Itapecerica da Serra

So the past couple of weeks have been wonderful - travelling through huge cities to tiny islands around the Costa Verde in Brazil. I've now arrived in Itapecerica da Serra, a town in the mountains near Sao Paulo to start on the work of the Congress Committee for International Congress 2008!!

There's too much to write about from the past two weeks in one post, so I'm going to split it up into several and add some photos over the next week, and write a bit about the Congress Committee I'll be working in for the next 6 weeks just now.

I had a bit of an eventful journey here due to an unpredictable bus schedule! Nevertheless, early on Monday morning I caught a bus to this tiny town and found my way to the hotel we'll be staying in for the next 4 weeks. The hotel seems to be a mountain retreat for people from Sao Paulo when the city gets too hot in summer - as it's now winter here that means the days are warm but the nights are pretty chilly! They also have a riding school here with some beautiful horses, which I 'll hopefully get the chance to use once the Congress is over and we return here.

The work so far has been great - intense but the fact we're in such a peaceful place makes this OK. The team of people I'll be working with are fantastic - the core CC have made a big effort to include us and as a result we already feel really comfortable with each other only after a few days. I'm really missing my team in the UK, but the atmosphere here and the natural feeling of the team makes me certain I'm doing the right thing here - this conference has so much potential it's overwhelming and I feel so lucky to be a part of it. At the moment we're waiting on the teamsters arriving (15 of us will be joined by another 40 on Monday!) and preparing as hard as we can for that, as well as catching up on all essential information, making plans and coming up with ideas!

Yesterday we took the afternoon to go to a Buddhist temple in the middle of nowhere in the mountains outside of Sao Paulo, and spent the sunny afternoon playing games, soaking up the atmosphere and feeding the ducks! At the weekend as well as a lot of preparing for the teamster arrival we'll be going into Sao Paulo for the July festival parties at Sao Paulo's most famous, award winning samba school. On Sunday we'll try and drop into the local Rodeo and see some cowboys and famous Brazilian country and western singers!

Am very excited about the coming weeks!