The second installment of the BWB Audio Blog from Haiti.
Listen to it at
http://s3.shoutingfire.org/bwb/BWB_AudioBlog_2_020310.mp3
Its raining hard and lots of folks don’t have tents or shelter.
We were able to hook up a tent hospital with 600 pounds of medical supplies today.
Here is the first entry in our new Haiti Audio Blog series.
http://s3.shoutingfire.org/bwb/BWB_AudioBlog_1_020210.mp3
Ismail and Isaya have moved off the streets!
They seem really happy about it. I’m happy not because of the place – but because they have really chosen to be off the street. Which ideally means they will be changing their lifestyle.
Just having to commit to paying rent is a big deal. But now they are moving off the streets and moving up in their performances as well: new costumes, bigger shows. It’s all happening. Read the rest of this entry »
Dragonfly points out the finer points of the Mutaytor, BWB’s biodiesel conversion contraption.
The BWB BioDiesel project in Pisco, Peru is rockin’ it hard as summer arrives to our desert home here by the sea. But suntans and ceviche aren’t the only good things currently on our radar!
The biggest news is the recent visit from Peru’s Minister of the Environment, Mr. Antonio Brack. Mr. Brack is a Cabinet-level minister in the national government of Peru, led by President Alan Garcia. He heard of our BioDiesel operation from someone on his staff that I had met a few weeks prior at a regional environmental conference, and took time out of his schedule to visit us. His entourage of Vice-Minister, university professors, local and regional leaders and the press spent quite a while visiting, asking questions and offering support. Here in South America the arrival of tinted black SUV’s with police escort to your front door is not generally regarded as a good thing. But in this case, it was a really special treat to share our biofuels vision with someone from the very highest levels of government.
Burners Without Borders is proud to provide the funding that enabled the Motomoto Circus to attend the Lamu Cultural Festival.
Early Friday morning we all met to take the bus to Lamu. All of us except Matano the young boy that was going to meet his mother. We spent the next 20 minutes before getting on the bus searching for him. We heard he was seen with a group of other kids and their street mama heading out of town early in the morning.
Street Mamas. If you watch any small child begging on the streets for long enough you will eventually see them handing over all or a portion of their money to their mama. In some cases they are the biological children of the mama, but in most cases they are children the mama found and cared for as they migrate into the city and/or are abandoned by their parents. I see these mamas are the root of street life. Without them you would not see children on the streets (at least not for long).
I believe, most of the time, that these mamas are doing what they do to simply survive and they do take care of the children in a way. But … all mamas know you get more money from your children the worse they look. The more skinny they are, the more dirty they are and the younger they are. If they are injured – even better. Many of these mamas were raised on the street the exact same way they are raising others.
A little kid touched a friend’s boob last night. She and I were walking in old town. He was bigger and braver than the rest of his friends, all in school uniforms. He said ‘how are you’ with a nasal tone making fun of my nasal sounding Mzungu accent.
She stopped all of a sudden. I didn’t know why and but she had that stare. The way one stares down a bad dog. The boy ran. She was pissed. She said she almost hit him. I wish she had. I wanted to myself. But the moment was over, the boy was long gone.
Most of the women in the part of town I live in are covered in hijab. Which they take off at home for their husband. Her tits – were right there, behind a tight t-shirt.
Where am I in this? The mzungu is a walking symbol of wealth. A symbol of a social class that most people here dream of…. Tom Cruz strides across a red carpet …. it makes me want to spit.
So what? Spin around chains dipped in kerosene at night in the park with people living on the street… Maybe I’m a someday wanna-be buddha, son of a king, seeing suffering for the first time and wanting to take myself out of the equation. Not wanting to be a walking reminder of people’s crap nor a walking excuse for people’s crap.
There is a small boy that has been learning to dance with fire his name is Matano. He sleeps in the park. He wants to return to his mother in Lamu. He says she sent him away to find his father in Mombasa. He found him. He was hurt by him and abandoned. No money to return home. Living on the streets for over a year now. He is skinny, too skinny, they all are.
Richard Vinson shows his enthusiasm for BWB’s Biodiesel Reactor project. For the past several months, he has been focused on making this project a success. As he continues on with his travels, he will be passing the torch to new volunteers charged with making this a sustainable project that will turn waste veggie oil into homes and schools for years to come.
Where have the last 11 weeks gone? I arrived at Pisco Sin Fronteras in Pisco Peru on the 16th August and now it’s November and I am now on my way to New Zealand! I didn’t know what to expect when I arrived but was immediately made welcome and could sense the great feeling of good around the place. I happened to pick the weekend of PSF’s 1st anniversary to arrive, so much partying had been done that a rest day was required on Monday! However the Tuesday 8am morning meeting soon arrived and everyone was off to start the day’s work.
The main project I have been involved in during my time in Pisco has been the setting up of a biodiesel manufacturing plant. As it was something I knew very little about I had to learn fast and it has been fascinating.
Read the rest of this entry »
The Motomoto Circus Performers-Keep Reading to see the video.
I have moved and am now living about a 5 minute walk from the kids I work with. I now live in a entirely Muslim section of town and am feeling like I am back to square one in some ways in terms of getting to know the local culture. Because of my skin color everyone calls me Mzungu (semi-derogatory word for foreigner) and thinks I am a tourist with loads of cash.
The coast around Mombasa is lined with hotels and clubs for the tourist industry. Our aim is to get some auditions and eventually get some regular shows to provide a steady income for the youths. The advanced performance troupe is made up of three Kenyan fire dancers and two percussionists in their early twenties – but we are trend setting and hope this opens the doors for many more.
We spent the last two weeks walking – at least 6 miles a day in blistering heat – trying to get to see the management of hotels. It turns out I am lightly pigmented and not built for equatorial UVB radiation. (but sunscreen helps!)
Will (left) and his friends taking a break during their fire dancing practice.
At the end of Ramadan there is a festival called Eid al-Fitr.
Eid is an Arabic word meaning “festivity”, while Fiṭr means “to break fast” – it basically a four day party here in Mombasa.
Tents are erected and professional acrobats perform inside them. In order to get in you must pay 50 shillings and there are thousands of people there.
…. but something went wrong. For some reason thousands of people were not going in the tents but instead watching a group of …. street children?!
This was a problem. The street kids spinning fire were more entertaining and having more fun than the ‘professional acrobats’ – who take themselves very seriously … So what do to but take the street children into their tent and given them a cut of the profits?
Burners Without Borders is at it again in Pisco , Peru ! This time we are supporting our brothers and sisters in Pisco Sin Fronteras by setting them up with a fancy new Biodiesel reactor. Gift Economy in action!!
Bringing the magic of Biodiesel generation to this remote corner of the world will help reduce PSF’s operating costs and generate a little income which they will then use to donate construction materials to the neediest of families. And you can’t imagine the fun we’re having telling the locals that we’re turning their garbage into fuel!!
