Sept 9

Big day! But it was rainy again and slightly chilly. Our tour guide Roberto picked us up in these luxurious busses to take us to Camp Mangeiro, a YMCA type place in the slums. The program is designed to keep kids off the streets and away from the drugs. The slums are probably the poorest, down trodden places you will ever see. The favelas (communities) are built up and on top of each other and completely cover vast areas in Rio. They are made of brick, cement, and the lucky ones get tin roofs. Most of the favelas are run by a drug lord because he has the money and therefore has the power. The police are not able to control this very well. In actuality the tour places make deals/agreements with the top people in the favelas who report to the drug lords so that we have ‘protection” while we visit the favelas and no one attacks us. Kinda scary. So we were visiting this campus and this particular one is open to the one community of 45,00 families in the favela. The campus provides sports (basketball, soccer, track, dance class, gymnastics, ballet, and swimming) for all ages of kids that come in three shifts. It is a place to go for the kids when they are not in school. They go to class either in the A.M, afternoon, or P.M. So the goal is to get them off the streets when they aren’t in school. The kids must be in school in order to be part of the program and even then there is a selection process. This YMCA has the public school system sponsored by companies and private universities. As the kids get older and teenagers they are taught certain jobs and professions. They are also given the opportunity to take the tests to try and get into the big universities. We were given a tour through he entire campus and we reeked havoc. The kids were so excited to see us and interacted with us. They spoke very little English but spoke basic “hellos”, “how are you”, “what is your name”. They loved the camera and having their pictures taken. They were awed by blonde hair and blue eyes. We got to see them in classes and play basketball with them. It was very heart warming to see how happy they were to see us and heart breaking of their situation. Such a simple life and they are so happy. After we finished up there we went to another buffet and stuffed ourselves beyond full. After that we went on a gondola ride to Sugarloaf mountain. Famous sugar cane mountain and the view was awesome. It was pretty foggy and we have a good view on the first mountain stop but when we went other taller mountain we were lost in complete white. Saw some monkeys. Came back to the hotel and took a nap. Decided to skip dinner and pre-game at the hotel before going to a club called Rio Scenario. It was a 3 story club with different music and bars on each floor. Very very cool. Danced the night away again and a kid on our trip attempted to teach me some samba.salsa Just had fun twisting and turning and spinning ever which way. Left around 1230 because of another early and long day.