A simple problem of obstruction.

I had been away for while. Since I moved and I started to live my life in a different pace with other challenges and other projects.

My artistic mind made me realize that I could leave from my own projects and allow myself to do something.

I would like to share a short experience that I had this month. I would say the busiest month that I had since I arrived.

November was intense because after developing my project to run as a city council next year in Salvador in a collective candidature ( Coletivo Ativista ), I was in the position of my boss (supervisor) because he was taking the vacation of our manager. 

I kind of needed to stop my political projects and activism writing because I've been really busy with the reality this month.

I started my work as a public agent in a company of water supply in my state in August after being away for almost 3 years. I'm working there since 2011, being away between 2013 and 2014 then 2016 and 2019.

This is the only full time job that I had in Brazil, the one that I spent most of the working years of my life. A company of water supply where I've done good contributions for the improve of the water supply system of some neighbors of Salvador.

Even having some long things written in my CV including in Embasa I came back full of free time. I felt like an intern arriving in a new company.

In the second week they found me a sector to work, different of the one that I'm expert, even norwardays. After one month I've got a desk and chair, few days later a computer that didn't work. Few weeks later the computer was working.

To be honest I've been spending most of the time with public money studying politics and try to understand macro social and economical problems in my society in different levels.

In November I had the opportunity of having the power of solve some problems of water distribution that means making people have water in their houses after months of interruption of supply. 

I don't know how easy is for you to have access of clean and safe water, but in South America, including Brazil, my state and my hometown there are a big amount of the population that has a hard time in finding it.

Look it up: 52% of the Brazilian population have capture of their water waste. Meaning that almost half of our water waste isn't having the correct treatment becoming pollution and not just affecting the environment around, but theirselves around.

Where do you think that comes the water that you drink? From a river, probably, imagine that this river starts to become polluted. 

Problems? Salvador is a huge city with all of structural problems that a big city from a colonized culture that has impacts until nowadays.

The concentration of money in a pod colonialist period shows a city with majority with afro roots occupying along the years corners of the city to survive after centuries being slave and being resistance just by their own existence.

Salvador, the first capital in Brazil, where was the biggest economical center for two centuries, the colonialism lives there in roots. City where the mayor and city council is always white even if the majority the population is black.

This is a thing for an unequal country, where parts of the population lives now based in which heritage they got from the Brazilian Colonization.

The high standard neighbor where if they are without water for 2 days, the media is already showing in the TV, but there are dozens cases of clients that clients didn't have any supply of water since months.

A simple problem of obstruction.

Imagine that I've spent most of my working force, planing how to solve supply problems that the company that our public one hire to make the services are really bad in management, where a problem of obstruction in the connection of water supply from the client isn't been treated corrected.

This can be just a problem of management of this privatization of services or just a direct privatization that now is being boosted by political powers and private interests, but the public...

The public is the majority black, where the lack of water is part of their life and this can get even worse. Private interests are in companies where the goal is the profit and investments are gonna be made where this profit can rise. It's simple.

November was the month, where I appreciate more and more to work as a public agent and seeing that even with all the hard times that we are living, we are still able to do something, even if it's just a simple problem of obstruction that allows a family to have access of drinkable water again.