brazilian love

Feeling a lot of Brazilian love the last few days. At 2pm on Saturday Guiliana picked me up from my hotel and we headed north to a city an hour and a half away in Rio de Janeiro state called Teresópolis. For those who dont know, Guiliana is a wonderful wonderful Brazilian woman who babysat for Austin, Afton, and I for about 5 years in our early childhood. She was studying in the US and living with her sister, Andrea, and Andrea´s husband, Roger. We were headed to their house, filled with 4 kids, one tropical bird, vast quantities of brazilian food, and, oddly, movies like Borat and albums like Oasis and Beyonce. beautiful views of the mountains, too. And they were so loving and good to me. Always hugging and making sure all was well. Went to a Festa Junina (june party) with their 17yr old son, Filipe, on Saturday night. If i ever get to a computer with a USB port, Ill upload pictures of us dressed like hicks and drinking kiwi caipirinhas and eating streak kebobs.Big.
the rest of the weekedn was playing with the kids, eating, laughing at the youngest singing Beyonce, napping, and being really really happy. Oh, and we saw where the Brazilian national soccer team trains. Sick.
Oh! And Big Al is coming to see me in Panama for 5 days in late July! Big! Big!

other highlights from Rio--
1. going out in the Arcos de Lapa neighborhood last Friday; so, its a huge street party. with brazilians. And a shocking amount of safety for late night Rio. But thousands of young people, walking the streets, sharing a drink and some live music, teaching gringos how to samba then talking with them in portuguese. Dozens of bars that people just flow in and out of. Amazing street food. We stayed til like 4:30-5 and were the first to leave it seemed like.

2. Nova Iguaçu visit today. Another new, young, dynamic administration who is trying to change something in a large, poor suburb on the urban margins of a major city. They have implemented similar integrative policies, but their theme is education. The big thing since 2005 has been to expand the school programs to the entire day. Little known fact-- Brazilians usually go to school half a day, either morning or evening. So this place has linked up with churches and clubs and soccer teams near the schools to provide activities and learning and care for the ´off´ half of the day. We saw some programs and the kids LOVE them and are so happy to be there.

3. Grab-ass; crucial beach game which involves grabbing no ass whatsoever. We just hit this wooden badmiton looking thing back and forth and dive around making ridiculous plays. yes, we played by the street lights on the beach the last two days because our field visits ran from 9 til dark.

ok- one more week in Rio. I´ve booked my bus to Sao Paulo and am getting all kinds of excited to play with some kiddos.
Hope all is well. Email me, davisz@virginia.edu
davis

I met a Brazilian kiddo today name Daviso. True story.