger?”

“What?”

“Never mind.” He walked to the door.

“Wait a minute. Do you mean you are upset because I thanked you?”

Yes, he was. A verbal thanks, he said in our discussion that eventually followed, is what you do with strangers or acquaintances; not with your family, not with lovers. With those who are close to you, you are instead conscious of the balance that occurs when one person looks to the needs of another. Doing things for another person is how you show your love.

“Do you thank your lover for kissing you?” he asked. Thanking someone verbally for acts of love undermines them he said, gives them less meaning; one doesn’t say thank you, one returns love. To say thank you is to indicate that you want to finish the continuum between yourself and the other person: thank you is a form of release, and release is not what a lover wants.

I did not fully understand the distinction he was making at the time, but it set me thinking about US rituals of courtesy. In US society “thank you” is the appropriate response for everything from passing the salt to saving a person’s life. “Please” and “thank you” are fundamentals of social behavior. When a child asks for anything, the standard adult response is, “What do you say?” Then when the child gets what she wants, the adult says, “Now what do you say?” The training practices are as ritualized as the response.

I asked my English friend Jeremy for his opinion on thank you. As a member of the British upper class, I figured he would understand British etiquette and the meanings behind it.

“You do rather overuse your thank you,” he said. “Overused, thank you loses its energy, takes a superficial quality.  Something endemic of many parts of American speech I should say. Don’t you agree?” Thank you, according to Jeremy, is used when someone has done something for which you are truly grateful.

The other day in Seattle, a bus driver let me off at a downtown stop. “Thank you,” I said as I descended the stair.

“No problem,” he said.

As I walked down the street I realized I was smiling, made comfortable through rituals of courtesy that both the bus driver and I understood.

Then, later that day, I booked a reservation on the train.

“Thank you,” a computerized voice said.

I sat at my desk and thought about why a company would program its computer to say thank you to unknown customers. Through using this speech pattern, the company was creating an anthropomorphized machine that in manufactured tones of friendliness gave me constructed courtesy, a subtle and powerful manipulation makes the caller respond with an automatic positive emotion. Had I never known people different from myself and had the meanings behind speech patterns brought to my attention, I might never have noticed.

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful.

In our current world of mass information, where daily we receive an overwhelming barrage of unconnected detail, what makes a person real? Is it when we come to know them, see the pain of their vulnerability mixed with a joy of their success, when they become more than a figure or statistic? When someone finally loves them?

After hearing the quote, I found myself thinking about the ‘real’ and about one of the Bahia Street girls whom I shall call ‘Rosana’ (to protect her privacy).

Rosana is now a strong tall, blossoming young woman of about 14 or 15. I watched her when I visited the Bahia Street Center in Salvador in May as she shepherded the younger girls in place while they waited to play a game of capoeira. She made sure each was placed correctly, watching over the smallest girls, and smoothing the hair of others. I asked Rita about her.

“That’s Rosana,” Rita said. “Of course you’ve seen her before. She came to Bahia Street at least five years ago. She’s a remarkable girl.” Rita told me the history— that when Rosana’s mother was pregnant, she didn’t want the child so she tried to make her pregnancy fail. Her efforts made her sick, so she went to a public clinic, where they removed the very premature infant, treated the mother who survived the ordeal, and released her. The mother left the clinic, thinking the infant had died, but, remarkably, it survived. After a few months, the clinic returned the baby to her. The mother protested, saying her own child had died. This child was not hers and she didn’t want it. But the clinic left the child anyway. The mother, frustrated at being landed with this infant she did not want, gave her to some neighbors nearby. The neighbors took the baby girl, but they were also very poor and paid little attention to her. After some months, the mother’s mother, the child’s grandmother, heard about what happened to the infant and went looking for her. She found the child, now almost a year old, lying in a filthy wooden toolbox at the back of the dilapidated neighbor’s home. The child was covered with bugs and dirt, almost starved to death.

The grandmother took Rosana back home and began to care for her as best as she could over the protests of her daughter and her daughter’s other children who all did not want this extra child. The mother continued to insist that Rosana was not hers and refused to care for her. Rosana was left alone a lot, malnourished and beaten. Since she did not react much to outside stimulation and talked little, everyone considered her mentally retarded.

Finally, when Rosana was about eight or nine years old, her grandmother heard about Bahia Street and brought her to the Center, asking Rita if she could accept her into the program. So, despite the fact that Bahia Street had taken all the children it could for that year, Rita said she couldn’t refuse. “Rosana has two things in her life,” Rita said to me, “her grandmother and Bahia Street.”

Now after about five years, Rosana has grown. She is strong, intelligent and makes good grades in school. But equally impressive, she has become a caregiver and a leader among the girls younger than herself. She shows generosity, she brushes the younger girls’ hair, she braids it, and she makes sure that they are safe at school and not bullied by other girls. She nurtures them. She also bosses them around (much like Rita, I thought, since Rita bosses everyone around at the Center, fierce and caring at the same time).

I also thought of Camila, the girl whose father was assassinated some years ago. She is now in her final year of high school, getting good grades, and comes to Bahia Street often to help and mentor other girls. The university exam system in Brazil is changing this year, and instead of having a final standardized university entrance exam, students will be assessed on yearly standardized exams throughout high school. This makes Camila’s chances of getting into a good university next year very high.

The Bahia Street Center is now a five-story building. This year, Rita has installed banisters on all stairways, installed closed cupboards for food (to keep out cockroaches or rats), and added two more classrooms and a large set of lockers, one for each girl. Rita said some of the girls started to cry when they saw the lockers, saying the locker was the first private space they had ever known. The Center math teacher, an African Brazilian who himself grew up in the shantytowns, has recently been asked to teach at University because of his excellent teaching skills (he is also continuing at Bahia Street). The Center now feeds about 200 people a day in two meals including the 60 girls, the teachers, various caregivers who come in for food, and some community members who are hungry. Rita informed me that the mother of one girl who has run into hard times and was basically starving (her daughter was also very malnourished), has also been coming in daily. Now that she is stronger, she is beginning to sell items on the street to sustain herself.

May also brought a very special group of people to Brazil. Susie, who has been working as the Bahia Street Trust’s voluntary director for almost ten years, was finally able to go to the Bahia Street Center for the first time to see the program she had helped to create. At the end of the trip, the group had a final party at Rita’s apartment—making caiparinhas together—at which Rita and I both talked about how much these years of working together have meant to us. Rita said that she has always been reserved around foreigners, not opening up to them, so when she first met me that is how she reacted as well. But, in time, she began to realize that I believed in her, and that this belief continued over the years we worked together. “Most all foreigners,” she said, “When they come to Bahia to work on projects, they want to take over, to control it themselves. Over the years, as Margaret and I have worked together, she has never done that. She has believed in my ability to be a leader. And, in time, I have grown to believe in her as well. Over time, through Bahia Street, I have come to know that foreigners can treat us here with equality, that we can all work together. This has huge meaning for us all.”

“This is real Margaret,” Rita said to me. Maybe it hurts sometimes, as the Skin Horse said, but this world that connects us all is real. Thank you all for being a part of Bahia Street and for helping to make it possible.

A blonde woman sits on the fake leather couch across from me in the common room of the youth hostel in Rio.  She flips her long hair as she turns a page, glances across the room: she is not interested in her book; she is hoping someone will notice her and come up to chat.  She is a bit bored and lost, looking for a companion to venture out with her to explore the city.  Samba-reggae, clearly selected by the hostel staff who would know and like this music, blasts above our heads, flashing images gyrate from a mute television screen, cigarette smoke.  I listen to the shouts and conversation that swirl through the music around us.  I hear scattered among the languages the Portuguese of young Brazilians visiting Rio, most of who apparently speak little of the English, French and Spanish that are the predominant languages I hear among the foreigners.

Time and circumstances: how they change us.  Or perhaps they meld into our perspectives that we think we have built independently.  I have not been to a youth hostel in—perhaps twenty years.  In my twenties, as I trekked around the planet, they were havens, refuges where I made friends and found comfort in encountering what I perceived as similar in countries and societies that to me seemed strange.  Youth hostels gave me balance.  Now, staying in this hostel full of tourists in a country that has become almost a part of my identity, I feel nostalgia, a certain melancholy.  I consider slipping out to the street where I will likely find a café and make easier connections than I feel here.

But, I stay, now the observer, smiling at this hostel society that is, and is not, still part of me.  The hostel is a half block from Ipanema beach in Leblon which, I am told, is one of the wealthiest neighborhoods of the city.  It is what I consider a ‘good’ hostel: clean, close to the beach, safe, helpful staff, decent breakfasts, a reasonably pleasant common space.  I have my own separate room; most others are in the dorms upstairs.

A slender, loose-limbed man sits beside the blonde woman, asking her in English if she knows the time breakfast is served.  A decent opening line, I think.  She glances up from her book as if he has startled her from a deep and profound reverie; she deigns to give him a smile. She isn’t sure about breakfast but, where is he from?  They will be leaving shortly for a drink, I decide, both pleased to meet someone who speaks the same language at least—selection is not too fussy at this point.

I rise, nod a good bye for politeness sake, they respond for the same reason.  Outside, I enter a still, thick twilight that here lasts but the merest microsecond.

I meander past bars: chic, slashes of color, black glass, polished granite and marble.  The outside stools of open bars are already filling with drinkers, a dangled high heel slipping from a bare foot, tight jeans just above her ankle, heads thrown back in laughter, painted nails on green and gold drinks: anticipation.  I stop at a dimly lit café, order a coffee and sit at an outside table.  I am here at the invitation of Anna, an English Program Director of an NGO that is working in Rio.  She lives in this neighborhood, so selected a hostel for me near her apartment.  I feel coddled and safe.  It’s an odd feeling, knowing Bahia so well after all these years, but so unfamiliar with the South, with Rio and this neighborhood that could be a completely different country from the Brazil I know.

I recently heard on the radio that China has just surpassed Brazil in the competition for countries with the most inequality in the world.  But this competition rests on economics.  Where does the violence come in— how do we account for that?  I think of the favela we visited today. Anna wants me to see three. This one is high on a mountainside, an old part of the city, Santa Theresa, planned by a Swiss fellow in the 1930s, I think.  A cable train takes residents and visitors up an almost impossible incline where gracious stone houses sit, clamped—hopefully secure—along cobbled streets so steep they would torture any car transmission.

This is where many of the wealthy of Rio used to live.  Now most have moved away, their homes moldering and devalued because others fear to come. This is because of the favela that has grown on the back hillside where forest used to stand.

We drive to the mountaintop along roads that curve and twist their way up ravines and along ridge sides. At the top, Anna asks a policeman who is standing beside his glass-windowed security post if we can leave her car at the curb beside him. He generously guides her into a tight parking spot. He can see that we are both foreigners, we are white and certainly middle-class.

Anna cell phones her friend Adriana whom we have come to see. The reception is not good, but Adriana says she will send her niece to accompany us “down the hill.”

Anna frets as we wait, but eventually the niece arrives and we walk down the backside of Santa Teresa on a steep cobbled hillside.  One side of the road is encased by a stone wall fifty feet high.  We approach an alley so narrow it seems a crack, a portal.  I almost expect to see a gate that shuts at dark.

At this entrance of the favela—for this clearly is what it is—stand six or seven young men, calmly doing nothing much, some no more than twelve years old.  At least two hold submachine guns, one a highly polished semi-automatic rifle. Two more have pistols hanging loosely from their fingertips. One is missing an arm.

We pass into the alley under the watchful eyes of the sentries who, in their turn, carefully pretend they are not watching us at all.

With the niece leading the way, we pick our way down the passageway, a virtual canyon, each turning more narrow than the last, steps cut into the steep hill, a labyrinth.  We walk at the belly of a living chasm of stone and cement. I listen for an echo, but hear the quiet shuffling of soles.  I watch for slippage in the wall.  In wide pockets, white spaces in the gloom, people sit or stand as they watch us pass. If we meet in the lane, we squeeze flat, sucking in bellies to rub past, smiling in acknowledgment of the momentary intimacy.

We stop before a door, seemingly cut into this wall of nothingness, a single door in the surface.  This is Adriana’s?  No, the niece tells me, it is not Adriana’s.  She is just here collecting food for a party at the church.  These are friends who have a freezer she is using.

A freezer? I think.  Homes in Salvador favelas do not have freezers.

We step over the threshold into a narrow living room, a solid closed space with no windows, only this door. But, despite the lack of light, the room is homey. The floors are tiled, and the family has a computer on a nice desk with a nice chair where a young boy sits playing video games.  Behind the living room, a kitchen and the famous freezer.

Adriana and members of this family, I learn, have jobs. Adriana works for an NGO with which Anna is involved. She is eight months pregnant with her third child. We chat, joke and laugh while she and Anna exchange gossip.  She offers us some passion-fruit mousse she made for the church party.

“Should we take this?” I ask, taking the proffered cup with no pause.  I love passion-fruit mousse.  “Isn’t it supposed to be for the church?”

“I’ve made tons,” Adriana says.  She hands another small cup to Anna.  I gobble mine down.

“Can we help you carry all that?” Anna asks as we prepare to leave.

“My niece and one of the neighbors can do it,” Adriana says.  “Don’t worry.  And come back soon,” she says to Anna.  “It’s been too long.”

“I will,” Anna says as they embrace.  The boy at the computer looks up for the first time.  “Bye brancinha (little white one)!” he says to me.

Brancinha?  I’m five foot ten and a lot older then him.  I make a mental note—which I later forget—to ask Anna about this slang.

The niece leads us back up the twisting constructed canyons.  We are all soon sweating in the still, humid and cloistered air. As we near the top, I smell marijuana smoke. The guards are smoking. We walk past them quickly, not overtly watching anything, then burst into the cobbled street.

We hug the niece.  Then she turns, waves and slips back into the portal, past the sentries, behind the wall, out of sight.

“It was calm today,” Anna says as we walk up the street toward her car, “but eventually something happens. It’s strange like that, it seems tranquil, then there is an explosion of violence from nowhere.”

“Yes,” I say, “that—and the hugs, gossip and mousse—are about the only parts of here that remind me of Salvador.”

We drive back through one neighborhood after another to Leblon, Anna’s apartment and my hostel. Another world, almost another country, a space of expectant laughter as the sun begins to set.

Happy summer! The sun has finally arrived in the Pacific Northwest, and we are beginning to enjoy the warmth that comes after many months of cold.

In our Seattle office, we are incredibly busy. With current Brazilian inflation and the weak U.S. dollar, we have to send four times as much money to Rita in Bahia to maintain the same level of support. Rita says that in Salvador, she is seeing one local nonprofit after another falter and fail because of the downturn in the U.S. and global economy. Bahia Street, however, is maintaining its operations– largely because of you. A few years ago, Nancy and I also started developing educational programs here in the States, first Bahia study trips, and more recently programs with students at the University of Washington. Our aim is that these educational programs not only teach Americans about global inequality and issues of poverty as related to Brazil, but also will eventually pay for our administrative costs in the States so that anyone’s entire donation goes entirely to Brazil. We have already been successful enough in this venture that currently about ninety percent of all donations go directly to Brazil. These educational programs also pay for my trips to Bahia so Rita and I can plan and connect. And indeed, a study group of twelve was in Bahia in May at the same time that I was teaching a group of twenty-eight University of Washington students. It was exciting and lots of fun to meet all the interesting people of the study group and to get to know and teach some remarkable young people among the students.

Although our trips to Bahia were very successful, the situation in Salvador is rather grim. Rita feels that the poor are getting poorer and that the hunger in Salvador is worse than ever this year. We read regularly in our papers here about the global food crisis—in Salvador, where so many people live on the margins of survival, it is tipping some of them into the abyss. A kilo of beans in Salvador now costs eight reais; bus fare, per single ride, is two reais. About eighty percent of Salvador’s population make four hundred reais or less a month. Of this they will spend at least eighty in transport to and from work. Rita says the girls eat everything she can give them, and that she continually has to slow them as they eat too fast and get sick. More and more are saying they get no food at all at home. Looking at the girls, the effects of this near-starvation were clear: the first year girls who have only been at Bahia Street a few months are small and look twisted, often with sores on their skin, and they are inattentive in class. The second-year girls are taller and running around, but they are still painfully skinny with every bone visible. Then the girls who have been with Bahia Street a few years–they are tall, jumping around, look strong and healthy, and are able to handle the rigor of learning at a pace on par with some of the best private schools in the city. Bahia Street is feeding the girls twice a day, and the difference of the food alone is much more marked than I ever remember it being in the past.

Perhaps because of the food crisis and its impact on the poor, the new girls this year have come in with more problems than usual. They are more angry and disturbed than girls in the past have been, and Rita says it is the most difficult group she has ever had. For awhile she was ready to expel the entire group, but she has been working intensively with their caregivers and working with their teachers to get the girls to play games that teach them how to read while they gain basic social behavior. Bahia Street now also has a very good psychologist who comes once or twice a week for private sessions with the girls, and this seems to be helping a great deal. And at least these girls are eating, and that alone is helping them to calm them. We have every reason to think at this point that they will be able to stay and grow within our program.

I am sad to report (for us) that our curriculum director Fio has left Salvador to take care of his elderly parents in his native town to the south. His parents gain, but it has left Rita very alone. She has some good assistance with four young women who are taking over various tasks that Fio oversaw before, but not the companionship she had with him. We will miss Fio, and I am focused now on providing Rita all of the moral support that she needs to run the Center in Fio’s absence.

The older girls on the whole continue to do very well, passing their exams and helping with the younger children. Sadly, the youth orchestra group for the girl who is so remarkably good at the violin has been canceled so she has had to stop. This is one area we would love to explore…finding funding to buy classical instruments for girls as several have shown an aptitude, and learning to play gives them a structuring discipline that helps them with their studies.

Both Rita and I continue to be impressed with Julia, an impoverished young woman who Rita hired to work at the Center several years ago. Not able to live with her family, Julia lives in a one-room shack with another girl and runs all of the day-to-day administration of the Center. With Bahia Street’s support, she has finished high school and is now studying for the Vestibular, paid for by Bahia Street. In fact, there are several Bahia Street staff members who use the Center as a place to study for the Vestibular, making use of Bahia Street’s computer room featuring six networked computers. Bahia Street continues to touch the lives of many more people than the sixty girls that it directly serves.

Also amazing is the continuing work on the reconstruction of the building. The January volunteer work party worked with Fio and Rita to paint more of the rooms wonderful bright murals and colors. The reception/administrative room has been expanded (they used to work within a space the size of a cubicle!) with a space broken through the back wall to allow ventilation. The library has been wired and now provides students with a comfortable place to read. The kitchen is now airy and, although still not large, provides space and storage for the feeding of the about eighty people it serves now twice a day (this includes staff, and there always seem to be a few caregivers from the community who also need to be fed.). On the downside, rain is still getting in the roof area and rats are getting in. The building next door has been abandoned and is breeding rats. Small ones are creeping in the roof, and larger ones come up from the ground. Rita and her staff are currently putting out rat poison every two weeks—over the weekends so no children come in at any time while it is out. This situation is also indicative of the deterioration of the general infrastructure of Salvador. We are fortunate, however, to have received a very generous donation from a study trip participant to address some of the most pressing needs of the building—from closing off the roof to installing railings on the stairs— and we continue to write grants to finish it completely.

Here in the States, I am incredibly pleased to report that my recent book (Dance Lest We All Fall Down) has been selling well. The Seattle library system, which originally bought four books, has, because of demand, now bought four more. It was also just awarded a Silver Medal for Multicultural Nonfiction in the annual Independent Book Awards. And, for me, it has been wonderful meeting people who are reading the book, being invited to speak at book clubs and or gatherings. I am learning from other’s insights as they read, resulting in a wonderful exchange. If anyone would like to invite me to speak about the book or have it as a part of their book club, I would be delighted to participate.

So, this letter is a mixed one I am afraid, but that is the reality of our world. Bahia Street is a part of the struggle, and the path will not always be smooth. We must cherish our successes and be strong for each other, extending that strength beyond countries and continents, to those who touch us throughout the globe. I send you my warmest thoughts on this equally warm summer’s day and hope that sometime during this day you will have a moment–a color, watching a bird pass, a pure sound, laugher with a friend–of pure joy.

Abraços,
Margaret

I am watching the sun peek out between the clouds as I write this and think of all the other times I have written to you. Years have passed, the seasons come and gone, and still this connection continues. I still feel as though I am writing to you each individually, and it means a lot.

I think this particularly now because I have finally finished the book that I have been writing about Bahia Street (I have been working on this for over four years now!). The book is about the people who inspired and taught me in Bahia, and about the community of you here and in other parts of the world who have accompanied Rita and me on this journey. I have rewritten this book in its entirety at least four times, but now, with the help of many people, it is finished at last. The publisher tells us that it will be out in November! I can hardly believe it. To all of you who have supported Bahia Street and who have seen it grow, our struggles and successes— I thank you. This book is about all of us. The title of the book is Dance Lest We All Fall Down, a reflection of a lesson my friends from the favelas of Bahia taught me, that strength comes with the dance we must all do if we are to survive, that we must find our joy. Joy makes us strong, the dance of joy comes through understanding how we can give to others, and that all of us have something to give.

The book will be in paperback to make it more affordable, and we will be letting you know in November when we actually have the first copy in our hot little hands. In the meanwhile, we are taking pre-orders for books: simply email us at info@bahiastreet.org with your name and the number of books that you would like (you may pay once they arrive.). Each book will cost roughly $20 (in the U.S.) with shipping and handling. Outside of the U.S., the book is best available on-line with the publisher in November.

I have read (in translation) the entire manuscript to Rita, and she is as excited as I am. This book starts a conversation, and I can’t wait to hear from you. So do please let me know thoughts that the book sparks in you, what paths it opens, and where it takes you.

Things at Bahia Street in Salvador are going very well. The capoeira program has been a huge success, and many girls are now doing cartwheels, handstands, and flips. They love it. What they are doing is also exciting because, in Bahia, women do not often do this kind of strong exercise that takes a certain risk and confidence. In Bahia Street, we are seeing an entire group of girls all grow in their capoeira skill together. It will be interesting to see how they develop in this art as the years go by.

Several girls are studying for their eighth grade exam to enter high school, and two girls, Luana and Flavia, who started first grade this year completely illiterate with no study skills or even a concept of how to behave in a classroom situation, have done more than just learn to read and write in these short months: they are both racing to be top of their class. Again it will be interesting to see how they both do over the years.

Another girl, Jessica, has always shown an interest in music, and during a capoeira class last year, a visitor introduced her to the violin. She took to it immediately, showing surprising talent, had this person began giving her lessons. Her skill on the instrument grew much faster than anyone could have imagined. Now, she has just taken a test on the violin and been admitted to a violin course at the Teatro de Castro Alves, the principle music theater in Salvador. An incredible achievement on her part. She will continue to study at Bahia Street, of course, so we will get to see what happens as she studies with some of the best musicians in the area.

Being part of these girls’ often astonishing achievements and their trials is one of the parts of Bahia Street that is so exciting. Because we stay with the girls for so long, accompany them through their years at Bahia Street and continue to give them support as they enter university, we get to see the effects of the program and the girls’ increasing engagement with what the world has to offer. This is a privilege, and I continue to be amazed at what these girls do.

From the States, we successfully partnered this summer with the
University of Washington Department of Chemistry’s Dr. Richard Gammon to bring twenty-two students to Bahia as a part of a course to study climate change, inequality, and the society of Brazil. I look forward to co-teaching a class next spring geared toward students who are the first people in their families to attend university or who are recent immigrants, to study about inequality, social change, and race, class, and gender in Brazil. The course, a partnership between Bahia Street, the Office of Minority Affairs and the UW Jackson School, will spend four weeks in Seattle at the University of Washington and six weeks in Brazil.

These programs are possible in part because of our new building that gives space for us to teach classes while the students are not in class. It represents our expanded mission to teach girls in Bahia that allows them equal opportunities and to teach people here about the realities of inequality as it exists in Brazil. One way that we fulfill the second part of this mission is through our study trips. I greatly enjoyed our June 2007 trip, with a special thanks to Aleixo Dejneka for joining me in leading this group. Our 5th annual study trip will take place May 23-June 3, 2008, and we have another exciting and thought-provoking tour planned. Join us! Bahia Street is a true partnership that provides space for all of us to learn.

My very best to you all, and I will let you know when the book is out!

Abraços,
Margaret

It has been too long since you received news from Bahia Street, perhaps because so much has been going on both here and in Salvador. Before we slow down for the summer, I wanted to take a moment to share with you what is happening at the Bahia Street Center and with Bahia Street outside of Brazil.

Rita and I were discussing the start of the school year in March, and Rita noted that she now had more girls than ever before, putting a strain on the budget and building, and generally straining the energy level of the school. Then she told me that she had enrolled 61 girls! When I asked about the number, Rita exclaimed that she simply couldn’t turn the additional girls away. “You’re not the one having to turn them away!” she said to me. So many more girls are now being referred to the Center than we could ever possibly accommodate. The fact that the building reconstruction is essentially completed allows more of the space to be used to benefit these additional students.

The students are now able to learn capoeira at the Center in part because of the additional space we have, but also because of continuing support of /Grupo de Capoeira Senzala Seattle/. They raised another $5,000 at the second annual “Rites of Change” performance event in Seattle, which will fund uniforms, instruments, and the teacher for this school year. Rita was fortunate to be able to hire a female capoeira master, Linda, who comes from a similar background as the girls. She gives the girls yet another role model to hers who transcends the debilitating effects of poverty. It is revolutionary to have a female capoeira instructor given the historically male dominance of capoeira in Brazil. The program promotes physical health, strength in self defense, and pride in their African-Brazilian heritage. Every girl who is physically able plays capoeira now at the Center.

With more girls and new programs, we are working on ways to support the Center beyond raising funds. In late fall 2006, we began the library project based on Rita’s expressed need for books to fill the library at the Center. Brazil is notorious for its lack of libraries that serve the poor, which coupled with the relatively high cost of books, is indicative of the low literacy rates for Brazil’s poor. Bahia Street did not have the funds to fill the library, so we began looking for opportunities to receive donated books for the Center. Our first grant came from Alibris, which awarded Bahia Street $1,000 to buy English language books. With this money, we bought easy readers and ESL texts to support our volunteer ESL program. Other books continue to arrive from Alibris’ Donate-A-Book program (http://www.alibris.com/wish/donate-a-book.cfm). On the Portuguese language side, I have been working closely with Bloomsbury Publishing Company editorial director Sarah Odedina in securing donations from Brazilian publishers, such as Companhia das Letras and Editora Rocco, among others. Additionally, Seattle volunteer Melanie Wyffels lined up language kits from Yazigi language centers.

Just when we thought that we were wrapping up the library project, the phone rang. Dr. Mitchell Davis learned about Bahia Street through Alibris. He called the office and asked how to buy 500 books for the school, offering $2,500 to fund Portuguese language books in Salvador. Dr. Davis has a strong interest in health and nutrition and inquired about the Center’s nutrition program. Learning that we can provide the only meal a day that the girls usually receive, he offered funds for a second meal as well. Dr. Davis sent $15,000 last month, one of the largest individual donations ever received by Bahia Street. Dr. Davis told Nancy that one of the reasons he supports Bahia Street is because it is a small organization where a donation of this size has a significant impact on the lives of the people being served. His generosity also demonstrates the power of the Internet for small non-profits to connect with a community of people beyond our hubs of activity.

Increasingly, we are working on projects that extend our experiences with poverty, race, and international development into different disciplines. One such project is our partnership with the University of Washington Department of Chemistry, which is running an “Exploration Seminar” to Salvador in August 2007. Led by Dr. Richard Gammon, “Chemistry, Climate Change, and Culture” will focus on the science, public policy, and social justice issues surrounding the topic of global warming and climate change. Bahia Street is a key partner in the project because a knowledge of local culture is critical in the implementation of climate change solutions, and many of the people most affected by climate change are the rural and urban poor: shantytown residents, fishermen, and subsistence farmers. Students will be visiting the Bahia Street Center, having homestays with university students in Santo Antonio de Jesus, and meeting local people in Arembepe, a fishing village north of Salvador.

And finally, a few activities to mark on your calendar! Bahia Street will have a table at the *All Nations Cup* soccer event during the weekend of *July 21 and 22* at Fort Dent Park in Tukwila. We will also have a table at *Brasilfest* on *August 19* at Seattle Center. Please email info@bahiastreet.org for volunteer opportunities—there will be many!

This gives you a taste of all that is going on. While this means that we are very busy, it is exciting to see our programs energize others to work for change in Brazil and beyond. This past week, we participated in a program about international NGO management—an event organized by our present interns—and we were struck by the poise, thoughtfulness, and sense of activism of our former interns serving on the event’s panel. Bahia Street inspired each of them in a different way, and they in turn inspire us to broaden our educational programs outside of Brazil. I feel surrounded now by the growth, the energy, and the dynamic force that Bahia Street has become. You and all involved with Bahia Street have made this possible. And we are standing on the verge of so much more. It is exciting. We can all be delighted and proud of this in our lives.

Happy summer and laughter,

Margaret
–
Dr. Margaret Willson
International Director

I am freezing! Yesterday was spring, and today it’s winter again. Nancy and I just walked to the bank and my fingers are so cold I can hardly type. March is making sure we notice its lion entrance.

By contrast, I was just speaking with Rita yesterday, and she says Salvador this year is hotter than she can remember. She cannot sleep at night, and people are actually getting sick from the heat. Salvador—and other parts of Bahia—are also not getting the rain they should, Rita has seen very little since November. The girls are all returning to classes after Carnival, and Rita is trying to obtain extra fans to make the classroom heat tolerable.

Fio and Rita have spent the summer months painting the interior of the (new) Bahia Street Center, and Rita says the walls are now all bright pinks and yellows. She will be sending us photos which we will put up on the website. They are very busy now with the beginning of the year, hiring new teachers and organizing the schedules of the girls. This is incredibly complicated. All the girls go to public schools (in addition to Bahia Street) for four hours a day, but the school day in Salvador is divided into three parts for the students, one session in the morning, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. Bahia Street classes are all in the afternoon. All the girls go to different schools in neighborhoods scattered all over the city. This means that Rita and Fio have to negotiate with all these schools to get the girls put into the morning public school session so they can attend Bahia Street in the afternoon. A huge undertaking, particularly when we consider that they are doing this for fifty girls.

However, our efforts are paying off. Daza was one of the early girls to join Bahia Street. She is also one of the girls whose mother has always been very supportive of her work. And this year, on her first try, Daza passed the university exam. Not only did she pass, but with the high marks that will allow her to enter Salvador’s federal university. These federal universities are the most difficult to gain admittance, but they are free if one gets in. So, Daza is this month beginning her first year at the Federal University of Bahia in Communications. This makes the second girl from Bahia Street to enter university, Juliana last year and Daza this year. Bahia Street is a long term investment in people, but we are now beginning to see the wonderful and concrete results of our work. Thank you all for your support over the years.

And speaking of support, Nancy received an email this week from one of our supporters here in Seattle, Peg, that particularly touched us. Peg is the mother of twin girls who are in the sixth grade. She and her older daughter, Miriam, came to the Bahia Street gathering in January and returned home very excited. This was the result as Peg wrote in an email to Nancy:

“I don’t know if you’ve gotten word of this yet from Naomi and Eliana, but they were very taken with what Miriam and I had to say about Bahia Street. It was their birthday this past week, and they asked their friends and relatives to send them donations to Bahia Street instead of gifts. Many complied, and we have raised over $500!”

It is remarkable to think that these girls would choose to use their birthday gifts to give to others. I feel glad for our future with young people like that around.

We have several exciting events on the horizon. First, Rita is coming to Seattle! We are setting this up for the last two weeks of September and will be having a formal dinner honoring her and celebrating the Tenth Year Anniversary of Bahia Street! (I find this personally amazing). We will let you know more about her visit and the events associated with it as they develop.

Also, following the impressive success of this year’s trip, we are hosting a Study Trip to Bahia again this year. The trip will be a total of seven days in Bahia, scheduled for November. Check out the Bahia Street website at www.bahiastreet.org for more details. The trip is a chance to have fun, learn about the realities of Bahia life, the culture, inequalities, African influences, and to have a chance to meet the Bahia Street girls and see our work first hand. Please email Nancy at nancy@bahiastreet.org if you might be interested in joining us!

And finally, Senzala Seattle, a Seattle based capoeira group, is putting on a benefit for Bahia Street on March 31 entitled Rites of Change at the Velocity Dance Center (915 East Pine Street). It looks to be a wonderful event. It features Brazilian-themed performances by Bem Brazil, DJ Joe Mojo, Roda de Fogo, Erin MacNamee, Senzala Seattle, and Capoeira Malês. Additionally there will be an auction featuring an amazing collection of arts and crafts. The proceeds will benefit an expanded capoeira program at the Bahia Street Center. Tickets cost $10 at the door or through www.brownpapertickets.com. For more information, visit www.bahiastreet.org/events or give us a call at (206)633-1724.

A few days have passed since I began this letter and in that short time spring has reemerged. When I stopped for my morning coffee this morning, everyone was talking about their favorite spot for viewing Seattle’s spring blossoms, one told of the Asian cherry trees in the Arboretum, another of the jasmine at the Locks. Everywhere the air is filled with the scent of blossoms and the ground dotted with the bright yellow of daffodils. The explosion of spring brings such joy.

My very best to you all.

Margaret

The smells of autumn are coming through the open window, a clear scent of recent rain and damp leaves. In these months, the slant of early winter sun creates an actual glow in the leaves, a shimmering arbor of magenta and gold, punctuated by the occasional black-green fir.

The change of autumn is perhaps my favorite time of year, and I pause at least once each day, thinking how precious are these moments of joy. I feel privileged to have friends with whom to share them.

Nancy, our project director, said something to me the other week that I found important: Our search for meaning is interconnected with a need for purpose. I can see it in the numerous e-mails we receive weekly from people wanting to volunteer for us in Bahia. I see it in the outpouring of sentiment and individual effort in response to suffering exacerbated by recent natural disasters. I see it when I am talking with our volunteers here — and in myself. Such involvement gives our lives purpose and meaning.

I was thinking about this when I rang Rita a few weeks ago. It was late Thursday and she was still at the Bahia Street Center. First she told me of difficulties. The university teachers were on strike, the police administration was on strike, government offices were on strike, the postal workers were on strike and the banks were on strike. Chris, the English teacher, laughed in the background and shouted to me over the phone line, “We’re the only people working! Bahia Street, that’s it!”

The bus fares have gone up again, Rita said. The government wanted to raise fares to R$2.20 per ride, but the people protested in the streets, so they only raised it to R$1.70. Minimum wage — what most people in Salvador earn if they’re lucky — is R$300 a month. This means that people can hardly afford to ride the bus to work and certainly cannot send their children to school.

I felt there was little positive I could say in response to all this, so I asked Rita what she was doing so late at the Center.

“I’m cooking,” she said. She began crunching on something.
“What are you eating?”
“A dried shrimp.”
“Oh?”
“I’m making carurú.” She paused and shouted to someone passing in the street in front of the Center.” Antonio! Carurú, tomorrow!”

Carurú, for the non-Brazilians reading this letter, is a wonderful
traditional food of Bahia made from finely chopped okra prepared by as many community hands as possible, dried shrimp crushed with onion and lots of African palm oil. Carurú is a ritual food, symbolic of community, of sharing one’s life with the people who, like the food we eat, sustain us.

In Bahia, September is a special month for sharing carurú in honor of the twin Catholic saints, Cosme and Damião, also known in candomblé, the African Brazilian religion of Bahia, as Ibejis, the guardian saints of young boys and twins. In the final weeks of September, people make carurú and invite everyone, particularly children in groups of seven. The carurú is placed in a large bowl at the center of the room. The children sit on the floor around the bowl and eat first, using only their hands. The adults generally sing to call the Ibejis while they wait for the children
to finish. Putting on a carurú is believed to ensure good health and a good future, particularly for twins and children.

Given the importance of children’s welfare related to this festival, it is not surprising that Rita was making a huge carurú for the Bahia Street Center and all the neighbors who have been so helpful and supportive of Bahia Street, especially during the construction of the Center. Rita later sent photos of the carurú which you can see on the Bahia Street website: www.bahiastreet.org. There’s a link to a carurú recipe there,
too.

Rita also had good news about Juliana, who was our first Bahia Street student eight years ago. She is doing well at university and has moved into an apartment by herself — quite an adventurous and feminist thing to do in Bahia where most young people, particularly women, stay with their parents (or in Juliana’s case, with her older sister, since she’s an orphan) until they marry. She is coming back to the Bahia Street Center regularly and giving talks to the young girls, inspiring them with her achievements.

Things are a bit tight for Bahia Street right now, despite the success of the program, in part because the U.S. dollar is falling relative to the Brazilian currency. We are trying to keep all fifty girls, however, and maintain our current programs of daily meals, academic excellence, family outreach, literacy, health and violence counseling. Since we pay bus fare for all the girls, the increased bus fare affects us as well.

I leave November 11th for Brazil, staying for a month. We are taking ten visitors this year on a study tour which will include Bahia Street and its work. A few weeks after we return, we will be having a party in Seattle on January 22. The trip participants will be there with photos and tales to tell of their experiences and adventures. We will send you more details as the time nears, but put the date in your calendars now. It will be good to share — if not a carurú — certainly good food, good memories and good cheer.

Until then…
grandes abraços

Margaret