Rainy Day Goodbye

Sigh.

It's Tuesday afternoon and soon, verrrry soon, I'll be heading to the airport.

It's raining cats and dogs. My fingers are crossed that my flight leaves on time for São Paulo.

Drinking a cup of black tea. Bags packed. Petting Cipote. Oh Cipote, I'm gonna miss you.

It feels a bit surreal.

I have been running around, going non-stop, trying to get everything done. And so, as I write, the kids involved in the photography project are on their way to the Santander Cultural for their exposition. N., T., & E., who collaborated with me on this have promised to take photographs.

I wish I could be there, but I am also ready to board my flight home.

Here are some pictures of the setting up of the show.

I was there just a few hours ago, helping with the final touches. But it was really T. & N. who devoted their entire day to getting this ready yesterday. They are amazing, and yes, somewhat indecisive too. Ha. Two indecisive creative people trying to decide where to hang photographs.

I can only imagine! I was with them until about 1 PM yesterday and couldn't return until 5:30. They were crazy at that point after being cooped in the museum basement all day long. Lots of giggling ensued.

 

I'm going to miss them. And I am so full of love and affection for the kids who took these photographs.

Stay tuned for more pictures!

Gilberto Gil, I love you

Dear Gilberto Gil,

I'd like to tell you about last Thursday, if you don't mind.

It was one of the last days of my internships. I say "one" because the last "last" day keeps being postponed. And now Monday, the day before I fly back home to Texas, will be my last day. I'll be hanging up kid's photographs in Santander Cultural, giving a presentation to a juvenile court judge about my impressions of the juvenile justice system here in Porto Alegre (!) and then hightailing it back to the Módulo Partenon for one last goodbye to the Pro Jovem Adolescente youth group.

Anyway.

G., one of the "social educators" at the Módulo Partenon, had asked me, "So you're leaving, Libélua Azul? Tell me, did you get to spend much time in the communities?" And by "communities," he meant vilas, aka the neighborhoods that people are afraid of entering if they do not live in them.

And I said, "No, unfortunately. I visited one vila briefly, but I haven't really been inside them."

"You have to," he said, "You can't leave here without doing this."

And so we made plans for him to take me on a quick "tour" on Thursday morning of the vila Conceição where many of the center's clients reside. Of course Thursday morning was also officially my last morning with my supervisor, M. I was supposed to be with her during interviews with kids in conflict with the law complying with their juvenile probation. But, I thought it would be ok. I could give her my gift. We could chat. I could say goodbye to the kids I knew. And somewhere in there I could carve out a little time to go to the vila.

Only that this Thursday morning was absolutely jam-packed with kids waiting to see M. Too many for her to be able to see them all. So, she asked me to meet separately with some of them.

I met with a few kids.

And there was one that I had never met before until now. I started asking him some basic questions about his life, who he lived with, what he liked to do, what he wanted to do in the future. These questions were really hard for him to answer. He squirmed even about what he liked to do. He stopped going to school years ago. He didn't work. At one point I asked him, if he'd ever tried drugs. He said yes, but just pot. How much did he smoke, I asked. Was it a lot? Like every day? He laughed. "So," I said, "You get up in the morning? Do you smoke then?" Yup. "And in the afternoon?" Yup. "And at night?" Yup.

I've never thought about marijuana as a very serious drug, but I gotta tell you when you meet kids who smoke it 24/7 and can't tell you what they like to do and can't tell you what they'd like to learn how to do, you start to wonder. Obviously, there's other things playing into this too, but marijuana is seriously helping them self-medicate and almost numb themselves to everything else. It's a survival mechanism I imagine, a way to continue existing through all the hard stuff that just doesn't go away. And it breaks my heart to see a youth without passion for life coursing through his/her veins.

He admitted to me that he didn't like talking, he didn't like conversing. I thanked him for putting this much effort into speaking with me, given that it wasn't easy for him. I asked him what he did to calm himself down, or what he did when he was feeling angry or upset? Did he have people to talk to? Nah, he said, what he did was smoke pot. His friends were okay, but then again, sometimes it sucked to be around them.

And I told him that in his next meetings with M. that she wouldn't be forcing him to talk. But, that perhaps he should start thinking about things that he likes to do, things that he might like to do, maybe even going back to school. Because these would be things that she'd bring up. These would be things that she could help him with. He nodded.

He left. I watched him walk away in his brand-name powder blue sweatshirt.

And in the end, there was a sliver of time for a "tour" of a vila Conceição with G.

G. had grown up in this vila and knew everyone there. He walked us around introducing us to everyone, to the cooks in the community kitchen, to the group of woman sharing chimarrão on the sidewalk, to the drug dealers counting big wads of cash on street corners. By drug dealers, I mean young men, probably all under the age of 20. The views that this vila had of the rest of the city were incredible. The colors of their houses were bright and cheerful. Dogs roamed the streets. Streets that were tight, but could sometimes fit a car.

Children played on their father's parked motorcycle making vroom-vroom sounds and giggling.

Laundry hung out in the sun.

A man in a wheelchair sat in the middle of a stone road.

A child dashed by.

G. pointed out a day-care center.

We came across a second group of drug dealers counting cash openly in a corner. The scent of marijuana wafting through the air.

Different dealers for different drugs.

G. introduced myself and E., the manager of the social service centers where I've been interning. And I saw the blue sweatshirt of the kid I'd been meeting with scarcely an hour earlier. He looked me in the eyes with a slightly startled, slightly bemused, yet subtle expression.

"Oi," I said to all of them.

G. said that in the late afternoons, traffic picked up. There were lines of people waiting for drugs.

So, really that kid did work. Just not the kind of work that he wanted to tell me about. 

G. took us to a memorial for a woman who had been murdered in a situation of domestic abuse. A spot with a plaque where people left offerings. A spot intended to speak out again the victimization of women. A spot overlooking the corrugated rooftops of the vila houses and the tall buildings of the city in the distance. 

And so we left. I think E. was crying.

"You don't have to be worried about danger when you're with me," said G.

"I could tell," I said, "I wasn't worried."

But that wasn't entirely true. There was this strange shiver that went through me, walking through that group of kids dealing drugs, our backs to them as we walked down a tight road. But feeling their strong presence behind us.

What I think what it was though was this feeling of wow, this is all so big. How do you begin? Here I am leaving. Here I am done with my internship. And everything I have seen is nothing. How do you work within a community for change? You can't just be on the outskirts. You have to be inside. But, how. And what do you do when dealing drugs is a more viable, lucrative alternative then going to school and getting stuck with a minimum wage job which pays you a barely livable salary that will get you nothing and nowhere. How do you work with this? How do I work with this back in Texas?

Scratching the surface, really. So many little steps to get anywhere. A moment of feeling utterly overwhelmed.

And in the late afternoon I was at a court proceeding. For a kid utterly enmeshed in the juvenile justice system for years now. A kid who keeps getting last chances. A kid who just got another last chance. And the question is, what will he do with it? Can he manage it? Or will he end up in kiddie prison for another year of his life? Sweet kid. I'd met him a few times when he'd been locked up. We hugged and kissed each other on the cheek, because that's what you do here. [Sidenote: I really appreciate the politics of touch here. They're so much more humane, so much more sensitive.] "This is the last time I'll see you," I said, "But, when I talk to my supervisor, V., I want to hear from her that everything is going great with you." He winked at me and nodded, "Ok," he said.

"Tudo de bom," I said wishing him everything good in life.

And then I left. I ran out of the court house because I wanted to be done. Done for a little while. Waiting at the bus stop. Just being. Riding on a crowded bus. Just there. Not thinking. Because this is my life. This will be my life. No matter what, no matter who I'm working with. My life involves fervently believing that all of us have the right to discover our true potential and trying to build and be part of the community of people necessary to help individuals and communities find their true potential. And it involves strongly hoping that people can grab onto those little chances that life gives them and start finding that true potential. Some people unfortunately only get a few chances, unlike someone like me who practically gets served these chances on a silver platter...And it involves seeing all the times when this doesn't happen, when the chances don't come, or when, for whatever reason, people don't grab onto them. When life is unfair. Because life is most definitely unfair. And it involves continuing to hope and believe and struggle for something better.
...

So, Gilberto Gil, you're probably wondering what any of this has to do with you. It does, I promise.

You see on Thursday evening, my colleague and artist friend T. invited me to go see you perform at the Brasil Rural Contemporâneo event going on downtown. Of course I accepted.

I was wearing painful shoes, but I hardly noticed. You were amazing. Simply amazing. I understand now why you are an icon. Your presence alone is fantastic.

And your music frees the soul just a little bit. I felt in love. I felt transported. And it was evident that the rest of the crowd felt the same way, as we swayed and danced and smiled and grinned and cheered and clapped and sang. I have no idea how the security guards, who had to stand with their backs to you, their eyes on the crowd, could do it. 

Thank you Gilberto Gil, for the reminder that life is full of contradictions, at once searingly painful and unjust and at once painfully beautiful and full of so much goodness and love.

Obrigada,

Libélula Azul

The Youth of Pro Jovem Adolescente Exhibit Their Photography

On Friday, the youth program located in the Partenon neighborhood of Porto Alegre, celebrated their one year anniversary. We invited their family and our colleagues to an afternoon of good food, good music.

Everyone gathered around to give their attention as each youth talked about their wonderful artwork such as the beautiful mural they created together a few months ago.

They had a first showing of their photography and their interpretation of the "Drugs: Impact on Our Lives" theme that they had chosen. Each youth was chose their top three favorite photographs and wrote about them. They'll also be writing biographies. They're still coming up with "artistic names" so for the moment I'll have to use just initials.

These are A.'s photos.  

 

I took this photo because I saw a lot of tagging and I saw the nature. There are a lot of trees, the building there on top, a lot of plants. It's just the entrance to go down stairs.

I took this photo because it is interesting. There are a lot of robberies and assaults here. It is violent day and night. Pass through in the morning and one can be assaulted. The photo is important because of Cachorro Sentado, a vila. I don't live in the vila. I just took a photo. 

I thought the shadows that I saw while walking were interesting. I took the photo on the street. I was with people. It is an art. 

These are B.'s photos.

This one has a story but I prefer not to tell it. This photo signifies cruelty that today isn't so common, stepparents are raping innocent children that don't even know the word "sex," children die almost every day as victims of rapes, if people were smart enough they would know who to leave their children with and that's all I wanted to say.

I chose this photo because I thought it was interesting to speak about it. Trash is something that we all produce, but there are people that think the place for trash is on the ground, and it isn't, the place for trash is in the trashcan, because trash outside of the trashcan brings many awful things and some of those are rats and cockroaches, that are very disgusting and sometimes they end up even bringing sicknesses that are not cool.

Graffiti is a divine thing, and there are people that think that graffiti is a crime, because it is very similar to tagging. Graffiti is a cool thing to do because sometimes it is a portrait of some sad realities and other times it is a portrait of cool things like cartoons and other things.

These are E.'s photos.

The graffiti that we in Pro Jovem did, this graffiti is more or less the same, in the letters and in the wild-style.

It was fun to be able to play football and have various friends and be remembering the playing that we did.

I did this design based on a sunset. It is a beautiful flower. It is pretty sunset and a work of art.

A. N. & R. shared a poster board for their photographs.

 

A.N.'s photos.

In this photo, marijuana is being prepared for smoking.

Shocking moment he is smoking a pitico. What is a pitico: (marijuana, crack and tobacco). Don't follow this example. 

In this photo marijuana is being rolled.

R.'s Photos.

This beautiful landscape is giving a beautiful look at a world without violence totally clean.

With inspiration I was able to take but one that called my attention a lot was the graffiti in the light of the sun.

With music we totally forget our problems. Music brings a lot of happiness and joy. 

"Ka$h" hadn't turned in her camera yet to be developed, so she wrote her biography instead:

My name is Ka$h, I live in Morro da Cruz with my mother, stepfather and three brothers. I am 16 years old, I go out, study and do Pro Jovem. My oldest brother is in jail. I like to go out on Fridays after school to converse with my friends. I smoke cigarettes and I drink on the weekends. I live with a drug user but I don't use drugs. Where I live there are drugs all over the place and if I wanted it would be easy to just use them, but I am the fight against "crack."

I love my life and I am never going to use "CRACK."

These kids are awesome and I feel so privileged to have been able to meet them, get to know them and see their wonderfully creativity.

Next up: their photography exhibit at Santander Cultural!

Photos, Funny Accents & Pine Trees

Today the first group of teenagers got to see their photos and some of the writing began. Writing about their favorite photos. Writing biographies for the exposition.  Fun and challenging and all that good stuff. I love learning from and getting to hang out with these guys and girls (we're up to 2 girls in this particular group now!).

Here's a photo of Negão (the "artist name" that one of the kids chose for himself) comparing one of his photographs with its subject:

We had a number of new adolescents entering the workshops today and luckily enough leftover cameras so that they could participate in the project too. One of them did not know what to make of my accent. I can hardly imagine how I sound to a Brazilian ear especially as I mangle pronunciation of words and verb conjugations. I was working with the kids individually on their writing and talking about their photos so I wasn't aware of this particular kid's fascination and bemusement, but apparently he kept repeating quietly to one of the coordinators, "She talks so strange! She talks so funny!" Then he sat next to me just so he could listen to me speak. Ha. 

In the meantime I am feeling utterly swamped and in the mood to sleep for a week straight, but I have a mountain of work to get done before that can happen. (And since I've got so little time left I can't imagine I'll be letting myself sleep in too late even if I technically can). So this is my quick post while I'm boiling pinhões (singular form = pinhão) which taste kind of like chestnuts but come from a pine tree for (part of) dinner. They taste good but I have to say that the leftover shell ends up looking slightly like squished cockroaches, a thought I have to banish from my head when eating.

Then I've got to work, work, work on a paper...at least until my televnovela starts that is. I've been watching it almost religiously (or actually much more than religiously since I've never attended a place of worship between 3-6 times a week) and it's ending this week! Gotta have priorities, right? ;-)

Blind Assumptions

I watched The Blind Side here in Brazil where it's titled O Sonho Possível (The Possible Dream). I get that it was based on a true story about football star Michael Oher, an African American who grew up in multiple situations of risk and vulnerability and was adopted in his late teens by an Anglo couple. However, there were a number choices made in the presentation and filming of this movie that made me disappointed, sad and angry.

One of the things that got to me was its depiction of neighborhoods. There was the rich neighborhood that the protagonists lived in - with its beautiful trees, enormous houses, white people and children who did all their homework. Then there were the housing projects on the other side of the tracks where the black people lived and where it appeared that no one ever laughed or was nice to each other.  Just guns and drugs and violence and bad memories. So, uh, why did the director (and everyone else on board) chose to make these neighborhood realities so...black and white? Wasn't there some awareness of how awful and racist this comes across? Is this movie really saying that every single aspect of this young man's life was hellish before he came to live on the good side of town? That there was no good or beauty or love in his world?

And since I'm looking at strength-based and resiliency theories right now for a "Social Work Inventory" that I need to write for my last class of master's education, it's got me back thinking about this movie and how frustrating this all is. First off, I just find it hard to believe that this young man could have made it to his late teens and be the wonderful young man that he was if there hadn't been some special, nurturing people there at least at some points during his life. And some of those people likely would have lived in that housing project...and if that's the case, then there was some good and beauty there that the film doesn't show us.

The other aspect of this presentation of dichotomies (good/bad, safe/unsafe, etc.) when it comes to these two neighborhoods is that it doesn't create a space for the people who live in the unsafe neighborhoods to thrive and succeed. And then it blames them for the choices they are making without looking at potential root causes for those choices.

Here in Porto Alegre, it's true that there are a lot of neighborhoods that if people don't live in them, they are fearful of entering them. I can't imagine how on earth The Blind Side would choose to depict them, but it wouldn't be pretty. But real people live in them. And many of those people are the youth that I work with in my internship, youth that are in conflict with the law, for a variety of reasons. When I talk to these kids and ask them about the spaces where they feel safe, accepted and included they often mention their homes and their neighborhoods. The very spaces that so many people living outside of these neighborhoods think about in terms of fear.

The other day when we gave youth group #2 their cameras for the photo project, we all took a walk together through part of the area where they live. Of course this area is a mixture of the very rich and the very poor, almost side by side. And there were these beautiful praças [plaza/square/parks] shaded by trees that everyone uses. We were there playing and taking pictures. The more intrepid among us were also walking off the beaten paths into the woods where homeless encampments were located. Trash littered some areas showing signs of recent drug use. There was a beautiful field for soccer playing. The sky was blue. The sun was shining. The foliage was dense and green. I got to play the part of tourist and the kids showed me some of the beauty in where they lived. I took pictures but so did they and those are the pictures that will likely have much more to say.

And then they took their cameras back home for more picture-taking of their worlds through their eyes.

I know that I'm on my high horse here, full of indignation about a movie, comparing it to real life, which of course it is supposed to be based on. And I know that I'm coming from the space of a white girl who has lived a very sheltered, privileged life. I've had my white guilt phase and know that it's a place of paralyzed inaction. Looking at the world's issues and thinking "My God this is too much. It's too overwhelming. There's no way I can make a positive impact. I'm sorry!" Sometimes I still feel guilty, like when I pass the one-armed beggar on the street corner outside the pet store and he looks me in the eye and I don't want to give him money and I hate that I want to do something but don't know what. And I still perhaps try to take the easy way out. Even the easy way when it comes to discussing this movie. Normally I hold back my rants when I hear people gushing about it.

But, I have social work school to thank for the fact that I can no longer watch a movie in peace and blindly enjoy it. As well as for the knowledge that if I've got this privilege, then I better try damn hard to do something good with it. More than try, I better act.

Life is just never as simple and clear-cut as The Blind Side made it out to be. It frustrates me that the makers of that movie didn't think about representing any nuance or showing how much gray area there is in everything. But that of course begs the questions, who are the people who are telling the story and whose story are they actually telling?

Day Out at the Museum

Yesterday we all had a fantastic time when we went with the the guris (Portuguese slang for "young people") to a photography exhibit at a museum.

They were hanging outside the room in the morning before the oficina  (translation: "workshop" - essentially the youth groups), some were using up the remaining photographs on their cameras by taking some shots of the view out the window.

Today was the day for them to bring the cameras back so that I could get the photographs developed in time for the next oficina.

We saw photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson...

...and watched a video talking about the art of his photography...

...and we even added our own art to the art we were seeing :-)

When asked at the end of the oficina about their favorite part, they agreed that it was all fun, that they loved seeing all the photography. And now none of us can wait to see their photography.

Take a Deep Breath

Last week, we officially started the photo project with one of the youth groups. We began with everyone talking about their journey from home to the youth group (which is how every group begins). Then I introduced them to a breathing exercise. We played with paper "cameras" and talked about how they affect how we look at the world. We read over "Terms of Responsibility" and they signed agreeing to the terms. We gave the adolescents the cameras, designed possible photos and brainstormed together about ways to take photos that would follow the "Zoom" theme that the group has been working with.

Phew! It was a lot and it was fun. 

Next week, after taking the cameras home with them, they'll be bringing them back for development and we'll be making a field trip to Santander Cultural to check out the FestFotoPoA, the International Festival of Photography in Porto Alegre. Cool, exciting stuff! There's a part of me that's always a bit nervous about projects like this. Really, there's a lot of juggling and timing and hoping it all comes out well while you're looking up at all that stuff you're trying to keep in the air. I can't wait to see how it all turns out. No matter what, I think it will be good. Especially because this photo project is truly a collaborative, group effort. I am in awe of all the fantastic people who are making this happen.

And so, at the end of the youth group, I asked two questions that I like to ask (ever since working at Communities in Schools (CIS) last year that is). I asked the group members to each tell me their favorite part of the group and their least favorite part. I love these questions because the answers are rarely what I expect. Unsurprisingly, it was difficult for them to come up with "least favorite" parts because of that human tendency to want to be polite I'm sure. It takes a while to be able to respond to this question.

But their favorite part, as expected, was unexpected. Almost unanimously, they all agreed that it was that thing we did with our stomach, with shaking our hands. Yup, what they liked best was the breathing exercise.

Before I started the exercise. I talked about how to breath into one's belly because not everyone knows how to do this (and I've finally stopped assuming that they do. Yup, as my dad has told me, when you assume, you make an ass out of u and me. Or, people just don't know what they heck you're talking about when you blather on about this deep breath nonsense).

There's an image I once heard someone using that I really like and subsequently borrowed. (I think I borrowed it from the woman who taught an awesome yoga class to our Hope & Healing group at CIS last year). Basically, it's imagining you're swallowing an elevator, it's going down your throat and descending all the way to your belly. Yup, put your hand on your stomach to feel it expand as the the elevator comes down.  That's inhaling. Now to exhale, imagine your sending that elevator all the way back up.

We did this a few times and they said they'd gotten the gist of it. So we moved on. I co-opted this particular breathing exercise from a role play of a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) group performed in my Group Therapy class last spring (thank you CBT group!). Everyone plants their feet flat on the floor and sits up straight in their chairs. Then we begin to shake our hands and stomp our feet, increasing the rapidity of the agitation as we go. It looks totally silly, so it helps when everyone else is doing it too. We move faster and faster...and faster...Until I say, "Okay stop." Then we all breathe together, deep inhalations into the belly, deep exhalations, a certain number of times. This time I happened to choose 6. That's it.

There are usually a few seconds of silence that follow this. A pause. It's just enough time to "be" with a slightly stiller, calmer mind...It was nice.

And I totally love that this is what they liked best because all of us (myself very, very included) could use some skills (and frequent reminders) to take a step back and slow down even if just for a minute or two.

Next week we'll do some more breathing, since I'm thinking they'll be up for it, and hmmmm...perhaps I'll be able to throw a yoga posture into the mix too...

Visiting

My faculty liaison (professor responsible for helping me set up my internship here) from the University of Texas at Austin has been visiting this week. And so, the days have been full:

Meetings with the wonderful people who have been facilitating my internship (that's Vera, one of my fantastic supervisors to the right of me). And isn't my posture good?! That's how I react when there's a photographer there I guess...

And showing my professor some of the things I get to do every week. Such as hang out in youth groups with awesome teenagers. The young woman who is looking back in the photo is Nati, one of the fabulous coordinators. (I'd love to show photos of the adolescents that actually include their faces, but I'm not allowed to do so by law...hence all the backs).

And of course time for meeting (and re-meeting) friends.

So, all this to say that there will be longer, more in-depth blog posts to come once I catch up on sleep!

Appreciation

This photograph makes me happy.

The afternoon may have begun with a little chaos and confusion, but that's all to be expected, especially with a group of energetic teenagers. What really amazed me was not only that things calmed down, but how engaged everyone became in what they were doing. Some were working on the project we'd given them, writing and illustrating the life trajectory of a child (in this case, they named him Douglas) who started using drugs. Some were doing their own thing. But, really, I think that just being able to attain such concentration and focus is what matters.

Donations Gratefully Accepted!

NOTE: Since writing this blog entry, I have received enough donations to reach my goal (and indeed go a bit beyond it). My thanks to all of you for your support!

Dear readers of this blog, friends, family, colleagues, professors, classmates and all-around wonderful people,

While interning at Communities in Schools at Travis High School in Austin, Texas last year, I had the idea for a photo project with the students. With your support, we were able to pull it off! (If anyone would like to see a copy of the report on this, please email me at: lostinthequotidian@gmail.com).

This spring, as an intern at a social services agency in Porto Alegre, Brazil, I am excited to be embarking on a second project and I am writing to ask for your support.

I am collaborating with two youth programs run by energetic and enthusiastic people. We love the idea of promoting self-expression and enhancing self-esteem through photography with these creative, smart and passionate youth. An example of their creativity can be seen here in a mural they produced: 

One program, ProJovem [ProYouth] is intended for youth whose families have monthly incomes below $80 American (R$140 Brazilian reais) and/or who are in conflict with the law. We presented the group with several options for the project’s theme, including self-portraits and graffiti. They chose “Drugs: Impact on our lives” because, in their words, they live with the reality of drugs on a daily basis. They brainstormed titles for the project including, “Be happy without crack” and “Crack: the destruction of dreams.” 

The second program, Programa de Prestação de Serviços à Comunidade da Universidade de Rio Grande do Sul [Program of Community Service of the University of Rio Grande do Sul] is for youth in conflict with the law who are ordered to complete community service. Operating out of the education department, this program sets youth up with places to perform community service and also facilitates a youth group for them. We’ll begin the discussion with them about the theme for their photography project soon.

In the end, we hope to bring both programs together by inviting their family and friends to view their work at a final show.

Due to a generous donation of 25 one-time use cameras from the SNAP Foundation, we have a strong start. However, we also need to raise money to pay for the development of film, printing of photographs and enlargement of some of the photographs for the final show, as well as other costs (customs fees for the cameras which we're trying to get lowered, materials hanging the photos for the show).

There is heartwarming support for this project at the social service agency and the programs (both directly and indirectly involved) are assisting as they are able financially, but budgets are limited.  My colleagues are creative and know how to achieve a lot with a little. However, the more resources we are able to raise, the higher the quality the final show will be able to attain. It’s a question, for example, of printing 8x10 photographs on photography paper or printing the pictures using a color printer and regular paper.

Therefore, I am writing you to ask for any donation you might be able to give. For example, $3 will pay for enlarging one photo for the final show. $10 will pay for the printing and developing of one camera. You can rest assured that we will be shopping around as well as further negotiating these prices with the photography store that we decide to use, but these numbers are based on quotes from stores that I spoke to yesterday. I have set up a Pay Pal account for facilitation of donations, which you can reach by clicking on the "Donate" button on the right side of this page. [This button has since been removed because, wonderfully, I have reached my donation goal].

Although I did not anticipate it last year, one of my favorite parts of the experience was the final show. The students got to bask in the admiration of their friends, family and community for their creativity, efforts and visual/written expressions. They were glowing. Their pride in their work was beautiful.

I love how photography gives a person a way to capture their vision of what they see and to share that vision with others. I am honored (and excited) to be able to see the images of the world that will be produced by the awesome youth participating in this project.

The project ends in mid-May, a week before I return to Austin, Texas to graduate. Soon after, I will send out a report, complete with pictures, of course, to anyone who is interested.

Thank you for your support and please don't hesitate to email me with questions!

Abraços (hugs) & gratitude from Brazil,

Libélula Azul

Dreaming & Waking

To-Go Garudasana
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl

Last night I had a dream so vivid that it took me a while after waking up to realize that it hadn't actually happened.

I was taking a class with all the young boys that I work with at my internship. Our teacher was the director of the fabulous Street Yoga program. (Last fall, some friends and I had the wonderful experience of participating in a training he put on and got to meet and learn from this great guy).

In my dream he spoke Portuguese fluently and beautifully. The kids were responding well. And it took me about half the class to realize that he was teaching us yoga.

I'm not sure what it had seemed like before, just something else. Something good, no doubt, but just an experience like I'd never had before. It took a long time to realize that what I was doing was already familiar to me.

"This is crow pose," I thought as he brought us into the posture, "This is yoga! And the kids love it! I love it too!"

Afterwards, putting my shoes back on I was filled with excitement about the possibilities of working with these kids.

When I woke up, I felt elated.

Once I got over the fact that it was just a dream, it seemed the message was a strong one. Before Samosa left we were having lots of conversations about my internship. I was anxious and stressed out, primarily because I'd missed so much time being sick. I was worried that I couldn't make all this lost time up, or that I would have to make it up in ways that weren't fulfilling to me, just scrambling to get the hours I needed for my degree. And then what would be the point? I wanted it to mean something. What if it didn't? What would I do? And on and on and on. Samosa did the best he could to comfort me in my spiraling thoughts on the matter. But really since it was all just conjecture on my part, I had to wait until I got healthy again and my pneumonia was gone, before anything at all could be done.

Today was to be my first day back at the internship. Finally!

And it seemed to me -- as I got ready for work this morning -- that this dream was saying that although not everything I'm doing right now seems obvious to me (i.e. doing yoga and not realizing it's yoga), it's all good stuff and it's all beneficial in ways I may not yet be able to appreciate or understand. I just gotta go with it and enjoy the journey. I've got to remember what my professors always said and "Trust the process."

Trust the process. And try and enjoy it too.

It was a good day. 

Park Day

We Are All Without School
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl

Monday (segunda-feira) is the designated "sports" day for the youth group that I get to hang out with.

And so, we went to the park. Armed with those popsicles - the kind that come as heavily-sugared juice in plastic the size of a bookmark that you have to freeze - we all stood at the bus stop waiting for the right city bus. You have to tear them open with your teeth. The first time I tried, bright orange juice went everywhere. But that's just how I roll.

Imagine a line of teenagers all with bright blue or bright red or bright orange popsicles in their mouths waiting patiently and laughing quietly with each other.

We sat in the asphalt at the park, did a little breathing, did a little stretching and then the teenagers got to play as they pleased. A game of soccer began with some of the boys. Those who were wearing just flip-flops took them off and played barefoot. I saw broken glass on the edge of the court. I hoped to God no one was going to step in it.

The girls taught me a game with a volleyball.

It was hot, even in the shade.

One girl walked with me up a hill to the edge of the park to show me the water. We looked across the street towards the shimmering Guaíba. Some insist it's a river, but really, it's a lake. This girl told me earlier that she is 16 and the last time she went to the beach she was 4. And now she was telling me all the places she wants to see in her country and around the world.

Part of me was thinking how it wasn't fair that I so (relatively) easily could travel here. And once here, could so easily travel to places she's never been. And part of me was hopeful just to listening to her. I love to hear people dream out loud, because if you can put words to them, then I think you're one step closer to them, even if you're still a million steps away.