I remember that the inspiration for Project 3R, came in the first three years of my age.
My parents were constantly moving cities and houses; -which my father sold to his relatives, under the pretext of improvement or for leaving home temporarily-; and at each reconciliation, he started a new housing project in another city.
I think I learned to get up from every trial as they did, starting again from scratch.
At the age of 3, they studied in a little school in an emerging, but modern and civilized city, well that's what I thought; until one realizes the following:
I used to cross a small field, which was like the visual playground; this was on the outside of the school. All kinds of plants grew there and there was a water faucet for watering. And from so much crossing, like the little animals in the Andes, a furrow became wider and wider and little by little the plants were disappearing.
The little school was part of a large social complex, which included: a market, the little school itself, a bus terminal, three parking lots, and a sports platform made of tar, that is, a fourth parking lot and the local park area -where the plants grew- that no politician dared to build; on the contrary, the challenge was planned to invade the green areas.
Although this was only a detail; because the Plaza Mayor and the most residential and institutional area of the emerging district of Nuevo Chimbote, were built after "magically" making disappear "through commercial political strategies" an extensive area of pine trees "read, trees were deforested to plant institutional and residential buildings on the lucrative cement".
The kindergarten teacher called us one by one to the blackboard, and we had to draw a line that we had already practiced on paper and painted in color.
It was a number three, with the dissertation explaining how to do it? Adding a complex playful game: we had to differentiate if the number three that our classmates had already drawn was in that shape. We all lost the note of 3 points. For lack of reflexes. The most "gamers" made an eight and the "expert gamers" a bear with glasses.
Well, I kept that didactic experience and until now, I use this reference as an anecdote.
Try to teach your youngest child, up to three years old: to draw or draw a line, such that it is similar to a number three and comment on the experience. Do not forget that it is in the form of a game. Without any pressure and with a reward such as applause.
Now I understand why, when you visit your friends, in their homes, everywhere, you find sheets of paper: elaborated with pencil, colors, tempera, crayons, markers, pens, pencils... and that are treasured as relics of knowledge. What the sheets contain matters in the hearts of parents: "My child is an artist! -one hears it said from afar, for each handmade leaf.
With the passing of the years, having recorded the promotion, we realized that someone stole the water pipe, and for that reason they closed the watering of the little plants and consequently, all the greenery of the longed-for park was blurred, as with our infantile leaves, which were erased by the critical glances of the "adults" or the greenhouse sun; because the plants that refreshed us every morning dried up: both when entering and leaving the school.
Then the bus terminal was closed. And guess what: in the ruined "ecological" park, a "commercial" environment was created and a first batch of informal stalls were set up. Appearing the first extension of traders of the Mercado Buenos Aires.
Following this series of "environmental" delay vision, the sidewalks were invaded and what was an excellent parking lot for the "fashionable" transports of the "residential" citizens; it became overnight another informal extension of the mentioned market, the same fate happened to another parking lot. Finally the bus terminal was lotized under the pretext of "housing" and guess what the houses that would form new homes, also became informal businesses but with floors and walls first of wood and plywood and then one to two floors of "concrete or cement".
The paradox of this short reflection is: if you look today at how supermarkets are built.
They are built in a few months! And they will never disappear.
Because they are very planned transnational investments with national signature.