Visiting the indigenous communities and bearing witness to the resistance against continued colonisation has been oxygen to the fire in my puku (belly) and also extremely heavy. It has been unsettling and also a time of celebration of how the indigenous hold space and will not be moved by the pressure from modern-day colonisation. I…Continue Reading Privilege Check
After eight days in São Paulo, we travelled to Ubatuba, a coastal town about four hours away, by bus. While in Ubatuba, we had free time to relax and enjoy the beaches. We were also privileged to visit two local communities during this time. Our first visit was to the Boa Vista Indigenous community. This…Continue Reading Olá, Ubatuba!
Arrival in Sao Paulo I have currently been in Brazil for a total of 5 and a bit days, and WOW, there is much to talk about. There have been many cultural differences I could easily say I was, or wasn’t expecting, and both in equally negative and positive ways. I’d like to specifically cover…Continue Reading The City From The Outside
The idea of being tightly compressed in an aircraft for almost 24 hours isn’t appealing, but long-haul flights seem to be my thing, seeing as I developed the gift of successfully sleeping through most of the flight journey. We approach the lush greenery and specs of copper that coloured several buildings and homes below us….Continue Reading My First Impression of Brazil
On today’s episode I’m joined by Alex Johnson and Morgan Koster! We discuss some program highlights (gotta love food) before exploring our views on some of the NGOs we’ve visited and what it means to be selfless vs selfish….Continue Reading NGO stands for Not For Profit Organization – Ep 7. Tea with Tia (ft Alex and Morgan)
Hoki mai whenua, hoki mai moana This trip has so far transformed my understanding of what it means to reclaim land and story. Beyond the legal reclamation of land through demarcation in Brazil, the reclamation of knowledge and knowledge expression practices are something I have leaned into over the past two weeks. In Ubatuba, we visited…Continue Reading LANDBACK
Our fourth and final week in Mexico kicked off with a 9-hour bus ride from León to Monterrey, in the north of the country. Monterrey is in the Sierra Madre Oriental mountain range foothills, and the impressive mountains can be seen from almost anywhere in the city. This is our host uni Tecnológico de Monterrey’s…Continue Reading Forever Tec <3
The multitude of experiences, enjoyment, and excitement this trip provided for me was totally worth the 15-hour flight back home (it wasn’t pleasant). Leon and Monterrey were both crazy in entirely different ways – Leon was more of an exciting, adrenaline-inducing experience with fairs and swimming, while Monterrey was more formal with goodbyes, celebrations, and…Continue Reading el fin
The topic of this week was poverty and inequality. This week, our classes had a more practical aspect; we developed a definition of poverty and a poverty measurement tool. In these, it was interesting to see the many different perspectives of poverty and how this varied spatially. The most surprising thing we learnt was how…Continue Reading Social inequalities and a visit to Guadalajara
These last two weeks of the trip flew by so, so fast. I am so grateful to have been a part of this experience and definitely want to go back to Mexico in the future. It was bittersweet to say goodbye to all of the friends we made over the course of the past month,…Continue Reading Leon and Monterrey