Hitch to Hope

Well well, Brasilia. I like this city the most so far, vast open spaces between beautiful buildings. Lot’s of green and a simple building plan so you won’t get lost easily. But the most fantastic here is the couchsurfing community. Had a fantastic time with them the last couple of days.

As I’ve wrote in my last message that I arrived at a youth hostel and spent the night there. This was only because I couldn’t find a couchsurfing host for Brasilia when I was in Teresina. But I went to a couchsurfing meeting the day that I wrote my last blog and we had a lot of fun. About twenty people showed up that night. Most of them could speak English so we had conversations about any subject. Politics (ofcourse, Brasilia is the capital with a lot of embassy’s), food, turistic places, etc, etc. I spend the night at Kadu’s place, the organizer of the event.

So at the event I’ve met the couchsurfing community, which was nice because I had a place to stay now instead of this boring, somewhat expensve hostel. The people were friendly but I think I was one of the three guests that were staying there…

Kadu took me to the hostel because I still had my stuff there and then he dropped me off at Aline’s place.

We will continue a bit quicker now because between typing the above story and now have been a lot new story´s. Ill try to highlight the nice ones.

In Brasilia the next few days were that of partying with one day really standing out. a jamsession with all kinds of people. we hammered down on barrels, exhaustpipes, carsprings and old coffecans etc… there were a few microphones so the occasional singer or beatboxer could do their thing aswell. with even a def guy schminked like a clown in the mix the posse was complete, he could even get the rythm right… all the people danced their asses off in the most fanstastic, weird, funny crazy way. in one word… Ja!

I eventually left Brasilia to get to Cuiaba, another city in Brazil. Got to a couchsurfing host where I spent some days. cooked for him and his mother and brother and met up with two students of him, (he was an english teacher).

After this I went to Santa Cruz de la Sierra where I am now still, A two day Busride in three different busses. Had to wait a whole day at the border between Brazil and Bolivia to get to Santa Cruz. Migration offices apparently have lines of two hours and busses dont go so regularly.

I arrived in Santa Cruz at about 04:00 in the morning. I didn’t make a reservation but I searched the internet for a good hostel so I went there. When I arrived it turned out to be full. “ah can’t I stay” me to the owner. “No we can’t let you in” he replied “security reasons”. “A c’mon, I don’t look like a terrorist right” I said… “well, for this night I could let you sleep in the TV room” the good man said luckily… Pheww…

The last couple of days in Santa Cruz… AMAZING. the hostel is full of international people with whom you get contact in a second. I went in the last three days to the botanical gardens, to big natural sanddunes and today to a most fantastic eco park called Guembé. Guembe: manmade waterfalls, aviary with native birds (Tukan, Parrots, paroquets that sit on your head, etc), A dozen pools and great food.

But the most incredible thing that has happened that I already found some sort of orphanage to work at, Luz del Mundo! It’s like a daycare center where children with single parents and/or just really poor kids spend the morning before they have to go to school. For more info http://www.volunteersouthamerica.net/LuzDelMundo/ldm_index.htm . The caretakers of them mostly have to work and school starts only at 13:00 or something so they can stay there. The hostel where I am now had an advertisement and a woman than was staying here also worked there. The second day she took me with her and it was amazing. Immediately made contact with the kids; cartwheeling, handstands, human trains and I was made to a living climbing rack… The tone (Teun) is set!

So had the best morning there and after went to the sanddunes.

I knew my trip was going to be awesome but I couldn’t even have dreamed of this. I plan now to stay here for a longer time because I found a place to volunteer. Another lucky thing is that a Belgian girl, who speaks spanish, also works at the daycare. She has already been here for two months and will stay for another nine! A nice way to be able to communicate in my own language and she ofcourse can translate tough things for me in the beginning. I´m really looking forward to the upcomming months with these wonderful, chaotic, enthusiactic and crazy kids!

What I want to close with is something that you might already noticed… The DONATION SYSTEM IS ONLINE! For now only payments via Ideal can be made but I will be expanding the system soon with creditcard and paypal also as possibilitys… It might take some time though. A little remark aswell, payments via Ideal cost 0,45 cents per transaction (yeah greedy banks, but so be it). So If you want to donate please do at least 0,45 cents otherwise I will be paying a lot to the payment sytem instead of the kids in Hope North…

So that was it for now. Ill try to upload some pictures soon. Keep checking my site, THE KIDS AND I NEED YOU!

LIVE YOUR DREAM!

Ciao e hasta pronto!