Sal's Journal

A favela eye view of Sugarloaf

Here´s Cézar, one of the loveliest students at Julio Otoni.

The rain has stopped and the sun is back with avengeance, I got sunburnt just waiting ten minutes for the bus yesterday, it´s fierce! It´s been a busy week in Julio Otoni, computer classes, maths classes and a rowdy Easter Party to end the week. Today, Friday was supposedly my last day at the project but I´m hanging on a wee bit longer to complete the murals and spend Easter in Rio. In truth, I love the project and I just don´t want to leave!

Mondays maths classes were interesting, for those who know, I´m completely crap at maths, so when one of the children yells “Oi! Professora Sal!” to get me to help them with a simple sum, I´m the one using my fingers to work it out, making the whole title of Professora Sal even more amusing for me! Wednesday´s computer lesson was a bit more like it and the children seemed to enjoy it a lot more as well. I think the general hatred of maths is an international thing! We continue to educate the children about food and nutrition as well, beginning each morning lesson with breakfast and ending the afternoon lesson with a teatime snack. It usually consists of fruit, some cheese and bread, yoghurt with granola and a drink. It´s a nice communal thing to do and gives me good time to get to know the kids better as they sit around the table and chat away. My Portuguese is still not as good as I would like, but I can understand enough. One thing I´ve discovered in Brazil, is that Brazillian cheese is crap, have they not heard of chedder? or Yarg? It´s either a soft white cheese of watery consistency with virtually no flavour, or rubbery squares of cheese that are only just about fit to put in a burger. It´ll sound very sad of me, but I can´t wait for some decent cheese on my return to the UK!  Wednesday evening found me on a mission to buy chocolate for the kids Easter party on Thursday afternoon. Charlie, my lovely but disorganised project co-ordinator, collared me as I was leaving the community centre after the class had ended and asked me to come and help him choose some chocolate. His sense of timing is just brilliant, it´s as if Easter has suddenly popped up without warning and its a mad dash across the city to find chocolate. So we end up on the most crowded of buses, at rush hour, standing room only, pushed up next to an old man whose armpits are less than sweet after a hot day. The bus driver appears to have psychotic tendencies as we hurtle through the cobbled, hairpin bends of Santa Teresa and into the gridlocked traffic of Centro. A short distance takes an hour to complete as we disembark the bus in an atmospheric but rough area just on the outskirts of Centro. The Skyscrapers shimmer in the soft dusk light, homeless are bedding down in the doorways of the very grand but abandoned Victorian buildings whose skeletal shapes are sihouetted against the darkening sky. So many photo opportunities, but this is not a place to stop and take photos. After a brisk walk for a few blocks we reach an open fronted, old fashioned Deli, alive with people and over flowing with dried beans, huge chunks of baccalhau (dried salt cod)  spices & herbs. From the floor to the ceiling there are jars and bottles of  unidentifiable foodie objects. And of course, there´s an enormous amount of chocolate here too. We spend an age buying all sorts of different nuts and dried fruits and about 4kg of chocolate. The intention is to melt the chocolate for the kids to spoon into rabbit moulds and decorate with the nuts and fruits. Sounds extremely messy to me! So mission accomplished, but rush hour is still in full swing as I attempt to dodge the traffic to hail the bus home, all whilst carrying 4kg of chocolate and other goodies. Charles has had to dash off to an evening class in the city,  leaving me solely responsible for the chocolate… very trusting of him! Thankfully the favela Easter party went extremely well, about 50 children turned up, it was bedlam but a lot of fun. The chocolate bunnies were a success and they all got to make an easter card to take home for their parents. Chunks of homemade cake were handed out and the kids went home completely loaded up on sugar, oops, there goes the nutrition classes! So one week left and then it really has to end, I can´t spin it out any longer. Three weeks today and I´ll be back in sunny Cornwall. Next stop is Buenos Aires for a few days on the 4th April before flying home, everyone tells me Buenos Aires will be very subdued after a city like Rio, I guess I´ll have to find out for myself. I already know that one day I´ll be back here. Feliz Páscoa everyone.