Colourful Curitiba

There was a bit of itinerary drama the day before I left São Paulo because I was told I couldn´t be granted a visa to Paraguay unless I was on a round-trip ticket. I decided to cross out Bogota and Asuncion, saving about USD800 (the ticket to Bogota was gonna be a killer), and getting to actually spend decent time in the other cities - Curitiba, Buenos Aires, Recife, Rio. The date changes were meant to clock up about USD120, but somehow I managed to dodge all of that with the sweet ticketing counter lady at TAM airlines and get away with cooler dates (chronos, not homo-s) and not a cent.

And now I´m in Curitiba. Last night was a blast, went to this *wicked* Brasilian raggae concert in the middle of this random forest. Pot - and a spirit that blends Bob Marley with an almost pagan love of the earth - never filled the air with such vengeance.

Today I was (quite literally) immersed trawling through the pre-festive madness at Curitiba flea market, colourful, boisterous and quaint at the same time. My highlight was stumbling upon an elderly gent and lady, strumming and singing Indigenous American folk tunes in harmony - and the moment of sheer awe when I realised he was actually blind.

After, it was the environment exhibition of the Fundação Boticário, where my friend Leo works. It was ingenious how they´ve used sensory video clips, map-based periscopic biodiversity snapshots (you look into a peephole placed on a life-sized interactive map of Brasil to see a plant or animal that features in the eco-system of the area), chronological maps showing the extent of human impact on the environment.. I could go on. It was just a really innovative approach to environmental education, to me, and I think many of their concepts could be applied to env ed elsewhere.

Talking to Leo about the stuff he´s done/is doing with UNICEF, UNEP, Peace Child and Fundação Boticário gave me a lot of insight to NGO work in development. It struck me once more how instrumental building networks is, in this line of work. Besides working your ass off, of course.

It´s only my second day in Curitiba. I can´t wait for the rest.

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Speech Patterns

In keeping with the theme of drama, in the Brasilian style caipirinha-induced stupor of a party in my hotel room, my baby got kicked off the table - 7 hours before I was due to speak. She didn't get any brain damage, or broken bones, but lost her sight completely. Along with my speech.

Was too smashed to work on it then, so I decided to sleep some of that cachaça off before waking up less than 3 hours before my panel was on. I took the opportunity to completely scrap the core of my original speech - on democracy and development in Singapore - to more closely match the panel theme: global democracy and youth.

I finished writing my last point as the speaker right before me was wrapping up his speech.

Whatever substance of my talk, if any, is a complete blur to me now.

I'm just glad the audience seemed to really like some of the stuff I said, and damn relieved it's over now.

Right now, as I fight the intoxication of yet another caipirinha, I must get some zz's before my flight to Curitiba in 9 hours.

Before I go, Parque Ibirapuera is just gorgeous - truly an oasis of calm and lush greens in the mad bustle of the city traffic. And the Museu do Afro-Brasil is amazing! I was particularly intrigued by the darkness of an installation by José Maria, and the earnest, most intricate African masks and sculptures that abound.

São Paulo, for the glimpse I caught of it, is an amazing city.


Ps. More insights on SP from touch-down, as well as on the conference, will be posted once my baby emerges in tip-top shape from the hospital. After I hit the States on 3rd Jan.

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Latin America, baby!

Just a really quick one - for those who need to know my whereabouts, my itinerary within the continent is on my trotter calendar (to the right). You'll need to enter my gmail address, which shouldn't be a problem if I actually know you.

I leave NY at 7pm tonight.

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New York, New York

Yesterday I got my visa. Finally. All that fuss over a silly little piece of sticker on a page of my passport. It's funny how I kept looking at, and touching, and reading the words on the visa for about a whole 20 seconds after.

I'm just so glad all this hassle was worth it.

***
Caught some pretty good jazz at Garage on Grove and 1^st - Larry Newcomb and friends were playing. Listening to good live jazz - as sporadically as I do - always reminds me how much it means to me, and how much I miss it.

***
New York is an amazing city.

It's not my first time here, yet some of the sights and sounds give me the mental jump of a virgin experience.

The cab drivers are scary. New York traffic is crazy. The horn blares are really just another part of the cityscape.

Yet, in serendipitous moments of solitude amid the madness, there are little precious gems that remind me of the multifaceted character of this part of the world.

Piping hot apple cinnamon oats on a blistering cold (snow storm!) morning on 6^th Avenue. A really old (!) gentleman voluntarily helping me carry a piece of my baggage for a whole block (to the Brasilian Consulate), and refusing to let me buy coffee after. Watching a dad hoist his little girl up to touch a big statue soldier's belt.

There are many more moments I want to capture in my mind's eye, forever. I probably can't. For what it's worth, though, I am savouring every bit of warmth the people in this city bring to the cold of winter this time of year.

***
I love how Christmassy New York is now.

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F Luck

It has been absolutely mad. A recap of the last 72 hours:

Moved out. Moved everything out. (It's amazing the amount of crap you (I) accumulate over just 2 years.)

Packing for South America and US. (It's just that bit trickier packing for both hot and cold climates. And the fact that I'm going away for 2.5 months all up.)

Arranged to meet up - and be (conveniently) hosted by - friends in São Paulo, Santos, Curitiba, Recife, Rio, Asuncion, Buenos Aires, Bogota. (See, this is why you have international friends. Lol.)

Had a major rethink about the working draft of my speech for Brasil, almost entirely. (I am scrapping the whole SEA thing completely; going to focus on Singapore, despite - and almost in defiance to - the sound of alarm bells handcuffs clicking over my wrists rings in my head, as I shudder at the imagery of me walking under close watch towards an interrogation room at Changi Airport upon touchdown.

Was informed by the Brasilian consulate in Sydney that they would NOT be able to process my visa in time. Panic.

Deliberating on my 2 so-called options: stay longer (than the original overnight transit) in Narita and get the consulate there to help with the visa. I even got dear S in Singapore, who speaks fluent Japanese, to talk to them explaining my (urgent) situation. They are not helpful. OR, the terribly imaginative idea of postponing arrival in São Paulo til a recommended date that falls after the conference.

It does not look good.

Frantic emails; to conference organisers, embassies and friends alike. Serious thoughts about how to deliver my speech through video conference.

Aaron, my trustee travel consultant is seriously worried for me.

Breakthrough in NY! In the morning on the eve of my supposed flight, Consulado do Brasil says they can do me a visa in 2 days! "1 day for application, 1 day for pick-up." Wooot!!

Aaron frantically tries to get the JAL HQ in Tokyo to let me stop over in NY. Flights are packed. Chances are grim.

Meanwhile, I suddenly realise - fuck! I'd totally forgotten about fixing up my air pass for the intra-continental travel in South America! Egad. Frantic calls.

Aaron gets back to me. I got myself a stopover - with the prerequisite 2 working days! Aaron warns that it may not be enough time to process a visa, despite with the consular division says, but my options are limited because all other flights - arriving in time for the conference anyway - are full.

I take the chance.

Air pass guy gets back with a tentative itinerary. Very efficient. But, it's almost 4pm, and I'd completely forgotten (again) about the leg from Rio - my last stop in South America - to São Paulo where I take my flight back to Sydney. Ugh! More crazy phone calls, amid whizzing around in the car with J to do last minute moving-house stuff.

In the final business hours before my flight: Confirm South American itinerary; pick up SYD-TOK-NY-SP ticket; pick up the South American air pass itself; pick up prepaid phone kit to transfer my account (of sorts) so I don't get the huge obligatory monthly charge while I'm away; finish my business with the old house (oh, the memories).

Air pass guy tells me I MUST get vaccination for yellow fever (I thought he was pulling a pun at first). Before leaving. Cripes.

Whiz around some more, to the clinic. Doctor Tan, the only one licensed to administer the vaccine, has left the building! Receptionist, ever sympathetic to my desperate situation, makes more calls for me. After 15 excruciating minutes - "you can get the vaccination done at the medical centre at the airport. They open at 8am, so you have time before your 10:15 flight." Woot!

The rest of the night was sorting out last-minute housekeeping I'd neglected, and packing proper for the trip.

In the morning: I am told, as I check-in my bags, that I get to get out of Narita while on transit - and stay at a "transit hotel"! Dig out my big coat from my luggage, right there and then in front of the check-in counter - who cares! (Not me, evidently)

Frantic calls (we're really developing a theme here) to another friend S in NY, at the medical centre, while waiting to get my shot. (Turns out to be four of them - yellow fever, tetanus, Hep A, Typhoid.) So I may have a place to stay in NY. Not confirmed. S is helping me ask around his friends for charity shelter too.

The shots - and a bunch of sleeping pills, at my behest - come up to $217. This is an expensive exercise.

Crap. I finish with the medical centre right smack at 9:45am - exactly boarding time. No time to email Japanese friend in Tokyo, who I met at the World Youth Congress in Scotland.

Frantic SMSes to (another) J, in the UK, who has access to the WYC delegate database, to email her on my behalf to ask if she'd like dinner, and hang out some in Tokyo. Didn't get a reply from J, so I have no idea how that went.

And now, here I am on JL722, sitting in my nice 60C aisle seat, amazed at the course of the last 72 hours. (On a random, the stewardesses here are so nice!)

I am freakin' lucky.
(Even if I still have my speech to stress about work on.)

***
Update: Now posting this from Nikko Narita Hotel - where I discovered I have a free night's stay because of my overnight transit! Tomorrow, before zipping off to NY, I will be traipsing around Tokyo city. Don't get too green.

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QOTD

If agriculture companies were as aggressive as Coca-Cola, everyone would eat.

- Kenyan economist James Shikwati

Full story here.

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For agri subsidies?

Another perspective on the EU agriculture subsidies.

Dear all,

there has been growing voices about EU trade barriers, mainly due to the EU's sponsoring of their own agricultural industry.

I know that with this email I am hanging myself out of the window as we say in Germany THESE ARE SOME PERSPECTIVES ON THIS MEGA ISSUE that I have nowehere yet seen answered.

I have not anywhere read serious input on the following issues:

Europe has a fair standard of living. This goes along with high worker's wages and production costs. As a consequence, EU foods cannot compete with sweat shop and slave work conditions in "developing" countries.

Cutting down the subventions will trigger the disintegration of the european agricultural sector. Farmers are already not making much of a living. Already, the EU is practically importing all toys, electronics and clothes from Asia. Maybe some find that all food should also come from outside the EU?

Once Europe's agricultural sector is destroyed, it will not be possible to rebuild it in foreseeable time. Hundreds of thousands or million of people in the European farming industry will lose their livelihoods. The resulting free vast areas of land will be bought up by large corporations, like it has been done in the American West after the depression and "dust bowl". What and how will they produce in those areas? To their interest, whcih is ... you answer.

A further destabilized "Europe in crisis" will be more occupied with its own issues. This means the main continental voice for GLOBAL SUSTAINABILITY etc will be LOST. I cannot see many G8 countries making serious efforts in these areas but the ones from the EU. Not much coming out of China and Russia or the USA. Maybe, this wil also increase European military investment in securing "their interest", like the USA.

Then again, FEEDING A CONTINENT FROM ABROAD will cost another unprecedented amount of shipping. Current cargoi fleets cannot take any more. Shipping can only be done on fuel, and fuel prices are expected to rise big time due to oil depletion. The energy costs are enormous.

All SOUND best practice counsel to developed and developing nations is to BET THEIR FOOD INDUSTRY on REGIONAL MARKETS to ensure stability, food quality, reduce production costs, minimise energy waste etc.

I can hardly see the amplification of global food transports as a solution for the 21st Century. I cannot see sweat shop work on corporate farms producing genetically altered broccoli for Europe in Africa as a solution for the local African populations either. It will affect the culture, the food culture, and not bring about prosperity.

THESE ARE SOME PERSPECTIVES ON THIS MEGA ISSUE that I have nowehere yet seen answered.

I would HIGHLY appreciate if the advocates or non-advocates of the "EU-barrier-lift as a major global panacea" sent me some information and solutions on this. I do not believe the issue is seen HOLISTIC ENOUGH. We do not need SHORT TERM MAYBE-Solutions but real ones that WORK.

Sincerely,
Eric Schneider

So many things to say to that. But time is a luxury now.

If you have a response you'd like to post to the same forum this came from: youthactionforchange [at] yahoogroups.com

ps. ideas for speech have been totally changed. I'm scrapping SE Asia altogether, and focusing on Singapore. Will be much less academic, much more narrative. But I have less than 24 hours to submit. Gotta get cracking (haven't started actually writing!).

Technorati: agriculture, WTO, trade, trade justice

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