Before I left, I remember how worried you all were that my safety would be in jeopardy visting Brazil. You warned me that it would be a different world, the second world I suppose they call it. Here the profound inequities between the rich and the poor provide an unstable atmosphere for every Brazillian citizen. The insecurity is classless. You would rarely find someone listening to their ipod on the bus. The night before, I met a guy who told me that if I were to ever be robbed, not to look my robber in the eyes and not to run. Just to give the person what they want. I had always thought running would be best because they might kill you anyway, but he let me know that a lot of these people who steal do drugs and if you frighten them, they may go off.
There is something else that I feel like Im learning though. There are no different people. There are different places and things to become accustomed to, cultures and customs-but there was never one human different from another.
There is no child here who can care for himself or herself better by the virtue of his or her experience. Their innocence is universal. Their eyes may be wider but their skin is not thicker. They are impressionable, sweet and vulnerable. They walk home alone or go by bike. People here are not less afraid just because it is their terrain, only more careful. Can you imagine? Somehow I thought maybe they were born prepared but what sense does that make now? We do what we need to do out of necessity. Nobody is fit for this. No child deserves a street education or to go hungry or to die of boredom. I looked down the road today, in the intersection in front of Cadec and noticed how the path led down to a rural area with farms, and trees and fruit that grows sweet-and I thought about myself and everything I am so far. At 20 I have traveled the world, worked, gone to college and am getting ready to begin my career in music. I am not a vessel of uncertainty. 
I have a family and friends back home with great expectations. In my mind live a thousand dreams and in my life a million possibilities. What is this backroad interlude? I am curious about its invisibility. Surely in New York, I would have never imagined a road in Terra Vermelha, Red Land that leads to endless country where I will find miles of beautfiul nothingness, there but disconnected from the world.If I went, if I had just crossed the street and walked down that road I would find that I am nothing just like everybody here.
Down these streets that are really there, hidden behind the few social institutions is the reality that these kids face-the milk honey and vinegar that is their day to day. I could be that. I could have been that. Down that street Id find the content that is just living, no more politics of identity. Just who you are, mom pop, your brothers and sisters and the neighbors you bike to school with. Back there Id find the content of what it is to live, minus the abstract experience of it. Its got its certain asthetic appeal. But its too late-Im me. And I will be coming home. I think.
Today was a great day. We through a party for everybodys birthday in the last few months. Caleb and I got into the festivites and you can see below. But every day my heart is heavier knowing that soon I will be Tia Nicoli no more.
We were worried about my safety here, whether I could take care of myself. But look into their faces, do they look ready?
"Who knows what the end will be, it aint over yet..."
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