“All I wanted to do was get back to Africa. We had not left it, yet, but when I would wake in the night I would lie, listening, homesick for it already. Now, looking out the tunnel of trees over the ravine at the sky with white clouds moving across in the wind, I loved the country so that I was happy as you are after you have been with a woman that you really love, when, empty, you feel it welling up again and there it is and you can never have it all and yet what there is, ow, you can have, and you want more and more, to have, and be, and live in, to possess now again for always, for that long sudden-ended always; making time stand still, sometimes so very still that afterwards you wait to hear it move, and it is slow in starting. But you are not alone because if you have ever really loved her happy and untragic, she loves you always; no matter whom she loves nor where she goes she loves you more.”

I never knew of a morning in Africa when I woke up that I was not happy.

― Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

 

Rio de Janeiro. That exciting city. A dangerous one. It treated me well. It´s people – strong, awake, willing to make the change this place so urgently needs. They took me in to celebrate Easter with their family, treated me like one of them and made me feel at home for that day. May I dare to say, that would have never happened in Germany? To invite a stranger into our homes on a sacred day. Are we too organized to allow an “incident” like that to happen?

More than 4000 people a year are killed in Rio alone and mostly it´s not the bad guys. It’s a war between drug dealers and too many corrupt policemen. Imagine what it is like to be young in a place like that right now. There are so many problems we haven´t even heard about. What we consider a “normal” life, there, is not the norm. You have to fight for everything.

Exciting times of change in Brazil. Be strong.

 

I learned some good advice from an honest person: don´t bullshit a bullshitter. Be honest with yourself – it´s a tough one. What do you really like? What makes you sad? Do you do what you do, because you love it? Or are you scared of letting go?

I was on this trip for 4 weeks with my backpack and I had nothing planned. No decisions as where to go, what to see, I didn´t even know where I was going to sleep the first night I arrived. I lived day by day. It was the best thing I could do and I´ll do it again.

 

3 local busses and a 2-hour hike lead to the wowthatsthemostbeautifulbeachiveeverseen. it might have not been the best idea to hike in a skirt, but hey… we all learn along the way. 😉

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