I spent yesterday cleaning the flat and doing absolutely no knitting/spinning/fibrey things, so it’s definitely time for Part Two of São Paulo. If you missed Part One, it’s OK – you can find it here!

Again, this is a very picture heavy post. I can only apologise for the quality of the photos, we were really very busy and I couldn’t concentrate too hard on it!

I definitely think that you should get excited about what I’m announcing tomorrow – it’s a giveaway and if, like most crafters, you are a cat person…you’re gonna love it. No, it’s not an actual cat…if I had one to giveaway, it wouldn’t make it past my bedroom door!

Day Four – Churrasco

On Sunday, after the Big Ball, we were woken up after far too few hours of sleep to go to the São Paulo British Legion Annual Churrasco. I had no idea what this was until we arrived, and it turned out to be a BBQ! We set up in one of the corners, were provided with some caipirinhas and off we went.

We played some of the traditional folky stuff, and I had the terrifying experience of singing old war songs – “Pack Up Your Troubles” etc! I think that I was pretty much out of tune the whole time, but nobody complained…hopefully the caipirinhas were working their magic…

One of the kids who is in the ACER programme, Vinicius, joined us at the performance, having been taught to play the spoons by one of our band members the previous day. He was fantastically talented and it was wonderful to have someone with such innate musicality play with us. He was only 13!

After performing we were fed, and headed back to ACER for dinner in a Lebanese restaurant which was tasty – but would have been a lot better if I hadn’t been so full from lunch!

Day Five – Diadema Schools

One of the first things on the order of the day was Corrie intending to find a yarn shop! I spoke to the director of ACER about taking me to a shop I had found on Google, which was about a 30 minute drive away, and his response was “Why go all the way there? There are loads of shops that sell it here!” A little trip around the town later and I had some proper local yarn, cotton made in Brazil and much better than anything I could have got from the shop I wanted to go to as a lot of the yarn in there was imported and not actually local!

The district that ACER is located in is called Diadema, and it has a lot of schools in it. In this area of São Paulo, there are not enough resources for children to go to school for a full day. As a result, there are three ‘school-days’ – one set of children in the morning, one set at midday and one set in the afternoon. Monday was spent running up and down the road between one school and another, playing for different sets of children either in ACER HQ, or at one of their supported schools.

It was exhausting. We got really, really good at condensing our set into a smaller amount of time and the kids were absolutely enthralled by the dancing doll. This is a wooden, jointed doll that dances on a plank while the operator taps it. So many of the kids were enchanted by it, I’m pretty sure there will be a few copies of it soon as the sound guy was examining it really closely!

We had half an hour for lunch, during which we fed ourselves up on rice, beans and sausage – the national dish of Brazil, just about. I think I could survive on the food if I were ever to emigrate…! We also had a small amount of time to jam with the drumming workshops at ACER.

We had some time to pack up, then headed off to the airport for a midnight flight – JS said bye to us at the airport as he stayed in Brazil for a few days and is going to New York for work today. The flight back to Blighty was good, I slept lots again and watched some excellent films as well. The socks didn’t make any progress at all, and Kittylow was once again a saviour!

And that is it! I loved Brazil and I want to go back – especially as some of the sights that JS has seen on his trip to other places have looked incredible. I have always harboured a wish to go to the Amazon as well…it’s a good thing I’m young!

Don’t forget to keep your eyes peeled for the giveaway tomorrow!

Much love,

Corrie xx