Day 15 - Monlavade

Boa tarde amigos, tudo bem?

Stop 4, and we´re back on track with friendly hosts in a very welcoming city. I´ve not got much time at this internet cafe from the dawn of time (no photos here), so I´ll be brief.

As well as the usual activities here (meeting the mayor, visiting schools, a church, a massive steel mill), we saw a little bit of the real problems facing Brasil at the moment:

- visit to homes for recovering drug addicts - heartwarming, strong courageous people. Good guitarist there too. They follow a 3-pronged tradition: religion, discipline and work, and stay on a 9-month recovery programme, voluntarily.

- visit to home for the poor and infirm - really sad... these are the locals who have no-one else to look after them, and no money to live. Mostly they were very old, but there was a 10-year old severely diabled girl there who had been abandoned, and has nowhere else to go.

I´m not sure what yet, but I will be doing something to help when I get home, even if it just means sending out jiffy bags with small gifts, copied CDs, pens and pencils, whatever. Honestly, giving someone one of our rotary badges is a big thing for these people.

I´m also going to see if there´s anything I can do to get some computers out to some of the schools. Whenever I get my camera out, kids are always really interested and inquisitive to try, to play, to use.

Tomorrow we´re visiting Ouro Preto, an apparently beautiful ex colonial town 100km away from here, and then going on to see our new adopted team, Atletico Gallo, playing in Belo Horizante. Sunday - onto Stop 5, Ipatinga.