Frei Galvao canonized while Pope Benedict XVI visit Brasil in May.

I was searching for a museum in Sao Paulo and it turns out that it was under construction but on the same site one of many (probably 100s) of celebrations was taking place in honor of Frei (Friar) Galvao. Galvao was canonized on May 11, 2007 in Sao Paulo by Pope Benedict XVI. This was just a little over 10 years after Galvao was beatified on April 8, 1997 in Rome by Pope John Paul II. So when I turned the corner to enter the grounds that housed the museum and the church below I was suprised to find a long line of people lining up (queing for my British friends) to go through the gate. I found out that this was in celebration of Galvao. I guess when your country of over 180 million people has its first saint declared it is a pretty big deal. Saint Galvao also known as Saint Anthony de Saint Anne-Galvao was of the Franciscan order.
The photos below are from the grounds where the church and musuem are located. Also, for more information check out the following links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frei_Galv%C3%A3o
http://www.saofreigalvao.com.br/

Sao Paulo Graffiti pictures take one.

Sao Paulo, like NYC and various other cities big and small around the world, is well known for its street art, graffiti or murals. These pictures are rather self explanatory so I won't make many comments but let you enjoy them. I took most in one neighborhood of Villa Madelena near where I was visiting my friend Sandra. I guess if you want to live in one of these areas and don't want your wall, door, garage or sidewalk to end up like a work of art or vandalized property, then you better move out soon.

Mr. President please stop following me it is getting pretty eerie and really annoying.

Don't worry friends I am already basically certain that I must be on a FBI or CIA list somewhere thanks to my time working for the US Government as a Peace Corps volunteer in former communist friendly Mozambique, traveling to visit my cousin in Sarajevo during Thanksgiving 2000 or any other number of places I have been, people I have met or books I have gotten from the library. So my following comments although they will most likely be found by some supercomputer in Quantico and be deemed subversive or maybe even "un-American" or un-Patriotic need to be said no matter what un-marked prison in the underground network our wonderful government has helped to increase around the world I might end up in.

Dear Mr. President,

I go to Europe to backpack around for 3 1/2 months over late summer/early fall 2000 and all I hear is about the upcoming presidential elections, I get to Salzburg Austria giddy as a school girl to do the Sound of Music tour and there you are starting to cause confusion and chaos over some chad things, then I go home in late November and who will be the next president is still up in the air, then I escape, ASAP, to Mozambique in 2001 and soon after you visit me on your "African" tour and I am pretty sure you came back again at some point during my over 3 years in Africa (waiting for regime change before returning home) to attend another conference or something of that nature. Then I come here to Brasil and you are here also. At least the Brasilians like the other South Americans you will be running into these next few days know that you are the king of jokers, the shame of the "Lone Star" state, the emperor who has no clothes or brain for that matter and the next newest ex-President, a moment that couldn't come to soon. As a matter of fact your majesty according to my "The Out of Office Countdown, 2007 Calendar" that I got as a present from my father you Mr. President only have 22 months or more specifically 682 days to see how much you can ruin the world for the rest of us to clean up the pieces when you leave office to enjoy the riches from your investments in oil, arms and the rest.

So I humbly (look up humble in the dictionary, to do this you need to get a dictionary, so ask that secret service agent named Roger who you have wittily renamed Bub to get you one and then open it and go from a to b to c to d to e to f to g and don't go to i before you come to h and then using the same challenging alphabetical skills go to near the end of the h's till you find the word spelled h.u.m.b.l.e) ask you to stop following me around and read the following stories to see what the rest of the world, what I mean to say is the majority of the world thinks about you and your dynasty. Dynasty brings to mind another cheesy nighttime soap you might recall called Dallas in the land of your Spurs, Rangers and Stars where we would love for you to return and stay for good. Although you really aren't a cowboy but just play one on TV and in your head, we will let your imagination stay in control as long as it keeps your finger from the button and you from following me. How far do I have to travel to try and escape Coke, McDonald's Nike, Starbucks, the Bushes and the rest of these "Made in America" cysts growing abnormally around the world and forwarding the cause of globalization, global warming and neo-colonialism.

Finally, Mr. Prez, I know that you only talk to the MAN and don't have time for listening to "your" people or heaven forbid reading what the "leftist" media says about you but you might be interested in reading what your "fans" from Al Jazeera and the Latin American News Agency have to say about you. First, Al Jazeera published an article today called "Bush arrives to Brazilian protest" could it be sir that you weren't welcomed with open arms or as a "liberator"? Then your friends in Cuba, there must be at least one, oh yeah maybe those guys on that base that starts with G.u.an....something, from Latin American News Agency published an article entitled "LatAm Readies to Unwelcome Bush" To your credit you were probably already gassing the chopper to visit your buddies in South America before these stories were published, Only if that Minority Report movie were true you could have seen your being "unwelcomed" before jumping on your high horse, spurring it, yelling "yippee kaye mother f@c&er" and heading down to find Butch, Sundance and Chavez somewhere in the expansive continent of South America.

With warm regards your loyal (thanks for the craniotomy ala Hannibal) subject,

Blake H. Schmidt

Another perspecitve on Iracambi. A volunteer's blog including photos and stories from Iracambi.

Michael Petrov a Russian born American from New Jersey just finished his month long stint volunteering at Iracambi. Mike was working on trail maintenance and plumbing. I will share some of his photos in a future blog but for now just wanted to share his blog address with you. Mike left today with his girlfriend and her friend to travel for another year or so throughout South America so his blog will become less relevant to you, as a comparison to Iracambi, as the weeks go on but for now there are some interesting photos and stories on the blog about Brasil in general and Iracambi specifically.

His blog, Chasing Aphroditie, is maintained Mike and his girlfriend Sasha and the link is http://chasingaphroditie.blogspot.com/. I will share more stories and photos tomorrow or later today if the internet is still up. Thanks Mike for you help!

Back safe and sound from Cape Town and busier than ever.

My flight to Cape Town was delayed two hours but the one on the way back actually left a few minutes early and got us in about 15 minutes early. I had a great time with Chris and Xoliswa April from Saturday night till Tuesday afternoon and am really glad I took this chance to see my friends. It was a good experience to be in the townships for three nights and I met many nice people, enjoyed the rain and the sun, took lots of pictures and had some great conversations. I will share more tomorrow but I am currently very tired and trying to get through all the emails I got while gone. I need to run to the Brasilian Embassy tomorrow to turn in my visa application, do some shopping, start one of my final days of work with ETC and continue getting ready for Mozambique, Kenya and Brasil. I have a feeling my blogs are going to get shorter this next week and then once I am traveling I will do my best to write once or twice a week. I will share photos when I get a chance as well as more on my three day stint in Cape Town.

Brasil bound. Saving the world one person, animal and forest at a time.

That is right my friends I am going to be in 5 countries over the next 4 months. On December 14^th I am leaving South Africa to travel for 2 ½ weeks to Mozambique to see friends, catch up, hear some music and enjoy the holidays. Then on the 5^th of January I will travel to Kenya where I will stay for just over three weeks. I already have been generously offered places to stay in Nairobi and Mgori and if you have any thoughts on other places to stay and visit they are most welcome. My main reason for going to Kenya is to attend the World Social Forum as well as seeing friends and making new ones. I will be coming back to South Africa on the 27^th of January and flying back to the States on the 29^th. I will get home to Portland on the 30^th and be home till the 8^th of February when I will fly to Rio de Janeiro in Brasil.

In Brasil I will be volunteering for Iracambi, http://www.iracambi.com, at Fazenda (farm/ranch) Iracambi for 6 months till early August. Iracambi is located in the province of Minas Gerais. At the Iracambi site you can see maps of where I will be staying. I will be the program coordinator taking over the position held these past 6 months by my friend Rebecca from SIT. During my 6 months I will complete the 2^nd half of my 6 month practicum/internship for SIT and work on my capstone (research/thesis paper) for SIT.

I will surely write more about Iracambi in the coming months, especially when I am there. It will be my first time to Brasil and I am very exited about this. I am also thrilled to get to speak Portuguese again on a daily basis and will enjoy hearing and learning different accents, slang, etc. Most of all the idea of getting out of the city and being in a rural nature area again is really exciting. I look forward to long hikes, learning about the forest, wildlife, people, etc. and sharing it all with you. To give you a better sense of what Iracambi was created to do I have cut and pasted text from the entry page to their website.

“Volunteers and Researchers from all over the world come to Iracambi to help us fulfil our mission to make conservation of the rainforest more attractive to our community than its destruction. We live on a working farm in the Atlantic Rainforest, where we daily face the same issues as our neighbors: how can we make a living from the land, whilst also preserving the biodiversity of the area?

The Atlantic Rainforest has been identified as one of the world's most globally important biodiversity hotspots, but this has not prevented it from being reduced to only eight fragmented per cent of its former size. The attack on the forest started when the Portuguese first arrived in Brazil 500 years ago, and continues today. Iracambi is working to reverse this trend. We believe that it is only by helping to find a future for the people who live and work in the forest, that we can provide a future for the forest itself.

To help Iracambi achieve its mission we have programs for volunteers and researchers. There are other ways to get involved in our project too. There is also information available on our project for teachers and children. To find more about our projects: either contact us, or click here to e-mail us.”