Teaching in Ludwigshafen, Germany

I love my students in the BIP program in Germany. They are bright, motivated, charming, professional and energetic. I also really enjoy my hosts, Kathrin and Gerhard – we enjoy meals and wonderful conversation every time I visit (think I started these annual trips, which are now twice a year, in about 2004).

I tried to find some paper cups for doing a taste test in class but could not find any at the local stores. I know they exist but I couldn’t find one on my hunting trip. Germany is excellent at recycling and I rarely see a paper cup for anything, even in restaurants. We have to separate our garbage by paper, plastic, and refuse/other. There are no trash landfills in Germany.
This year I taught brand management and this is the view of an old water tower from my classroom. One day we heard a lot of cheering outside and discovered that the winner of the German Idol competition was at the radio station in the same building. A crowd amassed to catch a glimpse of the star as we tried to stay focused on class.

Wrapping it Up

Here we have the Cuidad de Samba, where they are building floats and costumes for Carnival 2011! You can see the prototypes in miniature and then a costume. The floats are gigantic.

Buildings of Rio Centro. The one with the gold is inside a beautiful church. The downtown is an interesting mixure of old, colonial buildings, and new structures, with Dallas Texas style fully glass exteriors.

I post these sitting at home after 24 hours of travel -- 14 hours in the air. It was a great trip, but not entirely as expected. Rio is a modern city and it is easy to see why Brazil is expected to be a fully industrialized nation soon.

Over and out from the weary travellers, Cyndi and Judy.

Street Scenes

Last day in Rio...we spent much of the past few days with our fabulous two new Russian friends, Sasha and Leyla (who live in Berlin and Moscow both).

We came across this wonderful woman, dressed in carnival attire (on the trolley). She was starring in a music video for a band from Estonia.

Saucy Samba

Saucy Samba! Here it is in the Manguiera Samba School and on the street in Santa Teresa.

Rio Favelas

We booked a tour to the Rio favelas for Monday. We almost missed it because, well, we are now in such vacation mode that we thought it was Sunday today :-). We were on the beach, and I came back to the hotel briefly only to be told the tour guide was waiting for us (5 minutes after the tour was to begin). Oooops. So I ran to the beach to get Cyndi and we went on the tour in bathing suits / cover ups - no biggie because the bikini is standard attire in Rio!

What an interesting tour. There are over 500 favelas in Rio. These are densely populated villages of many multi-story buildings sharing common walls. We went to Rochina Favela, where about 95,000 very low income people live in 1 square kilometer of space. Our tour guide told us that three drug gangs run several of the favelas. If a resident steals something they cut his/her hand off, and on second offense kill the criminal.

The Brazilian government has worked to drive out the drug lords and clean up the favelas.
Brazil is a "big emerging country," one of four - (BRIC --Brazil, Russia, India, China), and the guide explained that this income and social division between the favela dwellers (20% of the Rio population) and rest of Rio is the only thing stopping Brazil from becoming a fully industrialized nation. With its winning bids for both the upcoming Olympicas and the FIFA World Cup and its desire to move foward in the world economy, the government is working hard to clean out the drug component and improve the favela infrastructures.
In our tour we saw some evidence of progress - better services, such as trash removal/internet connectivity and better education for the residents.
Of note, the guide said that the USA is the biggest customer for Brazil's drugs (that come from Bolivia, Chile, and Colombia). How can we in the US be critical of drug providing nations when we are the biggest customer and can't even control our own consumption of illegal substances? This is an interesting problem.

This was a fascinating tour and we felt welcomed by the favela residents - except that we weren't allowed to take photos in the favela run by drug lords. We saw no machine guns and saw lots of children on computers in a school and some public service projects to improve living conditions.

Santa Theresa

Lovely Santa Theresa - a hilly town near downtown Rio. We first braved the Metro (efficient underground public transportation) and then took a cable car to get up the hill to Santa Theresa (only R$ 0.60). We saw street performers, crafts, and lovely houses and fauna. We also saw some great art from recycled materials - a theme throughout Rio.

Samba School

What a trip! We met Fabio on the beach (the handsome man pictured with Cyndi) - he is a very happy "starving" artist living in a Rio favela. He offers to take us to a Samba party in deep Rio. It is the Manguiera Favala Samba School, and they are practicing on Saturday night in a huge warehouse for the upcoming Rio Carnival. How lucky to be invited by a local to this exciting event. It is kind of scary to arrive in this poor area of town but it is so lively and we trust Fabio - thousands of people packed in the streets with makeshift bars and the same number inside the warehouse. The party started at midnight and went until 4 a.m.... but one of us could only last until about 2:30 a.m. :-). Wild, fun, real Rio.