Finally, the tour everyone has been asking for!

So I have had some requests to see pictures of where I live and what the places around me look like. In the past couple weeks I have been making more of an effort to take pictures so that I could get up a post to show everyone. So here ya go! 

 My Home!

View from the front balcony

A view of the street where a little girl is on a gas powered mini motorcycle that is way to small for her... 

The "office" like room where I do my skype calls (: 

The same room looking towards the balcony

Edson and Isabel's Room 

Hallway from Edson and Isabel's room to the bathroom, Armando's room, and mine and Laryssa's room

Armando's room (typical 14 year old boys room)

Our bathroom...

View of mine and Laryssa's room from the door looking in. My bed is on the far wall, and that little closet like thing with 3 drawers is mine too. I still use my two pieces of luggage to store a lot of my stuff. 

Laryssa's closet (I want one like this!)

View from our window.
To the left of the orange brick is the next person's house.

More from our window. 

The living room

Other view of the living room.

Pretty art hanging on the wall. 

My Walk to Work (aka the Church)

Busy morning street. 

McDonalds (EVERYWHERE)

Street vendors about to open up for the day. 

Drug store.

Graffiti everywhere.

The street to the Day Center-Almost there!

One of the only houses I see around this area that has any live vegetation for pleasure. 

The outside of two nicer homes (every home has gates of some form or another). 

I made it!

Fresh new graffiti! 

Favelas We Work In! (all but one of which I haven't gotten pictures of yet)

First, Iguatemi. We go to Iguatemi every Tuesday. A little history about the community: the people who live here used to live near the Day Center, but when the community became too over populated and would take way too much time to clean up, the government decided to build in a new area which was at the time just farm like land and then relocate the families to this new area. They build apartment like buildings in different "blocks". Each block now has a "block organizer" and are completely gated/surrounded by stone walls. For the first year there was no school for the children to attend, so they ran around the streets doing only God knows what. There was a lot of violence and drug problems, but once they established community organizers this has become better, though it still is a favela. 

Just stone buildings that go up for many floors. 

A water tower. 

The Iguatemi childcare facility. 

Kids just hanging out in the streets. 

Garbage... 

Garbage....

More blocks, and the school to the left. 

This is where Leticia lives. 

Kids playing soccer inside of the block we do Agita's and English classes in. 

What the gates look like to get into each individual block. 

Kids being kids (: 

I love that this is where they hang their clothes, yet I still see Jesus alive here! 

The next one is Promorar on Wednesdays. This favela has 6 different levels, and we go every other week between Promorar lote 2 and Promorar lote 6. We do Agita outside of one houses in lote 2 that houses an insane amount of drug buying/selling that I have seen.

  

Our sweet ride (;

Street signs seem to be rare, but this is what they look like...

Outside of the covered area where we do Agita in lote 6

The view down of the other Promorar levels

This is everywhere...

....another one. They are just everywhere.

Stray puppies...

 The last favela I have pictures of is  Vila Rosa (pronounced Villa Hose-a), where we work on Thursdays, and it is the most poverty stricken, drug infested, smelly favela that we work in. I think the pictures are pretty self-explanatory, but I will mention that this favela is just 15 minutes away from the Day Center....

This day I walked down this ally a few times, everytime I had to pass by a used condom on the ground. :(

Somewhat paved streets....

A lot of these homes are made out of odds and ends pieces that they can get their hands on. This door is not being used as a door but rather as a wall. 

Dogs poop in the middle of the streets, HAVE to watch where you are going ALWAYS.

The main streets are paved, but once you get back into the neighborhood they are all like this. Broken tile , remains of all sorts of stuff, and puddles of yuck. 

Trash everywhere. 

Another house made out of random pieces. Kids running in the "streets".

The source of stink... not sure what all makes it into this "creek" we will call it, but crossing over it is the worst part. You might be able to see the two horses out there too, I have close ups next.

Outside someone's home. 

Outside the fence where we do Agita.

Ducks are ugly everywhere... (;

Cats laying outside of someone's home. 

Last Thursday we spent the day doing home visits. In the afternoon we went to see these women whose children come to Agita and camp with us. the one in the middle (the tallest) paints nails for a living. The cost here is R$ 15 for a manicure and pedicure combo (she does a great job! As we visited she was doing the lady on the right's nails)... That is US$ 7.50. We talked about the costs of different things, like hair, nails, clothes, and childcare/babysitters. They were blown away with the difference in costs. 

What are some responses to these pictures? Comments? Questions? I hope they help you think about how spoiled we are, and how little we really could live off of. I would love to hear some of your responses, though I didn't post these pictures to make people feel bad or anything like that. People asked, and I finally got some up!