rebel against the box

so last night i hit the streets with a few of my mates and 5 bucks in my pocket...we had heard about this live gig on one of the beaches but when we got there it started raining...proxima vez i guess.....we decided to head back to botafogo, where we started the evening, and hit this amazing little bookstore/world music/coffee shop....loved it...full of amazing colours, amazing chats, and amazing coffee....me and savanah yakked about important stuff while the guys tried to out-coffee-bean each other... and i tried to explain my new ideas/vision for santa teresa and the surrounding favelas...it all felt rather cultured and artisan....

if anyone knows how i can get my hands on 200-300 disposable cameras for free...id like to chat.

just had a major freak out moment...but its all over now...i survived....i was walking out of my kitchen and my eyes caught site of something out of place in the corner....a small snake was coming out of my wall!!! ok i dont actually know if it was a snake...it looked like a SERIOUSLY large worm....
i couldnt just LEAVE it there...but it was bobbing its head at me as if to say back off chick...so i mustered up the courage and coaxed it unwillingly into a large glass and then covered it and threw it over the balcony....then thought hmmmm it could crawl back up the wall and seek revenge....so i threw bleach over it in desperation....is this evil?...im going back to see if its dead now....it might require a second dose...this thing was not normal.....
what im trying not to think about is where it came from and how it got to my kitchen wall without me noticing....oh god....i need a shower....

my combi ride back from town this morning was a little different...i was given a stool to sit on cause there was no more proper seats left....who needs seatbelts eh?...a seat bolted to the vehicle is a bonus. camilla had to stand huntched over with her butt sqwashed against the window...been there...i like my stool thanks.
i love this country. :)

this week has been amazing...we officially finish tonight...but actually i think something has just begun. i dont know what....or if it will have anything to do with 24-7prayer...but i know that those that have come to pray have stayed longer than an hour - some right through the night, they have been impacted....people have been encouraged, dreamed dreams, seen visions, hours seemed like minutes....boxes were broken open a bit, great conversations had....and i got to sit and watch it all unfold infront of me....one guy said he had never had an experience with god like he did here...so beautiful...and on top of all of that my neck got healed.....after nearly 3 weeks of unexplainable pain, no money for the doctor and the drugs running out.....i prayed that throughout this week god would heal me and he did! rock on.
so yeah..its been a good week....
i think for me my favourite part is watching god move...creating the space for people to feel at home and feel community and feel a part of something...whether thats making copious amounts of coffee and then endlessly washing up cups, or chatting around the table with people about stuff that matters, or finding space for people to sleep in shifts....i love it. i love the flow that is created when everything you have and are is open to everyone around you.

we had covered the one wall in current newspapers and it was cool to see over the week people writing prayers overtop of this and engaging with the news and proclaiming truths over top of it all.

some themes that came from the week would be ...a breaking of religiosity....(bring it!!) intimacy with god(in him i live, in him i move, and have my being...words to a song which were repeated a lot this week)and hope renewed.

a week of 24-7oracao...in rio...

something ive been thinking about a lot during the many hours i spend on the bus each day....(im soo over it) that i want to be known as a person who is not affected by the environment around her but instead always impacts and affects the world and the moments i find myself in...in the small and the big....that i dont allow the weight and heaviness around me to weigh me down...but instead change it for good...with a smile or a kind act, or an encouraging remark to a stranger, or in the larger things....like helping someone out of a rough patch or beleiving in someone when they cant see through the shit....and even larger still...
...not that i am not affected by what i see...because i never want to be numb to the realities around me....but that i carried with me a strength and peace that in turn effects the environment around me.....im always challenged when i see people like this....they truly do leave their mark on earth....and in so many ways have no idea to what extent...but they loved people. they left a trail...they made it count...

this was taken from my bedroom...a beautiful painting of the world just beyond the window. i went to a party last friday there in borel...it was called i love borel...was cool to be in the slum at night...normally an 'are you crazy?' comment comes after that statement...but walking through the place i felt like i was where i was meant to be....i felt safe..i felt like a stranger...but i felt safe....like i was born to be in these moments...there is something about feeling totally alive when anything could happen in an instant...the air is electric, the tension, the fragility of life, the struggle...i felt these things walking up the winding road in the favela...along cement walkways, up more steps, around another corner...truly a concrete jungle in every sense of the word...a mish mash of telephone and electicity wires tangled together with old kite strings...house built on top of house...kids in the street, motorbikes carrying residents to the top of the mountain, dogs everywhere, the place alive with music and little parties...small one room churches with noone inside but the pastor still yelling in a microphone...and corner bars...full of people watching football and playing pool(thats where i would choose to be!)
one of the guys we went to the party with used to work in this favela years ago....he began to share with us hte history of the favelas in brasil....fascinating...turns out that brasil was the last country to abolish slavery...in 1888(i think) and when they finally did it wasnt much like freedom at all....apparently they now ex-slaves were sent on their way but had nothing obviously and werent allowed to own anything that could be passed on to their children..nothing of lasting worth...and they weren't allowed to have successful jobs...so they fled to the mountains...thats why you always see favels on the sides of the mountains...at least here in rio...and they built homes and communities...then as the country became more industrialised the native people fled in from the northern states for the many jobs being offered...and because of their financial situations they too moved into the slums areas....integrated with the ex-slaves. also, the famous samba schools you here about at carnaval originated and still come from the favelas here in rio...apparently this is because back in the day the samba and the instruments associated with it were not allowed....but it was ok if it was being performed for white people as a form of entertainment..so people formed samba schools as a way around the issue.
so much history and so much injustice...makes me angry at how people treat each other...and breaks my heart when i still see the reprocussions of some of those old mindsets...
my heart and mind are full at the moment with everything i see here and i feel there is so much more i could be doing and giving....the tension within me is great...

camilla took this shot from borel looking down on our apartment....spot the red and white tower thing in the middle of the picture..im just behind that and a few trees....nice and cozy...in the mountains of tijuca....que legal....

here is the beloved borel...the favela (slum) behind my house. there are about 15,000 residents in this particular one making it one of the small to mid-sized favelas....some boast about 250,000 people....and apparently there are about 800 favelas in rio. just to paint a small picture...
my roomate took this one this morning.

All men dream but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes to make it possible.
T.E. Lawrence