Guapiacu school visit pictures

We spent 11 days at REGUA, an ecological conservation area in the severely depleted Atlantic Rainforest, 80 kilometres north east of Rio de Janeiro.   It's managed by Nicholas and Raquel Locke, and while we were there, we enjoyed a couple of afternoons at the local school that Raquel helped to establish when her children, now in their twenties, were at primary school age, so that they could get a good education locally.

Louis and Frankie were a little overawed by all the attention at first, but quickly settled, helped no doubt by the very warm reception from the children there.  Quite frankly getting them to attend school in August in the first place was quite an achievement!  We started off in a classroom of children aged between seven and nine where Louis and Frankie told the other children their names and ages, and then repeated in Portuguese, as best they could, the other children's names as they went around the room.

We showed a few slides that gave the children there a picture of life for the boys back home - their school, their friends, the sorts of activities they do - and this gave Louis and Frankie a chance to briefly share a little about their lives (fortunately all translated by Raquel as their English was about as non-existent as our Portuguese!)

There was plenty of time in the playground on the first afternoon and then after a healthy school lunch, they shared a game of dodgeball together, which Louis and Frankie picked up pretty quickly even if Jules and I, although we watched, couldn't quite grasp.

The second afternoon was back to back games for our boys, playing with two separate classes in the playing field - a large garden belonging to a kind neighbour 100 yards down the road.

The Brazilian children were absolutely lovely, and it was amazing even though they couldn't speak a word to each other, you saw camaraderie and friendship emerging even in that short time.  You also witnessed at grass roots level why Brazil have won five World Cups and we've only won one......

Here are a few of the pictures from the school visits.