A few more thoughts!

Ola!

In a previous blog, there was a photo of a favela with homes on wooden stilts over the river. This week, we visited one of these homes. A few things surprised me: 

it was much larger than I had imagined it would be with four separate rooms

one of the teenage children was working on a laptop. I found out that it was supplied by his school.

they had wifi but no running water

their toilet was simply a hole in the floor of one room which was over the river.

I'll let you generate your own opinions as to what it might be like to live there.

Since I have been in Brazil, I have been so impressed by the generosity of the Brazilian people, and I have two amazing examples from this week which can illustrate this point:

1) Whilst helping in the school (with the same 5/6 year olds), I noticed one of the children during breaktime did not appear to have anything to eat. I then saw something beautiful - several children, without being asked, went to her and gave her some of their break. 

2) On Wednesday, we visited a family in the local community of Santa Monica. We were visiting particularly to see a teenage boy who had recently attended the football coaching sessions until he was possibly bitten by a rat. This caused him to become seriously ill and he had to go into hospital. The mother warmly invited us into her home. During the conversation, it was clear that money can sometimes be difficult for the family but she tries hard to provide for her family even if they only have rice and beans for meals. However, she offered us so much fruit whilst we were there - grapes, mangos, apples and melon. For her to do this was so generous especially considering they often cannot afford such food! 

If people who have so little can be so generous, how generous are we? 

This week seems to have had a theme - making things! Firstly, making loom bands has been a great success especially with the boys who live at Hope House (a home for boys who previously lived on the streets). When one of them found out we would be returning with the loom bands again, he was genuinely thrilled. 

We also had fun within a craft lesson in the school with children similar in age to Year 6 pupils. They were having a special themed week (just like we sometimes do): Children's Week. As a part of this, they made toys and we helped them to make a bat and ball set (the one with the ball attached by elastic). Some other children made horrible creepy crawly models which where then dragged around the floor by a thin thread - urghh! 

Over the coming weeks, I have decided to share a little about the wildlife here in Camaragibe. We are surrounded by jungle and so this week, I would like to tell you about the visitors we had at breakfast time. Where we eat is only metres away from the trees and one morning we spotted at least 15 very cute little monkeys. One or two even wandered down to nibble on a banana.

A few more interesting (I hope) facts:

the boys in Hope House (Casa Esperanza) have started using sumdog.com to help improve their maths skills

In RioMar, the posh new shopping centre which caters for the wealthy, the security go around on segways

 

(This photo, including RioMar shows how life can look for the wealthy in Brazil) 

Bye again!