Sonntag, 28. März 2010

Casa das Mangueiras - Day 1

The NGO Casa das Mangueiras is a house, where children from poor families with involvement in crimes stay during the day, when they arent in school (morning or afternoon). They have history and portuguese lessons (many of the kids are illiterate) and different other activities as dancing/singing/theater (called: educative games and texts), photography, yoga (called: me and my body), arts and playing lessons (where they learn how to tinker and play with different toys).

Every days main activity is the work in the arts factory (where the kids produce recycled paper/books and candles), in the carpet factory (where they produce carpets with used cloths) and the backyard (where they plant and look after different plants, fruits and vegetables). The kids recieve a remuneration for their work so they adapt to have a legal income.

The first day I stayed in all the factorys to know the work and the children. I also played billard and soccer with them. The children were very curious and asked lots of question about Switzerland:
Do you have ... in Switzerland?
cemeterys
many policemen
jails
beds
snow
video games (Counter Strike, GTA)
soccer
snakes
Suzuki motorcycles
skorpions
limousines
hippopotamuses
beggers
beautiful girls

Do people surf in CH?
Is it cold there?
How do you come here, by bus? (Many of the kids haven't even SEEN an airplane)
Switzerland is near the USA, isn't it?

After the first day, I allready knew that I was going to love the internship at Casa das Mangueiras. The work people do there and the compassion they have for their work (inside and outside the CdM) is really impressive and motivating. The Children are so cute, lovely and intelligent. The highly difficult situations they live in combined with their innocence motivates even more to help them to work for a save future.

Mittwoch, 17. März 2010

Entorta Bixo

The first two nights we (me, Rodrigo and his brother, Guilherme) went to the Entorta Bixo, one of the biggest college partys in Brazil. The area had two stages and one place with electronic music. Each night between 10 and 15 thousand people went there! The festival was absolutely awesome! (dahora!!!!!) Beautiful place with e lake, great music, many many beers, wodkas with guarana (brazilian soft drink), jurupingas, a television interview where I didn't understand nothing, because they asked me everything in brazilian slang (gíria) and lots of really beautiful women (gatinhas) ;-D
Result: Falaram que deitei :-P Arriving at home on saturday at 7am after eating croissants for breakfast and arriving on sunday at 9am allmost sleeping in the car. (Pomposo dormiu direto quando entramos no carro ;-p)

Sunday night we (I and Rodrigo) went to the outback with Shaista from Australia, who left on monday, Julia and Pata from Aiesec Ribeirão and Adriana from Mexico. That dinner was really fun and the meat was great. After that we met Will from Great Britain, who had just arrived for an internship at an NGO and other Aiesecers. The internship at Casa das Mangueiras was about to start
on monday...

Arriving in Ribeirão Preto

I came to Ribeirão Preto in the State of São Paulo - Brazil, through the biggest international students organization in the world AIESEC to make a internship in an NGO. My goals are to get to know live in poor communities (for example favelas) and to experience education of children of such communities. I want to make a difference in the life of these children.I want to help the NGO to educate the children to have lot of self-confidence, so they believe in a future where they have an employement and suffer no more violence.

Last Friday I arrived in Ribeirão Preto at 3 pm. Rodrigo, who organized my accomodation, Tati, Larissa and Silvia received me very well at the airport. The first thing they told me about Ribeirão was, that it is very hot and never rains. Guess what happend 30 minutes later (and on saturday, monday and tuesday)? It rained! ;-D After that, we went directly to the best sorveteria in town to eat coconut and passionfruit icecream...delicious! Later we went directly to an Aiesec meeting and at night to Entorta Bixo, a huge college party with three stages and more than 10000 people.

I want to thank
very much Rodrigo (I am staying at his appartment for the first week) and his friends for receiving me so well at the airport! And I also want to thank Matraka, who made the reception poster, Mariana, who is responsible for my internship and all the members of Aiesec Riberião Preto for their messages on the poster and the nice reception at the meeting friday afternoon!!! I felt very welcome and am happy to be here with them and I am looking forward to know them better during the next 3 months.