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Here comes another video from our trip with the Transsiberian Railway from Dresden via Berlin and Moscow to Vladivostok and Harbin in China.

on my way Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (960)

I will start from now on a new category called ‘just for your eyes’ which are just fotos, images, or any visual stuff. The thing is to not comment it at all and wait for your reactions.

If you have made fotos during the World Music Day, you can send them to me and I will update the show. If you are sending a foto or a drawing, please tell me, where it was, who made it and a title (or so). Send JPGs (450px x 450px max) to julakim (at) ar2com (dot) de.

There are pictures from Matongé, Brussels, Belgium and Darmstadt, Germany.

Fête de la Musique in Matongé, Brussels.
Matongé is a sort of black ghetto in Brussels. The district is in the
centre of the city, and you can walk through without problem, you just
feel like in Africa for 300 meters. The name comes from a district in
Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Repuplic of Congo, a former
belgian colony.
This year, the first district party took place at the same time as “la
fête de la musique”. Here a few impressions.

Fête de la Musique in Darmstadt, Germany
It was very small and familiar and actually I was surprised to have a World Musique Day in this little town (200.000 inhabitants). But the location is quite interesting. It is the Jugendstil exhibition area from the beginning of the XX. century called Mathildenhöhe.

Prefer a slideshow?

If not …
We wouldn’t have any favela.
We wouldn’t have any cultural production from the favela.

Thanks God for Drugs [ 2:23 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (641)

Thanks God for Drugs - Flyer Download (735)

idea and production by dd.r and julakim.
postproduction and music by julakim.
The format is wmv because of 16:9, somehow this was difficult to achieve. So check for yourselfes while watching it. If you encounter problems you can download the media player for mac or flip4mac. Please tell me if this works fine for you, since I think the quality is better with .wmv than with .m4v and even smaller.

Remark from Bolivia:
Bolivia’s new president Evo Morales (a former coca farmer) plans to use government aid to promote the sale of coca products.
“Coca sí, Cocaína no” — yes to coca, no to cocaine — was one of Morales’ campaign slogans.
The coca plant is a basis for living. With his new program he aims to disassociate the plant that provides the substance used to make cocaine from the drug stigma. In the Andes, the coca plant is ‘only’ a medicine and this already for thousands of years (the use goes back to the Incas).
With community control the coca farmers are trying to avoid misuse of their holy plant. I think it is a good idea to make a clean self-control, but also I believe that cocaine makes some people very rich and they will always find their way around.
They even want Coca-Cola Company to change their name.

Some background information on the case, you can find here: Bolivia Coca Trade (BOLCOCA)

Related Posts on Drugs
Dreams and Results, I am interviewing VivaRio’s executive director about their program in a favela.
personal message, I am talking about the 2 districts Lapa and Santa Teresa in Rio de Janeiro.