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One of the new girls is eight and lives in the same neighborhood as Christina, while one of the others, who is ten, lives in the same neighborhood as Claudia.

I also have the sad news that we have lost two girls from the Bahia Street program. In both cases, the girls themselves did not want to leave; rather, it was their parents who undermined their ability to attend school and the tutoring. Claudia’s mother has decided to move herself and her children to a distant, particularly violent neighborhood to be near her twenty-year-old, drug-selling boyfriend. Claudia came to visit Bahia Street for a final time just before I left Brazil. She stood tall, controlling the tears that stood at the edges of her eyes and said to us, “I realize I am losing my future.”

There was nothing Rita or I could say or do.

Then, as she left, Claudia turned, holding up her well-thumbed workbook. “May I keep this?” she asked.

Because of these experiences, we have changed our selection process. Now we have a more focused screening of the parents. Even so, we realize that some of the girls may not have a chance to finish the program, and we are exploring ways to have as much impact on them as possible for the time they are with us. Studies have shown that both mortality and pregnancy rates go down with increased education. Thus, in continuing to develop the education program for the girls, we are bearing in mind the short-term as well as long-term effects their education will have.

On this trip Rita, and I hired another tutor, Ana, to teach the older girls. Ana is a certified teacher with extensive experience working with impoverished families in Salvador. She herself is negra, of a darker skin color, giving the girls, who tend to be dark, someone like them to look up to. She is very excited about Bahia Street, and I watched her the first day charm the older girls; she has an ability to understand what will make them excited about learning and to bring it to class (for example, Paula, who loves capoeira, has been having difficulty with her Portuguese, so Ana brought her books on capoeira to read, which Paula is now gobbling up as fast as she can).

We have been working for some time to try to register Bahia Street as an official nonprofit in Brazil and on this visit we made great progress. We drew up a set of By-Laws and Internal Regulations and the other requirements of the State, and selected a Board of Directors, which includes as the Treasurer an African-Brazilian woman who is both a qualified accountant and lawyer.

One of our interns here in Seattle, Karey, is going to Brazil to teach English to the girls. She received a scholarship from the University of Washington for this trip, and she will be leaving in the next few weeks.

Here in Seattle, we have found an office! Intriguingly, it came through someone stealing my bicycle seat and my having to go to Recycled Cycles to find a new one. There I saw the “For Rent” notice and the rest followed. The office is literally at the end of a dock. It is very cheap because it is considered a “shed,” but for me the location is perfect. The space is tremendous, and besides that, I may be able to kayak to work in the summer. I shall be keeping a nine-to-five schedule as much as possible, two days a week. Do ring before you come as I may be out at a meeting or on an errand.

I wish you all wonderful holidays, and for those of you who protested the WTO in Seattle, I hope you were able to avoid violence. It was incredible in the march to see groups for labor, the environment, and social justice all walking together and united. We in Bahia Street are working for change and social justice through providing educational opportunities and giving people a base where they can fight poverty, class, and racial barriers. Hand in hand with other groups, we do have a chance to change societies to create a better world. I wish you all warmth and intimacy with friends (and snow...maybe snow?) at this dark and contemplative