'Slum Tourism'

I recently discovered WorldHum, a very well-developed online travel magazine. I am so hooked.

Eva Holland, thank you for keeping it real with her article, "Brazilian Favelas, 'Top Model' Style." Her discerning commentary is almost too kind.

Obrugado or da?

There was a certain degree of sadness in my writing as we sailed away from each port. Just when I gathered my bearings, met a friend, or just generally felt comfortable in a new place, it would be time to board the MV Explorer and venture to a new land of unknown.

As we sailed to Namibia I couldn't believe how much I had gotten out of only the first port. I left my journal with some final words of wisdom from South America...

I learned that Brazillians kiss long and hard with lots of tongue, often with many people per night. I learned that fried bananas are probably the only way anyone should eat bananas. I learned that to articulate 'thank you' in Portuguese, women say 'Obrigada' and men say 'Obrigado.'

And finally... I learned that smiles are universal, no matter the language of the mouths making them.

Obrigada, Brazil. You treated me well.

Capoeira Lessons

This is my friend Diego Soledade.

He lives in Lencois, Brazil, which is a place that you should add to your list of places to go before you die if you are any sort of adventurer, climber, tree-hugger, or basically any type of person who enjoys the outdoors.

Diego leads precarious 6-hour, 10km treks to the Lencois waterfalls from the cobblestone town. He arrived at our hostile barefoot and stayed that way all day. This agile, energetic individual can do some amazing flips and flops from the cliffs that he's touring.


He's also incredible at Capoeira, an ancient Afro-Brazillian dance and martial arts ritual. You can check out the youtube link I've got up, or you can scope some of my pictures of Diego and his friends giving us a private show in the "Bob Marley Shrine Bar," as I like to call it, after the hike. I've never seen more Bob Marley images in a smaller space.

Letters Home

I sift through journal pages and notice a common theme: letters.

My normal methods of communication ceased to exist during the trip; students were limited to a mere 2 hours of Internet for the entire voyage and my cell phone became a foreign object. In fact, I still forget it constantly after months of being home.

Far removed from my reality, in the middle of the ocean and unfamiliar territories, I think I reached out by writing to those whom I missed.

I wrote the first letter the same day of the flip-flop drop. With wet feet I traveled on a guided bus to the outskirts of Salvador and Bahia to the Saramandaia community. These outskirts communities are called favelas, which roughly translated in English are slums. The word slums, however is not only degrading but also presents a connotation of poverty that cannot even skim the surface of the depths of the conditions in Brazil. It even suggests a level of ignorance that the people living there might possess. What these Saramandaians lack in what I might call “formal education”, though, they compensate for in innovativeness and street smarts.

Upon arrival we met the leaders of the Grupo Cultural Arte Consciente, a grassroots movement devoted to reducing violence among children in the favela. Many community members teach the children boxing, acrobatics, dancing, drumming and painting to foster their skills and promote neighborhood peace.

On the way to Saramandaia I saw a man flying a kite on the highway. I saw another man riding his horse, weaving in and out of zipping cars. Culture shock was quickly setting in… and this letter is proof of my boggled mind that day.


Dear Professor

Before I left for my voyage, you advised me to “document, document, document.” You told me to take endless pictures so that I might use them in my future journalism endeavors, and you reminded me to always keep my audience in mind.

I’m afraid that I have already failed your mission on the first day in port at the first port of the journey. I’ve landed in Salvador, Brazil. My lack of prior knowledge about Salvador has sheltered me to the extreme poverty that I witness as I walk the streets of this favela. Skeletal children walk barefoot in dirt, scraps of metal and what I gather from scent can only be human waste. Mothers and countless children crowd into windows of shacks to watch a large tour bus of Americans invade their grounds. Tattered, ripped clothing lines the fences for hang drying.

Colorful. Chaotic. Filthy. Crowded. Disheveled. Perhaps the most shocking element is that these people are alive. The bold graffiti they paint on any visible surface throughout their neighborhoods reflects the reality of their being. The artwork sings a song, it dances to their drums, it tells their story. Every inch surrounding them become their canvas.

In your classes I’ve learned that my main objective as a journalist is to tell someone else’s story in the most vivid way possible. My job is to jot quotations, snap photographs and create a tale with my words and images. These tales then become my artwork. I cannot do my job as a journalist today. In order for me to “document, document, document,” someone else’s reality becomes my artwork. And I don’t feel quite right about it.

I’m putting the camera away for now. Instead of my lens I will use my eyes. The only audience I can document for right now is myself. I might not be doing my job as a journalist, but I think I’m doing my job as a human.



For more information about Grupo Cultural Arte Consciente, email Alex ou Fabio at programarteconsciente@hotmail.com

Off on the right foot

The MV Explorer, cruise ship turned floating campus, arrives first in Brazil. After a week of only seeing 360 degrees of waves and sky, 650 slightly seasick, disorientated students pour out of the vessel and onto the cobblestone pavement of the port in Salvador. I have a field trip scheduled, so I wait outside the ship for the rest of my group to arrive. I walk to the side of the dock, scoping out the surrounding boats and ships. How strange to see life outside my new little ship bubble. Another ship is pulling in next to mine and a rowboat of fisherman is anchored nearby. I flop down on the dock and pop my foot out to sit cross-legged when off flops my flip-flop into the ocean. Great. My first step into a new country is going to a barefooted one.

Before I even have a chance to react, one of the fishermen anchored for lunch dives away from his companions into the ocean and swims fluidly to rescue my floating flop! Tired from the swim, his strapping shoulders hoist him back onto his boat. Immediately he turns back to me, waving with a wide smile. He and his fellow fishermen mutter to one another in what I can only assume to be Portuguese.

On the way to my field trip in the bus I write, My reality is warped- where I am in unfathomable and these people are real and warm. No expectations… surreal results. Then I apologize to my neighbor for the puddle on the bus floor from my soaking wet shoe.