S.O.S. Salvador
Salvador, like the rest of the planet, needs help. And like a lot of other places on the planet, poverty is a determining factor in the nature of a lot of the problems. There are several programs that I know of which accept volunteer workers and/or donations: Projeto Axé, Action for Brazil's Children (the ABC Trust), Didá, Bagunçaço, and Mãe Preta being five of them.
"Mãe Preta" - Maria Davina Rodrigues
Myspace was. Facebook never was. The MusiCodex is music.
Mãe Preta is not a program in the usual sense. You may have heard the expression "hooker with a heart of gold", and this pretty well sums up Mãe Preta (Black Mother -- that would be Maria Davina Rodrigues), an angelic eighty-seven-year-old ex-prostitute (her birthday is August 8th) whose life for the past forty-something years has been dedicated to caring for and raising abandoned street children -- many of them themselves the offspring of the world's oldest profession. She does this completely on her own, in a falling down hovel on Salvador's infamous Ladeira da Montanha, a sloping street along which may be found houses of prostitution of the lowest order (virtually all of which have 5-star views of the bay through the back windows). Maria's school-age children make a daily trek down the hill and then back up the Ladeira de Taboão (a street described so heart-wrenchingly by Jorge Amado in his Bahia de Todos os Santos: A Guide to Streets and Mysteries; Maria was in fact a friend of Jorge Amado's) on their way to public school Marquês de Abrantes -- the end of the school day bringing them back to their dank and makeshift habitat.
Donations are of course welcome, as are visitors (the house is located about half-way up the ladeira), but be forwarned that there is nothing picturesque about poverty on this order. And anybody thinking about walking to Mãe Preta's house (which is located in the city center) should think again; the chances of your making it there without a request to give up your belongings is extremely slim.
There is a (public) telephone on the premises now; the number is (71) 3321-6709.
Maria does now receive some assistance from goodhearted local people, and the goodheartedness even extends as far afield as England, where the organization Friends of Maria has been set up (http://www.friendsofmaria.com).
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The ABC Trust (Action for Brazil's Children) is also England-based, the English connection being Jimmy Page and the Brazilian connection being Jimmy's wife (and the project's energetic organizer) Jimena Page. Complete descriptions of the Trust's projects and how you can help out are set out on their website at http://www.abctrust.org.uk.
The name "Bagunçaço" comes from the word "bagunça" (bah-goon-sa), which means "mess". It is a group of kids from the neighborhood of Alagados/Jardim Cruzeiro who play rhythm instruments made from found junk. Now, the neighborhood names are pertinent here. Alagados means "flooded", and refers to shacks built over water on stilts, a scene frequently and picturesquely displayed in a lot of guide books. These "houses" are not picturesque at all; they are horrid and dangerous both in terms of human violence and health and sanitation conditions. "Jardim Cruzeiro" means "Garden Cross", and this is an area built over garbage landfill set just in from Alagados, over what used to comprise Alagados itself. Jardim Cruzeiro now looks like any other poor neighborhood in Salvador, and for longtime residents that is a big step up.
Bagunçaço has grown into a community organization under adult supervision, with a "center" consisting of a couple of spacious enough but simple and very unadorned buildings which share a compound with an elementary school and a children's daycare center (also community projects). And they've found their measure of success, if such is measured in terms of widening horizons. From the slums of Salvador (some of) these kids and their junk have made it as far afield as Germany, Japan, and Sweden (where they will perform for the queen tomorrow -- as I write -- April 15th, 2002). After the accolades and applause and return from the airport, however, it's back to the shacks, or the houses constructed over landfill.
Volunteers can help in terms of supervision and language teaching. The address is Rua Rosalvo Barbosa Romeu (there is no number), Paróquia de São Jorge, Jardim Cruzeiro, Salvador, Bahia, Brasil 40430-500. The phone numbers are 55 (country code) 71 (city code) 3314-2580, or 3313-7207 (Portuguese may be the only language of whoever answers the telephone).
