Some words of wisdom for the staff of the Notre Dame — from the man who watched Brazil’s National Museum go up in flames on his watch.
He is a world-famous palaeontologist, with a shelf lined with awards and more than 500 publications to his name, and he was quite happy in his routine of teaching and researching and otherwise minding his own business.
They rushed to the museum, which is housed in what used to be the imperial palace: an elegant, stately mansion on a hill overlooking central Rio. Black smoke billowed from the windows. There were firemen already on the scene, but the hydrants were not connected to the water mains, so they could do little to control the blaze.
This is a big part of his job now: travelling the world to raise funds and network and solicit letters of support, or anything else that might help in the reconstruction effort, which so far is not going so well. But for the grace of god, Raymond Asombang, the director of Cameroon’s national museum in Yaounde, knows that he too could be standing in the shoes of Kellner or Sidi. He still might, and it is a terrifying prospect. “In my village you are seen to be a very bad babysitter if the baby dies in your hands,” he tells the summit.
“There’s money for Olympics, for soccer stadiums, but no money for museums,” said Kellner. Rio’s brand new Maracanã Stadium, built at a cost of half a billion dollar, is visible from the steps of the museum, but so far the Brazilian government has committed just $15 million to the reconstruction effort.
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