To think about, before starting a new war II

“My children, this country has lost its good heart. People don’t trust each other anymore. Years ago, you would have been heartily welcomed in this village. I hope that you boys can find safety before this untrustworthiness and fear cause someone to harm you"
(a village elder to Ishmael Beah, a former child soldier in Sierra Leone, in the book "A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier", Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2007)

Pensata

"An enemy is one whose story we have not heard"
Gene Knudsen-Hoffman

Sorry, guys, but this one goes in Portuguese...

Senti minhas primeiras saudades do Brasil ontem, com a visita de meus amigos Silvia Pavesi e Eumano Silva a Ciudad Colón, cidadezinha a meia hora de San José, na Costa Rica, onde vivo desde agosto deste ano.
Sim, falar português por horas, saber das notícias da política e da economia (e, claro, do poço Tupi!), lembrar do gosto da farinha (só em imaginação...), tomar café da tarde (só faltou a cuca de Brusque!), comentar sobre os amigos de tempos passados.
Ou de tempos futuros - quem sabe? Eu e Silvia não nos víamos desde 1994, segundo nossos cálculos. Os destinos nos levaram, naquela época, a locais tão distintos e distantes. Ela, a Paris. Eu, a Nova York.
Agora, a América Central nos uniu. Silvia e Eumano estão pelas estradas latino-americanas desde abril de 2007 e têm muito chão pela frente. Logo logo estarão na Nicarágua, onde encontrarão outros amigos nossos, Cristina Gallo e Lúcio Lambranho. Que Nossa Senhora de Los Angeles, nossa padroeira na Costa Rica, ilumine os seus caminhos.

Smells and colors

There are also the smells and colors of the Caribean. Oh, yes, they are different. The colors, for example, I would compare with "chitão", a hard fabric from Brazil that mix strong colors such as blue, yellow, green, and red. It is almost composed of flowers, huge flowers. So, that is the Caribean. Chitão, considered a popular fabric, worn by countryside ladies, became now fashionable and it is a must in the wardrobe of famous clothing designers and home decorators.
The smell comes from the sea and from the pots in the kitchens, cooking fish with coconut milk, the traditional Caribean sauce.

Manzanillo

Manzanillo was my welcoming embrace to the Caribean sea. Yes, the Caribean is everything that you dream of and something else. Yes, there are coconut trees and a feeling of laziness that you may find only in Salvador de Bahia, in Brazil. Manzanillo beach is in the province of Limón, Caribean Sur de Costa Rica. It is a half-hour drive from Puerto Viejo, one of the most touristics areas in Limón and which reminds me a lot of Lagoa da Conceição, in my hometown Florianópolis (southern Brazil), because of its dreadlocks, tatoos and reggae. Reggae, by the way, is the prefered rhythm around here. Add to that, salsa, merengue and calypso.

Jamaica in Costa Rica

I went to Jamaica two weeks ago. Not physically, but sentimentally, torn by the waves of the Atlantic sea. Jamaica is in the Limón province, located in the South Caribean portion of Costa Rica. The region is mostly populated by blacks, descendents of Jamaicans and from other Caribean islands. From that interesting encounter, there came a language called patois, a mix of English, French and Spanish. Some call it "broken English". It sounds like music to the ears and it is matter of pride for its inhabitants.

To think about, before starting a new war

I heard her voice calling "Mother, Mother." I went towards the sound. She was completely burned. The skin had come of her head altogether, leaving a twisted knot at the top. My daughter said, "Mother, you´re late, please take me back quickly." She said it was hurting a lot. But there were no doctors. There was nothing I could do. So I covered up her naked body and held her in my arms for nine hours. At about eleven o´clock that night she cried out again "Mother," and put her hand around my neck. It was already ice-cold. I said, "Please say Mother again." But that was the last time.

Hiroshima survivor, cited in Bel Mooney, "Beyond the Wasteland", in Over Our Dead Bodies: Women Against the Bomb, ed. Dorothy Thompson (London: Virago press, 1983)