Featured Stories

» Vandals:
In the Name
of Love

By Rebecca Plevin

On a dark, foggy night in the deserted business center of Buenos Aires, Marina Tumbeiro grips a can of spray paint. Once her friends assure her that the coast is clear, she scrawls graffiti on a wall in large, red letters.

As she puts the finishing touches on her work, an older man passes by and scolds 21-year-old Marina, her sister Lucia, and her friend Dadu Camello for defacing public property. He gestures wildly and threatens to call the police. The girls escape from the man and run away down an empty side street.

Only the bright paint remains as evidence of the girls’ activity.
Their hastily scribbled message reads, “por amor, usá preservativo”—“for love, use a condom.”

Marina and her friends were participating in a city-wide AIDS-
prevention campaign that encourages people to paint graffiti and murals on public walls to raise awareness of AIDS and promote safe sex practices. The grass roots campaign, promoted by the independent
organization Por Amor, relies solely on the support and participation of people who are concerned about the AIDS epidemic and the lack of
knowledge about safe sex.

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» Restless in Mexico

By Anna Jolley

The downtown area of the city is mainly affected in the wealthiest parts, where tourists have canceled their reservations. In some places, mostly around the zocalo, Oaxaca’s town center, called the Plaza de la Constitución, each new wave of unrest brings more graffiti and signs of protest. It is almost like having everyone’s living rooms turned out onto the streets under bright tarps: women sew, children play, men read the paper for the latest political news.
Many citizens in the city, including my hosts, do not support the striking teachers because they have made a mess of the downtown area—Oaxaca’s pride and joy—with graffiti and paper mâché figurines of Governor Ulises Ruiz, labeled “asesino,” or assassin. The conflict is truly between the maestros (teachers) and the government, and as a blond-haired, blue-eyed American female, I can usually walk through the encampments comfortably and, unless I’m told not to, I can ask questions and take pictures.
Some streets are full of rubble, and others smell like urine because there are not enough public restrooms. The government, whose main gubernatorial offices used to overlook the zócalo, is a virtual non-presence downtown. Oddly enough, the area remains one of the safest places to walk around and grab a beer at night; it is always busy until at least 2:00 or 3:00 a.m.

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» Beads of Hope

By Merritt Watts

Red is everywhere in Kampala. Not the red I see on a daily basis here in the United States—like Bono’s (Product) RED apparel lining the walls at Gap stores, or the ribbons pinned to the lapels of celebrities at award shows. The red in Kampala comes from the ground up. It starts in the relentless potholes that begin inches below Kampala’s roads. Women with homemade brooms bow at the roadsides to sweep the inevitable red dirt off the streets. The passing boda bodas, motorcycle “taxis,” that prefer to bypass traffic by swerving off the roads, stir up dirt, undoing the women’s hard work. The red dirt clouds hover and drift through doorways covered by thick blankets. The clouds pass under walls of rusting corrugated metal.
Months after ending my three-week stay in Kampala, I still couldn’t get the red out. It settled in rings around the tops of my socks and the necks of my shirts. The dust had become embedded in my clothes and shoes when I trekked across the region in August 2006.
After volunteering in Uganda, I became fascinated with the country. When an international research grant became available through my journalism school, I applied for funds to travel and research HIV prevention communication campaigns in Kampala. Four months, $3,500, and lots of paperwork later, I found myself on my first night in Uganda reading the daily newspapers underneath a mosquito net until the electricity went out.

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