A letter to the women of toil (or on the popularization of science)

Dear Ladies:

I knew it wasn’t six in the morning when you were reading the article published in Folha de Londrina about my research on samba. In one of those beautiful coincidences in life, that same weekend I met Adriana, your co-worker. Her first question was what I was doing at 5:45 in the morning. I was sleeping. Then she told me that around this time a group of women who work with her in the cleaning business had already read my text.

She said you liked what you wrote and found it very nice to see such a thoughtful woman. He said that in addition to learning about the culture, he also noticed my writing style: the use of the comma, the exclamation point, and the colon.

She asked me, out of curiosity, if I imagined when I wrote who would read it and what this text could do for people. I admit that it is very difficult to know what happens to the published text. That’s why I loved knowing what happened in that little room, where 9 women were preparing for their toil.

At the end of the conversation, her voice choked with emotion, and she asked, “Joe, keep writing to us, please, this is important.” You somehow moved! I cannot tell which heart sprang from the greatest gratitude, nor which face the most tears flowed. She remembered excerpts from a song by Caetano: “The light sheds on the dark skin.” This was the picture we saw looking at each other.

We can’t say anything else, it wasn’t necessary. The hug was very tight and long later. I hope it will happen in a kindergarten, when the samba “Black smile, black hug, brings happiness” is played.

Girls, you probably don’t know, but there is a website called Plataforma Lattes, where scientists, professors and students publish their bios. There is an area called popularization of science, to include activities that make scientific knowledge a matter for all. From today you will be on my resume.

If I inspire you, know that you are encouraging me to keep going. Making science in our country has been a struggle, a struggle based on the conviction that it is worth producing and sharing knowledge. I won’t stop, okay? More knowing that this can happen to many people, in unlikely times and places. I thank Célia Musilli and Marcos Roman for their invitation to write. A moment like this gives more meaning to everything I do as a researcher.

Juliana Barbosa (PhD in Language Studies) – Londrina

Manual voting?!

I want to ask mr. Daniel Marquez, historian from Virginopolis/MG to point out where he read or heard a report that President Jair Messias Bolsonaro advocates for the return of manual voting (“Bolsonaro wants the return of old, slow, fraudulent manual voting,” 07/08/2021, Opinion). I follow national politics closely and have not seen anything about it in recent days. in advance thank you

Nina Cardoso (Psychologist) – Londrina

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