I am sitting at the airport in Sao Paolo, waiting for my connection to Paris. There are about 20 very loud and nervous Chinese men around me – they seem to be very excited about their trip. I have two more hours to kill so I decided to write my last blog post on Brazilian land. I left Robi behind in Curitiba because I have to go back to Europe – I have a teaching commitment and will soon go to Ireland after spending just a few days at home.
Last week was short as we only came back from Buenos Aires on Tuesday evening and Friday was national holiday. We were busy finalizing arrangements for the concert and practicing with the choir and the girls. I think the programme will be very nice and hopefully there will be a lot of people in the HSBC Theatre on 14th May. I said a very sad good-bye to the children on Thursday – they were really nice it was hard to leave them. When we first came to Brazil, we had no idea how these kids would be. Children living in shelters and underprivileged areas in Budapest are tend to be rather violent, rough and not very well looked after. This is why we were really surprised how clean, well behaved, happy and kind these children were. And we really got to like them a lot and appreciate their effort and dedication to music.
Yesterday, finally we had the opportunity to visit one of the shelters they come from. Here we began to understand the differences between our experience at home and here. I am sure not all the shelters are as good as this was, but this one is a little Paradise. Well, we should not forget, that Paradise is lost for these kids on the first place as most of them are taken away from their alcoholic, violent or drug addict parents. But given the circumstances, this place was really great with some fantastic people working there. The land is the property of the presbiterian church who – in partnership with the government – is running this shelter the insiute. They also look for sponsorship and support of non- governmental organisations. The HSBC Instituto de Solidaridade eg. pays for the psychologist and some teachers, and of course, they help those children who are in the choir. The place has 50 children aged between 4 and 18. Brothers and sisters are not separated and social parents look after every 10 children. They live in houses with kitchen, living room, bathrooms and bedrooms and the shelter has common rooms for activities, meals. They also have a book and video library and a laundry. They are trying to secure a house for those who pass 18 to be able to stay there for another 3-4 years.
The children are very well looked after, the “parents” and the couple who runs the place seem to be really nice and loving. We met happy children there and very kind adults. Generally speaking, Brazilians are really fantastic with children and the children we met were very very kind. I was first rather concerned about going to a shelter because I was afraid of horrible sights and circumstances but it was absolutely the contrary. Today, driving to the airport Dulce showed us some of the favelas the children are coming from eg. Barbara, one of Robi’s violinist girls – well, it is hard to imagine that she goes home, takes out her violin and practices. But she does and she lives with a beautiful smile.
We know that it is not at all like this everywhere in Brazil. Our beloved Marialuise – the adopted daughter of our landlord and friend Antonio – was in really horrible condition when Antonio found her in the orphan shelter in Bahia. She was three, she could not speak, was very hungry. She ate and ate and ate for 8 months after he took her home – it was only after than she said no to something that was given to her. She was abused, beaten and abandoned by her teenager parents before she ended up in the shelter. Now she is very happy and looks like a little Boney M singer with her amazing hair. Whenever she came in our apartment, she left behind an empty fridge, an exhausted Robi and a big mess. It was very hard to say good-bye to her this morning.
(More Chinese people are turning up here, one of them have just sat next to me reading with interest what I am writing, smiled very happily and talked to me in Chinese… I really have no idea what he wanted, but finally he left. Maybe he is bored or interested in my computer.)
Good-byes. On Saturday I said good-bye to the city that was our home for almost 3 months. Of course – as it always happen – we have travelled around Brazil but never managed to see Curitiba in a touristy manner. Finally we took the tourist bus and did the 3 hour tour around the city to see its most interesting sites. Well, being a tourist is rather tiring but the trip was very nice.
I also said good-bye to a lot of really fantastic people I met. The children, Enoque, Dulce… Dulce took me to one of Curitiba’s amazing parks on Sunday, the Parque Barigüi. We were watching beautiful fish, birds and capivaras. I have no idea how these funny animals are called in English – we call them waterpigs in Hungarian. They are lurking around in the park, small ones, big ones – and enjoying a good life. In the evening we went out for a great seafood meal with Claudio, Joao and her wife. Oh yes, I almost forgot! With Joao and Juliana we also went to dance forro on Saturday night to the Alice Bar. Life starts there at midnight, mainly couples turn up, the live band starts playing forro. It is a dance coming from the North East of Brazil – even more “latin” than samba and it is relatively easy to dance. Of course, to be a good forro dancer takes time and a lot of moving of the hips but it is really great fun. The rhythm is very catchy, sounds a little bit like reggae sometimes. We had a couple of caipirinhas, listened to the music and danced and we were very grateful for God – and everybody else who made this trip happened – that we are in Brazil. The following day we had a bit of a problem waking up – surely it was the fruit in the caipirinhas that gave us headache…
Yesterday we did a lot of packing (we had to buy two extra luggage for all the scores, CDs, books, cachasas etc. we bought) and final arrangements. As I was managing our life in Curitiba in the past 10 weeks, I had to give Robi a lot of information. I also called all our friends and important contacts to make sure they will attend the concert on 14th. In the afternoon I had a really good meeting with the marketing director of HSBC Brazil to give them a report about our stay and to make some recommendation for the Christmas show they organise every year. They seemed to really appreciate my ideas so I will follow it up with them.
Well, as more and more Chinese men are interested in what I am writing and it starts to be a little bit annoying, I finish it here and take a little walk before the 12 hour flight. From now on the blog will be based on Robi’s single life in Curitiba for the next two weeks and probably about my reflections of this absolutely fantastic trip.
the ‘more and more chinese men’ thread amuses me hugely!!!!!!
By: nikki on June 12, 2009
at 8:18 pm