Dance Lest We All Fall Down - Margaret Willson [136]
The building is located in Salvador’s central business district, near the current rented Bahia Street Center and one block from a major business street. This area of Salvador dates from colonial times and was originally a neighborhood for wealthy Portuguese. An adjoining neighborhood, known as Pelourinho, was later abandoned by its wealthy residents who moved to outlying suburbs in the 1900s. Poorer people moved in, the buildings were divided up into tenements, and, with no infrastructural maintenance, the buildings deteriorated. Beginning in the early 1990s, the local government realized the tourist potential of this neighborhood and, in a complicated and controversial move, evicted tenement residents and spent millions restoring the infrastructures and façades of Pelourinho buildings. This project was a resounding success for the government, and Pelourinho is now the major tourist point of Salvador.
This renewal has influenced private owners in adjoining areas including the street of the Bahia Street Center. This street is famous as the birthplace of one of Bahia’s most beloved poets (Castro Alves) and boasts an early classic structure that is now a museum for sacred artifacts. Buildings along the street, which have stayed with families for generations, are now being bought and renovated. At the time of my visit, five buildings on this street alone were in the process of renovation. Because nearly all the buildings on this street date from the early to the mid-1800s, they are considered “historic” and the street-facing façades cannot be changed. They are also mostly constructed of plaster and wood, materials that tend to become infested with wood-eating bugs and deteriorate in the tropical climate. So, following the procedure of Pelourinho, these renovators are reinforcing the front facade, then gutting and reconstructing everything behind. Bahia Street will follow the same plan with the building we have bought.
So, now the exciting process of renovation commences. Rita is working with a local architect on plans that will best fit the Center’s needs and is in the process of hiring a local contractor who will oversee the actual renovation. I will keep you informed of the progress.
Last year, UNICEF held a contest for Brazilian groups working on social projects. 1,834 groups from all over Brazil put in applications, from which UNICEF selected one hundred as the best in the country. Bahia Street was among this group. From this 100, they selected thirty semifinalists. Without internal contacts, Bahia Street was selected! We now have a big plaque as a semifinalist. The award says a great deal about the work of Bahia Street, and we are delighted to receive this recognition.
Some news on the girls:
Ire, the little girl who had what turned out to be a form of epilepsy and was unable to take her exams last year because she was sick, was able to get treatment, thanks in part to the correct diagnosis by a doctor in Seattle. This year she entered an exam that has a prize of a scholarship to an excellent private school in Salvador. Much to everyone’s surprise and delight, she won the prize. This means she has left Bahia Street, but she visits periodically and seems happy in her new school.
In Rita’s neighborhood a few days after my arrival, a fifteen-year-old boy was shot. He had gotten involved with drug selling and gangs, then tried to get out. Two gangs in the area were having a fight. One boy had shot another and wounded him, so the damaged gang had to take retribution. They arrived where the fifteen-year-old was with a friend and shot him dead. It didn’t seem to matter that he was no longer in the gang; indeed, this seemed to encourage them to shoot him. The murdered boy was a good friend of two of the girls in Bahia Street, including Aninha. So, now both her father and one of her best friends have been shot and killed. She is coming to Bahia Street but is not talking to anyone, except Fio and Rita. Bahia Street desperately needs a psychologist to work with the girls. We had one for a bit, but she was too