e nós também...

i actually wept when i looked into the eyes of the girls tonight when i said my last goodbyes. i cried because in my head i just kept thinking YOU DESERVE SO MUCH MORE THAN YOU ARE BEING GIVEN.

i think mom knows what i mean, as she came and visited the girls twice. they are just so dang rad, and have so much going for them, and yet have been so utterly smashed by their families and communities and even at times lua nova itself. my esteem for these moms has just skyrocketed since september, and i feel like any and all respect for lua nova as a functioning organization has just plummeted. and for this i weep for the girls, because again, they deserve so much more than the halted, disorganized and scattered care lua nova provides for them. if any of them manage to overcome their addictions and turn their lives around, credit must be placed squarely on their own shoulders - lua nova provides shelter and employment for them in the process (which of course is no.small.thing.at.all), but so little else. so little therapeutic care or direction or just plain ol' love and respect.

and so i weep thinking of what will become of the girls here now, just as i think daily of dear suellen who ran away, of larissa and alessandra and vanessinha... oh! neal maxwell once said... 'compassion is important, but it can readily degenerate into the kind of pity which immobilizes us in terms of our ability to really help one another'... i remember reading this shortly before i went to mozambique back in 2004 (!). oh how he hit the nail SO SQUARELY on the head it's not even funny. if there were any sentence to sum up my time in brazil it may just be that. i love these girls so dearly, but would so often be utterly immobilized in the extent of my frustration on how to effectively act on that love. (don't we all feel this way at times?)

i would be frustrated not only by lua nova's incompetencies, but mostly my own. the best days were simply those when i could trudge through the hour bus commute with these totally pointless doubts and negative thoughts swirling in my head and just arrive at aracoiaba and be with the girls. work through my paralyzed mind. realize and accept the fact that yes, there are 10,001 negative influences and people in these girls lives that i cannot control, but i can control this time i spend with them. i can own that time, and simply pray that it in some way rubs off into the other 95% of their lives.

'to look life in the face. always, to look life in the face and know it for what it is. at last, to know it, to love it for what it is, and then, to put it away.'*

so i am putting away brazil as i fly off tomorrow, and it tore my heart tonight to realize that in putting it away i no longer can have these beloved conversations with this beloved group of moms here in this corner of sao paulo state....

...ai ai... fiquem com Deus, meninas!

beijos,

ju.

*from the hours.

beginning of the leaving scenes

toni and i are truly quite torn to leave our very first little home as husband and wife, even if it is a shack with semi-functioning plumbing and multiple cracks large enough to see outside through... but it's our first home! we have been so utterly happy here....

dinner set for two in nossa cozinha da casinha.

we will also be really sad to say goodbye to dear friends we've had here. today our semi-adoptive brazilian family took us out to the country outside sorocaba to see some RAD 200+ year old buildings in this gorgeous park-cum-lake. it was absolutely fabbbbulous. history! beauty! hilarious company!


aaah.... this picture is such a perfect expression of the matriarch of this dear family. they have all been so kind to us, doing absolutely everything they could to make sure we had a home and furniture and love. with the occasional pastel or pao doce thrown in. what would we have done without them all, truly?

madness to think of it all ending so soon - so soon!!!

leaving again

i kinda feel like the last 4 years of my life have been a series of leavings...

i left oxford (oh sniff)
then i left DC (i'm kind of ok with that one)
i left new york (sniff sniff)
i left berlin (sniff!)
i left brazil (visas!)
and now i'm leaving brazil AGAIN. (BLERG VISAS)

toni and i, especially now that we're hitched, are sort of keen on just arriving and BEING for a little while. you know? to have a kitchen where we can buy pots and pans. and have shelves to put books on. and not always be wondering if we'll fit under luggage weight restrictions. all this luggage schlepping is why i have not bought new clothes since before oxford (i do not kid).

BUT the good news is that all worked out beautifully: toni got his exams changed, we're almost completely done in the (semi-)refunding-previous-flights-purchasing-new-ones department, and i'm off to araçoiaba today for some good time with the girls. i just can't believe i have so little time left here with them. all those feelings of guilt on not having done enough just skyrocketed like crazy.

sigh.

BUT for your information: toni will be stateside on april 28th, i'll join him there may 15th (have i mentioned i'm going to ghana and then canada to present at back to back conferences? um, amazing. i'm beyond lucky and ashoka is beyond generous).

see you all SO SO SHORTLY OH MY GOODNESS,
joojie.

oh blerg

looks like my brazilian visa didn't get it's second extension (super surprised, but then again since this is brazil! no, not at all surprised), so looks like all my and toni's plans are UPENDED and we are leaving brazil in 2.5 weeks. tons of mixed emotions! the girls! the end of sorocaba! reuniting with family! the girls! omg all the changed flights and various fees and what-nots! (sic?)

2.5 weeks!

well, i am out of here for sure. or else i will have to sell my soul to the brazilian police. toni my beloved husband of just 2 weeks (today! our 2 week anniversary!) is still up in the air and PLEASE EVERYONE PRAY that the london school of economics lets him take a round of tests in the US rather than sao paulo as he originally said, or else he will be here for ONE FULL MONTH ALONE.

noooooooooooooo! no! no!

but here's hoping!

gaaah!

you think you know happiness...

...and then you run off to new york city and get married to your dear german at city hall and then spend a week frolicking through the city and truly! how the level of bliss has just grown and grown!

toni and i are married! we are married! married! mar.ried.! ! !


we realize it came as somewhat of a shock to 98% of our general acquaintance, but this was to be expected as we had told only our families and a (literal) handful of friends of our plans. it made that tuesday at city hall feel so intimate and wonderful, and then we were so so excited to burst with the news afterwards to the world. (and boy did the world respond in kind - heavens how wonderfully kind people have been to us!)



are there words to contain all the feeling? heavens no. deliriously happy/bursting at the seams/absolutely ecstatic doesn't come close.

love!!!,
toni&julianne
:)

one very long photo journey from rio to ilha grande to paraty! yay!

p.s...

sorry to just add more sorrow to the web... so i thought i would try to balance things out and say that if any one is looking for the all-too-rare super-legit-really-GOOD news these days, i will have just such a piece for you in just 2 weeks time! yay! i can hardly wait! :)

managing tragedies.

hello to the world! here i sit with wireless (!) at lua nova's downtown office in sorocaba, unfortunately one of the only options either toni or i can manage to have any connection to the outside world. we have no internet between us, and with this and that and this and oh that too happening around the world, it makes us feel so horribly cut off. with no internet, no phones that work internationally, and no tv, we just have our own little bubble of sorocaba/araçoiaba to deal with, wondering how everything and everyone else is coping...

it can be so disconcerting to feel so helpless AND far away with intermittent connection, but things get even more disconcerting when your own little bubble has it's unique little tragedies to manage as well. (as is the case for everyone, no? see: philo of alexandria quote to the right --->)

in my case, the tragedy is this mad organization. truly, lua nova is a train wreck. 4 girls have run away in the last month, one girl in particular who i was very close to, and the thought of the life that they have chosen instead of persevering through the halting care at lua nova's shelter is heartbreaking and makes me worry beyond measure. where are they? what are they doing? how are they surviving?

it's just so awful to see how much the girls - the very community lua nova is supposed to be surviving - suffer from the huge weaknesses of this chaotic NGO.

alas.

in any case i'm off back into brazilian anonymity - one last visit this week to the girls out in araçoiaba before dipping further into anonymity for the next 5 days where my only goal is to show mom a good time down here in the tropics - heat and chaos notwithstanding :) yay! a visit from the outside! :)

até mais, pessoal!

beijos e abraços,
jooj.

*this is a picture of dear suellen, the girl who most recently ran away. bah! she is so great! oh! suellen, be safe wherever you are!

this breaks my heart...

such tragedies are just too much to take! i think everyone who reads this blog reads leslie's, but just in case you didn't see this about an old family friend, do consider helping!

beijos to you all.
jooj.

i didn't fully love brazil until i went to rio

and oh what a place it is! what contrasts and extremes! while the beauty is seriously beyond belief, i couldn't help but remember that back at work in aracoiaba were over 40 young moms who are recovering from the kind of drug-war-frenzied environment that are brazilian favelas - those rough communities you see climbing up the gorgeous green mountains from rio's perfect beaches. being in rio reminded me so much of being in cape town - you pinch yourself at how delicious the life can be! at how yummy the food is, how gorgeous is the architecture, and stunning beyond stunning is the landscape and history and culture, but then there are the cape flats. then there is cidade de deus.

not to say there is no beauty in the favela, and no horror in ipanema or leblon - it would be awful to say that they are these polar opposites with vicious residents in one and perfect residents in the other, of course the contrasts are more nuanced. but they are there for sure - constant and everywhere.

also constant and everywhere: absolute and full-blown celebration. ohmygoodness. i loved it. LOVED IT. not only is rio drop dead amazing on its own, but carnaval! what! never have i been in a place that embraced such pure and absolute enjoyment - all through 24hour dancing, parading, and singing in the streets. it was hilarious and crazy and so so fun (and safe, mind you!). i didn't want to leave!* how fab to see something else in brazil besides little sorocaba! so much to learn, so much to absorb!

oh rio oh rio... deixei a ti o meu coracao...

but enough talk. here are some videos of the carnaval street parties toni and i went to. keep in mind that the first video was taken at 8:30am saturday morning. the party is literally 24 hours. rain or shine. amazing.

*did i mention that mom comes here next tuesday?! and that we are going back to rio with her? oh heavens i am so spoiled. and can.not.wait!!!!