As I say I’m feeling back to writing as we are, and a compassion for the world.

It was the second time I went to Colombia. This time I went to our friend Maruan’s wedding.

This trip was very symbolic of how I studied international politics and cognitive anthropology. Even more symbolic is a cafe.

Coffee comes from Africa, and goes to the world, goes through the Middle East, Europe and then arrives through America, and Latin America and Asia. Colombia coffee is selected so it’s wonderful. But thinking about coffee is incredibly profound as it is in Africa. So taking it I didn’t stop thinking about it.

This trip of mine was to see Maruan’s wedding, and his wife were born in Colombia, but their family is from Palestine.

Maruan picked us up at the airport almost midnight and he told me “let’s go for coffee”

I already thought it was to late to have coffee but I didn’t know how much traffic Bogotá has during the day. Of course we went for coffee and we loved it. I immediately had to use my mind off. We came into town at night and the next day I met his family.

I had the pleasure of meeting your parents and brother and his family. I went back to speaking in English and Spanish and French because when people have to immigrate and have to speak a new language

Before I thought it was important to know other languages ​​and what was useful, but today I realize that it goes much deeper. If I hadn’t learned several languages ​​when I was little, it would be even harder to speak again.

I say people who have children, what a stimulus to know several. If my parents hadn’t done learning several languages ​​it would be more difficult to speak and write. I even had a speech therapist, but when I realized that if it was with other languages ​​it would be more useful.

When I met Bassem, who is Maruan’s brother and is an anthropologist, he showed me around Candelária and got to know the places. So we started trying several cafes.

But the coffee comes from Ethiopia, it comes from an ancient tradition and a selection is made and there are several versions of coffee.

Legend has it that coffee was discovered in the ninth century in the Ethiopian highlands. The story goes that a shepherd named Kaldi noticed that goats became more active when they ate the fruits of a certain plant. And when he decided to taste these fruits, he also felt more energetic. I even heard of a story that showed that a priest put it to burn that it was a thing from hell. Then it became sacred.

Coffee circulated around the world, sometimes they used slaves to work.
Ô café circulated with me around the world. I learned about coffee when I was travelling, because I used to say that I was into tea. But when I was somewhere in Rome I learned about coffee.

When I was in Turkey and I went to visit my friend Nese in Istanbul, she took me to Another cafe, Bar. And in Palestine I drank coffee and always offered myself and ate more.

And I thought that in Asia it wasn’t the style, but when I was in 2018 in Vietnam I found out that they had coffee with eggs. I went and with prejudice but I loved it and it doesn’t even look like coffee. But coffee is always being colonized and decolonized. France that colonized or Vietnam and brought coffee. And I learned that even during the war he had to subsist on milk and coffee.

Thus, the land of the indigenous people was also colonized by Portugal and they exchanged slaves and made them drink coffee to work.

This trip was very symbolic for me and the world. I was doing my PhD at the LSE and it was about Israel and Palestine and I got very attached to the world and wanted a peace process. That was in 2011 and I gave up.

But at the LSE I chatted with my friend and over coffee. He is Israeli and knows Arabic and Hebrew because he refused to join the army. 1 year imprisoned inside Israel and denied the second time and spent 2 more years in Prison in Palestine. And I said,

“ If you speak Hebrew, and learned Arabic in prison, you have to do it.”

And I never forget what my friend said.

“And why don’t you do about farms and speak in Brazil, since you speak Portuguese and learn a language of the indigenous people.”

But even writing, since I can, touches me inside. Every day I get better I think it’s even unfair to the world.

But, I try to meditate and open my mind that I shouldn’t even think anything negative. Think like nature .

We are like coffee, sometimes for nature, sometimes for value, even for religion, sometimes for the economy, sometimes for slavery, sometimes for colonialism.

Then I begin to realize that it is part of our history.

Mas a parte mais difícil é aceitar nossa existência como somos. Mas como nós, o agente é como do café está mudando, mudando de país, mas dentro daqueles que evoluem e tentamos ser melhor. Temos que evoluir dentro de nós mesmo.

But the hardest part is accepting our existence as we are. But like us, the coffee is changing, changing countries, but we chose evolve and we try to be better than before. We have to evolve in our mind.

Love, Jules