Brasil: 1st week

Oi everybody!

Today marks an entire week here in Brazil. Wow what a week! It feels more like a month! I have been able to do so much. I have not been able to write down a lot of things but I know I will regret it if I dont so I am basically going to summarize the things I have done this week. I will then do the same for the rest of the time I am here. You don~t have to read it if you don~t want to , but I figure this is the best way to keep record of the things I do and update those who are interested in knowing.
Thank you all again for your support, por su apoyo, I love you all very much.

Brazil: 1st week

This week has been filled with so many things I don~t evern know where to begin. O yes perhaps the first day. The actual day I arrived I arrived with another volunteer. We were in the same flight from LA and didn~t even know we were both here for IKO PORAN, until we we got picked up by the same person. Funny isn~t?
I think once I arrived it finally hit me: you are in Brazil my dear!
As we drove to our apartment I couldn~t help but feel that I was in Tijuana ``T.J.`` in fact someone asked if it looked like it at all, who was it, I can~t remember. Anyhow I see many similarities in this place with mexico and peru... the comotion the number of people the level of cleaniness/lack thereof which ever way you look at the glass of water... Also the ammount of people selling things in the streets, the number of animals running aoround everywhere, the grafitti, the way things are built, the mix of european/ somewhat renovated buildings, (I especially like the preserved buildings that have a colonial/european look to them.) This city reminds me a lot of Puebla actually. Anyhow I guess in a way I would say it feels a bit ``hommy`` because of the number of similarities it has to other places I~ve been or lived in.
Once we got home and settled into our apartment we went to the other volunteer house to meet the rest of the members. All the volunteers come from all over the world. At the momment there are volunteers from Ireland, the UK, Haiti, Japan, Mexico, Korea and the States. I absolutely love the mixture of cultures in our program. I also love how all the volunteers try really hard to speak portuguese with one another. We all try to help each other learn.

The way Iko Poran works, is that they receive volunteers who come here to Rio and depending on what projects need help as well as what each volunteer can offer, the volunteers are then assigned to a locall project. Most of the projects involve working with children and young adults that live in ``favelas`` (the poor neighborhoods.) The children here go to school either from 9-12 or from 12-5 and during the time they don~t go to shcool they attend these projects (at least for the most part. If they don~t attend the projects, they either work in the streets or don~t go to school at all) I for example have been assigned to work in a project with two other volunteers who are medical students in NY. We teach the children during the projects. We teach subjects relating to health as well as english and other things. We teach in the morning and in the afternoon sessions so we teach two gropus of kids. We do this three times a week.

The young kids or the ``jovenes`` are very lively! I love their deisre to learn! They love asking questions about everything and especially love learning new words in English. They all introduce themselves by saying ``my nem is ....`` its very cute I think! They love music a lot too. Especially ``funky`` and are you all ready for this, it is absolutely MY FAVORITE word now her ein brasil: ``Hippy Hoppy.`` thats right! They absolutely love hippy hoppy. THey love asking things about the united staes, weather I know james bonge or pimpy dagy, all kinds of people. The kids are great. A lot of them are actually parents, so I guess I can~t really refer to them as kids anymore. Most of the boys have at eleast one child. I think that is why the push for std and aids prevention is so big here. The age at which kids engage in sexual activity is quite young the reality is that it is not just STD´s that they aquire, its also pregnancies, and other complex issues. Just like in many cases in the states, its really not very shocking to me, but it certainly is more prevelant. There is a lot of work to be done and I undesrtand that as one person I cannot help the entire country or even the state of Rio, infact not even the city of rio or the communtiy where I teach. But our minimal help perhaps can help even one person and thansk to organizations like this, our finatial donations help provide education for the people.

Aside from teaching the lessons I have also been asked to examine smaller children who´ve been sick as well as administer injections to young adults who have needed them. I have been working a lot with a woman named Chris. She has been working in this community for 15 years. She is pretty much a super woman! She coordinates many of the health projects around here. Like womans health projects, general health for adults I love working with her! She is really patient with me, especially because I ask a lot of questions about the health system here in Rio and also my portuguese is pretty limited. But I must say I have been able to learn a whole lot this past week. Thank goodness for Espanol!

Ooh something that does not really relate to the project but I would like to add, is that I am grateful to have found other volunteers who run as well! Hurray for them! Unlike little Logan, so peaceful and safe, I live in a pretty dangerous city (mom don~t read this please.) The truth is there are favelas no matter where you go. The city is prety much a bunch of hills, and there is really no set structure as to wehre the poor or the rich live anyhow becuase of that , one will find danger everywhere. So like I mentioned just now, I am pretty happy I have two great guys to run with every morning. They have been quite nice to wake up with me at 6:30am to do this, they don~t run in college anymore but they are sitll willing to run with me in the mornings as well as do what ever work out Coach has assigned each day. I am extreemly grateful that is all I can say. :> Also I must add, that when I get home from Brazil I am going to have calves of steel! There is no such thing as ``flat`` here, so I pretty much have to run UPHILL no matter what. Not only that, but also we walk EVERY WHERE! I love it though. But like the girls in the team always say ``what doesn~t kill you, makes you stronger!``

Igreja: So on sunday I went to church. Well at least the church office. Isn~t that good enough? I spent saturday night going on mapquest and on the church website to make sure I knew where the church was and how I could get there. I made sure I asked which bus or kombi to take and such and sure enough I missed my kombi but I found a taxi that could take me there (for a lot of money, but owell I really wanted to go) anyhow so I got dropped off and I realized I had gone to the mission office and not the church. But I only had enough money to get back home and I didn~t know if I would find the other church, so hopped right back on to another taxi and spend a wonderful sabath day in my apartment. The rest of the volunteers went on a hike so I got to spend the day alone reading from my scriptures, redaing from the various books I brought along. I began reading ``For a Select Few` which was given to me by the man who wrote it. Hes from Argentina. I have been EXTREEMLY impressed by this book. Every sentance this man writes is amazing! I definately recommend it! I could not put it down. I also read a bit from another book I~ve been trying to finish reading called Àre Mormons Christians`by brother Robinson who also wrote ``Believing Christ.` Its a pretty good book as well. I absolutely love to read and I tried to take advantage of the quite afternoon since nights here in Rio are quite the opposite of quiet. I hear gun shots and dogs and fire crakers and music all night pretty much, especially on the weekend. So my calm sabath day was certainly a joyes day. (a side note to my sunday: monday I returned to the mission office and found some really nice missionaries that were able to give me the adress and dirrection to where I can go to church next week, i am so glad I finally found something! :>)

Food: I have two things to say about food here in Brazil. #1 Soooo GOOD and #2 SOooo CHEAP! My favorite things here are called Salgados. The word is actually a term used for ``snack`` they are pretty much like empanadas or some type of sandwhich/empanada. You can get them with meat or cheese or ham. My favorite are Joelho its pretty much ham and cheese inside a pastry bread. The bread is sooo good and so is the cheese. You can get like a combo so say I ussually get a Joelho with a suco or juice made from fresh fruit, like mango, maracuja (passion fruit SO DANG GOOD) sugar cane, WHATEVER and the best part about it, is that it only cost R$2 so about US$1 yeah I know!!! I better eat up right? eheehhe I have been able to go to some restaurants here where they serve pretty tipical foods like rice, beans, yuca powder, and some type of meat. But we cook at home a lot too. After dinner last week we went to this great place where they play live samba. It was absolutely amazing. I love it! I don~t know what it is about music, it sparks a fire in me that I I can~t explain. Certain music ofcourse, and this Samba was definately a fire starter!

On our days off we have gone hiking. I cannot believe how much hiking I´ve done here, but I have loved it. There are so many green places here. Not like amazoni type green but alot of sicamore trees, that kind of green. I have ye tot go to Corcovado or the Crites, because the day we went we walked from where we live so it took about 2 hours walking. ANyhow when we got there it was closed becuase it was starting to get dark. Yaeh I could not belive it. But it was a great hike none the less. We still took pictures. BUt we are planning on going, I can~t wait to see it up close.

All in all I must day I am convinced that the best way to travel the world is by serving. I absolutely love the ability to be with the locals, to not be stuck in touristy traps. I love being able to take the bu s rides with Cris for example, and just talk about life here in RIo. I love to ineteract with the young kids and really be a friend, not a tourist whos here to enjoy the beach. (no offense or snything to those who choose to do so.) In other words I love being able to be part of the community. I cannot imagine traveling any other way.


Well that is all for now. I have absolutely loved this first week!


tchau!

erica