December 20, 2004; Rio: Today I woke up to some powerful sunshine. I am a bit groggy because last night was the COAV/Luta Pela Paz end of year BBQ party at the director’s new apartment in Copacabana.

It started at 6pm, which means everyone showed up around 8:30 and was still going on when I left around 1 am. The participants in the program that showed up had left for the long trip back to where they live in the North Zone of Rio in the Complexo de Mare (probably 45 minutes by car) with the staff from the program that also live there.

There have been more events than I expected, and all of them mix the youth participants, the staff and sometimes various other friends of the program.

A few days ago there was an event to launch a calendar made in part by the kids in the program. It’s a well-made spiral-bound week-by-week agenda for 2005, with monthly quotes on human rights and rights of children and youth. It portrays a lot of smiling faces, and insightful comments.

I bought mine for 10 Brazilian Reais (about $4) and it was well worth it since I am not the best at remembering appointments without my post-it notes which I left in the United States.

The event also debuted a movie about the Fight for Peace project with footage from the project site, and interviews with some of the older participants and project employees. The best part of this experience that made it really electric was that about fifty of the participating kids and youths were there to watch, cheering, laughing or whistling every time one of them would come on screen.

It was great for me to talk with them at the big event and also the BBQ. I can only really talk to them one on one because my Portuguese is not good enough to understand groups of teenagers talking to each other. My English is barely good enough for that.

Still, the one-on-one conversations showed me that some of them are eager to talk about their lives and the needs of their communities, even if they don’t all agree exactly what they need.

One thought money was what they need most, but two others didn’t think direct provision of money would help; projects, targeted projects, that’s what they need. But nobody ever questioned that there was a need for something from outside, from Viva Rio or from the government.

I know that statistically speaking this is no random sample and it includes only five or six real conversations. The youths span the whole range from not wanting to talk much at all to being happy to chat away with me indefinitely. So, it is likely that I only end up talking to the ones who have things to say to me, who want to talk about their lives or my life for that matter. I can only assume what the rest of the participants think.

Now, as I plug away on the computer in the bright and bustling office, researching dream possibilities for a national youth service policy, some of these same youths pop in on their way to various different events, meetings or tasks as volunteers for Viva Rio.

It is comforting in a land far from home to be treated as a friend by them. For the most part, I haven’t met many of the kids in the program (there are about 150), and even of those I have met I have only had real interactions with a handful of them. But of the few that I have talked with most, it is good to see the beginnings of friendships, which is an important first step in understanding and in enjoying a foreign country.