The following post is my first assignment for my Intro to Cultural Anthropology class.  I thought I'd share it with you all...it's a different pace than I've been writing.  The assignment was to talk to a local in Salvador or on our trips we took around Brazil and interview them about three objects that mean the most to them.  Then we had to tell them about what three objects we had with us that meant the most and why...Enjoy.

 

-Amanda

 

            Many objects in a person's life represent aspects of their personality, facets of their ethnicity, or provide a puzzle piece of their history to outsiders.  Often, a few objects that people carry with them are so well representative of themselves that they, the objects, could tell their owner's life story.  There are non-material items that people carry with them such as love for family that they often use as an object, but I made sure to specify to the man that I interviewed that I wanted to hear about three material items that were most significant.

            I was walking around the streets of Salvador and I could not find someone who stood out to me that made me want to interview them for this assignment so I waited until I arrived in the remote town of Lencois for my SAS field trip.  There were many people who I had in mind, but one night, as I was walking through the main square in town, I noticed an artist up on a sidewalk using spray paint to make paintings.  I was highly interested in what he was doing, so I went over and said hello.  Immediately, he looked up, smiled, and said "hello" back in perfect English.  I was a bit taken back because I was expecting at most broken English, but he pleasantly surprised me.

            The man I was talking to was named Diego.  I learned a lot about him in a very short period of time.  Just looking at him, one would think he was from somewhere in the Caribbean because he had the stereotypical "Bob Marley" look to him.  He had the longest dreads I had ever seen on a person before, and I was intrigued.  So, I sat down and started asking questions.  Diego was born in Argentina but had been traveling for the past fifteen years, has been all over the world, but most recently New York City, London, and Lencois.  I found out through the interview process that three items, which he cherishes most, are his passport, his art supplies, and his leather bracelet.

            Diego continued to work on his art, laying a blank sheet of paper approximately twenty inches by twenty inches on a flat pallet and then began spraying cans of paint over the surface.  Before I knew it, the six colors he used started to take life.  A jungle scene popped out of the paper with each stroke of a stained finger, a scrape of a knife, or a pat of a crinkled piece of paper, which he would tare from a magazine.  "I started making this type of art ten years ago.  I'm a traveler and this skill has allowed me to make the money I need to live all over the world", was what he said as he continued to make trees appear before my eyes.  I kept listening as best as I could, trying not to become transfixed while watching him work.  I asked him where he learned this type of art, and he said that he attended a modern art school in Europe in the mid nineties.  He kept surprising me more as we talked.

            "My art supplies are some of my most cherished items, because without them, I wouldn't be able to travel.  And that is where my second most cherished item comes into play.  My passport."  He finished his jungle scene in what seemed to be five minutes and laid it to his side to dry.  He picked out another blank sheet of paper, this time longer and thinner than the last, and laid it on the pallet in front of him.  "If I ever lost my passport, I feel that I'd lose a part of my self."  He paused for a second and then reached into a sack next to him.  He handed me his passport and it felt like he handed me the last ten years of his life into my hands.  I flipped through the pages, noting stamps on each of them.  Some were from the United States, dating back to 2005, Spain in 2006, and I saw his visa for Brazil that was issued back in May of this year.  "I don't have to keep a journal...my art expresses my emotions and my passport tells where I've been.  It's as simple as that."  I found myself wishing that I led a life as simple as he did.  He carried with him all that he owned and he was happy.

            I watched him start to repeat the process of spraying random colors of paint onto the blank paper, and I asked him what his third item was.  "My bracelet."  Diego stopped spraying and showed me his right wrist.  On it laid a tattered, warn-down piece of leather, but of noticeable artisanship.  "My mother made this about ten years ago and gave it to me.  Back in Argentina, she does this as her hobby.  She gave it to me to represent her always being with me and I never take it off."  It amazed me how a thin strap of warn-down leather could represent so much.

            It was then my turn to tell him what my three most cherished items are.  I pulled my journal out of my backpack and explained to him that I carry my journal with me wherever I go.  "I love to write...It's only a hobby of mine, but I may make a career out of it somehow one day," I told him.  I handed my journal over to him and he flipped through the pages, just as I did to his passport.  "Your journal is like my passport," he said.  I smiled and nodded in agreement.

            Diego continued to spray colors onto the sheet of paper and I saw planets start to take shape.  He set down what looked like pot tops onto the sheet of paper to make circles around the colors and then he sprayed black paint around the tops to make the night sky as the background of the planets.  "I also have a bracelet that means a lot to me," I told him as he continued to work.  I pulled up my sweatshirt sleeve and showed him my silver horse bit bracelet.  I told him that I have a love for horses and that I have been riding since I was 8 years old.  "See," he told me "you have a skill too.  I paint pictures with spray paint, you ride horses.  Both take practice and patience." 

            The more I spoke to Diego, the more I realized that although we come from completely different places in this huge world, we have a lot in common.  Finally, I pulled my camera from my bag and I told him that I have a love for photography and that all the pictures I take help me remember people I meet, places I see, and things that I do.  Unfortunately, my battery died earlier that afternoon and I had not had a chance to charge it.  I would have loved to take a picture of him and his art, but I know that I do not need a picture to remember our talk.  This memory will be forever engrained in my head.