:: Quero um planeta só para mim ::: February 2016

Yeah I know I'm having this life changing experience and all, BUT

Posted by Vio

Leo finally won the oscar and there's no way I could not mention it. This was getting older than the Alba Duchess.

This Cambodian life: #8 Why do it?

Posted by Vio

Before I came to Cambodia, people often asked me: Why are you doing it?

I don't think there's a better answer than the examples you have everyday here.
While visiting our shelter, this little girl who doesn't speak much, wrote 'beautiful' in Khmer on her chalkboard and brought it over to me. She is one of the first children I profiled, and because of her delicate abandonment story she kept mostly for herself for several weeks and is now starting to open up. When I saw her handing me the little chalkboard, I had to hide my tears behind a smile.

Why do I do it?
I do it for a million reasons. Because I believe we, rich countries, have a responsibility, because I believe we don't always understand how privileged we are, because I think we can actually make a change, because I still believe in humanity.

But today, only for this. And this is enough.

Labels: cambodia diaries

This Cambodian life: #7 I'm in love with the coco...

Posted by Vio

... and I got it for a low low.

Since I came to Asia I've been obsessed with coconut water. I'll stop my bike on my way to work if I see one of those moving stands. They sell it nearly everywhere, they keep it in ice and it literally costs peanuts. If you're in the tourist area you'll get it for 1$ but if you stay away from the center you can get it for a 1000 riel. That's right, for 25 cents they will chop it open for you right there, slip a straw on it and hand you this low calorie, fresh, rich in potassium drink.

I just can't get enough of it, which is funny, because back in Germany I tried many bottled ones and always found them disgusting.

In the coconut, like in life, the real deal is always better.

Labels: cambodia diaries

FFW (2009)

Posted by Vio

I woke up a Winter morning and I burned all my poems. I did it, so there would be no words, like the ones that Torga* missed, and how I felt it back then. But there was nothing dramatic, but simply unwise, a total lack of logic, of the kind that reminds us of some God, full of irony, playing tricks on us.

I don’t wear a watch anymore, and got rid of diaries and calendars. If I can’t control time, I’m gonna trick it instead. So you push life forward, so it happens at any cost, but just don’t stop. I pray to every God, me, who believes in none, that it please won’t stop.

Invisibility was always an expensive but easy art to me, and that’s how I realized there were these lost people who made the days move through a lens. I couldn’t tell you anymore but I was sure. I suspected people like I did (suspect) poems, and if I heard them was for pure condescendence, some kind of modern altruism to which escapes all romanticism.

Life goes by in fast forward. I carry in my fingertips an unrepeatable strain. I insist in making life happen, I’ll keep insisting until all my energy is exhausted.

And I swear, out loud so I can hear me, that all of this is true.

*Portuguese poet, reference to the poem “Denoument”.

Labels: Letters of other lives

This Cambodian life: #6 some portraits

Posted by Vio

While working for the NHC Outreach, I got in touch not only with the culture and history of this country, but also with many Khmer people.
I got to realise, after I shot a few of these portraits, how when you isolate the subjects from their context - the dirt, the garbage, the chaos - you can better read, in their emotive, direct gaze, the individual stories of what is life like after the end of the Khmer Rouge.
And although I can't always pull out my DSLR - because I'm working and because when they notice the lens they loose the spontaneity I'm looking for - I hope I manage to get a few more portraits like the first, that to me better represents the indomitable spirit of this wonderful people.

(you'll need to click to enlarge to see details)

Labels: cambodia diaries

This Cambodian life: #5 A week(end) in pictures

Posted by Vio

You already know what I do during the week, so now I'll dedicate this 'week in pictures' to show you a bit of my weekends, when I take the opportunity to travel around. Traveling in Cambodia isn't like traveling in Europe. There's no fancy transportations systems, no subways or trains, or any great connections. Traveling here means you need to take a bus or get a tuk-tuk or taxi and depending on where you go probably drive for hours... So I wake up early on weekends too. I'm tired, my feet are dirty and my t-shirt is sweaty, but I carry a heart full of miles, landscapes and faces and that is, my friends, pure joy.

mixed pictures from the Floating Villages - Kompung Khleang / Silk Farms - Puok District / Bamboo train Battambang / Bat caves & Temple - Phnom Sampeou / Beng Meala Temple - Siem Reap

(click to enlarge)

Labels: cambodia diaries

So I heard it was cold in Germany...

Posted by Vio

... and this is what happened to me today.
How much of an asshole am I?

Labels: cambodia diaries

This Cambodian Life: #4 Cohabiting with the tuk-tuk driver specimen

Posted by Vio

Tuk-tuk drivers are a member of the primate genus Homo Sapiens, distinguished from other sapiens by possessing a rickshaw attached to a 50cm3 motorbike and a great capacity for bargaining speech.

Friendly by nature this species is the Asian equivalent of a taxi driver in Europe only with a lot more chaos involved. Whatever you do, keep your hands and legs inside the tuk-tuk.

The use of common geographical location like street numbers and crossings should be avoided, because they will result only on a smile and a blank stare. You should know the name of the place where you are going and even so, you might not get there. In general, they know where everything is, but seem to not be able to find it at all.

Noteworthy is their pricing system: even before they have a clue of where you are going, they'll say its 'too dollaa'.

If you are going around the corner: 2$

If you are going 3 blocks down: 2$

If you need to exit the village: 2$. - 'Are you sure?' 'Yes lady, 2$;.

One day I'm gonna sit in the tuk-tuk and say: 'Mars please.'