SPCC A Casa Amarela

i spent what was a relatively short time living with you, but that time was rich and intense.
i remember you when we first met, sitting there awkward and clumsy, wedged unceremoniously between suburban wasteland and yuppie high-life (a little like me?).
i witnessed your birth and the way you began to flourish. i witnessed your arguments, fights, chaos.
i worked for you and i freeloaded from you, i loved you and i hated you.
i made a friendship which i know will last forever, and i spent valuable time with people i will never see again. i learnt from people i never thought i would have.
i was a mother, sitting up until sunrise caring for people i thought i had nothing in common with, and i was a child, climbing aboard your beautiful pirate ship and sailing to god knows where.
i used and abused you at times, i pushed my own agenda. i made mistakes i should have avoided.

but you brought happiness and connection and experience to so many people. you provided a clean canvas for us to dream, build, laugh and fight. you taught me what it means to be humble, to depend on others (in all senses of the word), to swear incessantly in portuguese. and many, many other things that i find it difficult to articulate.

thank you to every person i encountered in that place. i learnt something and experienced something valuable from each and every one of you. thanks for the love, the hugs, the blood, the insults, the inspiration. we built something beautiful and intense there, and we should all be really fucking proud.
party hard at the demolition celebrations, i'll be thinking of you :)

obrigada spcc. one of the finest and yellowest 200 tonne piles of concrete and steel i've come across yet.

<3

yellow room is up, the blood splatter really adds something to it. (something ugly).

the new metal door is great. light and strong, and the place is much more secure since pedro and joao boarded up the front windows with some more sheet metal.

the water issues are sorted, hopefully this is the end of rio freeshopio.

freeshop is overflowing (with clothes now, not water) and ready to go. lots of nice grandma stuff now thanks to pedro and maura's awesome find.

the meeting space on level four could be prettied up a bit, but it's functional.

things are just cruising along nicely at spcc. we're well set-up, enjoying the new electricity.
things have slowed down a lot now that everyone's comfortable, which was bothering me a bit. but T and i had a couple of big weeks clearing out the old place so a short rest was very welcome :)

after 2 weeks away from lisbon, i came back to some minor conflict and tension. the main issue seemed to be that lea was feeling left out of the planning process, and tatiana and joao were feeling that their big plans for the place were going to be compromised. in my opinion, both were very valid concerns. i think conflict can be a very important thing, as long as it's not pointless conflict. in my experience, most 'conflicts' aren't conflict at all. just miscommunication from people not talking and listening enough.