Thank You Medina!

Goodbye Medina and thank you so very very much!

Writing this from São Paulo it is already more than a week since I said my final goodbyes to my Pink House Family at Meninadança and taken my leave of Medina.  And somehow it seems so distant already.  What an amazing six weeks.

 

 

So we said our goodbyes to the girls on the Thursday, the day when Rachel and I enjoyed our day of being treated like queens having our hair styled and nails painted.  At the request of some of the girls we each danced a few steps of our respective countries traditional dances, so I was bounding up and down doing the Scottish country pax-de-bas!  Interestingly the weeklong preparation for the goodbye seemed to have done its job of processing some of the girls’ emotions because Thursday was calm, with less tears than earlier in the week.

Our final evening in the town there happened to be a big presentation sponsored by Petrobras, where there was live music from brilliant and famous Brazilian musicians – at the persuasion of a couple of our Pink House girls I was up and dancing in front of the crowd, my third experience in Medina of overcoming my intense fear of public presentation (the 1^st the radio interview and the 2^nd the speech for the mural unveiling)!!!  Welington and Genilson and their theatre crew performed one of Cristina’s plays too.

And so all too quickly Friday arrived... Rachel and my final day was spent packing and dropping of thank you cards to various friends in the town:

 

(Left) Penha at the market, one of the first characters to befriend me in Medina, and (right) Luciano at the gym that Lauren, Joel, Rachel and I frequented until we started hanging out with the capoeira lads!  

 

Casliandia, our wonderful ever-smiling cook at the Pink House

Rita, our brilliant director at the Pink House

Aline, Cristina and Maria, the amazing educators at the Pink House.

Also Rose and Camilla at the stationers, and our beautiful and fantastic friend and collaborator Nani, plus Wellington and Shirley, both of whom came to the Pink House to drop off little gifts, then surprised and delighted me by turning up in the bus station to wait with me until my Rio bus turned up (they had just done the same for Rachel who was leaving an hour earlier to Belo).   So I left Medina with teary eyes, yes, but also a happy grin! Thank you both. :-)

 

 

Just before leaving I’d also dropped off an extra little gift to the educators at the Pink House: Munki.  Moley had become such an integral part of the Pink House Conversation Circles, being used as an indicator for whose turn it was to talk and also being used in the theatre groups, but he also had to leave the girls and head home to Lily and Amelie in London so I felt that it was important to leave someone in his place.  That someone turned out to be Munki, a slightly peculiar creature whose eyes flash and belly screeches when pressed that had the educators laughing, which boded well for his being welcomed by the girls! 

In our final moments at the Pink House Rita and the educators also surprised Rachel and I with a leaving gift, pressed into our hands while our eyes were closed:  when I opened my eyes and saw the photo and message on the t-shirt I welled right up:

The Pink House loves you! Thank you!

What a truly amazing experience sharing these six weeks with the girls and staff at Meninadança and the community of Medina. How many beautiful friendships I’ve had the joy of sharing. And what a lot I have learned, both in terms of work and adapting to a new culture and client group in tailoring activities, and in personal terms about being warm and open in sharing feelings honestly.

 

This will be an experience that I will remember forever and friends that I will always hold close to my heart.  Thank you from the depths of my being for welcoming me into your lives and communities.

 

With huge love,

:-)