Update

So it's been a busy few days so I have not been posting - and I apologize that the photos on the last entry are no longer showing up, blame it on Picassa.

We've been continuing to meet with NGOs including Sao Martinho which works with street kids all over Rio, often times giving them a place to eat and sleep and working with their families to reintegrate them into their communities. They also have a great internship program where Brazil's large corporations including Coca-Cola offer internships to trained teenagers from San Martinho while they finish their last two years of high school. These internships open doors to the university and to the formal working sector, an area which is often closed to these children.


We visited one of Sao Martinho's houses for young boys (ages 6-14) and got to see hands on all the hard work that they do for them. The boys were happy to see us and had a great time playing with our cameras, some of them took some very artistic pictures of their friends and the plants around the house.

We visited Selaron's steps after our talk with CRIAR which produces programs for community radio stations and Madame Satan the community station in Lapa. Selaron (the Chilean painter) was on the steps and was very happy to inform us that he had just been to see the Incredible Hulk which featured his steps. He also took us around and pointed out tiles from each of our states/countries. From Mexico City to Bagdhad he had it all.


Over the weekend I got together with Ana's dad, Ricardo, Simone and her niece Aline. We had a great lunch as a beautiful restaurant with a wonderful view of Pao de Azucar. Simone showed me the proper way to eat feijoada and of course it was delicious! We then took a tour around the Laguna and took in a little shopping at Shoppign Lemblon, a very dangerous shopping mall (and by dangerous, i of course mean wonderful and chalk full of amazing Brazilian designers).

On Sunday Hillary and I ventured away from beautiful Copacabana into the equally beautiful Ipanema beach.

The past two days have been spent getting to know some more NGOs and visitng on site locations int eh favellas. We've been to the Babilonia CDI site (near Leme at the end of Copacabana beach), where Hillary and I will probably be working instead of Providencia due to some recent incidents. We were guided up the hill to meet the community leader (and stopped in at the "Chill Hostel" yes it's really the name, los of surfers and a cool view). Then we hiked to the top of the community for an amazing view.

On Tuesday afternoon we visited a wonderful school in Canta Galho (at the base of the favela near Ipanema). It started as a nursery in 1992 and has now expanded into a K through 12. I will have to check on the name, but I believe it is Meninhos Solar. Anja and Michelle will be working with Chantal (a photographer from Rio) with cameras to create a newspaper for the school which will be distributed with teh Copacabana local paper.

We watched two amazing films last night at Cine Gloria, one called Moi, homme noire (about Nigerian Immigrants to the Ivory Coat at Bijain in the 1960s) and Letter from Ixping which was created by a group of children in the Amazon and is incredible.

Today, Wednesday we had a nice break, but tomorrow we will be planning out our mapping project, and screening another film. Hillary and I will also be meeting with Roberta from Cinema Nosso to discuss our workshop with the FlipCams over at CDI. It's going to be another busy day!

Tercera e Cuarta Feira - Viva Rio y Otros Organizaciones

Tuesday was an extremely long, but very interesting day (after which I was exhausted, hence the lack of a post). We began our day at Viva Rio( http://www.vivario.org.br/), a human rights organization that focuses on gun, youth, and police and increasingly drug related violence. The first project which we were introduced to there was Viva Favela (http://www.vivafavela.com.br/) a website which aims to create a more balanced image of what it means to really live and be from the favelas of Rio. Viva Favela's goal is to act as (among other things) a counter balance to the negative representations of the favelas found in mass media. With its ever growing image library and small (but highly connected and dedicated) team of journalist Viva Favela creates the kind of news and stories that is nearly impossible to find in mass media that aims to sensationalize the life of the favelas. Viva Favela touches on cultural notes, and stories that touch on community issues beyond violence. The reality of the favela is that 80% of the people who live there do not participate in the illegal drug trade or any other kind of illegal activities, unfortunately this is not the image that the press generally presents. However, many mass media, or main stream media, sources have been accessing Viva Favela (an avergage of ten per month) to find stories that go beyond the violence and illicit trade.

After lunch at another wonderful kilo place in the Gloria neighborhood the group wandered around the beautiful park pictured above near the museum of folk art before returning to Viva Rio to catch cabs to Laranjeras. At CDI's (Comite para Democratizacao de Informacao) international headquarters we met with founder Rodrigo Baggio who discussed the creation and conception of CDI. his joint passions for technology and social work led to the founding of CDI in his mid 20s after incredible success in software creation (BIT). He began by simply collecting donated computers to expand the accessibility of the Internet into low-income communities. The program has now become a great success, recognized last year by ASHOCA, (founded by Bill Clinton) among many other prestigious awards. He now has 753 CDI schools in 24 Brazilian states and 10 countries worldwide where people of all ages can go to learn about how technology can be used to promote citizenship and enforce their rights.

Hillary and I will be working with CDI to begin a program of media creation using the flip cams (mentioned in previous posts). I will write more about this when the program begins.

After this we hitched another cab to Promundo (on Rua Mexico) to discuss their projects on domestic and gender violence. It was a long, but incredibly interesting day, after which I arrived at the room, watched some Brazilian soap operas and had a chicken salad.

Today we were back at Viva Rio for the whole day. Where we learned about Comunidade Segura (http://www.comunidadsegura) a website available in Portuguese, Spanish, English and French which enable the connection between the general public and researchers on human rights issues and initiatives in Brazil (and now in the global community) including disarmament.

After lunch we were privileged to meet with Rubem Cesar Fernandes, the founder of Viva Rio. We had a great question and answer session in which we discussed topics from community policing initiatives to the effectiveness of the current drug policy in Latin America. (The conversation was excellent, but these little green and blue parrots did a lot of interrupting - it was dinner time.)





A few of the New School students and I explored the Viva Rio building in a short break between this meeting and the screening of ABC Africa, a powerful film on the Uganda Women's Effort to Save Orphans.

Afterwards the whole group headed to Cineopolis to sit out in front of the beautiful Municipal Theatre and enjoy a light dinner and some much needed refreshments.

Hasta pronto!!!

Segunda Feira - 9 de junho

Today was the first day of official orientation. After a brief morning jog towards Ipanema with Hillary we had some platanitos (perdao - plataninhos) and met the group and Prof. Lucas to go to PUC (fondly referred to as "pooky" OOOOOOCHI- so cuuute). Our classroom had a wonderful view, and the campus is filled with wonderful trees, wraps around the hill and has a small river at the center. At PUC we covered the basics, safety, transportation and discussed the various projects that we would be working on.

The majority of the students will be doing some combination of human rights work with creating media. Hillary and I will be working with CDI - (Comitê para Democratização da Informação - esto para ser su blog). Where we will be helping to run a workshop with children using the FlipCams (the wonderful little camera with which I uploaded the video of Tucho and Naki.

After a delicious lunch (I have to learn to think ahead at the kilo-restaurants bc I always end up with a tremendously heavy plate and a huuuuge meal), Prof. Florian Hoffman of PUC spoke to us about the human rights and NGO situation in Rio.

Human rights issues in Rio are mainly divided between the urban and the rural however, it is impossible to look at the urban favelas without considering what the land distribution policies have done for the people who live in the rural areas of the country. Many of these people are forced to leave an agrarian lifestyle and try to eek out a living in the outskirts of the major cities. This of course leads to overcrowding.

The situation is complicated when it comes to working with human rights. As in many Latin American nations there are problems with corruption ranging from the police force up to government officials.

Nevertheless I know it is going to be an exciting project getting to work with CDI which has such a great history of work with information distribution and working to teach the public about human rights. This whole week the group will be meeting a new NGO every day. It's going to be a long, but very eventful week. Hopefully I will have more time to check in.

Un ABRAZOOOOOOOTE a todos!

PS -- Jayar how do I make the pictures smaller?

Domingo - 8 di junho

Pues domingo en Copacaban esta igual de precioso que viernes (perdon... sexta feira) y sabado en Copacabana. Mi amiga Hillary y yo fuimos a correr por la playa nos fuimos hacia Pua di Azucar hoy. Muy buen primer dia de entrenamiento para la carrera.

De regreso nos encontramos con nuestro profesor y nos invito a unos jugos deliciosos. Despues de un stretching intensivo nos fuimos al mercado que nos habie comentado Peter y pasamos la tarde en la playa comiendo fruta y queso. No se precocupen, si todavia no me enfermo estoy bien.

Estamos descansando un poco de carne pq ayer comimos en una churasqueria IMPACTANTE! Riquiiiiisimo! En Palace Churrasqueria, al lado del hotel: Palace Copacabana, que esta lindisimo.

Hoy tenemos una cena en una pizzeria con el grupo enterro y el profe, asi que aqui estamos en el cuarto descansando y practicando un poco mas de portugues. Hillary y yo vamos a estar trabajando con un NGO que se llama CDI, tienen un montonsote de dinero, y los vamos a ayudar a crear un video website.

Segunda Dia - Sabado

After a nights sleep with the echoes of dogs from the park across the street making me dream of Tuches and Nakis (it seems like Brazilian doggies like to party almost as much as their owners) I was ready for my first run on the Copacabana boardwalk. The plan was to arrive at Ipanema, but the 9:30 AM sun was a bit too strong.

I've signed up for the 6k Fun Run on June 29, during the Rio de Janeiro Marathon. The half-marathon was tempting but the sun this morning convinced me that it would not be in my best interest.

Above is the view from our apartment.

My Portuguese is improving daily. However, I can now officially say I speak fluent "portuñol".
Hillary and I made our first trip to the grocery store, pharmacy (shampoo and body wash), and the fruit and vegetable store. More to come! If, I can figure out how to increase the amount of memory I an use with this blog.

Primeira Dia

Hillary and I arrived in Rio at 8:30 AM after a lovely 9 hour overnight flight. And by lovely I mean slightly delayed and incredibly uncomfortable. The morning was slightly cloudy but by the time we had unpacked and headed down to the beach it had turned into a beautiful sunny morning.
We're a four block walk from Copacabana's long strip of beach. As the fog cleared we could see more of the mountains that cradle the gulf. The peak to the left is Pau de Azucar.
Come noon we had a couple caipirinhas from a beach vendor (they were delicious) and fater a few hours of napping headed back to Hotel Jucati for more napping.

This is Hillary. As you can see Hillary and I are a lot happier after some relaxing on the beach!

Practicing Uploading Videos

This is my first successful attempt at uploading a video to this blog. In hopes that it will be one of many (keep your fingers crossed for a good internet connection in Rio). This is Jayar and me playing with Tucho and Finn. Tucho wins.

Another great film (to see if I can use YouTube to upload).