Tagged: youth

hip flask

rubi_parents

Bucharest 2003-2004. A group of teenagers share their lives around the Brancoveanu subway station and the adjacent park. Many of them are orphans, unlike 16 years-old Rubi. Even if they are very fond of her, Rubi’s unemployed parents cannot afford to keep her at home. When the kids are not running errands for local shopkeepers, or begging, they kill time getting high on paint fumes. Their drug of choice, their ticket to a brief escape from hunger and an unforgiving world is Aurolac, a silver paint used in Romanian churches for the halos of the saints.

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xhosa initiation

November 18 2011, Kamastone, Eastern Cape. I am at the house of Mrs. Betty Ngoni whose grandson graduates from inititation school today. Ma Betty is over the top with anticipation and beaming with pride as Sizwe Ngoni, child of her child Busisiwe Ngoni, is about to come home sound and safe, initiated in Xhosa etiquette, circumcised, instructed about his status, his rights, responsibilities and duties as a grown man and full member of  the community. Three goats will be roasted, there is plenty of traditional, home-brewed umqombothi and soft drinks for the young ones. Tomorrow, she expects over a hundred guests.

I have already enjoyed Ma Betty’s unconditional hospitality four weeks earlier, and it breaks my heart to leave her home at 4:00 am the next morning, like a thief in the night,  just because I have overcharged a silly to-do list instead of leaving a few gaps for improvisation in a country 40 times the size of Belgium. The other guests have not even arrived. It feels like a really rude thing to do now. Must not let that happen again.

pigs in space

It’s been a while since I last heard people yell US GO HOME but it happened in Brussels today where geopolitical think tank Euro-Rus had organized a meeting to express “Europe-Russia Solidarity” and protest against American imperialism (sic) in front of the US embassy. Young members of Nation, an extreme-right francophone organization with roots in the former Front National, have prepared a sketch. A big Bad Wolf representing the US is going to get his ass kicked by the Little Pigs. Says the kid: “Pigs? Of course. We are the pork-eaters, this is our land.”

On the bus going home, an elegant young muslima is on the phone with a friend, happily shooting the breeze. I hope she stays out of harm’s way, wish her a good and fulfilling life. Her accent tells me that she is fluent in both French and Flemish -she is speaking the latter- but sadly, that would not change a thing in the minds of the people at the demo if they cornered her, on ‘their’ turf.

Anti-fascist graffiti, Lisboa.

papusha

Papusha (Doll) lived in the tunnels under Brancoveanu Park in Bucharest with a group of homeless teenagers. She was 17 and mentally challenged. The group offered her protection but the boys would also use her for sex.

In a village near Pitesti, a gypsy bride waits for her groom. The decoration of the walls is typical for the region. The artist used cut-out templates, paint, and his mouth as a spray gun (pretty much the way fire-eaters do when they spit fire) .