After quite a relaxed Easter Weekend, we travelled through Sunday night on a bus on what felt to be the most bumpy road in the World and arrived in Porto Velho. Monday was probably the most difficult day for me in terms of feeling tired and drained as I had been unable to sleep on the bus. However we were able to get some sleep when we arrived in Porto Velho and were taken to our lovely new hosts. I am staying with a lovely family who have two daughters, Amanda (21) and Andraisa (15) and their cousin, Glenda (21) is also staying with them and speaks excellent English which is a great help.
After a few hours sleep on Monday morning, we all met for lunch with our hosts at a restaurant, true Brazilian style of course, lots of meat, rice and beans. After lunch we were all taken to Porto Graneleiro, which is the second busiest river in Brazil and largely deals with the exportation and importation of grains, donning the hard hats again, we were given a guided tour. We were then taken to the Railway Museum but unfortunately it was closed but we still got to have a look around that area. In the evening, my host family took me out for dinner and we have Crepes filled with Chicken Stroganoff, this was something I had not tried before but as with everything I have had in Brazil, it was delicious!
Tuesday was our individual vocational days and in the morning I went to visit the Courts and had the opportunity to talk to a judge about the Criminal Justice System in Brazil. In the afternoon, Liz, Steve and I met at Urso Branco Prison -known for being the most notorious prison in Brazil. Although I have been to many prisons before in England and since being in Brazil, I felt very nervous about entering this one. However we were surrounded by armed guards so I did feel a little more secure. As we had predicted, we were only allowed in the lower secure side of the prison with the less serious offenders. We were taken to see the prisoners in the cells and the conditions were not as bad as I had anticipated, although as I say, we were only shown a small part of the prison. The majority of prisoners are serving sentences for drug related crimes and some prisoners have been sentenced to up to 300 hundred years in prison, however under Brazilian law, they will only ever serve a maximum of 30 years in custody. After we had visited the new building in the prison we were taken to the open, rehabilitation part of the prison, where prisoners engage with work projects and community activities in preparation for their release. We met with some of the prisoners and saw some of the pottery ornaments that they had made, which were pretty impressive. Probably one of the most surreal moments of the visit was when all the prisoners gathered in a huge circle to pray and asked us to join in. We were standing in the grounds of a notorious Brazilian prison, holding hands with a group of prisoners we had never met before, in the baking heat, praying - it is a moment I will not forget!
Well the conferenceence begins tomorrow and we will re reunited with all our friends we have met on our Brazilian travels. I am really looking forward to seeing William and Coracy and everyone else who has made our trip so special. We will be in Porto Velho until Sunday and who knows what will happen over the next few days on this magical mystery tour......
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