an outdated update =)

So what has been happening these two months or so since my last posting....here is an outdated update =)

* Three great friends visited São Paulo - Brenda (Canadian living in Singapore), Maria (Spaniard living in London) and Mel (Aussie living in New York). It was wonderful to reconnect with old friends in a new environment. It somehow seemed surreal as well - sharing great moments and conversations with the same people in such different places. Each of these friends is inspirational in a different way, but with a common spirit of adventure and sense of self - felt like part of the foursome on SATC.

* AIESEC's 60th anniversary - Alumni Congress...what a great coincidence that this momentus occasion was celebrated in São Paulo. It was special to be in such an amazing environment like International Congress again but it was quite a different experience to have the VIP treatment as an alumni instead of a normal old member. The fact that AIESEC is celebrating its 60th anniversary was a great reminder to believe in the power of individuals to create something great. There was a huge open space and I took part in one conversation that I found really motivating...it was hosted by an AIESEC alumni, Henrique Pistilli, and the conversation was based on Aristotle's phrase, "Where my talents and passions and needs of the world collide, therein lies my vocation". It was a great provocation and since the conversation I have been reflecting a lot about these elements...I realised in these reflections that there are several things I am good at and passionate about that I would like to combine somehow into my vocation - homestay experiences, tourism, sustainability, diversity, hosting and facilitation...and I am currently on a search to find ways to connect them...any suggestions welcome =)

* Mostra Film Festival: this year was the 32nd International Film Festival here in São Paulo...I have no idea what the critics loved and hated, but since there is such an overwhelming choice of films from all over the world, I more or less chose my films by their time and location, which had a pretty good success rate (apart from those weird, free short films!)

I saw two great documentaries, "The End of Poverty?" and "The Day after Peace". Both were very moving and about very important issues. "The End of Poverty?" is kind of like a history lesson on how we ended up in this current mess of poverty on the planet, starting back 500 years, and what perpetuates it today. I could feel my blood boiling as they showed statistics like the cost of reducing world poverty by half = 4% of the US annual military budget...and then I thought of how the world is managing to come up with these rescue packages in the hundreds of billions to help save the people who already have money on the stock markets!! Why don't we feel and act that the systemic poverty of most of the world's population is also a financial crisis worthy of such attention??!!? I really liked the film but one thing that was missing for me at the end was some kind of list of suggestions for the ordinary viewer how we can make some kind of difference on this issue. "The Day after Peace" was also really inspirational about one guy's efforts to create at least one day in the year of cease fires...at first it sounds like a bit of a wank, like what difference will one day make? But as he says, if we can't manage one day of peace, how will we ever manage 365 days? And the film showed how much great humanitarian work can be done when the bullets and bombs stop falling.

Triinu and I watched another documentary, "The Children of the Pire" which was quite disturbing...it told the story of young boys who work at one of the famous cremation sites in India, helping to make sure the corpses burn (and stealing the funeral shrouds as a way of making extra cash). Very sad.

* Aryuvedic Health weekend: spent a weekend at the Visão Futuro eco-village, learning about Aryuveda and doing some cool treatments, like face mask, 4 handed-massage, yoga and meditation. Once again was great to get out of the city and back to the beautiful park. I found this holistic Indian science very interesting, but am not sure what I think about Aryuveda yet, trying out some of the recommendations for my body type, but having trouble with some of them (EX not eating cheese!!!!), but as Brenda says, I should focus on what I CAN eat =)

* Internations: there is a social networking site called Internations which has been organizing some cool events here in São Paulo. It is a really nice mixture of gringoes and also Brazilians who have had international experiences and want to maintain their networks. It is really interesting to see the culture shock cycles visibly happening amongst the people who go to the events, and hear of people's experiences and perspectives depending on where they are in the cycle ;)

* Gross National Happiness: there is a global movement which is starting to change the way we measure development. What if instead of using the one-dimensional flawed indicator of only economic development (Gross National Product, which for example increases when a country is at war!) we used a holistic, multi-faceted way of measuring and encouraging development that took into account economic, social and environmental factors? The tiny Kingdom of Bhutan is already doing this and the Visão Futuro eco-park organised the first Latin American Gross National Happiness Congress recently, and I went to one of the lectures where we heard about the Bhutanese and also Canadian experiences with this work. The presentations were all very impressive, but the thing that was most convincing for me was simply to look at the face of one of the Bhutanese delegates who was sitting at the first row in the presentation - I have never seen or felt such a personification of serenity in my life!!! It was amazing!! I was captivated by the happiness that he RADIATED from his every cell!!! It made me start to think about my own GNH and which indicators we use as individuals to measure our "success"!

I did a small surgery a couple of weeks ago which went well and now I am back at work after two weeks of sick leave to recover. Thanks for the well wishes and to my friends here who visited me and kept me company and the friends abroad who sent me positive healing energy =)