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117 I arrived in Brazil two months later. A taxi driver friend of Cecilia’s picked me up from the airport, and we immediately began chatting. My God, it felt good to speak Portuguese, to relax into conversation with no preamble or formality. We passed under a stand of high bamboo that arched over the road a short distance from the airport, and I breathed a sigh of contentment. I knew this feeling wouldn’t last, that the inequality would soon begin to grate on my nerves, but for now I was content just to be back. Rita and I met at our customary bar for our customary beer. Nelson always seemed to be running the place, regardless of the hour. His bar had metal tables painted with beer advertisements, and it was separated from the busy central Salvador street, in part, by a high fence constructed of metal bars. I felt as though I were a caged zoo animal in this barred bar, although anyone who wanted (except for the wandering crazies whose brains had dissolved through sniffing glue) freely moved in and out. “Where do we start?” I asked. “I would start by asking people here what they think is important. We could go to my neighborhood, and also Penambuas where you lived. Ask them what they think.” I looked into my beer. “But in a perfect world, what would you like to do?” Rita laughed. “In a perfect world we wouldn’t feel compelled to do something like this at all. But,” she paused, “definitely something related to social justice. I don’t really know much about the environment. Except that it’s being damaged. Nor do you, right?” I shook my head. “I grew up playing in old growth forests that no longer exist. My grandmother used to take us to dig camus root—a native plant there—at a place she called The Sacred Meadow. The Indians camped there in summer when she was a child. It’s a shopping mall now. I loved these places, but I think that kind of loss doesn’t have any power to people who never knew these places to begin with. And scientific stuff, I never got beyond beginning biology.” thirteen ideas 118 dance lest we all fall down We sat silent for a minute. “I’d like to do something with women,” Rita said. “I’d like to do something with men.” “No, no,” Rita said, “with women’s equality.” “Yeah, that sounds good. It’s something we understand. Inequality, I mean.” “But we really need to ask people here.” Rita flagged down Nelson and ordered another bottle of beer. “The idea has to come from the people in the favelas. If it doesn’t, then they won’t care. They’ll just think it’s some middle-class or government project, so the local people will steal whatever they can.” “Not cynical about your neighbors, are you?” “Not cynical. I know them. They’re my neighbors.” Nelson arrived. He popped the lid off the bottle and poured the beer into our cups. “My daughter’s baby is getting baptized this Sunday,” he said to Rita. “Can you take some photos?” “Of course, Nelson,” Rita said. “Is it the first Mass or the second?” “Second. The entire family’s coming.” “Do you charge him for all the photos you take?” I asked as Nelson walked away. “Or does he just pay for what he wants?” “Only the ones he wants. I take a few for him and others for the record. I’m collecting all the photos I’ve taken, for maybe ten years now, to make a documentary history of my church, the Church of the Blacks. It’s fought for black equality since before Abolition, you know, 1888. The priests there have always mixed Candomblé ritual within the Mass.” Rita smiled. “The other Catholic churches don’t like it much. Anyway, what do you want to do with the project? What interests you?” I thought for a moment. “You know Rita, what really interests me is the infrastructure. There are tons of good projects and a lot of change needed, God knows, but I’m interested most in how it’s put together, in the creation of the organization.” “Go on.” Rita topped off my glass and refilled her own. “Well, grassroots projects here have good ideas, but the middle class doesn’t give them any money, the people involved lose heart and give up...

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