Let's review

A couple of highlights of our trip to Brazil....

The orphanage in Salvador. The orphanage was in a very poor part of the city. It's actually a compound with several buildings, a church (with child-sized pews), and a big home in which 40 kids live. The entire compound is surrounded by a big wall, and the front door is kept locked. (The compound reminded me of the church in The Sound of Music where the Von Trapps hid when they were trying to evade the Nazi's.) This is the church you see when you first enter the compound.

The orphanage staff told us to put our cameras away while we were walking to and from our bus--about a block away--so they wouldn't get snatched by the non-orphanage neighborhood kids. Scary barrio.

After we chatted with the kids and toured their house, we distributed presents. Before we arrived, each student had selected a child from the list of children, wrote the child a letter, and brought a present for the child. Russ is the guy in the blue t-shirt below, and he gave his child (the girl wearing the purple shirt) a baby doll, which she carried around protectively for the rest of our visit.

One of our students, Sarahi, brought American chocolate bars for all of the kids (I'm sure the orphanage staff appreciated this greatly), which the kids immediately tore into. It was a hot day, so the chocolate melted right away, but that didn't stop the kids from savoring every last bit of chocolate.


When we were touring the house, the students who spoke Portuguese (six of them--mainly guys who had done missions in Brazil) talked to the kids. As Andrew chatted with one of the boys, he realized it was the child he'd written to: Fabrisio! He had the sweetest smile, and for the rest of the day, every time I saw him I said, "Fabrisio!" and he smiled his beautiful smile. Fabrisio is holding Igor, who was perpetually bummed out during our visit. God only knows what Igor has already been through in his short life.

The students who'd chosen older boys brought them sunglasses and Jazz jerseys (two of them chose "Boozer" jerseys), which the kids seemed to love, but the biggest hit of all was the soccer ball.

The orphanage kids played the Utah men. The Brazil team had youth and skill on its side, and won handily. The Americans mainly got blisters.

Rocinha. Rocinha is Rio's largest favela, and a lot of students were reluctant to go on the tour. The guys who'd done missions in Brazil (especially the ones who'd visited favelas) said it wasn't safe. We finally managed to convince everyone that since the favela tour company had been doing these tours for 17 years without one incident, it was likely that we all would survive the visit. Forty four of us were loaded into five jeeps, and the pasty gringos took off for Rocinha.

To protect the privacy of Rocinhans, we were asked to only take photos of the view--not the battered homes or the people. The benefits of avoiding photos of people became obvious to us early in our tour, when we noticed several 17-year-olds carrying machine guns on their backs as they rode around on motorcycles. Apparently, if you take a photo of illegal activity in the favela, the drug lords feel compelled to kill you. Still, the community was bustling, business was booming in the small shops that lined the streets, and kids dressed in school clothes carted their school things in little roller-bags. Everyone seemed perfectly happy, and many of them smiled at us.

Way-of-life reality check: At one shop we noticed a bunch of chickens in crates that were stacked up on one side of the store. It was explained to us that customers were invited to select a chicken, after which it would be slaughtered on the spot, resulting in a super-fresh chicken dinner. Geeze.

At one of our first stops in Rocinha, we noticed a beautiful view of Rio, and a huge heap of trash by the side of the road. I noticed a lot of trash in all of the cities we visited in Brazil.

Like most favelas, Rocinha is built on a steep hillside. Because it is a shanty town, homes just pop up everywhere--no particular plan, no electrical code--so the neighborhood looks really chaotic. There are skinny little alleyways between homes, and everywhere there are steps that go straight up. People in Brazil tend to be skinny, and now I know why: They spend a lot of time climbing stairs.

Here we are at the highest point in the favela, looking down into the city. Rocinha starts on one side of the mountain and goes over the top to the other side. This photo was taken with Sarahi's camera; she's the one looking at the camera, in blue. If you click on the photo, you can get a close-up that shows the chaos and magnitude of the favela.