Leave your fear at the door and we'll teach you how to jerk...

Weds. 6/23
So we met up this morning and the first thing Tamo, our leader, tells us is that there was a shooting somewhere in the favela we were supposed to be visiting a school in and that we have the option of not going if we don’t feel comfortable. Dear God, is he for real?!?!? However, we met up with the Under-Secretariat who was to take us there by van (because taking a cab there WOULD be unsafe…you don’t just wander into these places like that) …she told us that the shooting was on the other side of the mountain and that we were safe to go. So we went….sorry mom. No but really, reality hit for me today. And while according to Tamo, the shoddy brick shacks in the poorest of the favelas would be luxury to people in India, this is still pretty harsh poverty and this particular favela is known to be the most violent as evidenced b the bloody pictures of drug raids that the principal showed us to give us an idea of the community in which this school serves. This favela is unpacified meaning that the drug traffickers basically run the neighborhood. There is no police presence there and there are even retractable metal rods in the middle of the streets that are raised when police try and raid the area. INTENSE STUFF. So the school we visited had recently gotten a new principal who has apparently turned the school around from kids doing crack (a recently-arrived drug in Rio) in the hallways to having sex in class….I kid you not….to a school where discipline problems are very minimal and kids get sent home if they are out of uniform. She is trying to run a school of 1,000 students on a budget meant for 500. All students are served a free lunch and dinner and they even serve drug addicts on the streets meals if they come asking for one. She and her staff feel very strongly about education and the impact it can have on the students’ lives but they face the challenge of convincing many kids to stay in school even though they could go make a lot of money being part of the drug trade. A hard sell when families here only make an average of $120 a month. While the reality for the people these communities is bleak and the students really don’t even envision life outside of the favela (i.e. college) the gem is that there are caring people here that have a lot of heart. They value the balance between work and play and the principal wants the teachers to feel welcomed and have fun at their job. They told us that they hope we leave the favela with more hope and love and less fear because there are people who care and believe things can change. I suppose it doesn’t hurt to spread this word either…. 
The students performed samba music and dance for us and eventually the whole school and some of the neighbors started to filter out into the schoolyard to where we were. In a place like this news travels fast that a group of American teachers are here to visit… There was a woman from one the Rio’s best samba schools who was there shaking it in ways I didn’t know were possible and “trying” to teach us. I looooove any opportunity to dance so it was so fun but I know I must have looked like a fool.
By the way, I eat so much fruit here it’s amazing. This makes up for the lack of water I drink since everything has to come from a bottle and not the tap. The tap water here is not potable in large quantities. The persimmons especially are to die for and there are just dozens of types of tropical fruits available fresh from the rainforests in all grocery stores and on every street corner. This is what Heaven must be like! The interesting thing is that you never see obese people here. This is not to say that everyone is skinny but still it’s quite different. Even in the poorest neighborhoods like in the favela we went to today there is an abundance of fresh produce being sold at every corner. It was too risky (and in my opinion rude) to take pictures in the narrow, downtrodden (yet lively! Music filled the air everywhere…like a soundtrack to their lives) streets of the favela but I really wish I could take that street and bring it back to you all…just so you could experience its uniqueness.
The school lunch (which they kindly asked us to stay for) was rice, black beans, cooked squash w/ chicken and lettuce/carrots/cabbage/beets. All of the kids get free lunch but what a healthy meal for cheap! SO different from what a free lunch looks like in the US. Sure fresh produce may be a little more readily available here but if a developing nation can feed its below-poverty line students healthy meals then an industrialized nation can surely find a way to do the same for all of its student….call me crazy, but it’s just a thought. Anyways I just love that all of the kids liked beets and that they were watching soccer during lunch!
The boys breakdancing team did a 10-min show for us and it was honestly the SICKEST thing I have ever seen. It was as good as America’s Best Dance Crew except it was even better because their heart and spirit for what they do was just oozing out of them. LOVE IT. But wait, it gets better. My friend Lara and figured out how to ask them if they could teach us some moves and like a couple of high school girls we giddily approached them when we finished our lunch and asked. Of course they obliged ( I mean come on…) and we got a little dance session with them in their “rehearsal space”….complete with sweet music. I couldn’t stop smiling the whole time….so add that to my Brazil dance repertoire. Haha.
Crazy though that we got there as complete strangers and when we left 3 hours later it felt like we were leaving friends. Such welcoming people these Brazilians are...