Ryan & The Englishmans Curse

So first up we had our first camp. It was really nice, the kids (16 of them aged between 8-15) were very well behaved and had a great time, seemed to smile most of the time. And this is not suprising as coming out to New Destiny is like coming to a luxury hotel for them. It was sweet to see kids from such poor backgrounds (they all live in the local slum, most with absent parents, alcohlism and drug gangs surrounding them) trying their best to live a different life. They made their beds each day, didn´t drop litter and got to eat 4 meals a day! The most touching part of it was Ryan, the smallest boy there who wore a warm checkered coat all weekend, even in the hot sunshine. This is because it was part of his smartest outfit and he wanted to look good. All the kids had brought their best clothes (and you unfortunatly couldn´t really tell), it happened that Ryans was a warm winter coat. But he sweated it out during the day and in the evenings when it gets cold he was laughing on the otherside of his face (- well actually, it was the same laugh, just at a differnet time of day).

Can you spot Ryan enjoying the sunshine?

Eating his popcorn treat.

P.S Ryan, is very hard to pronounce out here as they dont say ´R´s like we do, they say ´H´ instead. It took a few days to realise that Hafa, Henan and Homeo were actually Rafael, Renan and Romeau. Ironically they cant say ´H´sometimes also and call Hugo, Ugo etc. I think they make it up as they go along.

So now that the kids have left again (Sunday night) we have had two days off, which we are spending lying by the swimming pool sunbathing, much to the curiosity of the Brazilians, most of whom seem to hate the sun and try to stay indoors all day. Its nice and warm during the day and in the sun, but in the shade or at night we are even cold in Jeans and a hoddie.

On Sunday night, another stray dog arrived at the farm. She is very sweet and follows us around everywhere. We are trying hard to pretend that we dont know her and that we are ignoring her but she makes it kind of obvious as if i try to read she puts her head inbetween my face and the book, or if i try to cut my toenails she tries to eat the sissors. Xss has named her Primara (as she is our first pet dog), however the farm already has lots of dogs so she will probably have to go. Don´t tell the staff here but we have been secretly feeding her, tee-hee.

It seems that it is only the English that these dogs plague, as all the black dogs are following us around a lot and it is hard to get away from them. I am wondering if it is a curse on us. Luckily they are mostly nice, but sometimes they get all excited and jump up and try to get us to stroke them. They got one of my only two jumpers muddy, so i´m less excited than them now when they do this. I wonder if by the time we leave Brazil there will be a pied piper trail of dogs following us to the airport. We have honestly made friends with more black dogs than we have Brazilians so far, do Brazilians not like being stroked under the chin and given bits of cracker?

Sorry for the delay on photo´s, it is hard to upload them. But now we know how to make films, perhaps we will be boring you with them soon too.

Our Two biggest Fans...

Xss and I arrived at New Destiny Farm (in Ibitaritu, near Belo Horizonte, somewhere in Brazil) on Tuesday night. Waiting up for us was Angus (5) who was very excited to meet us, but despite the effort of waiting up, was then over come with shyness. However, luckily for all, he managed to fight this and speak with us in a mix of Portuguese and English, show us his favourite car and spiderman toys and then proceed to make numerous phone calls to people on his collection (?) of disconnected landline phones. Since i didnt know him that well i didn´t explain that this was rude, nor that mobiles are the way to go. We didnt know anyone he was calling, but since it was in Portuguese i like to think he was letting people know that Xss and I had arrived safely.

The bus journey was ok, i felt intensely sick for 40 mins and wore my Special-Needs-Antisickness-bands for 10 hours 20. I guess they work, and if they are a placebo- who cares. We were met in Belo by a couple who live on the farm who happen to know our vicar at home Charlie. Sometimes being part of Christian networks can be really funny, as you can be in the middle of nowhere and all of a sudden a small link like this appears.

So now here we are at the farm for 3 months. We have a room in´The Big House´with ensuite, and so does another English girl called Claire. It is basically like a hostel which the kids who come on camps stay in, so there are numerous other bathrooms and rooms full of bunkbeds. Everyone eats a communal lunch at midday in this kitchen/dinning room and in the evenings it is all ours. Also on the farm are 3 other houses, One with Angus, his telephones and his family in (his mum is the leader), One with the other leader of the project and his family, and then a final house with Angus´s grandparents in. We are mostly British on site but then several Brazilian workers come in during the day and we are going to have to re-learn our portuguese fast as some speak NO English.

Our other fan is a worker called Jeff, who very sweetly made our bed up for us along with pink roses over it and in vases at the side and cleaned the room, blue tacked up some pictures etc. He then arrived the next day wearing his ´I heart London´hoodie. :) He can speak English, and has proven this by doing so non-stop since we arrived. It is sometimes hard to get away, but he seems sweet enough. He has been to Dover once, and loved it.

Not much else to report. A group of kids from the favela´s will be coming this weekend to stay and enjoy a ´camp´, Either Xss or I will cook and the other film the event on a camera and make a DVD for them of the fun they had. We have a lake, swimming pool, numerous rope courses in the forest, and 5 dogs.

I guess if it all goes wrong and we lose our two fans at least we can stroke the dogs and instantly gain some more.

P.S Due to being in Brazil spell check works in Portuguese, hence the bad typing. That and the keyboards which all need a hard thump to get each key to work!

Swashbuckling Paraty

Ever since i found out that you could go on a ´real´pirates boat in Paraty, the weather has been losey. I loe priates and we even had a ´dress as a pirate day´at work once. However due to the actiities on thr tri being snorkling and swimming this is not fun in such cold weather.

The sun has gone and we are freezing. I think we are not really freezing but because we are on holiday we persist in wearing next to nothing to continue the illusion of relaxing in the sun and are thus cold. Today though i admitted defeat- i wore thermals under my jeans- which weirdly enough i took off to sunbath during a patch of sun (should i add here that i was wearing a bikini underneath?) Its hard to survive the 17 degree warmth when the sun is in. How on earth will we cope in minus 4 in Minnesota?

The real reason for this entry is to let you all know that Paraty was nice, very nice, and we are excitedly moving on tomorrow to Belo Horizonte to work on the New Destiny farm. Since this is Brazil, they have buses leaving at 5.20, 9.20, 10.20 11.20 etc, and due to the connecting bus, we must get the 5.20 from here. A 7.20 or 8.20 would have been great but no. It will be a day of 11 hours on a bus and one change. The buses are comfortable here though so it should be fine except i am the travel sick travller, so i cant read or do anything but look out the window! I do have my special-needs-anti-sickness-bands with me, which i´ve never tried, but am not sure if an 11 hour journey is the place to try them out. However i did nick 3 sick bags from the plane.

Paraty is lovely, will put pictures up asap, we have spent out time wandering (now a legitmate activity- almost a profession), reading lots (nothing outstanding yet), playing silly games on the i-touch (thanks Fran) and generally talking with each other. It has been boring at times, but really nice at others just to enjoy each others company. The place is full of boutique shops and resturants, and the afore mentioned dogs.

We will have to develop a scoring system for the towns soon. Some complicated equation taking into account days of sun, ply of napkins (i´m thinking the lower the better), architecture
and quality of games we made up whilst staying.

On a sader note, the white plastic watch i got for my birthday 3.19 from Argos, is already broken, but have managed to fix it up. Also there really is no access to Neighbours yet. But really i NEED to know, what is going to happen about Steph and the baby. If anyone know please fill me in.

Will let you all know about the farm asap.

Our new racist friend....

We have arrived in Paraty with no problems, unless you count Xss getting briefly stuck in the turnstile on the bus, a problem. There was a comedic moment of me pushing from behind and him pushing the turnstile at the front. The turnstiles are situated just behind the driver and force you to buy a ticket. However they are very tough (which is good when you want strong stomach muscles) and very small (certainly not enough room for a man and a backpack). They don't like fat people here, and indeed there is a sign on the bus telling you that you have to offer a fat person your seat! I guess it is seen as a health problem.

We have been spending the last few days sunbathing on the beach a stones throw (and for once this is actually true) from our hostel. The town of Paraty is also very beautiful and very safe to walk around. There are plenty of evening hours as it gets dark at 5pm. So plenty of wandering - my new sport.

On the beach there are not many people (still to work out why) but plenty of stray dogs whom befriend anyone they see. So for the past two days ´Benji´has been sitting near us, looking after us. Its not uncommon to go for a walk and see a foreign couple walking along with a dog running around their heels as if it is their own. It makes us laugh. The problem with our one, Benji, who has adopted us is that he is racist and encourages others to be so also! Whenever a black person walks past us he barks crazily and runs at the person, stopping a meter away to bark until they leave! This encourages the other dogs and they join in. It is more than a little embarrassing as it is quite a noise and show, and its hard not to look. Like with any difficult friend, it poses the question, how do you say, ´I'm their friend but don't agree with their opinions´ in one look. He honestly doesn't bark at white people, or mixed race, only black men.

Benji is now posing a dilemma, should we move to a different beach to avoid him? We went to a different place on the beach today but he found us and sat with us all day. He is really quite nice, if only he weren't so racist.

Rio in Three Days

Well, we are trying to make the most of Rio, and have done as much as we can in the few days we have, but have fitted it in around sleeping, being lazy and generally doing nothing. On the first day we struggled quite a bit.

After getting up early and taking a walk along the Cococpana and Ipanema beaches (which are beautiful), we visited a market and then decieded to return home to change and go sunbathe. So after a brief nap we emerged from our room at 4.30pm, slightly shiny with suntan cream, armed with books, sunglasses, scanty clothes etc ready to hit the beach. We had already got burnt necks earlier (in my defence- my hair is not normally this short!) so were extra cautious this time around with the lotion. However, our mistake was to not realise that we are in the southern hemisphere, so as we strolled down the road to the beach, in the dark, we felt like idiots. But at least we were shiny idiots so the cars did not hit us.

(Left Copacabana, still buzzing at 2pm)

The last two days we went on the local bus (we feel victorious) to Christ the Redemer and Sugar loaf mountain (photos to follow - i have now found out that we cannot upload pictures here). Both had great views. Nothing that exciting to report, the pictures pretty much speak for themselves (or not as the case is now). Tomorrow we leave for Paraty a 4 hour bus ride south-ish.

Observations on Rio so far.
- everyone has a tiny dog, dressed in an outfit, with bows in their hair, apart from the lady at the beach who had a cockrel in a football jersey on a lead. There are no real dogs.
- the birds at the beach who circle the shore at night are the dead ringers for teridactiles, have i missed the newspaper article about dinosaurs still being alive in South America?
- There are m0re pec implants on Copocabana beach than there are fake boobs. The glamerous string bikini front is a lie! Celulite and wobbly bits are all the rage here.
- You can´t see the Christ the redeemer statue everywhere, and its not that big.
- The tree´s here are massive and very cool.
- Rio´s dont like living in big, beautiful, old houses and they seem to be leaving them to age badly (ie dericlition) in order to live in tower blocks of ugliness.
- The police must have done a good job at shooting all the street kids a few years ago as i havent seen any yet.
- It is ok to do grafitti everywhere here, and not tags, actual good pictures- See below of the one a man did of Xss and I as we were passing through a park.

300 Days of LE!

XSS and I have arrived safely in Rio. It looks the same in the dark as anywhere does so i wont bore you with the details. However, the plane journey- now that was fun.

I did intend to sit down in quiet contemplation and think carefully about what i wanted out of my time away, get some really good questions to think over, etc. But instead i watched the films!! BA have a library of films so there was good choice. I wasted most of my time watching ´Dear John´and ´The Bounty Hunter´both terrible (and not in a good way) romances. I also got to see Invictus which was good but raised loads of questions i wanted to ask my Afrikaans´s friends- what was their old flag like? Do they remember this time? and what are the differences in the national anthems?

I wore my special ´travelling t-shirt´(from the boys section of a Peckham shop, it says Úp, Up and Away!´), which went well with my new haircut lending me to question whether i now look like a 8 year old boy? I can tell you though (seriously), there were many jealous looks in the airport from small children. i saw them looking! It kind of lost its humour airside where everyone was flying somewhere and it seemed like i proudly didn't realise. The general feeling (from Honestly and the Wainwright clan) is that the haircut is ok. At least it will be good on those hot days.
So we will be away for around 300 days, fingers crossed, which for XSS is 300 days of me. Yippee. I think most people who meet XSS after knowing me, have a lot of respect for him automatically as they realise how patient he must be, to be able to tolerate the ADD personailty that i am. Here is a picture of XSS enjoying our 4th conversation around whether i look like a 8 year old boy or not with my new haircut.

We arrived fine and got someone from the hostel to pick us up. The room is fine, in a nice part of town, now to explore. We only have 3 days until we move on to Paraty.

Saying Goodbye

Yesterday i finished work and said goodbye to my colleagues. I don't like hugs or emotional outbursts (except for teenage ones, like 'i hate you all, goodbye!' said as storming through a doorway and slamming it as punctuation (note to self this is unacceptable as a 'goodbye' to adults i know) but as i walked away from work i realised that the folk there aren't so much colleagues or people who tolerate me and my incessant chatter about Jordan, but possibly, actually, really, friends. I will miss Junior, Rowl and N-Man a lot. Its a shame to leave a job with a good team, as really its the people that make the job isn't it. That's why i left my minimum wage job at McDonalds, people just weren't getting me!

I also went to church for the last time the day before, and they were talking about missing me and XSS too. Its weird being the one going away as in many ways i want to implore people to not go, but its me going, and people are making it sad. Its unspoken, but no-one believes that life will be the same when we get back. There is a distinct feeling of mourning, for all that is good in our lives. Not to put a downer on things, but i guess times change, other people will move on, and it will not be the same as now, not worse, just different (that's what people say when really they mean worse).

As i sat on the bus inching away from Peckham past the numerous houses i have been in, and got to know very well. I feel like i am walking away from the responsibility that i have taken on during my time there. I often feel i have to stop ALL the kids stabbing each other and to help each vulnerable unfulfilled one i see. I know a lot of people don't think it is their responsibility to help sort out these kids, it is not popular to suggest that adults interrupt kids with knives fighting, and we can all blame the demise of society for hurting our kids. But as i step away i am renewed with the belief that the primary people who should be working on these issues are the parents of the ones hurt OR hurting (everyone seems to ask why the police don't stop it instead of looking to themselves).Why doesn't every adult who knows a kid take on responsibility for them? It'd only be a few each rather than expecting the police, schools and social services to be responsible for them all once they've reached a threshold of 'mucked-up-ness

Really though, in a very selfish way, i am hoping that by going away i can leave behind the emotional burden of this, and enjoy another countries youth: I bet the luggage will be waiting for me when i get back, but that's ok.

I'm looking forward to going, but also very nervous. Its hard for me to decide quite what i am worried about but here is what i can deduce:

- Will i be too hot?

- Will the toilets be ok for a number 2?

- Will i get bored?

That's it! Humans are so stupid.