The Sprawling Slums of Rio and me in my Barra Bubble

My soul and my body becomes completely exhausted after a drive back from Nova Iguacu, a suburb of Rio where my brother and sister-in-law live. I don't realize how exhausted I am until the next day, and it's not because it's far, it's not, only about a 45 minute drive on a traffic free highway through the back side of the city center, it's the view. The view of the sprawling "favelas", thousands of brick houses, half constructed, half painted, piled on top of each other for miles and miles, over mountain tops and precociously hanging on near vertical rock faces. It overwhelms me, not like a violent feeling, but more like a numbing sensation.

My brain cannot absorb this reality. My eyes wander and trigger questions in my mind like "How can this be?, How can anyone live here? What about the children? How is it possible that 22% of the population of this city live in this squalor? All the questions remain unanswered and I shut my mind off and simply look out the car window at three little pairs of shorts hanging from rusty window bars, a huge pile of garbage strewn across a dusty alleyway, and a mom sitting with her kid on a stoop.

Back in Barra da Tijuca, where we live in a shinny tower by the beach, we greet the guard at the entrance of our building. We've re-entered our bubble, we can breath now. We can't see the favelas from here. Yet, you can't pretend that they are not there. It's not like in Vancouver where you can simply avoid going down East Hastings. Imagine if we took 1.4 million people and tried to squeeze them on top of Queen Elizabeth Park and Stanley Park without clean water and garbage collection. It's incomprehensible, right?

Well, this morning I read Tom Le Mesurier's blog, EatRio, and it gave me hope. He posted a video about the people who live in the favelas, and how they are no longer waiting for the government to do something, but taking things into their own hands to help themselves and their neighbors. This film highlights many caring, conscientious people who are proud of where they live and do a lot of good in their community. A perfect example of why favelas are no longer called slums, but "comunidades".

And like one community activist said,"When people see problems in the favela, we see solutions. Where people see misery, we see a place with opportunities." This film helped me see beyond the misery and to see a place full of hope and potential.

No Time for Story Time- Reading, Books, and Libraries in Rio

Last Friday, I found in my son's school bag a folder containing a children's book and a letter explaining that his school was pleased to announce their new read-at-home-with-your-child program. It explained the benefits of reading to children and asked parents to note on a sheet the date you read the book.

Oh, cool! I thought, a new book! And then I asked myself; Oh, does this mean that Brazilians don't normally read to their children? Apparently not. According to a study done by the  Mobilização Social da Fundação Itaú,  on average Brazilians read about 4 books a year, but only finish about two, and although 96% of Brazilians believe that it's important to read to children less than 5 years of age, only 37% read to their children.

Only 37%? It seems unbelievable! My earliest memories are bulging with books, story time, visits in the snow to the local library with my brown cardboard library card with my name typed on it, bags filled to the brim, cuddling up with my mom or my dad and reading "Red Tag" the story of a migrating salmon over and over again.  In fact, my whole life, I've loved reading books and finding a quiet spot at the library to enjoy them. Who wouldn't love to do that?

Okay, so until now I never thought about this, but maybe my family was different, maybe the majority of Canadians didn't read to their kids, but certainly the standing room only at the local library for "story-time"  would suggest that it's popular now. But maybe not. What about campaigns like the Vancouver Sun's "Raise-a-Reader" that raises funds for literacy and reading programs across Canada? That would suggest that there are lots of kids out there without access to books. It seems however a lot easier to find out how many thousands of dollars the campaign raises every year than to find out who the benefactors are. I failed to get my hands on this information which leaves me wondering, who are these kids? Children that live in remote cities or small cities without libraries? Immigrant children? Children of illiterate parents?

Back to the results of the study in Brazil, respondents in the study claimed that it was not because books are expensive or for lack of libraries that they didn't read to their children but because they didn't find reading interesting and didn't have the time. I asked a few Brazilian friends if their parents read to them, and they said no. They also said that not all primary or secondary schools had libraries and if they did, they were only allowed to use it for specific book reports.

As for public libraries, I failed to find one in our neighborhood. One article mentioned a library that opened and closed three times because of rent and space issues, and I'm still not sure if it exist, no one answers the phone and there is no answering service or website. It's sad because Barra da Tijuca has 135 thousand potential patrons. (2010)

It's seems it's also mostly a matter of class, and education; educated Brazilians of higher social standing, read and promote reading at home with their children. Because of the results of this study and others like it, the initiative "Educar Para Crescer" was launched to encourage parents to start early and to teach them that reading can only be fun but extremely important in the development of Brazilian children. Here are other interesting results of the study:
75% of children under 5 have never been to a library.
67% of respondents knew there was a library in their community, but barely 24% of them visited.
70% of respondents with books at home wouldn't frequent a library.
The Bible is the most read book by Brazilians

I've always suspected that Canadians are extremely lucky to have public libraries available to us. Think about it. How many things are free in life anymore? I contacted the Vancouver Public Library and they promptly sent me their 2011 annual report filled with interesting facts. It's obvious to see how the library is much more than a place to store books, it succeeds in reaching out, supporting, and educating the community.

•  Materials borrowed: 9,983,426
•  Number of visits:  6,523,630
•  VPL holdings over 2.8 million items (2,834,475)
•  Reference questions answered: 901,585
•  Library programs: 7,447 (with a total of 240,233 attendees)
• 41,147 Vancouver residents registered for a VPL library card
• VPL has collections in 15 languages in addition to English and French: Chinese, German, Greek, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Persian/Farsi, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog and Vietnamese
• New items added to the collection in 2011: 215,927
• 7,659 school-aged children participated in the Library’s Summer Reading Club
• 569 public Internet stations are available at branches across the city

My husband's cousin half jokes that the Brazilian government doesn't want to invest in public libraries because the people might become smart enough to overthrow them! But all joking aside, all this started with "Max and the dragon t-shirt" in my son's schoolbag, and it has reminded me again that Canadians are very, very lucky to have libraries. I miss going to the library with my boy. We've had to buy overpriced books from the bookstore and to buy them online. It's just not the same. I'm not sure what makes one culture read more than another, but I'm sure that access to books is a major part of it, so this year, be part of the 6 million people who visit the library and take a kid with you!

Reading in the nook at the bookstore.

Are You Sick of "Finding your Passion?"

How many times have I heard someone tell me "I want to find my passion." as they hopped from job to job or stayed home with their favorite friend, In Ternet. I've also wandered around in my mind hoping my passion would spring out from behind some lost memories and shout, "Here I am, your passion!" only to be disappointed by vague ideas, so vague I wouldn't even call them ideas, more like fuzziness of the mind.

It's everywhere, like a new age-religion, "Find your passion!". Oprah Winfrey, a woman having found her passion makes the big bucks off of people who haven't found theirs yet and who tune in to find out how her special guests have figure it out. Our collective obsession with the rat race and consumption hasn't yielded any happiness, just a mountain of stuff, bills, stress, weight, illness and loneliness and we wonder where the missing link is. Where IS my darn passion, anyways?

How enviously we watch from the sidelines those who have found their passion, still benched from the game. Those friends and strangers who seem full of purpose and energy, hypnotized by what they love, hardly whimper when a barrier gets in their way because stopping to do what they are doing would be ludicrous, like stopping to breathe. So how do I get on that team?

Recently I have found that I may have a couple of hours of free time during the week, so I promptly put myself to task. Okay. Let's find some passion somewhere and squeeze it in there between taking the kid to school and writing postcards to my friends. Alright, should be easy enough, volunteering at an orphanage in the slums, going back to school online, taking a puppet show on the road.  Sounds more like the same old rat race....

Passions are easier to see in others than in yourself and they hardly ever show up as a job, at least not a first. Here's a list of my friends' passions: helping pregnant women birth, making art, ideas, writing, educating kids, helping people find their career path, mathematics, running marathons, academics, wine, raising funds, supporting a family, owning and flying a plane, repairing an old car, eating healthy, singing and the list goes on. If you asked my friends, "What's your passion?" some could answer and some wouldn't know what to say. They are just doing what they've always been doing.

The tricky thing about "finding your passion" is the "finding" part, as if it's hidden far away, like it must be a hobby I've never tried,  in a country I've never been or as a result of a life-changing event that hasn't happened yet. Yes, that's it! My passion must be making cheese by hand in a monastery in a remote village in the Alps, I just don't know it yet! Well, I used to think this way, but now I think I've figured it out.

Passion is not an activity that you do, it's HOW you do everything that you do. It's not about "finding" it's about "doing with all your heart." It's that simple. Want to "find" your passion, then put more passion into your daily activities. So how do we do this?

Imagine you have to make dinner for your family. You can A- Put a frozen pizza in the oven and rip open a salad-in-a bag. Or B- You can open the fridge, look at the variety of food waiting to be transformed, you can try combinations of foods you haven't tried before, cut fruits or veggies in different way, use spices, pull out your fancy serving plates, light a candle, put on some music, crack open a bottle of wine and even get the kid involved. Option A gets the task done. Option B is full of passion. Does it mean that you have to sign up for cooking classes, go to France to learn the intricacies of puff pastry, write your own cookbook and star on your own television show? Not tonight. Maybe later, but the point is that by "putting passion" into making your dinner, you have "found your passion."

By generating your own passion and smothering your whole day with it, you will transform even the most seemingly mundane routine days. Soon some activities will shine a little brighter than others; maybe it's reading stories to your kid, maybe it's cleaning out your junk drawer, maybe it's leading a staff meeting, who knows, just keep spreading more passion onto it, take more time to enjoy it, read another story, clean the other junk drawer, throw a joke in your presentation and soon you won't be looking for your passion anymore. It will be with you always.

So what to do in those two hours of free time? I think I'll just write more fantastic postcards to my friends.

postcard perfect picture, no?

Happiness in Rio

The coffee machine is gurgling and while I wait for the coffee to finish dripping, I look out at the fishing boats floating out to sea. The surf is a bit violent today, the water is grey, the waves as long as a city block curl over, unzipping lengths of milky white foam. There are no surfers this early in the morning and I can't see the traffic or the busyness of people jogging along the beach, only the ocean and the horizon. This is my favorite morning ritual, checking out the sea.

My tutor is coming to get me. I haven't done all my homework, but I know she's take it easy on me. She drives a little black car and we give each other kisses on the cheek as I jump in. She always looks nice and happy to see me. We drive to a different location every time to do our lesson; a park bench, a coffee shop in a shopping mall,  or a restaurant in the middle of a nursery. We talk, I struggle, I want to kick my brain for stumbling over words, but she smiles and corrects me. Let's me talk. Tells me stories about the time she spent in Germany or her life with her husband and her students. I can't tell her how much these classes mean to me, more than learning the past tense or vocabulary words, because my Portuguese is too poor and she refuses to speak to me in English. I love her for that. Love her for teaching me, but also for being my friend.

I find a crack between cars parked on the sidewalk and the doorman greats me. On the other side of the school's red metal door, there is a line of tiny chairs along the wall. Moms and nannies are waiting for the kids to finish school, and even though we've only just dropped them off, you can tell that we are all anxious to see our kids' happy faces. We hear a familiar song, and here they come, all in their red and white uniforms with school bags too big for their little bodies. Short, knobby legs take off in a sprint at the sight of mom and it's a big crowded reunion of people hugging and kissing. "What did you do at school today, sweetheart?", I ask the kid as I maneuver the stroller out of the door. "Nothing!" he says with a smirk.

Because we are from the North, we tolerate the warm breeze and put on our swim suits while the natives wear their sweaters and leather boots. We are the only ones in the pool. Pedro, the lifeguard, doesn't seem surprised that the "foreigners" have arrived with their foam noodle and he takes a seat in his usual spot. In the water, the kid hangs on to my neck with his arms like a vice, a proud happy smile spreading on his face. "I'm in the big kid pool, now! Check me out, Pedro!" While I pull him around the pool, encouraging him to kick his feet, the kid tells me about his thoughts; things he's figured out in this crazy world. I think I could stay in the pool forever just to hear what he has to say. He's a funny, smart kid.

My husband is wearing his crispy pants; the ones with a pleat on the front of the pant legs, and a pastel work shirt. His hair is coiffed, and his face is shaven. He gathers us his wallet, keys, cell phone and his work bag. He stands by the door and calls out to us for a goodbye kiss and a hug. He smells good. He's off to work, full of purpose and lists of things to do in his head. I like to see him looking "official" and ready for the day. Later, the suns set early and the towers around us light up slowly. There's a waft of garlic and onion coming from the neighbors window that fills the kitchen as if I had dinner ready. I'm waiting for the sound of the key in the door, for the slightly less crispy pants to walk in and seek us out for another kiss and a hug. I say, "Wanna order pizza?", he says, "Yes" as he pours us a glass of wine and smiles at me.

The Scary Squirrel and My Social Insurance Number

Maybe it's the nature of being a foreigner in a new land, but it's been agreed, even by my native Carioca husband, that there is a much higher level of unpredictable randomness in Brazil than in Canada. These events are not calamities, but a series of seemingly "normal" events that are the cause of sudden waves of exhaustion throughout the day. I'll let you decide if I'm wrong.

A Brazilian friend of mine was walking along on a residential street in Vancouver, when suddenly a squirrel runs down a tree and stations himself in her path on the sidewalk. Having never seen a squirrel before, she panicked. What was she to do? Walk toward it? What if it attacked or jumped on her? Was she to make a loud noise and scare it away or roll over and play dead until it went back up the tree? All the while my friend was debating what to do, the squirrel was sitting there, casually chewing a chestnut and non-nonchalantly ignoring her.  Is this an exhaustion rendering unpredictable Canadian experience? Maybe it is... Let see, what about this?

-To apply for a permanent visa, I will need a passport and a social insurance number, then you come back to see me, says the friendly notary.

-Alright, we don't have a social insurance number. How can we get one?

-Well, you need a permanent visa.

My husband take a giant breath....

-I heard the notary down the street only needs a passport. Let's go there, says my slightly annoyed husband having taken the morning off work to get this paperwork done.

We walk, walk, walk... we get a number and we wait.

-Yes, I need only a passport for your application.
-Great! Here it is!
-Oh, but it needs to be translated.

We walk, walk, walk... we ring the doorbell and we wait.

-Yes, I can translate your passport for you, it will take three days.
-Okay then, here it is.

-We walk, walk, walk... get in the car and pull out of the underground parking lot when I notice some men dangling strings of shrimp along the road. Okay, then. Just in case I have didn't have any ideas for dinner. We drive across town to the international airport. We park.

The Federal Police Department is full of people waiting. We wait in line at a reception counter. Having experienced American airport security, I expect overly serious service, nervous that if I smile I will be taken away for "inspection" for suspicious behavior, but the Brazilian federal officers at the counter are dressed in jeans and t-shirts and process the line as if we were at a McDonald's. I can almost hear their flip-flops as they walk back and forth.

- Tourist visa extension? Anyone order a tourist visa extension? Mr. Enrique Pablo? Anyone named Enrique Pablo in the room?

We get a number. And we wait.

- Yes, you can apply for your visa here. Please take this number.

And we wait.

-Yes, you seem to have most of the paper necessary for your permanent visa application, but you are missing some of these documents, have those signed and notarized and come back next week.

Meanwhile next to us, a woman is talking to another officer.

-You're here to apply as a refugee? asks the officer.
-Yes. answers the woman.
-But you can't just scratch out " tourist visa" and write in refugee!"

The officer turns to his co-workers in the office and yells out to them laughing, she's claiming to be a refugee!! The woman, shyly smiles, like she kinda knew she wouldn't get away with it.

So...

We walk, walk, walk and drive back across town to the Government Revenue building which is heavily guarded by a lethargic pack of 6 feral cats. We wait in line, and get a number. We wait, wait, wait.

-Yes, you have some of the right papers, but you need an social insurance number application which you can obtain at any post office.

That was Thursday.

Friday, my husband was patiently waiting in line in our car for an "aircare" inspection, when a lady in the line-up next to her, the line up for new cars, suddenly took off, flew over a ditch and smashed into another. Unrelated to my social insurance number, but unpredictably random.

Today, we drive. We park. We go to the post office. We wait in line.

- Yes, that's right, but we don't do social insurance number applications on Saturdays because our system is down. You'll have to come back next week.

She walked away shaken, but the new car....

I don't know about you, but I'll take the squirrel any day!

Triple Bag that for you?

It's plastic bag craziness here. Last time I visited Brazil, my sister-in-law took me shopping to Mundial, a big box store with a ton of people, shopping carts and narrow aisles. At the till, a bagger, (is that what you call people who put your purchases in plastic bags?) proceeded to put each item I had bought in one bag, meaning one mango in one bag, one bottle of milk in another bag, one pack of sponges in another bag, and not only that but each bag was double bagged. I almost fainted in disbelief. Once in the parking lot with my zillion bags, I asked my sister-in-law, what the frick is that all about? She explained that the bags in Brazil are cheaply made and break easily, so all the customers insist that everything be double-bagged. I couldn't believe it! She also explained that people like them because of the counter garbage pail. Counter garbage pail, you ask? Yes. I'm not sure if this is something that exists elsewhere, but I do have to admit it's pretty handy when I'm peeling veggies or scraping plates after a meal. It's just too bad it's not a compost counter garbage pail, but a catch all for everything.

My counter garbage pail

Having returned to Brazil, I've noticed happily that they now offer "reusable" bags, you know the larger ones with sturdy cord handles, available at most markets for a few dollars. I bought four and off I went to shop! Yay! Back at the till, I quickly noticed that I was the only one with the reusable bags, and everyone else was still double bagging each item.

I was so disappointed. So there I am, unloading my cart and keeping the kid entertained, only to notice suddenly that the bagger lady had put everything I had bought in double plastic bags and THEN put everything in my reusable bags. I started laughing, I was so shocked and tried to explain that I didn't need the bloody plastic bags! She said: "But what if your bag breaks and everything rolls out?"

According to the Brazil Ministry of the Environment's "Bags Suck" campaign, in 2010, Brazilians used 1.5 million plastic bags an hour which translated to 12 billion bags a year. The three largest chain of supermarkets, which cover 50% of the market were on board from the get-go and took initiatives to reduce the use of plastic bags and to encourage customers to reuse bags which in 2010 reduced the total amount of bags by 800 million bags. Sounds good right? But don't the numbers seem insane? Even with that reduction, that's still 11 billion 200 million bags a year!

Okay, so I compared Canada and 2010 stats I got from the Globe and Mail with Brazil and divided the total amount of bags used by each country's population at that time. My questionable math skills resulted in this : That's 56 bags per Brazilian per year, and 84 bags per Canadian per year! According to Rolling Stone Magazine, each American use 500 plastic bags per year! It seems the whole world is in love with plastic bags, and there's an overwhelming amount of information all about plastic bags out on the web, but one thing is for sure, seeing all that double bagging has reinforced in me that I need to always bring my reusable bags! Just like I usually carry my water bottle so that I won't have to buy water in a plastic bottle. Oh, plastic water bottles in Brazil... oh, don't get me started!

Plastic bag drawer

Rolls of plastic bags left behind by the owner of our apartment

Plastic bag lady

Finally Curling Up with my Other Lover

If it's been your dream to read big books like Moby Dick or The Brothers Karamazov, going away to a place where you don't speak the language is a great place to do that. You may try for a while to strain your brain to understand sporatic words on the television or in conversation or even be a good student and read the paper with your dictionary, but soon enough, your brain gets tired, you become anti-social, and find yourself curled up in a hammock with your hardcover of Ulysses.

In the past, a few weeks before my holidays to Brazil, I would request from my co-workers and friends, old paperback copies of the longest books they could give me knowing there could be a small chance I would leave it behind absentmindedly on a beach somewhere; a joyful treasure for another tourist to find. With two 1000 page long bricks in my suitcase, I felt reassured I would have enough reading material since at home they would take me one year to read!

I underestimated my reading zeal with still one week of holidays to go, sadly turning the last page of my book. And like a smoker with a nicotine fit, I begin to frantically scrounge for anything written in English, at first in obvious places like hotel lobbies, and later taking a day trip out of my way to a "specialty" book store where someone heard there might be a tiny dusty English section hidden at the back, under the discounted stacks of Moby Dick and The Brothers Karamazov, in Portuguese. Yahoo! I found something! "Potato Prints, 250 Decorating Ideas for the Home!" I'll take it! Even if it costs $55.

So you ask me, why don't you just read on the internet? Yes, it's true, but sitting on a beach with an IPad or a laptop is just not the best way to "blend in" with the locals; you might as well wrap yourself in a Canadian flag, kick up your "comfortable walking tourist" shoes and wait for a pickpocket to snag your stuff while you're painstakingly trying to figure out what coins to use to pay the snack guy.

To solve this problem, Santa bought me an e-reader which connects to the Vancouver Public Library through any Wi-Fi connection and gives me access to shelf-loads of books. Imagine how happy I was about this gift, and for the first two months in Brazil, I zipped through two handfuls of books. Then we moved. And I lost the Wi-Fi connection. I tried to download books using the landline with no success; lost in weird software, incompatible browsers, in a different time zone, facing west instead of north, my computer was confused, 'is this an e-reader you're connecting or a lazy-susan spice rack?'

I tried to call the library help line several times only to be intercepted by a Brazilian operator who couldn't understand a word I was saying. My husband had written down the magic number to dial out of the country before he left on business to Miami, but of course, I misplaced it.  Finally, last night, after the kid was in bed, I was able to talk to Sara on the e-book helpline who didn't seem surprised by my troubles, and spent a good 20 minutes walking me through a zillion steps I never would have figured out on my own. Love Sara. Sara speaks English, and she helped me figure something out on my own! What a great feeling it is to figure something out on your own and not have to rely on your Brazilian husband to deal with it!

So last night, while my husband was asleep in a hotel in Miami, I curled up in my bed in Rio with my other lover, my e-book, and read until I fell asleep.

Relief in the Land of the Curves

I was happily surprised yesterday when the boy sat in his rent-a-car stroller at the mall and let me look through a few racks in a store that promised a loot of happy colorful clothes. I’ve been dying to buy something nice for myself to celebrate some weight loss, partly due to stress and mostly due to papaya-mango breakfast festivals. 

I’ve been observing Brazilian women these past few weeks. Because that's what we do, us women, check each other out and compare, right? I see these women throughout my day.

Packs of well-to-do ladies in skin tight body uni-tards, white knee-high socks, and fluorescent running shoes, chit-chatting in loud chicken coop voices while holding their Louis Vinton handbags and waiting for their kids to get out of school.

Women in subtle brand-name outfits and expensive high heel shoes trotting through the air-conditioned, professionally guarded shopping mall, waving their perfectly bejeweled and manicured hands as they pass their dolled-up babies to their nannies.

Tired nannies, and house cleaners hogging the bus stop, wearing badly dyed washed out jeans with bedazzled back pockets and tight polyester tops in colors not found in nature.

Sweating along the beach, women of all ages power-walking or running with the blazing sun in their faces, while others are playing in the surf, wearing small two piece bikinis.

They have something in common, and I don’t want to say a girly-girl vibe because that’s not it, but they are more feminine than the women in Vancouver, and it’s a bit of a mystery; a combination of what they wear and also a way of “being”.  In terms of appearance, here are some observations I’ve made.

I can almost always guess that if I see a woman with short hair that she is a foreigner, and I’ve been right so far. Brazilian women love their long hair, caressing their locks as if a cat was sitting on their shoulder. They also, no matter what social standing their might have, love to wear tight fitting outfits, from gym wear to office wear. The curves rule here! It’s liberating to see older women power walking in their bright bikinis, sun hats on, boobies bulging out and bellies out.

It’s so refreshing after living years in a city seemingly ruled by tiny size 0 Asian women in conservative golf wear. What an immense sense of ease I’ve had in trying on clothes here, clothes that actually pass over my hips and don’t get stuck over my boobs unlike the tree trunk shaped clothes in Vancouver. I've noticed that some shops back home don’t even carry size 12, because the kleenex sized 0 and 2 take up too much room on the rack.

I’ve often felt left out in terms of fashion back home, not only because of sizing being preferential toward petite asian women and pre-pubescent teenagers, but also because of what’s available; MEC, Lullulemon and even most shops like the Gap and Banana Republic sell what I consider uniforms, and in most stores, I can’t really tell the difference between the men’s and the women’s clothes except that they are smaller. Maybe that’s what happens when men and women become more “equal”; they start to dress the same?

Whenever I’ve worn Brazilian jewelry and clothes in Vancouver, I always get joyful compliments, although, one male neighbor once asked me why I was wearing my pajamas out and when I replied that these were popular in Brazil, he sheepishly apologized. (Obviously, he has a serious case of the “fashion-clue-lessitis”) But who could blame him since seeing bright colors and patterns seems to be reserved only for the ski slopes?

Of course, being feminine isn’t just about fashion, but just the fact that I’m surrounded by curvaceous women allows me to relax and ditch the “uniform”. Why can’t I wear a nice fitting dress to do the groceries? I’m happy that while I’m here, I can have a chance to rediscover my femininity; play with fashion the way it’s meant to be played with, wear bright colors, fun patterns and clothes that celebrate the body I’ve been given.

Here is a fashion show for one of my favorite Brazilian brands.

Fancy a tiny bikini for the bum that God gave you?