Here in Florianopolis, we recently had a week of whirlwind communication in the world of local politics.  We met with the President of the Municipal Chamber, to whom we presented the organization and he pledged his support.   We were then invited to present to the local politicians at a live, televised Open Tribunal.  Dr. Marisa, Recontar´s co-founder and I prepared together and went to the presentation.  We agreed that it would be better for her to present in order to emphasize that this is a local initiative with strong medical backing.  

There were about 10 local politicians present, and thirty or so onlookers and a big TV camera filming the session.

The presentation went extremely well with Marisa presenting with all of her Italian-Brazilian passion and gusto.  The politicians pumped our hands and pledged support for the cause.  One said that he would sign up as a sponsor of one of the children. Another said that we had found the true source of happiness: helping others.     

Marisa and I left the building in a whirl of elation after agreeing a time for the TV cameras to come and film the work with the families.  Here we were, eight months after setting up the charity, sensing that we, along with many others, had helped to make those in power more aware of the needs of those who are powerless.   

Then something strange happened.

First for some necessary background … in my very first blog, I talked about the motivations that brought me, as an Irish woman, to work in Latin America. 

There are two elements of this motivation that I didn´t mention.

One is a semi-mystical motivation, that feels often more subconscious than conscious. 

When I was eight years old, I had a dream.  I had heard that a small number of rich people had all the wealth in Latin America, while the rest were poor.  In this dream, I stood on a podium in Latin America and I told the rich to give to the poor.   Everyone clapped and the rich handed over their riches to the poor. 

World saved.  Me the saviour.  Dream complete.

Over the last 11 years, since first going to volunteer at an orthopedic clinic in Peru, I have worked through some of this ego-driven mania of saving the world, significantly lowered my ambitions and allowed compassion be a stronger driver .. though my ego still raises its head on regular occasion.

The second forgotten element of my motivation was a clearly spiritual one.  As a teenager and into early adulthood, I used to say the following words in my prayers and randomly in moments of indecision and uncertainty … ´Lord, make me a hand-maiden of your work.´  I don´t know where these words came from, but they comforted me and I repeated them often to provide a sense of purpose in moments of despair.

And then as I grew older and perhaps through my time at McKinsey, international development became a profession: a results-driven pursuit rather than an idealistic, romanticized vocation.   And with that, some of the passion and the spirituality were inevitably sucked out, while more contextual understanding, more strategy and more focus on efficiency filled the void.

Back to the night of the presentation to local politicians:  As we left the presentation, Marisa and I hugged and separated paths.  As I walked downtown towards my car, I was swept by a wave of emotion as my eight-year-old dream flashed vividly before me.  I felt an ebb of recognition of the similarities between the dream and the presentation to the local politicians.

And then I sensed the honey-flow of self-realization.   

Just at that moment, I walked past an evangelical church with the double doors wide open to the street and music blaring out.   The lyrics of the music were in huge black letters on a big white screen and the congregation sang in unison.  My eyes were drawn automatically to the screen and I read  the words ´usa-me Senhor, usa-me´ ( ´use me Lord, use me´).  These words brought my teenage mantra immediately and forcefully to mind.   

This stopped me in my stride and I laughed. 

I looked up, looked behind, looked around as if to spot the Candid Camera. 

And somehow, somewhere I had the undeniable sense that a circle was closing.

It has now been six months since our first family entered the Saúde Criança Recontar programme.   

Given that the programme works with families in the most difficult of situations, over two years, I have steeled myself to seeing no clear results for quite a while.  Indeed, I have buried myself in the pursuit of a set of objective targets as sign-posts that we are on the right path – x number of families that we are supporting, x number attending regularly, x number falling out of the programme, x number of active Board members indicating rising organizational sustainability.

So when I stumbled across the first tentative impact in the life of our first family, I was caught unawares, assailed by a hefty onslaught of elation and overwhelming humility. 

Last week, I joined in one of the handicraft workshops that Recontar offers to the mothers.  Leticia and I sat opposite each-other, both bordering t-shirts with patchwork outlines of the little girl on the Recontar logo.  Over the years, I have come to accept that I have the heart of an artist and the talent of a four-year old.  So I sat there, trying to thread my needle, as Leiticia deftly threaded hers and set to work.

Leiticia* is the mother of the first child that entered the programme, whom I wrote about in my blog in March.  She, her husband and her 3 year old son have HIV.   Her 2 year old son tested negative recently, and her 10 year old son from a previous relationship also lives with them.  Her 14 year old son is involved with drug-trafficking and lives on the streets.   When they entered the programme, Leticia looked emaciated, while her two beautiful sons were pudgy and willful.  Leitica was treating herself for her illness, but often missed appointments and therefore her medication because of a lack of money to get to the adult hospital.  She was suffering from bronquitis, and her husband was in hospital with pneumonia and had therefore lost his job.  They lived in a damp one-bedroomed rat-infested basement, with her ten-year old son sleeping on an old couch.     The impression I had of her was of hardness and distrust and she asked forcefully for charity.  She wanted a new house, a mattress, more food.  At the end of the monthly meeting, she would rush outside, light up a cigarette and let out a sigh.

Leiticia held up her t-shirt for the handicraft instructor to have a look and beamed as her good work was praised.  Though just 37, her smile showed her one and only top-level tooth, rotten black, at the front of her mouth.  I smiled with her, as I tried to keep up with her embroidering and she began to talk. 

´You know´, she began, ´I have no reason to be unhappy now´.  Her words stopped me in my tracks and I put down my needle to listen.  She rethreaded a needle and continued.   ´We moved house last week´ she said, ´we are on the same road, but it is a good house, with a little yard for the boys to play outside and it is right next to the shop.  I have a neighbor and we´ve already started helping each-other with the kids.   I made my husband move from the basement, which belonged to his sister, because my bronquitis was not going away because of that damp.   I paid for the mover´s van with the money I made from the handicraft I make here.´   

´The rent is R$250 a month,´ she continued ´but my husband just got a new job, delivering bricks for construction.  He is making R$700 a month and he is on the books, so if he gets sick again, he won´t lose his job.´ 

´That´s great ,´ I smiled, looking firmly into her eyes.    

´Yes, and with the money I am getting from making handicraft, I can pay for the things my sons need.  What I need now is to get Paulo into a creche, so that he can mix with other kids and I can do more work.´     

I felt an overwhelming desire to whoop for joy but I pulled my attention back to my embroidering and tried to catch up.

Over a hot, black coffee, Leiticia told me she had been to the doctor with her son Paulo and that his tests had come back better than before.  She said that she was now taking her medication without fail, though her husband wouldn´t treat himself.   ´I was talking to Giseli last month´ she said   (Giseli is another mother who is also HIV and has two daughters with HIV), ´Giseli was saying that sometimes she feels like giving up and killing herself .. but I told her, that we have to look after ourselves or who will mind our children.´         

We sat back to our embroidery and a new mother joined us.  She is schizophrenic and is a single mother of three children, each of whom has health issues.  Her eldest son, who is 13 is slowly going blind. She talked nervously, impulsively.   She turned to Leiticia and asked what illness her son has.  With a slight hesitation, but a defiant voice, Leiticia told her that Paulo is HIV positive.   This silenced the woman´s nervous chatter.   ´I am not ashamed of saying it´ said Leiticia with a spark of vulnerability , ´look at my son, he is a healthy boy and I am doing a good job taking care of him.´   ´You´re right not to be ashamed´ I said to Leiticia, admiring her courage, ´in a way we all have HIV, none of us knows when we are going to die´.     

We continued to embroider the t-shirts and within me, my admiration for Leiticia grew.  The transformation of her life circumstances in these six months was startling.  And at the heart of this incredible change was a growing self-esteem.   She had embraced the handicraft programme wholeheartedly and quickly turned her hand to anything that the instructor introduced to her.  She had received a sewing machine as part of the programme and was starting to make handicraft at home.  Her dream was to have a little shop and she was eager to start selling handicrafts in the programme´s weekly market stall.  She was no longer asking for charity, but was running after opportunities.   She even spoke to our volunteer dentist about the chance of getting teeth implants. 

I cradled this information as I focused on the embroidery and amidst the sense of elation, a question came to mind ´to what extent was this transformation due to the programme?´   The programme had given food, and nappies, and nutritional advice and dental advice, had provided a mattress and a quilt for the family.  The programme had provided an opportunity to produce and sell handicraft products and had helped her regulate her working papers and had ensured that the children were vaccinated, attending school and that her son was attending doctor appointments.  We had encouraged her to treat herself too, providing busfare to the hospital and we had provided group and individual counseling support over these six months.  

But the transformation had come from her. 

´Do you think the programme helped your life to get better?´ I asked her.  This time, it was she who put down her needle.  ´This project is really important to me,´ she said.  ´The people treat me differently here.  I feel more comfortable here than I feel with my own in-laws or my own mother. I don´t like doing the art (art therapy) much, but I love the handicraft.  I know all of you can help me, but I know that I have to help myself too.´

I was overwhelmed with a sense of humility.  I had a huge desire to fall to the ground and kiss her feet.  I felt that she had given me the most beautiful present in the whole world.   To be part of this story, to be part of this change in her life and the life of her children is one of the greatest pearls I have ever been given in life.  And this pearl belongs to all of us involved in Recontar and ARCH.  

As I drove to pick up the boys from school that lunch-time, I felt a sense of peace and grace.

My incessant mind was of course sending out its usual doubting thoughts such as .. is this transformation going to last? Will other families have similar stories?  Are we creating a sense of dependency on the programme?   Would her life have improved anyway?   And those doubts have their place and longer-term, structured evaluation can provide at least a clearer answer to them ….

.. but for now I watched my doubts, as a wise old woman watches a child at play and I let the sense of admiration, grace and gratitude take centre-stage.

*all names changed in external communications to protect the family and children.

Looking at the lives of the families that Recontar is encountering, brings my own everyday worries into sharp perspective.  Feeling down over the frustrating monotony and stubbornness of the endless to-do list appears somewhat ridiculous when another mother is struggling to feed her children properly or being told her child has lost a kidney.

Last year, on telling a friend in Oxford of my plans to come to Brazil, she noted how helpful it would be to encounter people who were suffering more than me.  The sentiment took me aback at the time.  The idea of finding comfort in other people´s suffering was an uneasy one for me.  Perhaps at the time, the idea that anything would ever make me feel genuinely better was also an uneasy one, laced with incredulity and a low-humming guilt.

As I sit in my solid, fire-heated house on this night of cold winds and torrential rain, I do feel a sense of gratitude and relief that my boys and I are not in Maria´s shoes.  Maria is one of the new mothers in the programme, who has AIDS and two children with HIV and lives in a wooden house that would be regarded as nothing more than a shoddy tree-house back home.  So yes, there is some sense that others´ material suffering does help me to appreciate the material well-being that Alastair´s years of hard work have ensured for the boys and me.  

I acknowledge also the sense of recognition I felt when I met Cida, a mother who had gone through the programme in Rio de Janeiro and had faced the challenges of her son´s sudden severe illness, an abusive husband and limited education.   There was a voice in me that told me ´you are not alone´,  ´others suffer too;  you are not the only one cast out by the Gods.´   There is comfort in this sense of shared suffering.

My recent trip home brought me face to face with the difficulties of comparisons in the other direction.  Holidaying with a group of lovely friends and my huge, wonderful family was sometimes difficult for me. Most of them seemed to continue in the bustle of 2.4 children and a stable relationship in the land of happily-ever-after.  This intensified my own sense of awareness of the meteoric implosion of my own happily-ever-after with Alastair´s sudden death.   Feelings of ´why Alastair?´, ´why me?´ and perhaps most painfully and incessantly ´why our two little boys?´  …. rose and fell like waves of the icy Duncannon sea.   

At times, I did find discomfort in others´ lack of suffering.

So as I watch these emotions rise and fall, watch my own rejection and guilt of these most natural of feelings, I see glimpses of another truth.    It is a low, calm voice that over the last two years has become laced with Alastair´s own steady tone. 

This voice tells me that one scratch under the flimsy surface, created by my own easy self-pity, will show that everyone has a tale of difficulty and challenge to tell – nobody is immune to their own human foibles, their own mortality and their own brokenness.  

Suffering is shared but between all of us, whether in Ireland or England or Brazil, whether for the illness of a child, the death of someone you love, divorce or for the simple and unforgiving recognition of our own human weaknesses and limitations.    All suffer, just in varying uncategorizable degrees.

The voice goes on to whisper to me that it is what we do with our suffering that is more important. It whispers that through suffering, we have the chance to break open and grow, to embrace life with splashes of passion and courage that cannot be bought in self-help books or advanced philosophy or psychology degrees. 

When I think back on the families I met who had gone through the support programme in Rio de Janeiro and on many friends and family members, the most striking quality that I recognize is not now that they suffer, but their ability to survive suffering and in some cases, to blossom from it. 

It is this blossoming that settles in my thoughts.  It is this blossoming that provides hope for the families that Recontar encounters and for each one of us.  It is this that emboldens me on my path.

Recontar is now six months old and it is achieving or surpassing all of this period´s targets in the social business plan.   In a world of much suffering and struggle and its frequent companions pessimism and apathy, this international mosaic of families, volunteers, workers and supporters is creating hope.  It is a pleasure to be involved.

Here in Brazil, we are working with six families, most of whom have one or more children under five with HIV.   In all but one case, these families face not only the precarious future of their child, but also the physical and psychological debilitation of the parents themselves who have either HIV or AIDS.   Of course, these families are also low on the necessary material resources to guarantee the effective, ongoing medical screening and nutritional, housing and development support of their children.  

The one case where the guardians are not struggling with HIV is that of two year old Ana.  Her mother died of AIDS last year at the age of 25 and her teenage father is in prison.   Ana is repeatedly in and out of hospital and despite her young age, her HIV has already developed into full-blown AIDS.   When they entered the programme, Ana´s three older sisters got ready for school each day, played skipping on the street with their friends .. and waited for their HIV results.   To everyone´s relief, the older girls all tested negative for HIV in April.   

Ana and her sisters are being cared for by their aunt and uncle.   The couple also has two teenage boys, which brings to six the number of children in the family.   The earner of the household, Ana´s uncle, collects paper and cardboard on the streets and trades in bulk for small change.  

The challenges facing this family are sobering. 

Their heroism is intoxicating.

When Recontar´s social worker and nutritionist visited their home, Ana´s aunt and uncle talked of their need to initiate two legal processes – to adopt the girls and to place the house, left by the girls´ mother, in the name of the four girls.  The uncle is also an informal barber in the community and would like to open a barber´s stall near the house to increase the family income.

With your help through Recontar, we will provide this family with legal support, help them increase their income, improve their housing and nutrition and their general living conditions.  We are confident that this will improve Ana´s chance for a better life experience and a more controlled health condition.   The aunt and uncle have developed an initial plan with Recontar to make this a reality over the next two years.  

Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, ARCH has been busy raising funds and laughter in support of the families in Brazil and in Alastair´s memory.  In the UK in April, ARCH was launched with a fantastic Brazilian Night in April which brought together 160 people and raised £10,000.  Huge congratulations to Laura, Kate, Jo, Suzie, Karen, Geoff, Steve and Jim on a great night!

In Ireland,  ARCH held a wonderfully successful black-tie ball for 270 people on the 23^rd of May.   The fundraising committee, Livy, Sarah, Méabh, Alison, Bernie, David Gregg and David Gilser, Lizzy, Sita, Rich, Niamh, Caragh and Donnchadh outshone themselves. 

It is humbling that so many people put so much effort into raising funds and awareness for ARCH and that so many people paid for ´sessions in a recession´ to show their support for the families in Brazil, for my efforts here and for Alastair´s memory.     I am extremely moved and grateful – thank you.

The ball was planned to mark the two-year anniversary of Alastair´s death.  On good days, I like to think of it as the launching date of Alastair´s latest adventure.  In accordance with Tibetan Bardô (the little I have managed to read) and Irish christianity (what I sucked in through Irish mass over the years), when he comes into my mind´s eye, I envelop him in light and I wish him great joy and peace and freedom.

It is these three wonders that I myself am finding here in Brazil.  The boys and I are just ripe for completing 40 weeks in Brazil – a full term of testing the warm waters of Florianopolis.   And what we have found is a budding new life for us! 

We have just bought a house, overlooking the green sea of the Carijós mangrove and we are lulled to sleep each night by the croaking of frogs and crickets and the howl-like barks of our three semi-tame dogs.    The boys are profoundly settled into a Waldorf school and I am slowly integrating myself just enough into a local community of market-sellers, artists, local activists and exhausted parents.    

Our small battered boat has arrived in a calm and protected cove … and we are dropping anchor.

Recontar is charging ahead here in the South of Brazil, buoyed by the successful monitoring visit by Niamh, ARCH board member and fundraiser extraodinaire!    Recontar´s energy is attracting people internationally and locally to pull together to support the families and children here. It is truly beautiful.

We are now attending five families with multiple needs and challenges, with a sixth family being invited to join the programme at the beginning of May, we have our own office at last and a local group of 17 people are involved in building Recontar: one full-time staff member, two part-time staff members and the rest are all Board membesr and volunteers.  

Our office is in a commercial building in the Trindade area and the second floor corridor is a grey-walled, brown-tiled anonymous tunnel with closed doors.   The dull uniformity sobers you, until you get to Recontar’s door, which has a bright red welcome sign to greet you.  

The office is a hard-won, rented room of 30m2, about the size of my small kitchen in Sambaqui.   It is an office of local donations, from the food donations that fill the white shelves along one wall to the donated furniture - the round meeting table, chairs, office desk, cabinet and coffee-maker.  

On our notice boards, we have the timetable of home visits and monthly meetings with the families and information on our local fundraising campaigns – a walk and picnic on a hill overlooking a glorious sun-drenched beach that raised R$900, a colonial café that brought together 70 people and raised R$800 and our Easter Recontar box campaign that finishes at the end of April.  

Each morning, after dropping the (happy) boys at their pre-school, I arrive at the office to the gurgling sound of the coffee machine and the warm hugs of the Recontar staff.  The development of the organization seems very natural and organic but at times I stop, stay silent and feel a sense of amazement.   Amid the frequent frustrations and the daily need for perseverance, there is an incredible sense of something coming from nothing …a sense of mysterious creation that pulled all these different people together at just the right time, with this complementary mix of skills in just the right measure.

If I didn’t know that Alastair was using all his ‘intervene-in-physical-life’  chips on Wolverhampton Wanderers (they have been promoted ‘unbelievably’ to the Premier League!),  I would think he had a hand in it all J.

I was building a marble run with two other little boys this week.  Paulo, the older of the two, has strong willful brown eyes like Tom and he sat without hesitation between my knees and built a tower of green and blue tubes, delightedly turning the cogged wheel to watch the tower twirl.  His brother Enso was more reluctant, but as the morning wore on, he climbed into my arms, soother in mouth and willed me to walk him around the one room of ´Friendship House´.  In the far corner of the room, the boys´ mother looked wafer-thin in a plastic white chair.   Her cheeks are sunken and her body covered in pock marks.  

Hours earlier, at quarter to six in the morning, she woke up her two little boys, dressed them in their best clothes and dragged them to the bus-stop; one sleepy and truculent two year old and his one year old baby brother.  Here she started the two hour journey to cross the picture-postcard bridge of Florianópolis to get to the Children´s Hospital. 

This is a journey she knows too well. 

A journey she has travelled repeatedly in the two short years of Paulo and Enso´s lives.   She tells me offhand that she has only one more appointment for Enso, but that Paulo will be back every three months from now on.  And then she goes quiet. 

Enso was lucky; Paulo less so.  Paulo laughs as he hands me another piece of the Thomas the Tank Engine jigsaw, unaware that he is HIV positive.

Paulo is one of the first three children from the Children´s Hospital here in Florianópolis, whose families have joined the Recontar programme this month.  As his mother talks to the social worker, she talks of her other three children, one of whom at 14 has disappeared.  She doesn´t want to involve the police, because she might get him into trouble.    The family lives in a damp basement in a poor area on the peripheries of Florianopolis, where mother and father are both HIV positive and have pneumonia.  The father works in construction, but work is sporadic and the pneumonia has left him weak.  He has a hard time accepting his HIV positive status. 

Paulo is getting hungry waiting for his mother.  Morgana and I, who are playing with the children, while Recontar´s social worker, nutritionist and psychologist talk with the families,  offer him a banana and grapes.  We offer him some bread and some milk from a cup.  We make lime juice with kale, sweeten it and offer it to him.  Not unlike my own boys at times, he stubbornly resists.   He runs to his mother, who tells us that he only drinks from a bottle and he only drinks milk with coffee.   He hardly ever eats, she says and turns to him to quieten him and tells him she has a sweet in her bag.   He runs for the bag.  

Much of the food we prepared for breakfast and lunch for these families goes uneaten.  At the end of the morning, after the families have signed up to the programme and home visits have been scheduled for next week,  Paulo waves a defiant goodbye as his mother takes him and his brother across the road to the hospital, where social services provide free bottles of milk.  Cleuza, Recontar´s social worker helps carry the food basket that Recontar has provided to them and goes to call the local authority transport to come and collect them and bring them home.  

We pack up the left-over food and I bring it 100 metres down the road to Recanto do Carinho, a residential home, where 54 children with HIV/AIDS live.   Many of these children are orphaned and many more are abandoned by parents who themselves are battling with the physical, psychological and financial strain of the HIV virus. 

Childish shrieks can be heard from the playground, as I sign in the food donation.    I can´t help thinking of Paulo and the tenuous hold he has on health and family life.  I offer up a wish, silently, that Recontar´s programme provides some form of net to protect him, as his young life unfolds.

Note: Names of children changed to protect identities.

Recontar is taking on a life of its own here in Brazil.  Like the pieces of a puzzle, all the parts have come together over the last month to provide an excellent launch-pad for the core of Recontar – its work with low-income families and their ill children.

Over the last week, we have achieved two important milestones:  the first meeting of the full Brazilian Board and the official launch of Recontar.   We now have the infrastructure in place to start working with our first families this month!

On Wednesday evening, 28^th January,  Recontar´s board and two staff members met for the first time as a full group to discuss, modify and approve Recontar´s three year plan.  At 8 in the evening, ten of us met in ´Friendship House´, next to the Hospital, where we will be working with the families for the first 4-5 months.   The atmosphere was friendly and relaxed as we met to first drank coffee, eat traditional cheese bread and play a short introduction game, where each of us had to guess who had cooked for 200 people at New Year´s Eve, who had jumped off a train, who could fit their hand in their mouth .. the meeting began with laughter .. always a good start.    We then moved on to elect the three members of the Deliberative Board, the Director and the head social worker of the Children´s hospital and a British restaurant owner, who has been in Florianopolis for the last eight years.

We then discussed the 3-year plan, which each of the board members had read in advance, resulting in an enthusiastic and constructive discussion.   The Board emphasized  working with government to enhance Recontar´s scope and impact, the importance of learning as we work with families to continually refine our understanding of needs and what works in meeting those needs and stonger investment in good financial management.    With these improvements, the 3 year plan was approved by the Board.  A summary of this document and budget will shortly be available on both ARCH and Recontar websites.

The energy of commitment and excitement for Recontar´s work was enhanced at the second big achievement over the last month: the successful official launch of Recontar on 1^st of February.    We had decided to link a launch into Damien Rice´s benefit gig for Recontar here in Florianopolis.  Damien, who is only outshone in his musical talent by his talent as my friend over the last almost 20 years, had organized a mini-tour around doing a benefit gig for Recontar.  He donated his fee of US$7000 and provided us with a free space to launch Recontar before the gig. 

The launch was held in a large room with big windows looking out at the sea.  The sun caught the water in its wink and there was a sparkle to the room as the launch began.    50 people sat in a circle; staff, volunteers and Board members in Recontar t-shirts, a couple of  journalists and members of the local community, the Rotary club and local business. 

First, like a Mexican wave, everyone quickly said their first name and a number between 0 and 9 to show how much they knew about Recontar.  Damien participated, couldn´t understand a word of Portuguese and provided good comic relief for the group.   Then we moved to a guided visualization of a child in need and what they would receive from Recontar. 

The heart of the launch was in the stories told by two mothers, Cátia and Gislane, who had gone through the support programme in Rio de Janeiro.  It was interesting that they were the only two people in the circle who said they knew 9, the maximum,  about Recontar – the only two experts in the room.   

Each woman had faced crippling child illness and the fragilization of their whole lives under the strain of this illness.  Each had come to the programme hesitant to receive help from strangers and each had transformed their lives due to their own inherent abilities, nurtured and strengthened by the same support programme that Recontar will offer.   In Cátia´s own words, she moved from desperation to ´I can do it´.  Now, at the end of programme, their children´s health is stable, their income has increased significantly and their psychological wellbeing is transformed.  

There were many tears shed at their stories, and just as many people coming up to me and other Board members after the launch, to pledge their support.   

We then launched Recontar by constructing a jigsaw of the little girl in the Recontar logo – Maria Chiquinha.   Six representatives of public, private and non-governmental sector supporters provided a jigsaw piece to one of the mothers, who constructed the jigsaw, symbolizing how we, the supporters, help the family to improve the lives of their own children.    We then toasted Recontar´s launch with a glass of wine, before heading in to watch Damien´s show.    During the show, Damien invited one of the mothers, Gislane, and me to say a few words about Recontar and the service we will offer.   To an audience of approximately 1000, we summarized Recontar´s objectives and Gislane spoke of her experience.   Recontar´s message was launched further and an emerging groundswell of support was palpable at the evening´s celebrations.    Recontar was mentioned in the main paper Diário Cateriense and various online news sources and we succeeded in initiating relationships with two journalists, who are keen to accompany Recontar´s progress and provide meaningful media support.  Thus, Recontar takes its first careful steps as a recognized presence in Florianopolis.

This week has been a whirlwind of emotions, as well as a culmination of our efforts to date.  After the Board meeting and the launch, I celebrated my 33^rd birthday.  I ate delicious bread and drank wine on the beach in our nearby village with Damien and some Brazilian friends, as the boys tried to catch crabs and roasted marshmallows until they collapsed by the fire in happy exhaustion at midnight.   What crazy, beautiful world is this?

As Damien would sing it:   ´And so it is, just like you said it would be …. life goes easy on me …  most of the time.´ 

So, my friends, life moves on and Recontar is launched!   Together with each of you, my fellow ARCHers, we begin to provide support to families this month.  This dream is becoming reality.  

Happy New Year to you!  May it be a year full of belly laughter for you!

After the successful completion of the first stage of Recontar last year, including the legal process to create the Brazilian NGO  and the development and approval of the three year social business plan by Renascer and ARCH (with budgets to be approved annually by ARCH),  2009 has also been off to a flying start.

Recontar has moved into operational mode, as we prepare to work directly with the families of children from the Children´s Hospital in early March.

Morgana and I have been busy putting Recontar´s systems in place, meeting with our accountant and board member Aloisio to set up a simple accounting system from the start.  GOOD NEWS is that we have been donated a financial system by webfinanceiro.com.br which will enable effective management and straightforward reporting to donors.  In terms of HR, we are interviewing for the position of social worker next week, getting clearer understanding of Brazilian recruitment law and setting up training in Rio de Janeiro for February.

More GOOD NEWS is that the Rotary Club has confirmed that, if we require it, we can use their meeting space ´Friendship House´ once a week for the first 4-5 months to meet with families.  This space is a stone´s throw from the hospital and allows us to start our work with families early this year, while setting up Recontar´s long-term headquarters.    

The partnership with the Children´s Hospital is becoming more operational and we have agreed next steps on research on re-admission patterns and on how families will identify and refer along vulnerable families from the Hospital.   GOOD NEWS is that Roseli, the hospital´s social worker is very enthusiastic about Recontar, is joining Recontar´s Board and will be our day-to-day contact at the hospital.  

So Recontar continues on its winding path, with a determined life of its own buoyed by goodwill here in Brazil from the Board, the Rotary Club and the Children´s Hospital, and goodwill abroad, with a successful Fun Day in Ireland (well done Muir & crew!), ARCH-supporting concert in the UK (well done Beth and Steve!) and donations coming in from Alastair´s friends in the US (thank you!).   Recontar is the culmination of global goodwill that I trust will unfold as meaningful and lasting impact for vulnerable children and their families.

On that note of impact, I wanted to share with you an experience that Laura (ARCH trustee, ace-mojito-maker, Christmas-pudding bearer) and I had early in the New Year.

During Laura´s holiday in Brazil, we had the chance to get a better idea of the level of poverty in Florianópolis.   Laura and I were invited by Armando, a local doctor who works in Tapera in the South of the Island to visit the area.  Tapera is a neighbourhood with a high level of poverty, concentration of drug-trafficking, low level of infrastructure such as post office, banks, transport and leisure activities and it is isolated by the fact that it is situated next to a military base, which requires anyone who wants to pass to show their documents. Armando tells us that Tapera means abandoned house in Portuguese and its isolation suggests that it is in many ways abandoned by government and private investment.

From the research we undertook for the social business plan, we know that there are an estimated 60,000 people living in poor conditions on the island and that this number has trebled in the last 20 years. An estimated 15% of the island´s population lives in poor conditions.  

Armando spent two hours showing us around Tapera, introducing us to the team of nurses and community health workers at the local GP clinic and some of their social projects such as the community vegetable garden, managed by drug-dependants who were going through withdrawal.  He then brought us in his car to see some of the poorer houses in the neighbourhood, simple small houses made of wood with open sewage running in over-ground, open concrete tunnels, straight into the river.   Armando told us that the whole extended family usually lives in this small one/two room wooden house.  He told us of the difficulty of finding employment in such an isolated area and of the movement of families between the island and the seasonal farm work on the continent.  

It was a glorious day, with the sun glistening on the water as we drove past Tapera beach.  It  was hard to equate poverty with such beauty.  It was hard to step out of our own ideas of African poverty or even Rio de Janeiro favelas and see this more spacious South Brazilian poverty.   

But I imagined the mother in this small wooden house, with her children, her in-laws all living on top of eachother; the scrapping together of enough money each day to feed everyone; the tenuous hold on wellbeing. 

And then I imagined this same mother hearing that one of her children had a serious respiratory illness or a form of cancer and imagined the tipping of this precarious balance towards despair:  the child´s suffering itself, the endless trips to the hospital from this isolated corner of the island, the difficulty of managing hospital appointments with any form of regular work, the expense of medicines and medical equipment and travel, the child´s need of a clean, quiet place to recuperate, the competing needs of the other children.

I think of the time Tom was in hospital for a week in Rio when he was one and how the world stopped in the haze of sleepless worry, as I held his little hand through the cot.  I think of that feeling in the pit of my stomach and multiply it by a serious illness, no money, other children and perhaps no adoring father sharing and soothing the worry.  

We leave Tapera sobered in the face of precarious living.  We leave humbled and thankful for the small contribution that Recontar can make.

This 2009 run-up to Christmas is full of new life and new beginnings.  I heard this morning of the healthy and happy birth of my new nephew, Colm and Zoe´s (both ARCHers of course) little boy.  What joy! 

On Saturday, the 6^th of December, we experienced another birth here in Florianópolis, that I wanted to share with you all.  We witnessed the birth, the baptism and the celebration of the organization Recontar, that ARCH plans to support over the next three years. 

It was a glorious day and the front of our little house was full of sun and the sounds of the sea and the season´s first trickle of tourists.  Over the first hour, a group of 15 friends arrived, made up of those who will be involved in the Board of Recontar and friends who have generously and happily welcomed the boys and me to Brazil.  A mixture of Brazilians and English and Irish, relaxing and chatting, drinking a beer and being entertained by, and entertaining, the boys and their two friends Lidia and Malu. 

We sat down to witness the birth of Recontar, which involved Morgana talking through the Statute of the organization and then the assembled group approving it. This is more a bureaucratic process than anything else at this stage, and the Strategy and Implementation Plan will be discussed and defined in more detail by the elected Board early next year.  The Statute is very much in line with the Rensacer Statute (the organization we are replicating), yet broad enough to allow the criativity and innovation of the Florianópolis team to flourish.  

I spoke to propose Marisa and I as Vice-President and President respectively of Recontar and spoke briefly of our plans for Recontar and the complementary nature of our partnership.  Then our three members of the Fiscal Board spoke briefly about their interest in Recontar;  Aloisio, who is an accountant and owner of an accountancy firm, supporter of AIESEC and who will be provide accounting support pro-bono for Recontar;  Andersons, who works with many civil society organizations (including Ashoka!) through his work at Florianopolis´s first community institute ICom; and Angela, who spoke on behalf of Tânia, a successful business woman in Florianópolis, who represents the International Rotary Club.  We were all unanimously elected by a simple show of hands!  

We then moved on to baptise the newly born Recontar.  Everyone picked a daisy from a large flower pot, walked out to the beach across from our house and kicked off their shoes.   There was a magic energy of joy and celebration in the air.  We cracked open some sparkling wine and filled our plastic champagne glasses, with the sand hungily soaking up the overspill, and we toasted Recontar.   Then each of us waded into the sea and threw our flower out to Iemanja, the goddess of the sea, and made our wishes for Recontar .. healthy children, impact, dignity, honesty, work of love, happiness were some of the wishes shouted out above the sound of the endless ebb and flow of the wavelets. 

Six years earlier, Alastair and I had stood on a different Brazilian beach, surrounded by our Rio friends and had thrown flowers into the sea, making our wishes before we headed back to Ireland to get married.   And somehow, in the joy of this Sambaqui moment, it seemed like a continuation and a new beginning, as each wave flowing over my feet was new and yet the sea was eternally unchanging.  

As we moved off to celebrate Recontar´s birth with a typical meal of fried fish, rice, chips and beans in our next-door restaurant (aka my emergency kitchen), I was filled with a great sense of gratitude and completeness.  I thought of Alastair and his burning desire to have a daughter and smiled at the thought that the word ´organization´ in Portuguese is a feminine word.  As I took one last look at the sea, I offered this up to Alastair .. this, my love, is the daughter that you wanted, created by the two of us, supported by all our friends and family….

And like any child, once the celebration and euphoria dies down, the hard work begins (good luck with this Colm and Zoe!) and that child becomes its own force in the world.  As Gibran says .. the child comes through us but not from us,  and as Recontar takes its first steps, I can wish her only what any parent can wish for her child .. that she will reach her potential, that she will quickly outgrow her parents and  … God,  that she let us sleep at night J.    

Given it is Al´s birthday, this time I am starting with the personal and then moving to the professional.

Alastair was born 41 years ago today.  The boys and I made a chocolate cake last night and talked about his 39^th birthday when we were all together in Wimbledon and made a cake with a football shape on top, made out of brown and white chocolate.  I remember Al coming home around 8 from work, with tired eyes and a big smile for his two little pajama-clad boys waiting to eat his cake with him.  We have a beautiful picture of Alastair, with a boy on each knee, blowing out his candles.  His eyes, as always in photos of Al, are half-closed and he looks drunk with happiness as he holds Tom and Liam. 

It is a melancholic feeling to celebrate his birthday.   The feeling is best described by the untranslatable Brazilian word ´saudade´.   This is both lighter and deeper than melancholy .. it is a feeling that balances precariously between pleasure and pain.   

The pleasure of remembering and celebrating Alastair´s birth and life is sweet and succulent as the mangos here.  It conjures up Alastair´s presence in our little Sambaqui home; it enables me the wonderful luxury of offering him a gift of love.  It is a way of sharing Alastair with these boys that he wanted so much, as they dash headfirst into the future without looking back.

And the pain of remembering and celebrating Alastair´s birth and life is like an unforgiving knife, bluntly cutting through the beautiful bullshit.  And the bullshit is the romantic stories we spin ourselves to protect ourselves from the reality of our own physical transience – of our own lack of substance and lack of control over our lives.   The beautiful bullshit of believing the Gods are on our side and we are the invincible ones; the addictive fairy-tale of guaranteed life-long marriage and purchasable insurance against illness and death and devastating heart-break; the childish fable of ´if you work hard and treat people well and make a contribution, you will be safe´;   the reassuring voice I use when I tell Liam again and again and again that there are no monsters in life ….

These 18 months have been like licking an oddly-shaped urn in the dark, to try and understand its shape.    What is outside the urn has survived; what is within is lost.   At first it seemed like all was lost – a vast, endless urn.  Not only the vibrancy of my laughing, loving, supportive, frustrating life-sparring partner that shared my every day;  not only the adoring, child-like father for our little boys;  not only the cheeky apple of my mother-in-law´s eye …. but everything in me too .. my belief in life and its goodness and its simple symmetry.   When the bomb fell a week after his death, I remember repeating to Nikki, my sister-in-law .. this is the worst thing that could happen, the worst thing that could happen.  I stacked it up in my overly-busy mind, against every other possible disaster in my life and it ranked first. 

And then I began to pass through time and started to feel limits to this loss – feel the edges of the urn.  And there I begin to see what is not lost, what cannot be lost; beyond the evident bounty of two healthy, life-pulsating sons; beyond the welcoming continuation of my place in Alastair´s family; beyond my own health and freedoms and blessings  .. to see what is not lost of my life with Alastair;  things that death and time cannot rob us of.  And these are simple things;  the casual ´live a little´ that Alastair winked at me the day before he died when we went on the carousel without paying;  the magic of a family of four laughingly stabbing ice-cream cones on each-others´ noses; the fluttering moment of recognizing mutual love;  AND the unbeatable joy of birthdays .. for both of us they were always simple celebrations of just being alive, irrespective  of the endless wave of our successes or our failures, just pure joy of life.     And so Alastair´s birthday will remain a fixture in this Ramsay household, a joy that no physical death can erase: Alastair was born and that is good.

*******

ARCH is celebrating Alastair´s birthday in two ways.  Firstly, the Irish contingent, with Niamh rallying the troops, is sending out the ARCH boxes.  These are cardboard ARCH-logo-ed boxes that you keep in your house over Christmas and New Year, to bring Al´s memory into your home, to fill with heavy coins and crispy notes for ARCH and to use as a way to introduce ARCH to your family and friends.    Some of you have been told that you are having the boxes lovingly foisted on you, but if anyone else would like a box (or 2 or 5 to distribute to friends), please contact Niamh on niamh@alastairramsay.net.       Niamh will be collecting the boxes again in the New Year and all money will go to our work in Brazil.

In Brazil, beyond the chocolate cake, we are celebrating Alastair´s birthday next Saturday, the 6^th of December, with the General Assembly to set up the non-governmental organization that will provide support to children and their families here in Brazil.   This will include the election of a Director and Vice-Director to lead the organization in this initial stage and three members of a Fiscal Board.  It will also (alas) include my cooking in a celebratory lunch!

The first draft of the strategy and implementation plan for the organization here in Brazil is being sent out to ARCH Board members by the end of this week and will be discussed at our board meeting in mid December.   This will be developed further with the Fiscal and (emerging) Deliberative Board in Florianopolis in the New Year. 

The media launch of the NGO here in Florianopolis is now confirmed for the 31^st of January, when the wonderful Damien Rice will be playing in Florianopolis and donating his parts of the profits to the Brazilian charity.  We are going to tie the launch in around this event to attract some media coverage.

In adherence to the Brazilian tradition of stopping all non-celebratory activity from mid-December to post-Carnival end-February, we plan to start providing support to families at the beginning of March.   The three-year strategy and implementation plan will be made available online to all of you by March and all comments, suggestions, questions etc. welcomed. 

The boys and I will be in Brazil for Christmas and will be joined by ARCH trustee, and unbeatable friend, Laura Stevenson.  We plan to toast Alastair and all of you in the ARCH-clan with Sambaqui cocktails on the beach!    Have a lovely advent full of children´s magic memories and a laughter-filled Christmas!