After the first semester courses ended last week, a quieter rhythm seemed inevitable, but, alas, it didn’t turn out that way at all.
First of all, the local media picked up on our course offerings for the second semester, and television stations broadcast the information. From 7 AM on Monday morning, the phone began ringing; by noon we had received more than 200 calls, and they continued all week, at all hours. By Tuesday morning, a throng of mommies with their children were lining up outside the gates to register, and we were hustling to photocopy more registration forms. Needless to say, after a couple of days our courses were booked full, and indomitable families made us sign them up for the first semester of 2009 instead. Despite the frenzy, Marlene, Giovanna, Marcella and Fernanda kept their cool and did a great job in making our new families feel welcome.
In the meantime, Pietro, Julio and Bigode were busy organizing the International Graffiti Meeting. Their initiative snowballed: as the word got out, street artists from all over the globe began clamoring for information, and before we knew it, we had a great collection of artists from Brazil, France, Portugal, Colombia, Italy, Algeria, Germany, Switzerland, Chile, Spain and Denmark signing up. All the emails had to be answered, while we scrambled to obtain support from embassies, cultural centers, associations, airlines and businesses. Julio opened a website, semanadeartenabahia.blogspot.com and prepared a poster, to publicize the event.
On Tuesday night, thanks to invitations from our friend Phillip Wagner at Rhythm of Hope, Pietro and Roy were able to escape the ICBIE caos to see the world premiere of a wonderful new film, Insurreição Rítmica, by the American filmmaker Ben Watkins. Shown at the Teatro Vila Velha in downtown Salvador, Ben’s film documented the important work of some of the city’s biggest social institutions (Didá, Circo Picolino and Beje Eró), groups that serve the poorest communities, while, at the same time, helping them to exalt pure Afro-Brazilian culture. www.insurreicaoritmica.org
On Wednesday, we had an important new arrival. Guido Altieri flew in from Rome to help us redesign and update the decrepit icbie.com website. For the last ten days, Pietro, Roy and Marlene had been busy rewriting texts and preparing new information, and we can’t wait to get the new site up and running. Bravo, Guido!
After the inauguration of the new cineforum on Wednesday night, and the exciting day on Thursday at the Pan American School of Bahia (see article below), Pietro had earned a well-deserved break. Early on Friday morning, he and Marlene took off for a long weekend in Belo Horizonte with Marlene’s family, leaving Roy in charge at the ICBIE. Fortunately, things had quieted down a lot, and the big event of the morning was a visit from our great friend Jairo, who came to harvest some bananas in our backyard.
