Momentum

Getting started... getting momentum... getting there...

05 February 2008

The first foto shows our steps, again - just in case you missed them in a previous blog, or didn't understand their importance, haha. Well, we are VERY proud of these concrete symbols of our fragile beginning!

Then a whole mixture of shots showing the kids interacting with the tourists... wonderful people, inspirational what they did for the kids.

A few of their comments follow, with more complete comments [and fotos] on the Testimonial page. These people were truly magnificient.

Annie writes:

hi guys,
well i'm back home in england after an amazing 3 months travelling round south america and as promised here is a write up from my journal for your web page... thank you so much.
Probably one of the most memorable times in Rio was the opportunity to go to a little village near the favelas, a village set on a muddy slope with half built shacks, telegraph poles, a tiny tap of running water and with more children than adults. Its a village that a few of the guys there are trying to make sure doesn't slip into the same pattern as the favelas with drugs and corruption, a charity not for them to depend on but to give independence.
We went up with sweets, lollies, bubbles, cards and paints using pinched hostel bed linen torn in half for big banners...shh! Its strange how we take the simplest things for granted like paints and photos and it's not until you see children amazed and bewildered by a piece of cut up sponge dipped in paint and splodged on a bed sheet or a woman cry being given a photo of her and her cat that you even realise.
The children are beautiful. I know all children are but to see children that come from nothing, have nothing or demand nothing is humbling. Maybe its because we know different living in a western country that it upsets us more. Our cleanliness, hygiene, education, clothes, toys, television, play stations, food and water.. is it fair that some can have so much and others so little? But who is happier? The one that wants a sack full of presents and the latest mobile phone or the one that expects nothing and asks for nothing but whose eyes light up when given a simple sponge dabbed in paint??
There was a little boy playing on this rough slope and he cut his foot on a rock. He had ripped his nail off and it looked awful. With no medical attention it�s a good job Dr Jones was here with her first aid kit! Its amazing what a plaster and a tube of bubbles can do. The children have such strength and toughness to life. If they fall they get up, if they hurt they get on with it. After that I had a queue of kids all showing me old cuts and grazes saying "magical" - they wanted my magical plasters. Dr Jones hands out all her plasters and will probably get a blister now but it was worth it!

Sarah writes:

Coming...

Mirva writes:

Coming...

Michael writes:

Coming...

Many more fotos appear in the Gallery.

And the final foto... have you ever seen anything sadder than the two works of art hanging in such desolation? The day WILL come when this is a kids' playground, dammit!

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