The Water Still Sparkles when the Sun Shines

No matter what else is going on in A Cidade Maravilhosa, the water still sparkles when the sun shines. It doesn't matter how many reais were stolen by street kids the day before, or how many drug dealers were murdered (by corrupt cops, or other drug dealers) during the night. Anyone who wants can stroll down the endless curves of beach and watch as the sun erupts in showers of glitter as each wave calmly gathers itself up and surges down to crash on the sand of Ipanema. However many cars were stolen (to deliver guns from cops to gangs, or money from gangs to cops, or just to stick a dead body in and leave, parked and bloody), Christ still stands tall, tranquil, warm, inviting. 

We talk about how you can see the Christ from anywhere in the city. I hadn't thought about the back of the Christ until yesterday. It is really just a small slice of Rio that Christ looks down on: the tourist-ridden Zona Sul, Downtown, the peaceful middle-class neighborhoods of Orange Trees and Botanical Gardens, the party scene of Lapa. But Christ never looks down on some half or three quarters of the population of Rio. Six or eight million people living in varying degrees of absolute poverty to whom this great edifice of the Prince of Peace shows only his back.

It was a treat for me to visit a project in Para da Lucas, one of those Christ-forsaken communities in the North of Rio, where one woman has reached out to 400 children over the last 7 or 8 years by opening her home to them to offer classes in art, capoeira, dance, music, and english. Volunteers from around the world come and teach classes, and they go on field trips to expand the world of kids who, when she asked what jobs they could have when they were older, could think of only street vendor and drug dealer.

I'm teaching three days a week now in Tabajaras, wild drama classes with kids and exhausting english classes with adults. There are ways that I wish the project was different, but all in all, I'm engaged and enriched. Through that project and connecting with other places and people I've met there, my life is suddenly feeling full. Hiking up the mountain every day is sadly a long-distant dream, but I'm sure I haven't yet done it for the last time.