Meeting in San Cristóbal, 25 Jan 2014 @ 9 am. We arrive. There is a group of people clearing the bushes and branches surrounding a particular house. Apparently, a group of thieves/drug users had taken up in the house and this is a way to increase visibility for community scrutiny and improved safety. I am impressed at the group effort evident. Young and old with machetes in hand. The meeting…
Category: power & power relations
uses and abuses
The ab/use of the term ecobarrios. I wanted to know how people in informal settlements and in urban marginalities understood the environment. How they made the environmental movement theirs. Pues, here it is. Whatever I thought eco-neighbourhoods are imagined to be, are not what they are here. What was in the article, was simply the articulation of the elements of ecobarrios, with no application of these elements on the ground-…
first night
We walked up, We kept walking up. I was sure I would never leave the place- What? And suffer this treacherous walk again? No way. Slightly drunk- it was the holidays- he stumblingly stopped, at a dark spot on the curved road. Dark because of the ravine, from which shot up tall tall trees. Dark too because it was night. I half-feared for my luggage, So close was he to…
memory making
We curate our own experiences. Our lives. So that they don’t say we were never here, we did not exist. We were here. We are here. I was noticing how at every event held at La Escuelita, they were always taking photographs, some which would end up in the annual newspaper/magazine, La Calavera, that they print and distribute. Additionally, anytime an article in one of the newspapers mentioned the centre…
a meeting
Drinks in hand, Director with lives in his as well. Gestor, hopes and dreams in his- And they fly everywhere- An effort at transferring these intangible tangibilities Into our hands, into the director’s. Young man, bright looking- So much responsibility. Eco-hotel. Tourists. Sips. Stories. Of a land that rejected those who had left it. Somos amigos. Aqui sabemos vivir con riesgo.
writing the city: community newspapers
Then came the 2010 World Cup, which helped us fast-track a number of urban developments: public spaces were upgraded, public transport rollout was fast-tracked, pedestrian corridors were created, the city became more user-friendly seemingly overnight. We were on our way to becoming truly “world-class”, a “liveable city”. Off the back of our World Cup success – realising how big deadlines can help accelerate urban change – we drove the city’s…