Image from Projeto BIRA

“Ever since I was a kid, I’ve had a strong desire to travel all over Brazil, to get to know its diverse realities firsthand. When I’d travel with my parents, my eyes fixated on the landscape passing by, and I’d imagine myself visiting each little house on the side of the highway. I’d invent names and destinies for those kids with barefoot bodies whose eyes gazed into the wind, and for those old folks with crooked canes who spent hours on crooked benches in the shade of jacaranda trees . . . The childhoods and games in each place I passed were what always attracted me the most.”
- Renata Meirelles, How it all Began, Projeto BIRA (Brincadeiras Infantis da Região Amazônica or Children’s Games in the Amazon Region)

A few years ago - when I was getting started with BRINQ - I was thrilled to come across the work of Renata Meirelles and David Reeks, a Brazilian American couple that was working hard to document and share the toys and games of the Brazilian Amazon. Their stories of what they discovered and shared were truly inspirational and I had hoped to meet up with them on one of their trips back to the U.S. Unfortunately the timing didn’t work out and I have since moved on to other projects, leaving my task of building a global toy chest sadly neglected. However a recent discussion on the Omidyar Network about recycled crafts and toys sent me looking for David and Renata’s work once again and I was delighted to see what they’ve been doing in all this time.

BRINQ - A juggling workshop in Urucureá, Amazônia

Just how have they been keeping busy? Two short films, a number of film festival appearances and awards, dozens of presentations about Amazonian toys and play to school children in both the Brazil and the U.S., media coverage, a new website, return trips to the Amazon, and even a new documentary in the works.

Since I first discovered Projeto BIRA, I have been lucky to have made my own short trip to the Brazilian Amazon, where I was able to experience a few of the games and toys children play with in a few riverside communities, as well as sharing a few play activities of our own… some successfully, some not so successfully: FYI, embarrassment is when you can’t remember how a game of duck duck goose ends. However, Renata and David spent more than 8 months visiting 16 communities in the Amazon - playing the whole way - and the depth of their work is at a whole other level: truly inspirational.

• Visit the Projecto BIRA website at http://projetobira.com
• Watch a short video of Projeto BIRA’s work

Previous story (2005): A Playful Exchange - O Projeto BIRA

I’ve often said that one of the greatest joys of my work is the exceptional people that I get to meet and to develop friendships with. Whether or not it’s Salim Mohamed and Sammy Gitau in Kenya, Murali Ramisetti in India, or Theresa Williamson in Brazil, I have been blessed to know so many people who are busy painting their visions of a better world into reality. So I’ve often wondered, “What it would be like to just go on a pilgramige to find and learn from such people?”

Well Exceptional Lives, the blog of Dublin, Ireland’s Clare Mulvany, is chronicling such a journey.

Clare describes her trip:

I am currently embarking on a ten month journey around the globe to interview ‘people who change our world’ about their life stories. I’ll be meeting ’social entrepreneurs’ working in a range of fields from education to business, dedicating their lives to making the world a better place for us all to live in. Nairobi is the first port of call, and from there I’ll travel overland to Capetown. It is then on to India, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Tonga, Samoa and the USA.

Clare’s journey has taken her to many of the places where I’ve lived and worked on BoP projects, and she beautifully describes her encounters with social entrepreneurs through both written word and photography. Clare just finished the latest leg of her trip - 7 weeks traveling through India - and she summarizes the experience in her latest post:

Seven weeks in India. Seven weeks of what?

Of colour, lots of it. Colour as iridescent saris blaze around every street corner. Then the glossy black and yellow of taxis and the glaring orange of festival flowers. The piquant green of tea plantations. The lush green of coconut plantations. The lazy green of cardamom trees. The black of a girl’s oiled hair, the black of men’s moustaches, the pupils of eyes (you staring at them, them staring at you). The chorus of colour as Diwali swings into fare; fireworks painting the sky like a circus. The pink of pickle. The night blue of night trains. The bright light of bright days.

Seven weeks of bright, busy days.

There’s a lot of great material on Exceptional Lives, so much more than I’ve had the time to go through, but Clare’s stories and pictures are certainly worth immersing yourself in. After all, every exceptional life we touch makes our own more exceptional. As for me personally, it’s always inspiring to see someone put into words what you yourself have experienced but have been unable to express.

I’ve laughed. I’ve cried. I’ve been exhausted. I’ve been exhilarated. I’ve been learning. I’ve been trying to make sense of it all.

Travel does this to you. It enriches as it shakes. Perceptions start to shift and alter. You start to shift and alter. You take a step and the world unfolds with colour and learning. You take a step and the world takes the next ten.

The world? Well, it’s the people you meet along the way who point you in the right direction. Or a book you read which clarifies a point. Or a film you see which sparks a train of new thought. Or that kid you play football with. Or that mother you make eye contact with. Or that beggar you pass on the street.

Seven weeks. I know. I can hardly believe how much can be packed in. A lot has happened, and there is still a lot more to come.

I am thankful. I am lucky. I am learning.

I’ll share a couple of quick anecdotes that Clare’s stories bring to mind. The first is simply something a young man in Kibera (Nairobi’s largest slum) once said while we were living there, "To me you are like birds, you can land and then fly away when you want. But we are stuck in the mud." The second is from a homestay I did in the Indiramma Nagar slums of Hyderabad, India. I distinctly recall the moment when I - a supposed veteran of homestays in villages and slums - finally opened myself up to the poor Muslim family that had been hosting me… it was like the sun had risen, how much more I could see when I finally let them see me!

Clare Mulvany’s journey therefore reminds me that our ability to pass through so many lives is an incredible freedom that comes with great responsibility, not only a responsibility to pay respect and to bear witness, but a responsibility to touch and be touched. She seems to be doing that quite well.

I am thankful. I am lucky. I am learning.

Words worth repeating. Here’s to all of us touching more exceptional lives.

-Patrick

Links:

• Exceptional Lives
• Clare Mulvany’s photo stream on Flickr.com

Much thanks to Jean Russel for introducing me to Clare’s journey.

There’s a texture to life that we miss in our discussions of poverty, our arm chair strategies in the U.S. on microfinance, disruptive innovation, and entrepreneurship. The BoP Protocol Pilot team has been been in Kenya for almost a month now, visiting a number of homes and organizations throughout western Kenya, from rural farms to urban slums. This article is the first in a series of installments about the texture of life we’ve been experiencing. Note, names and details are sometimes changed, all the stories are true. Mitumba “Cha bure ni bure” - free things are worthless -Professor Lelo, Egerton University, Njoro, Kenya One month before heading to Kenya I stopped by the Salvation Army to drop off a trash bag full of old shirts, pants, and shoes. Everything I donated was in good shape, it would certainly help some less fortunate soul, I thought, perhaps provide even a little bit of fashion too. Last week, sitting in Paulette’s front room, in her rented mud hut in Kibera, I found out where my discarded fashion may have ended up, in the many stalls and kiosks lining the streets of Kenya, as mitumba, donated goods for sale. Quality goods for a cheap price. A good thing, right? Perhaps not so good for Paulette’s husband, a Nairobi shoemaker whose market collapsed under him when a flood of cheaper, higher quality shoes hit the market. These days his business scrapes by on the occasional shoe repair. Kenyans, we have found, are remarkably well dressed, no matter what their station in life. Early in the morning a sea of well-groomed Kiberans walk up Kibera Drive, past the Nakomat and YaYa Center (shopping malls in Nairobi), on their way out to look for jobs in the city. Some walk more two hours each way, uncertain if work is there for them or not. I have yet to learn the trick of how to keep my shoes as clean as Kiberans do, how they resist the ever present dust and mud is a mystery to me. Paulette’s husband makes the migration every morning to his little shop space in the city, one cobbler among many: all of whom likely wear the very mitumba which undermine their livelihoods. Well dressed and without work. Paulette speaks with a subdued resignation, her days are filled with preparation and waiting. Preparing breakfast for her three children (if there was food left from the night before), preparing the children for school, buying and fetching water from the local water taps in Kibera (illegal hookups to city’s water supply), washing clothes on laundry days, waiting for the children to return for lunch, and always, waiting for her husband to return on a good day with a 100 shillings (about $1), hoping he brings enough back to buy food for dinner: maize and greens. On the hot days, waiting in the house can become unbearable, the stench of the overflowing latrine outside her door becomes overpowering. Latrines are sometimes cleaned by Kibera’s absentee landlords, by the better ones, though if the tenants are deliquent or refuse to pay rent, even the better ones let the latrines overflow. And even if you do pay rent, perhaps your neighbor does not, and the land lord doesn’t send in the cleaning crews. The day we visited Paulette was a mild one, a waft would only come by with the breeze. Paulette is a member of women’s savings group in Kibera. I remember reading about such groups while in the U.S., women would pool there money, giving 10 or 20 cents a day, each getting a chance to take loans from the pot, money which they would use to buy tools or resources to better their lives. What did Paulette use her turn at the pot for? “Food,” she said, “when my husband comes home with no money for the day, you can’t let the children go hungry, you just can’t. They can’t sleep if their belly is not full. So I take out a loan.” You don’t use the money for capital, for any income generating opportunities? “I don’t have any skills, ” Paulette declared, “I’m trying to learn tailoring, but there are so many tailors already in Kibera.” What if your husband can’t bring home money, and you can’t take out a loan? “We fight,” Paulette said, “but then I learn to keep quiet and cry a lot.” The best time of year is around Christmas, when everyone is preparing to head to their family homes outside of Nairobi, and everybody is spending money to look their best, which includes buying and repairing shoes. Paulette and her family often head to their birthhome in Western Kenya, and she saves up for a special meal for the children: fried chicken and chips. She smiles a little when recounting the memory, but then she adds, “But it’s a good time of the year for the thieves too.”

“Who is Rain?” asked the little girl in the lantern light. “Rain is a dancer,” I replied. “A dancer?” she said, prompting for more. “Yes, a dancer,” I repeated, pausing for a moment to glance at our slumbering fields and up to the empty sky. The night was full and people were starting to arrive. I raised my hand and gestured toward the stars, “Rain dances on the veil above, his feet tapping and bouncing on the cushion of the sky. Sometimes his feet will sink into the pillow of a cloud and water shakes loose and falls below to wash the earth and feed our crops. Some days he dances lightly, others with tumbles and leaps, the sound of his landing shaking the earth as his smile flashes and lights up the world.” “But he doesn’t like to dance here,” the little girl said, sandals removed and toes bunching on the dry earth beneath her feet. “No,” I replied, “not for a long time.” “But why?” The truck with the speakers rumbled by. I waited until it had stopped at the improvised floor, where the circle would form, and then I leaned forward in my chair and said, “Let me tell you a story.” – One day, a man climbed atop the house on the highest hill to look for Rain. He saw the dancer in the distance, down by the sea, far away and twirling by. With all his might he shouted his question, “Tumbling Rain, why do you dance for us no more?” He expected no reply; Rain is often too busy dancing to have conversations with Man. Yet moments later an answer came back, wafting on the wind. “I see you bent over the plow, day after day, with tears on your eyes. You are unhappy. I see your woman, hauling the water, pounding the beans, with tears on her eyes. She is unhappy. I see the little ones toiling, no laughing, no leaping, with tears on their eyes, they are unhappy. You are all so unhappy. Your tears make you unhappy. When I dance, tears fall from the sky. Why would I wish to make a sad people, more sad?” – “But that’s silly!” exclaimed the little girl after I finished my tale, “my tears don’t make me sad. It’s being sad that makes my tears!” “Ah, but Rain is just a simple dancer,” I explained gently, “How is he to know the difference?” “Oh,” she said. The little girl looked up into the night sky, toward a lone, distant cloud shadowing the moonlight, and asked, “Will he ever return?” “I suppose that’s up to you, little one,” I said. “Me?” her wide eyes now stared into mine, “What can I do? I’m little. Everybody says so.” “Ah, but you’re the most important one of all,” I said, sliding from my chair to settle in front of her, “You can laugh, you can leap. You can dance, you can play. You can show the world that tears or no tears, you live with joy. And drawn by your joy, perhaps Rain will dance with us once again.” Music flowed from the back of the truck and I could see partners forming in the circle. I stood to join them. “Now go play little one,” I urged with a fond pat to her head, “the dance is beginning, and Rain is watching.”