The Christening of the Garden

Vitoria! 

So today was our last day with the kids who come to the institute on Mondays/Wednesday, tomorrow we will say farewell to the Tuesdays/Thursday kids, also today we had class in the morning and discussed the local news and current events that are making headlines in Brazil.

With the world looking towards Brazil for the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016 there are so major changes that are on going in this developing country. The arenas that are being built for these two major world events, the World Cup Stadium has already cost the federal government over 1.5 billion dollars  and it is rising every day. Brazil states that this is going to be the most expensive arena that has ever been built for a cup event - however this calls into question: Who will be buying these tickets for these games? With the minimum wage of workers being $625.00 Real per month and many people living under that amount - who is this stadium really for? Some news casters say Europeans, some say the Brazilian upper class; none the less this is costing the government some big bucks that they may not receive back in predicted revenue. In South Africa, after spending millions of dollars on their wonderful stadium, they only received a little over one third of the total stadium cost in capitalism in the economy. On top of all this there has been known political corruption in the Brazilian government for years that plays a very large part in the inequality of the distribution of wealth as well as the lack of opportunities for citizens to increase their socio-economic status. All of this has caused so much tension in the country that there have been riots and protests in the streets for days now. Riots in Sao Paulo, Rio and Brasilia and now we have seen and heard of more (hopefully) peaceful protests right in our own backyard of Vitoria. Led by students attending Vitoria University and other neighboring schools and interest groups - a five mile long protest has taken the streets and caused quite a traffic jam. We were told we could not attend this gathering in fear that violence may occur. In Sao Paulo two days ago a peaceful protest about the increase of bus fair ended in a bus being set on fire and pushed down a street. This is doubtful to occur in Vitoria - however these other cities have set the stage for the police (which are military based in procedure) so if something small were to happen the chance for over reaction by authorities is high. So we have been told to stay away for safety reasons. Now onto the sappy stuff.....

Brinna signing a shirt

On our last day with the children of m/w we got to re-enter the classrooms with them, something we have not gotten to do much due to the project and its demanding schedule. It was so much fun and it was great to interact with the kids and just get to know on a more personal level. After a whole afternoon of classes, we officially commissioned our garden and gave the kids a small and brief lesson on how to take care of it, yourself and the community. We are hoping that through encouraging the kids to get involved in the garden and make it theirs that the area will be maintained and will attempt to unite the community. They were so grateful and made us a huge banner for us to take with us and share with our university. It was a very emotional day and the kids gave us hugs and wanted us to sign their shirts like we were superstars. It was so sweet and I am going to miss these children so much! They have made such a huge impact in my life, I can only hope that I have done the same to them!
Tomorrow will be our final day at the school, so the waterworks will be in full effect. The school is also throwing us a bar-b-que Brazilian style as a way to say thank you for all of our hard work. So I am looking forward to that as well as the steel mill visit tomorrow.
Until the next emotional good bye tomorrow,
Alexis

Kelly and John

Me and the twins, so precious!