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

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!

A Tree for a Saturday

It was a Saturday morning. I stood outside the Lomba office with my supervisor. There we were, ready to immerse ourselves in paperwork that was hard to get done on weekdays.

Except we couldn't get in the building. The gate was locked with a thick chain and padlock. The guard was nowhere to be seen. "Why is it?" I asked, "That you don't all have keys?" I was curious, since life seemed much more complicated this way.

"I do have keys to our office room inside," said my supervisor, "But out here, it's a question of security."

I hadn't realized that there was supposed to be a guard in the building 24/7. Except at this particular moment, the guard wasn't there. My supervisor was on the phone trying to figure out what was going on. And there was little I could do to be helpful, except wait.

I looked up and saw the most lovely tree.

How could it be that I'd never observed its splendor before?

Admiring this tree, I finally observed that we were standing outside in the midst of a delicious day. It felt good to be waiting on this sidewalk with a big blue sky overhead. Instead of pointing out this revelation to my supervisor and interrupting her phone conversation, I contained myself by taking a couple of photos.

A few minutes later the doorman arrived, walking down the sidewalk towards us, apologizing: "Sorry, I just stepped out for a quick cup of coffee at home."

We left the sunshine outside and went inside to our work.

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. 

Going International

Airport Waiting
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl

I am just one of a handful of Social Work master's students from the University of Texas doing my final field internship abroad, so I thought I should give a shout-out to those who are also writing blogs about their adventures across the world:


In South Africa:

how do you say blog in tswana?
and
Ilene's South African Adventures

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In Tanzania:

Musings from Tanzania

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In Armenia:

Bigfoot's Carbon Footprint

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In Mexico:

Ana V. Portillo's Blog

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In China:
Though not a social work student (that I know of), he's definitely studying abroad:

¡Keller's Cogitations!

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These blogs are awesome, fun and definitely worth checking out :-)

Convivência (Familiarity) with Teenagers in POA

Mural
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl

I have been meaning for quite some time to write more about my internship.

So, here I go...finally.

Since I've left the main office and have been brought into the field, it has felt like a bit of a whirlwind. Often I come home and my head is spinning, so full of images, new words, feelings, thoughts and experiences to be processed.

And so if I had to choose one word to describe my experience thus far, it would be FULL.

My supervisors truly have the intent of providing me with a rich experience. They want me to leave here with an ample understanding of the reality of adolescents in conflict with the law in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil. Wow. It's a huge undertaking and their view is systems-oriented. They know that I can't begin to grasp the reality of these youth if I only see them inside an office space. So they want me to see everything I can: juvenile justice in the courthouse, the process of these youth through their offices, the process of community service, the families of these youth, the places where they live.

Writing those sentences fills me with overwhelming gratitude because I have already seen so much and because people have been so open to letting me in.

The region of the city where I am interning has two offices. One office is close to a vila known for its drug-trafficking. The word is used in Rio Grande do Sul to mean the same thing as favela. English approximations of this word include slum and ghetto.

The other office is a greater distance from the city center and is in an area that 20 years ago was largely undeveloped. Slowly the urban poor were displaced from more central locations and came to reside further away. Even now though, it looks almost rural and it's hard to believe you're still in an urban setting.

So, what have I been doing lately?

I have been observing (sometimes participating too) my supervisors as they meet with youth who committed or carried out an 'offending act' (I'm trying to translate somewhat literally here to convey the feeling of the language) who have been ordered to Liberdade Assistida (LA). Literally this means Assisted Freedom. Basically, it's a Brazilian version of juvenile probation and it lasts six months. Sometimes these youth are also assigned to Prestação a Serviço a Comunidade (Repayment of Service to the Community aka Community Service) which is also generally performed 4 hours a week for 24 weeks.

The youth on juvenile probation have to meet with their coordinator once a week. During this meeting, which often a parent attends as well, there's a check-in about how the youth is doing. If they're under 18 then they need to be enrolled in school and there's help with that. Also, they may get enrolled in youth programs. Sometimes there are certain courses available in the city for them to take for free, such as a year-long computer course too. Additionally they may need to do something regarding drug addiction or therapy. And of course, community service might be on the list. In order to get to all these commitments, they are given bus passes. They are also given bus passes to come to and from their meetings with their coordinator.

How are the kids and their parents? Immediately my mind tries to find similarities between them and the youth in conflict with the law that I have worked with in the United States. Of course there's always the kid who doesn't say much or express much emotion, the kid who is always smiling with a mischevious look on his face or appears bashful or slightly embarrassed, the kid who puts up a good show, saying everything he thinks we want to hear, the kid who looks like he couldn't give a damn, the mother who does everything for her son including speak for him, the parents who really need an outlet for themselves, and on and on. 

But, that's just the surface. I'm still learning what that might mean. There are so many other levels and the reality of their daily lives is so different. The monthly minimum wage here is R$500. That's about $270 American dollars a month. It's really NOT that cheap here. I'm not sure how you'd even survive on that, but these families do it. And many survive on less than that. 

My emotional responses vary when meeting with these adolescents. Sometime I have a surge of affection, sometimes I just feel curious, sometimes I feel sad in a way that's difficult to verbalize. I guess it's just the enormity of the trajectory that they often appear to be on, and those age-old questions about how we break free from the harmful cycles and patterns existing in all our lives. All in all, I just am looking forward to the opportunity to get to know these kids more, perhaps even to be helpful to them in some way.

So, what else have I been up to?

A little bit of challenging paperwork that made me want to tear out my hair. Ah well, it didn't last long. No hair lost either. 

I have also gone to several meetings with different agencies that provide community service opportunities for these kids. These include a university (that I'm connected with through this internship), a parks and recreation service, a religiously-affiliated organization in a vila (I'm not actually sure yet what they do) and a book archive. The regional coordinators meet with these agencies on a bi-weekly basis to discuss how everything is going with the youth doing community service.

And then there are regional meetings where a lot is discussed as well including how to adapt to some recent changes in social work in Brazil (I'm still learning about what this really entails). There are more meetings to come.

Today I also went on my first home visit with two social workers and an intern. We are driven to these visits in a van with a driver. This weirds me out slightly even though it shouldn't. It seems that the vilas can be precarious places and so drivers are the way to do it. We visited a husband and wife and their kids in their new home. Their new home consisted of what appeared to be several abandoned structures, with an outhouse (with real toilet, not sure about plumbing) in the yard in between. There was a bit of crumbling disrepair, trash in the yard, yadda yadda yadda. Contrasting this, a line of colorful freshly-washed clothes flapped brightly in the breeze. Then there were the children with sweet smiles and teeth that had never seen a dentist. The husband was happy to give us a tour of their new dwellings. Apparently where they had lived before was incredibly small. This was good living now.

The husband was excessively thin and had tuberculosis. I think he had been hospitalized to try and treat his illness but had left in order to continue drinking. We stood in his bedroom/living room, two of his young children on the couch/bed and he talked about what was going to happen if/when he died. Damn. I wondered what the kids were feeling or if they were used to this kind of talk.

Later the intern told me that what I had observed here was nothing in comparison to what I would see. Still, perhaps it's better that I progress towards the 'harder' stuff day by day. As it was I felt an intensity in my chest that I hadn't really expected. When I told my supervisor about the visit she said that it was good that I see this reality, that I start to see where these kids are coming from. I wholeheartedly agree.

In the vila (or really the outskirts) I was in today, I noticed lots of dogs running. A stark contrast to the neighborhood where I'm living where everyone is constantly out walking their dogs on leashes and carrying plastic bags to scoop up their poop if necessary. I noticed more bars on windows and high metal gates in front of houses (though this isn't only synonymous with poor neighborhoods). But, again I don't think I've really gone in yet. Today when leaving the office with my supervisor, she had to drive through some back roads to get to the main road due to how she'd parked. There were clusters of men on various street corners. "They're trafficking," she said. It was a little before 5 PM. The office closes at 5 for that reason.

However, in case anyone is reading this who is worried about my safety, really it's all okay. I'm not going to be hanging out alone in any areas that aren't safe. The bus stop that I take is on a busy thoroughfare and the office is just around the corner.

However, to leave things on a more positive, strengths-based note, I'll explain the origin of this post's picture. This was how I spent 2 1/2 hours of my afternoon, painting a mural in the backyard of the office with a bunch of neat teenagers who I can't wait to get to know more. There's a youth group offered at this office for teenagers who are involved in the various family services. It's more prevention oriented but I think some kids in conflict with the law may also get involved. One of their projects has been the beautification of this wall out back and I think it's looking awesome. They had done the bulk of the work some weeks ago, but now a lot of details remained to be filled in. I got to help paint things white for example. Everyone was absorbed in their tasks. It felt meditative.

At one point I was conversing a little with a young man painting next to me. He wanted to know what I was doing in Porto Alegre. Was I on vacation? I was talking about how I was here to learn and that I bet they had a lot to teach me, how I was here with them so that I could come to a...I paused, trying to think of a good word to describe my intent. "Convivência?" he offered. It's a word that's used a lot here that I hadn't really known, meaning something like familiarity and intimacy. "Exactly," I said. This describes so much of the feeling I'd like to eventually have here. A tall order for sure, but one that everyone seems to be trying to help me achieve. Already I know that it will be hard to leave.

A Week in the Life of an Intern

So, now that I've provided a little background information on my internship, I suppose it's only right to fill y'all in on what I've actually been doing for the past week or so when I'm not out galavanting about the countryside or experiencing the Brazilian health care system.

Part II.

A week ago today, I reported at 8:30 for my first full day. The office is on the fourth floor and I have posted a picture below of the view out the window, past cute little plants.

That Monday I waited outside the entrance, which is protected by a barred gate that extends about 20 feet, with several doors, each door locked with a chain and padlock. Inside is a seating area and the front door. At lunch I learned that it was much easier to take the elevator down to the ground floor and exit/enter through the staff parking lot. Ah ha!

The elevator itself is an odd experience though. The buttons give me the same feeling of opening my iPhone. It's this light touch which you're supposed to perform just-so in order to get the button to light up. Of course, the button for the fourth floor happens to be tempermental and slightly broken, so really it's just the luck of your touch. I have thought that I pressed it correctly, only to go up, stopping at each floor, only to descend back down again instead of going to my floor. It's these little things though, that I feel as a foreigner, make you feel like there's some simple magic trick that you're not being let in on, or because of your foreignness is just not part of your line of thinking. As though everyone else can do this except you.

However, nobody else seems to know the trick either.

Why don't I just walk up the flights of stairs you ask? Yes, that would make sense. But, after a rigorous 20 minute walk in hot and humid weather, I'm already dripping with sweat (no one else seems to sweat around here. Just me.) and I want to start the cooling down process so I'm looking somewhat presentable by the time I reach the fourth floor.

Wow, I digress.

That first Monday I was given an overview (with a cool chart to help illustrate) of the Brazilian juvenile justice system and the part that my program plays in it. I was also given a cool little pin to proudly display on my backpack :-) Then, A.F. (who when I asked her if she'd like an alias for this blog, stuck with A.F.) began the patient task of introducing me to all the various paperwork that comes to the office regarding the kiddos and how it gets entered into the system.

Yes, a lot of my week was spent in data entry. The rest of the time I translating various internship-related documents from my university into Portuguese and drafting an Educational Contract/Internship Plan. This is harder than it sounds (assuming of course that it sounds easy to you). I have not yet learned Portuguese words for social work lingo like "transference" and "use of self." We'll find out in my meeting with my academic supervisor this week how well all my attempts went!

Sometimes too, I sat at a desk reading literature about the program and its inner workings. The person who the desk belonged to was on vacation and so I got to enjoy her pretty yellow flowers.

By the way, I asked my colleagues today how much vacation they get. "Just 30 days," they said, "But you can split it up if you want." Man, don't I wish I could get something like back in the United States!

So, back to that paperwork and data entry. I don't want to leave you with the impression that this was boring.  You see:

No. 1 I got to be with A.F. who was wonderfully patient with me and also very good-humored and fun.

No. 2 Meu deus, there are a lot of acronyms to learn! You know how it is with all new systems - there really is a specialized language that they speak. I learned to speak it at a criminal defense firm. I learned to speak it at social work school. And goshdarnit, of course I want to learn how to speak it here. There are acronyms for the juvenile justice process and there are acronyms for every different piece of paper that gets filed for these kids. It's a lot! All this repetition has been incredibly good for me as its helping me learn and feel more comfortable with this system that I am now a part of until May.

No. 3 This paperwork is really interesting stuff! Seriously. It's confidential and so not just anyone can see or have access to it.  And I got to sit there and just pore over it. I mean, it includes descriptions of the kids' actos infraccionais (offending acts) which often involving drug trafficking (you don't actually get arrested here for just possessing personal amounts of narcotics, it's gotta be more serious possession). However, there's some murder, sexual assault, threats, assault too. There were transcripts from the court processes with judge, which were pretty fascinating. I love this stuff. It immediately gets my brain thinking and trying to picture this situation: What's this kid like? How does his voice sound when he's talking? How's the judge treating him? Hmmm, how reliable is this witness? And seriously, this police account, this is kinda shady to me! All that time I spent at a law firm made me adore reading police reports because they're like puzzles you automatically want to start pulling apart and trying to put together again in different configurations, trying your hardest to get closer to some sort of elusive truth.

And one of the sweeter aspects was that when a kid finishes his/her required medidas socioeducativas (socio-educational measures), they get to fill out a form talking about their experience in the program. Lots don't write anything, but the ones who do appear to be pretty impacted by their time. One young man even wrote a poem about looking inside yourself for answers...

No. 4 It's all in Portuguese! This makes everything automatically that much more fun and more challenging. Even trying to type down numbers that someone dictates to me in Portuguese can require a bit of concentration. There's a lot of vocabulary to learn that I hadn't even considered before or needed to know.

For example today, A. F. had me filling out some information on the internet database based on some paperwork she just received. As she instructed me she said, "Type this and this and this and this, then put a vírgula...." I typed this and this and this and this and then I paused....thinking...what on earth was a vírgula? I didn't know. She waited patiently for a few seconds and then leaned over and punched the comma key on the keyboard. I started laughing. What a fancy word for a comma! She started laughing with me and then whenever she had to say it the rest of the afternoon, we both giggled a little.

And on top of that I get to learn a lot of groovy Portuguese names. Many times these kids have names that are Portuguese approximations of an English name. My favorites so far are Dinifer (pronounced similar to Jennifer) and Geison (pronounced similar to Jason).

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Last Friday's adventure included a trip with A. F. to the courthouse. Turns out that this program and its umbrella foundation has drivers and cars. Wow, I hadn't thought about that. I mentioned this to A.F. She said, "You mean, you don't back home?" She then explained further that since she was carrying a lot of confidential papers, it just made sense even if the courthouse was maybe a half mile away. Yes, better not to have confidential information on juveniles stolen. We climbed into a white van and our driver drove down little roads. Inside the courthouse, she knew the secret elevator that would help us bypass that huge lines. We went up to the juvenile floor and into a room with a gorgeous view of the Guaiaba lake. Later, A. F. told me that they often have the shades drawn and the room is dark. Perhaps to keep the heat out.

She handed over a stack of papers. Then they brought a new stack of papers to us. We went through each one and checked it off in their ledger. Then A. F. initialed next to the checks. After, our own ledger was returned with the papers we had brought also checked off and initialed. Little detailed steps that I've noticed seemed to be an integral part of the system.

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And so, I'll end this post with a description of the coffee. It's not like back in the U.S. where there's usually always a pot of coffee on in the break room. Instead, a young woman with a lovely smile, who also has janitorial duties, brews it downstairs in the kitchen and brings it up in red thermoses to each office space in the morning. There are also two blue thermoses with hot water for those who want tea. And there's a tray full of little mugs, some stirring spoons. For sweeteners there's white sugar or adoçante, sugar-free sweetener. This picture below is the adoçante that EVERYONE has, be it in their kitchens or at a restaurant. For a while I resisted it, but then I figured, why not, a few drops can't hurt. Especially since there's never any cream(er) and everyone drinks their coffee like an espresso.

The young woman washes the used cups and replaces the coffee and hot water at least once during the day. Sometimes employees bring in some cookies or crackers and leave them here to share with the office. It's nice to have the coffee.

And so today at 6 PM, my week-long(ish) orientation into the processes of the central office ended. I may be back every couple weeks for some supervision with one of the coordinators, but not usually for more than an hour.

Next up: clinical work with Brazilian youth in conflict with the law!

Weren't you supposed to be doing an internship in Brazil?

Why, yes. With youth in trouble with the law.

So, it is a good point that perhaps I should start writing about it.

PART I.

First though, we have to travel back to 1990, when the Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescente [Statute of the Child and Adolescent] came into existence in Brazil, which essentially gave specific rights to children and adolescents, based on their "condition as persons in development," including their absolute right to "life, health, nourishment/food, education, sports, leisure, professionalization, culture, dignity, respect, liberty and living with family and community." This Statue is very important and a big deal. So much so that often when I have told Brazilians about my internship, their first question is, "Have you read the Statute?" Indeed, I was gifted a copy of the statute not long after my arrival, and my reading of it became the beginning of my internship.

The Statute also created the structure for a juvenile justice system that would be rehabilitative in nature and not punish adolescents in trouble with the law in the same manner as adults. Unlike in the United States where children accused of heinous crimes can be transferred to the adult system, tried as adults and made subject to the death penalty, this can't occur in Brazil. (Brazil also does not have the death penalty.) Of course, what's written in statute is not always what occurs in reality, and there are opponents of this system, but I'm not going to get into that in this particular post.

Suffice it to say that it is always a challenge, in any country, to live up to its ideals. Implementing and maintaining a system of juvenile justice that aims to rehabilitate children and improve their lives is a huge undertaking. However, the system here appears to recognize that there are many structural issues (poverty and domestic violence to name a couple) that are integral parts of why children and adolescents may become involved in illicit activities in the first place.

Essentially when a kid gets caught committing a crime they will be entered into the juvenile justice system. Depending on the severity of the act (and of course, whether or not they actually committed it), they will often be given medidas socioeducativas (socio-educational measures) usually consisting of community service, sometimes combined with a form of probation (as I understand it). This service will usually performed over a period of six months usually consisting of four hours a week. However, there is an entire system, run by social workers, set up to help these youth with this as well as other needs they may have. Additionally, depending on their needs these kids may also get drug treatment or psychological evaluations, etc. So, kids aren't just told to go volunteer at any random place. They are assigned to a location near where they live, with social workers, and from there, they will complete their time. I am definitely simplifying this, but I just want to get the gyst of it across.

And it is with this social service system that I will be interning here in Porto Alegre. It operates underneath a larger social service umbrella agency and has eight offices located throughout the city (it's a big city). A week ago Friday,  I went to the central office for a meeting with two of the coordinators. I was thrilled that I could walk there (it took about 25 minutes), thrilled that I managed to both find the place without getting lost and relieved to arrive on time, albeit a little out of breath. This is a picture (below) of the river dividing the road where the central office is located. 

And so, despite the fact that the coordinators had a slightly different understanding of my internship (they thought I was there to do research and that I would be there much longer than four months), they were incredibly gracious, welcoming and open to changing their game plan to meet my learning needs. Master's level Social Work students in Brazil all do research. However, for those of us studying Social Work in the United States, the emphasis is on gaining experience in the field. It was decided that I would spend the following week in the central office gaining a bigger picture perspective of the work that they do and from there I would be assigned to one of their other locations to begin working directly with youth in trouble with the law.