video fragments

IWW Hotel Frank Solidarity Picket

CENIT, Caballos y Cisnes, Street Outreach ["Rescate de Calle"] 2009

Street outreach involved three to five western volunteers going to the nearby market, a fairly large selling space broken into about five different subsections, in a part of southern Quito, Ecuador, and collecting kids whose mothers were working a stall in the market and taking them from about 10 am until around noon. Many of the volunteers didn't speak much Spanish, and English and German were common. Many of the British "gap year" students were in these programs for a couple of months, and also stayed with host families pre-arranged by a company. Anyways, the kids were about 2 to 10 years of age, with older kids having more structured schooling options in other CENIT programs. We would get them used to times of structure and no physical violence. Times of not yelling or fighting. Times to sing, read books, do art and craft things, and we always ended with washing hands and brushing teeth -- we'd boil the toothbrushes for a while after each day, so they could be reused. We all met in the morning for a short, initial check in, and people did this for a few months up to a year, depending on what they wanted. CENIT is four nuns who run a small school primarily for girls, but in general for the families of working people in the markets in poor parts of Quito.

Clinica de la Calle, CENIT, Quito, Ecuador, 2009

Two or three of us volunteers would go out every Tuesday and Thursday morning to the market, and check blood pressure and blood sugar levels of a handful of vendors. The market was fairly safe compared to most, but just being gringos made us stand out enough, and this was the only day I took a camera with me (as a camera tends to disrupt a lot of things in this type of situation). This day three of us were training two new volunteers in what we were doing, because they were going to take over for us. We took notes and administered some blood pressure pills that CENIT had donations to cover the cost of. There were bigger and better clinics, and CENIT's clinic was staffed only by a nurse and several volunteers. It was part of a school in a part of town where a lot of children worked instead of going to school. The goal was to bring educational and health resources to people who otherwise weren't seeking them out. I never got very accurate at checking blood pressure, so I pricked the fingers and took a blood drop sample from often very dirt-covered and callused fingers to get a blood sugar reading (I don't have footage of this, because I can't multitask).

Religious Processions in the Week Leading up to Easter Quito 2009

Different religious processions in the week leading up to Easter 2009 in Quito, Ecuador. The locations in this video are all a few blocks from where I lived, in Centro Historico, which was safe in the day, but questionable at night in certain places. I stayed in most nights, but I would walk alone at night not infrequently in certain safer areas, for short walks for whatever reason -- the little police hut up the hill a half block away, near the nearest tiendas with random drinks and food items for sale made late night shopping there a possibility, but down the hill and certainly under the bridge, both two blocks away, those stores/areas would be foolish to be near at night. Rich people up hill. The whole time filming the noisier, busier procession I was very conscious that this situation, packed-in tourists mixed in with locals, was peak pickpocket conditions, which distracted me and didn't leave me shooting more than a couple minutes of film before putting my camera away and walking somewhere that no one knew I had a camera with me.

Bullfight, Quito, Ecuador, Easter Sunday, 2009

This video contains violent footage, the killing of two bulls. Quito, Ecuador, Easter Sunday, 2009. This old stadium was a block and a half from where I lived for 5 months, in Old Town, Centro Historico. This, the only bullfight I was aware of in my time there, cost 15 bucks, which was expensive [my rent and utilities was covered by 80 dollars a month; a meal out was $2-5]. They killed 6 or 7 bulls, and this footage is just the first two.

writing with the blood of protest

Outside the banco central in Quito, Ecuador, painting signs with the blood given by protesters angry about the bank's mishandling of their pension funds. Winter 2009.