{"id":41709,"date":"2018-02-09T10:26:03","date_gmt":"2018-02-09T13:26:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=41709"},"modified":"2018-02-09T16:04:08","modified_gmt":"2018-02-09T19:04:08","slug":"literature-night-the-lesson-of-lindacy-the-unlearned-of-rocinha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=41709","title":{"rendered":"Literature Night: The Lesson of Lindacy, The ‘Unlearned’ of Rocinha"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Por<\/strong>tugu\u00eas<\/strong><\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

For the original article in Portuguese by Xico S\u00e1 published by El Pa\u00eds click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

“You’ll have to forgive me, I am ‘unlearned,’ but now I have come to like to say things, to tell my story,” said domestic worker Lindacy Menezes, 64, revealing her discovery of literature<\/a>. Raised by a brothel owner in Recife, the Pernambuco native has lived in the favela of Rocinha<\/a>, Rio de Janeiro, since the 1970s. She was one of the most animated voices at an event for the project, “You Are What You Read<\/a>,” on Thursday, February 1, in the Garagem das Letras<\/a> (Garage of Letters), a cultural center for residents of the Rio community.<\/p>\n

“Unlearned, not knowing what a text was, what a poem was,” continued Menezes, before performing her verses for the audience. The event’s guest of honor, journalist and writer Zuenir Ventura, author of Cidade Partida <\/em><\/a>(Divided City)\u2014a modern classic about violence<\/a> in Brazil\u2014listened attentively to the prosody, and likened her to a great Brazilian writer when he commented: “This is Guimar\u00e3es Rosa<\/a>!”<\/p>\n

The girl raised in the cabaret of Recife’s port is a first-rate storyteller. Five years ago, she heard about a workshop for the Urban Peripheries Literary Festival<\/a> (Flup) and decided to send some lines in to compete for a spot. She dictated “some nonsense” to her daughter\u2014she didn’t know how to use the computer\u2014and was selected. “After this, I have not stopped and I will never stop again.” Wait for the book with the saga of this woman. I will be in the line for autographs.<\/p>\n

I participated in the “You Are What You Read” event in the company of writer-comedian Greg\u00f3rio Duvivier<\/a> and actress Maria Ribeiro<\/a>. The Rocinha edition was one of the most moving in the event’s three years. It was more like, “You are what you hear.” There is a hunger to tell stories in that setting, where many of the alleys and lanes are stained with blood<\/a>. Blood of very young people. Boys trapped between the police and criminals. It is necessary to tell one’s own story so we don’t rely only\u00a0on the<\/span> official incident reports. To live is the right to narrate.<\/a><\/p>\n

Michele Dias, an attentive witness to the happenings in Rocinha<\/a>, recalled the case of her uncle Amarildo<\/a>, a bricklayer who went missing in July of 2013, after being taken by Military Police to the Pacifying Police Unit<\/a> (UPP). For three months, the State tried to assert many fictitious narratives. In October, prosecutors revealed what the entire favela had been trying to say<\/a>: that Amarildo had been killed by the police.<\/p>\n

Another work of fiction by the State, with the help of the department of municipal lies, relates to the operation of the state-funded Park Library<\/a>. Opened in 2012, inspired by and modeled after reading centers in Bogot\u00e1 and Medell\u00edn (Colombia), the library closed its doors in community members’ faces last year. The alleged reason is a lack of resources to pay the employees. Mayor Crivella<\/a>, during a visit to the favela, promised to reopen the building<\/a> in partnership with the state Secretary of Culture. It was only empty preaching<\/a>, for a change.<\/p>\n

Librarians told of the devastating effect of closing this\u00a0cultural space<\/a> that had united hundreds of residents, attracted by books, DVDs, the theater<\/a>, the recording studio, the Internet<\/a>, the cooking school, etc. A social disaster, they summed up. Yet another tragedy of Rio and Brazil. Money for bullets to exterminate youth from the peripheries<\/a>\u2014it is always good to keep in mind\u2014is never lacking.<\/p>\n

As if singing Chico Buarque’s lyrics\u2014”the pain of the people does not appear in the newspaper<\/a>“\u2014Rocinha is a sea of stories and wants to tell its own version of events<\/a>. Thank you, Lindacy, for your lessons in existence. Oh, if all of the so-called ‘learned’ were like you.<\/p>\n

For video coverage of the event by community news site and event co-hosts\u00a0FavelaDaRocinha.com<\/a>, click here<\/a>.<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas For the original article in Portuguese by Xico S\u00e1 published by El Pa\u00eds click here. “You’ll have to forgive me, I am ‘unlearned,’ but now I have come to like to […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":157,"featured_media":41713,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1294,1288,1333,1268,329,1330],"tags":[1051,944,1303,1653,1461,665,1101,666,1900,12,156],"writer":[2649],"translator":[2498],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-41709","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-communitymedia","8":"category-highlight","9":"category-event-reports","10":"category-favelaculture","11":"category-solutions","12":"category-translation","13":"tag-divided-city","14":"tag-cadeamarildo","15":"tag-communication-rights","16":"tag-community-media","17":"tag-community-space","18":"tag-flupp","19":"tag-library","20":"tag-literature","21":"tag-media-narrative","22":"tag-rocinha","23":"tag-south-zone","24":"writer-xico-sa","25":"translator-sharonya-vadakattu"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/157"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41709"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=41709"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=41709"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=41709"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=41709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}