Project Patio goes to the Zoo

Quinta de Boa Vista
We, Project Patio and the kids had a wonderfull day far away from
the slums again! In the middle of Rio de Janeiro you can find a
large public park that lays around the old palace of Don Pedro II the
king of Portugal when Brazil was still a colony. The park is a place
with two faces, One one side it escpecialy it is a great place for
family entertainment especialy in the weekends its crowded by
families having picknicks all over the place. But then in the
evenings and on weekdays it is a hangout for druggangs and a
popular pick up place for prostitutes .

Most of the children have allready been to the park in their life
(during the weekend i hope) since it is not that far away from
Complexo do Alemao our slum. But on all the visits the kids
allready made none of their parents had taken them to the most
popular atraction op the park: The Zoo! Not that the parents are
against the zoo or animals in cages, its just that you need to pay
an entrence fee, wich is cheap, but still to expensive for the
large familys of our project.

Patio goes to the Zoo
Project Patio also wanted to have a nice activity with the kids
again since only studying every week isn't that much fun.
Children need to be able to play a lot and be entertained. So we
wanted to take the kids to the park of Don Pedro II "Quinta de
Boa Vista" and ofcourse we wanted to take the children to the
Zoo. But well since we haven't got much money we weren't sure
if we could realise this. Luckely we recieved the transport by bus
for free again but we stil had to pay the entrence fees. Wich
becomes a large number realy soon when you take 23 children and
7 leaders. I am the person responsible for the finances of Project
Patio so i finaly had to decide if we would go or not. Do i have
to dissapoint the children once again? Again they went to the
park and again didn't make it to go to the zoo. You know what...
It's just money we will get more later! God is faithful and he
loves his children!
Once again "the best day of their lives"
And so once again we were able to give the kids the best day of
their lives. What fun they had with the beautiful birds and those
funny pinguïns. They we're puching each other a little to all be able
to see the animals at the same time and it was hard to keep the
group together becouse they all went in every possible direction,
one wanted to see the elefant an other the lions and even an other
wanted to go to the girafs (whom look like Wouter, they say) But
most of the children wanted to see the sand throwing monkey again.

Yeah, that certanly was the funniest monkey of the whole zoo.
When the kids would jell at the animal it would run to a corner of
its cage to grab a hand full of sand, after that it would run towards
the watching people and throw sand towards them. Ofcourse the
kids had allready run away screaming when the monkey went to
get more sand so when it threw the sand it would hit people that
weren't paying attention. What a nice game, how much they
laughed! Again, again and once more.

I quickly understood that the monkey wasn't doing this becouse it
liked to play with the kids but bcouse it was iritated about all the
noise they made. So since i am such a friend of animals i tried to
help the monkey by ending the game and taking the kids away
from its cage. But what did i receive as a thanks? A hand full of
sand thrown all over me! Freaking animal! Ofcourse at this
moment the kids hardly coun't stop laughing anymore!

Playing in the park
Finaly we gave the children some time more to play in the park. Run around free, climb trees, perfoming dances or pretend to be one of the animals from the zoo. Totaly exausted the children arived back at home. Their parents must have been thankful! Another amazing day at Project Patio had passed!

If you would like to see more fotos of our trip to the zoo. Then look on the right side of my weblog in my fotoalbum for the album called "The Zoo". You could also use this direct link

Support Project Patio
If you would like to help us make more events like this one possible? Then please consider sponsoring Project Patio mothly or once in a while. With extra support we can give the children a good education and many more cultural activities. We can garantee these children of the slums the possibility to realy enjoy their childhood. Thank you very much!