Botanical Gardens

This event was already a week ago but wouldn't want you to miss
knowing all the things that happened... Becouse once again we had
a realy succesful activity at Project Patio.

As you might have noticed already, we find it of extreme importance
to take the children of our project on trips to the huge adventurous
world outside of the slums. We want to give them the oportunity to
have a life that they could never have before. But think about this...
If the kids never got the chance to live these things, then what about
their parents? I guess they had a childhood even more dificult and
well now they are parents and grandparents already and no longer
have the time to do something they realy like, something relaxing.
The last couple of months we heard a lot of parents saying: "Why
dont we ever get to go on a trip to the outside world?"

So, we looked if we had the possibility to grant that wish. And it went well, we got the transport in a touring bus for free again. so we could go anywhere they wanted to go. They were surprised that they realy got to go and actualy hadn't figured out jet where they wanted to go. First they wanted to go to the beach. But well critics said that it's still to cold (28 Celsuis is cold in Brazil). Finaly they decided that we should go to the south side of Rio de Janeiro. To the Botanical Gardens to be precisely!

Only going to the south side of the city is already a huge adventure
for people from the slums. Southern Rio is where the rich people live
and tourists go. wich makes everything a lot nicer and especialy
cleaner if you compare it to the always extremely dirty North.
They even had sweeping trucks that cleaned the roads!
In all time i'm living in Rio de Janeiro this was the first time i saw
a sweeping truck. Well, where the rich and tourist are, ofcourse is
where the government wants to invest, you have to keep them
happy! The poor are mizerable already so let them clean their own
mess... (Not my way of thinking ofcourse)

We had a very nice day, even though not many of the parents
showed up. What realy was a pitty becouse many of them had
said they wanted and even had paid to go... And they have no clew
of what they missed out on. We even got the extra surprise that it
turned out to be the open house of the Botanical Garden and
therefor the entrance was for free! How lucky we we're (or should
i say blessed!) So finaly the whole event cost us nothing more then
buying drinks for everybody. The mothers had baked very good
pies and had brought them for us to eat! Hmmmm Delicious!

The woman realy got to have a nice and relaxing day where they
could discover a whole new world! Finaly something different then
the stinking dirty slums... They arived back home safely and
thankful. To bad their daily choars were already waiting for them
again and soon they were back in nomal live... But we will soon
organise another event so they can have their escape once more!