FLORIANOPOLIS - Alfo Gente

Florianopolis is a lucky city. It´s a beach. It´s an island. It´s a lagoon. Mountains, trees, sand dunes... It´s got them all. It also rains, more than any place south of the Equator should. Seriously heavy rain. It´s the spring here, but you´d be forgiven for thinking it was Britain and not Brazil. Good thing it´s got all the afformentionned attractions or we´d be in real trouble.


The ´From the air´ series continues. Florianopolis. From the air.

I´m staying with a host family and communiacting in a bizarre mixture of Portuguese, English, French and German. The mother of the family, Zelia, has the rudimentry French. Lucinda, the maid of some twenty three years, is fluent in German (and laughs at all my efforts) and Tiago, my new little brother, has a few months English under his belt. Tiago lives in the exciting yellow house at the weekends and, when the summer arrives, plans to be surfing all the time. All sounds rather tiring to me. But I´m indebted to him for making me lots of little notes for differentiating my bedroom furniture. Assuming he didn´t lie, I´ll be awesome in Brazilian Ikea in just a few short weeks.


Tiago on one of the prime surfing beaches of Florianopolis. Not today, you understand.

This morning the six strong Florianopolis volunteer team started our six month stint in the favellas at the project Alfa Gente. It´s a school cum day care centre cum community centre which extends right into the favellas and which helps kids from birth to around twelve years old. The aim being to help them during their formulative years when home life is almost certainly a mixture of physical and verbal abuse and the seeds are sown for the type of life they will lead in the future. It´s a project with some incredible aims and which has been so well established that they´ve seen fruit many times in twenty six years (many of the current staff were former residents)

It´s a rough area, ruled by an uneasy balance of drug money and police intervention. Alfa Gente, though, is in an interesting position since the kids we´re looking after are the kids of the drug runners and everyone else in the favellas. It´s in everyone´s interest to protect the project and us, in our shiny blue T-shirts, get welcomed wherever we go. We could stand and wonder what some of the people we speak to do for a living but, really, that wouldn´t be the point. It´s a lesson in the fact that sometimes the only way to work is without judgement. That´s why Alfa Gente has survived for over two decades in an area which it should, by all rights, have failed in. And they´ve not stopped expanding their vision; they want to hear our input. Which is pretty exciting.

We´ve been split between the kids and Sarah and I will be working with the eight to ten year olds. They´re all lovely and excitable, and we get a long walk right through the favellas every day to see them (don´t worry, we have those funky blue T-shirts...) We´re also being helped by our translator, guide and all round crazy woman Gabby. Gabby works for Experimento Brazil. She is also a singer and a soap opera actress. When she´s not mocking our accents (with, it has to be noted, her bizarre Portuguese/American twangs) or playing with the kids she´s fielding calls from TV chat shows (or so she says...)


Global Adventures volunteers with Gabby, our flame haired woman about town. Spot the actress, everyone...

It´s been an incredible few days getting to know a new country, culture, city and project but we´re all surviving. Trips to the local mall, complete with Makro, C&A and Pizza Hut help to give us a taste of home without betraying our efforts at immersion. Heck, I even have a funky Brazilain SIM in my phone. Text me at on 5548 9613 8706. And give it to all your drug dealing friends; I´d be happy to chat to them about childcare techniques in basic Portuguese. Obrigado.


Florianopolis. Even when it´s night and raining, it´s still real pretty.

SAO PAULO - Tudo bem

Ola! Before we begin, a quick mention must go to the wonderful people at American Airways who, desperate to make sure none of their passengersm are ever inconvinienced by their incompetence, go out of their way toi ensuure that no flight connection is ever missed. Having been delayed two hours flying from New York to Miami and fearing the woirst for my Brazil connection, I settled down to several episiodes of Two and a Half Men safe in the knowledge that I had missed my flight and could spend the next few hours hurridely trying to rearrange my entire Brazil placement. Until I got to Miami and found that American Airways who´d handily delayed my connection by a peachy four hours. Gotta love ém.


Me and the third biggest city in the world. In this picture you can see the city from thirty two floors up. What you can´t see is me getting more and more paniced as the minutes at such a height progess...

Now according to Davina, the tirelessly wonderful co-ordinator of cultural exchange gurus Experimento Brazil, this should have been good training for a country which doesn´t do schedules like the rest of the world and where things are a little less hurried than anywhere else... Except Sao Paulo, which is a mad house of the highest order. And an awesome one at that. Spirits took a little while to raise upon arrival when Sarah (of Wednesday Shopping in New York fame and who, poor girl, isn´t getting away from me for the rest of the year) and I arrived to grey skys and tactile cold. This was Brazil: south of the Equator glamour and here I am searching for my fleece. However, a few days of intensive Brazilian living training soon warmed everyone up.


The Global Adventures volunteers at the end of our gruelling ´Learn Conversational Portuguese in Three Days course. Tamara (far right) put up with many pomegranite and poached egg related diversions to turn us into the crack conversational team we are now.

There were language lessons; a truly scary three days of flashing back to my sixteen year old French days. With the added surprise that I actually knew some of the langauge and that some of it was actually *right.* And then there was Salsa. An hour´s lesson, in Portuguese obviously, followed by all night live music and exhaustive foot movements. Nobody seems to go out in this town until about eleven, and then they spend the whole night systematically working their way through every partner in the room before heading back to work in the morning via the coffee shop. Special mentions must go to the old guy with the flat cap, and the crazy red shirted moustache guy who took a special liking to us.


Salsa at Club Buena Vista. Smoky atmosphere provided for by time lapse camera setting and, uh, smoking.

And then there was football. South America does not make sense without it and, after three months becoming more and more obsessed with some mysterious game called soccer it felt time to get reaquanited. Sadly, our hosts for the evening, the reserve team for the Sao Paulo Corinthians, felt that their cup match with the hilariously named Argentinian side River Plain wasn´t worth their effort and proceeded to put all and sundry to sleep with a thoroughly un South American like style of play. In fact, it was pretty much Vauxhall Conference stuff (or whatever we call it nowadays) But the experience of being in the massive Sao Paulo station and aquring many exciting Portuguese expletives was worth the ninety minutes of lukewarm entertainment.


Sao Paulo by night. And, yes, now I´ve got it working I´m getting the value from this particular photographic setting.

Of course, the real reason for this Brazilian adventure is the volunteer work Sarah, I and five others are doing down in Florianopolis for the next three months (the other volunteers head north to Natal) working in a project in the middle of the favellas (that´s slums to the uninitiated) Sao Paulo, though, has been a worthy introduction to the work. You don´t have to drive too far from the bright lights and helipads to see the city´s own favellas. And, if you´ve seen City of God, you´ll know what sort of a life some there experience. It´s going to be tough but, then, the same rules that apply on summer camps apply here: if you don´t try to do anything, don´t expect anything to happen back. Brazilians are relaxed in some ways, but they never stop doing anything.

NEW YORK - Run mad, as often as you choose..

Despite being in and out of this city at least four times this year already, I actually hadn't spent much time in New York until this week. Which is a shame because, really, when you stop using it as a dropping off point between airports it has all sorts of exciting things in it that I've been wanting to do for a while. Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge was one of them. Something I've been told to do by everyone who has ever lived in this city but which, well, just hadn't occured to me until I had a spare few hours after buying cheap tickets to Chicago (Tkts on Front/John Streets is the place to go for half price Broadway/off Broadway tickets. They have a kiosk in Time Square, too, but it's always mobbed. Less people make the trek down to the other office, despite the fact it opens earlier in the day)


New York in the evening is pretty. And kinda blue.

I also took a wander around the Museum of Modern Art after discovering that, on Friday evenings, it drops its rather silly $20 price tag and becomes a much more affordable free for all. That does mean the place gets more full than Disneyland: and all the white walls and floorboards in the world can't disguise the masses of people clamouring in front of every wall hanging. Thankfully, not everyone is as interested in photography of Death Valley as I am (sand and rocks... I know, I know) so it was a pleasant kind of evening with just me and a few very intense student types and their long camera lenses. Takes more than that to make me feel inadequate.


An installation where you can watch drunk British people drool over, hug and eventually fight each other. Frankly I prefer my variation: "Tourist Watching Drunk British People. In a New York Museum."

Brazil is two days away. I know where I'm going, I know a few words to say and I have a little bit of cash to spend when I get there. According to the handy spreadsheet info thing I received my hosts for the next few months don't have the Internet, but they do have a dog. Can't win them all, I guess. Updates as and when I can. Until then: Run mad, as often as you choose, but do not faint.

NORTH CAROLINA - Blasts from the Past

One of the very nice things about being at a university facility is that technology is usually freely avaliable and in good supply. Since leaving Rhode Island I've been trying to access a CD of photos compiled by the indescribably beautiful Adam B and, finally, I've gotten into it. Which is great as it not only has all sorts of exciting pics of wonderful people, it also has a fair few of me, which I don't tend to have on my own camera (kinda stands to reason when you think about it) So here's a few choices pics provided by the lovely Megan, Nick and Becca.


This one was from the first week of staff training when we undertook the log switch. Basically you all stand on a log, then you have to all swap over without leaving the log. With hilarious consequences. As you can see: Anya, Nick, Mark, Scott and I had this one *down* Pictures like this make me weepy. No, not because of the people. I just haven't seen my right arm in a while.


This one is me, Anya and Colleen at the rather lovely Quinta Dam. We were obviously very happy to be there. Maybe because it was because we'd escaped camp that day...


Mark and Adam. The Pointer Brothers, maybe? You have to really like "Jump for Your Love" to truly appreciate that one.


Sarah and Megan took time out from our first aid course at the local fire house to try on firemen's outfits. Because they could (and maybe because the firemen were *really* happy to see them) Unfortunatley, Megan didn't realise quite how attached that helmet was to Sarah's head. Almost resulting in the loss of her face.


So after breaking my arm, this was how Mark transported me around for seven weeks. What do you mean my legs weren't hurt? Look, he's from Florida, he doesn't know any better...


Me with surrogate South African sister Megan, demonstrating the fine art of writing without a thumb.


Performing with puppets during Living Arts week. Not bad for a small group of us and only a couple of hours of rehersal. You would not believe how much operating one of those things hurts, though. Especially when using your left hand.


And finally a few from our weekly staff show. A virtual parade of embarassment and hilarity. Firstly, Jessie, Colleen and I perform as the Three Headed Monster. Each of us only able to speak one word at a time. Kind of like Father Jack Hackett off "Father Ted" meets the Three Headed Broadway Star off "Whose Line is it Anyway?" Strawberries! Potassium!


Then there's the Doctor's Office skit in which I slowly perfected my patented Valley Girl accent. Megan is the one doing all the shaking. It'd take too long to explain why.


The Aladdin skit was my favourite. This is the end where, after arriving on my magic carpet and serenading Nicole with "A Whole New World" I'm being dragged away. Philistines.


Dressing Jeffery for his appearence as Dr. Chainsaw. Which featured a real chainsaw: a novelty, really, since I think that it would have been illegal in the UK. Only in America, right?

NORTH CAROLINA - Provincial Life

Small American towns tend to be the same: seeing as how they were mostly built at the same times and along the same design. So there isn't a whole lot that needs to be said about Greensboro. It has a nice bakery, and both a YMCA and YWCA. There's a victory for equality. It also has pubs which serve something approaching proper ale and Earl Grey tea (not *quite* good enough to be described as decent, but close)


Isaac plays pool. Every good tea shop should have it. The Green Bean in Greensboro is one of the few that I know. I won, incidentally, despite only having one and a half arms.

Guilford College, meanwhile, had a weekend like any other. Some concerts, more questionnable food items in the cafeteria but this time for a shorter length of time and people bashing each other about with foam swords. I repeat my earlier feeling that I need to spend some time away from students, this stuff just doesn't have the allure it once had. Although the swords looked cool.


The sword fighters of Guilford College duke it out. Now wasn't there some Quaker tenant about pacifism somewhere? I forget.

Back to New York in a day, and although it's not my favourite place in the world it'll be a novelty to be back in the big city, especially since I'll actually spend some time there for once rather than just be using it as one giant airport lounge. Well, after I've made a return trip to Rhode Island, that is...

NORTH CAROLINA - School's In

I'm in a dorm room, late at night, having random conversations and eating peach slices. Yes: I've gone thousands of miles and am once again doing student things again. I'm obviously destined to be trapped in student life forever. Ugh.

Anyho: between the egotists of the north east coast and the crazies of the south lie states in the US like North Carolina. Which seem to have a bit of both worlds in them. This particular corner of the world accentuates that by having a particularly left wing college in town. Crazies of all types find their way to universities. Guilford College, where my friend Isaac is currently studying, is no exception, although it has plenty of nice crazies.


Guilford College and most US universities: Old red brick look plastering shiny new million dollar buildings.

US universities, with few exceptions, are stinking rich. It's marvellous fun to listen to everyone's moans about loans and lack of money whilst the next bursary is no doubt being paid into their accounts. Guilford College has an interesting sideline in that it is a college founded by the Quakers. Like our old friends the Shakers (see: Kentucky) the Quakers in the US historically balanced simple lifestyles with extravagant spending. Not that there's much evidence of the Quaker influence around the place these days. There are some cute notices about late night Vespers, the like of which I haven't seen since leaving St. Paul's in Bristol. And the university is currently running a year of events focussed on spirituality. Except, unlike in the UK where that would mean a couple of talks and an overpriced wine reception based on an awful piece of new local artwork, this is a multi million dollar mix of art displays, historical exhibitions and talks from the likes of Desmond Tutu and Karen Armstrong (the latter of which we once tried to get to come and speak at the University of Bristol for a couple of hundred pounds. Here, they could afford to offer her ten times that) It's a different world, in some ways...


One of the more interesting exhibits in the art and spirituality gallery. Snakes, masks and icons on a shiny cross. More Indiana Jones than spirtuality, I feel, but all rather cute.

... But for the students it's the same mix of lectures, seminars and the glorious pursuit of wasting time in new and more imaginative ways. Complete with unrecognisable gruel in the canteen. Apparently all this money didn't have any bearing on the quality of food provision. I bet Desmond Tutu will have something to say about that.


And this overly extravagant building is a library.