I am not writing since a while. Sometimes I just find that I should not write so much because some of you might be overbooked with so many words!

Anyway, here I am trying to compensate the last months without posting anything!

I am typing these words from my old bedroom at my parent’s house in São Paulo. The sensation of been a guest  at your own house is kind weird, but this still part of the changes promoted almost one year ago.

View from Ibirapuera Park - South of São Paulo City

On 15^th of December 2010, I got a phone call with the message “Christmas came earlier” and I have to say that Christmas never ended since I have been receiving a lot of blessings every single day of my life.

Before leaving Geneva I had an evaluation with Johan about my performance and I am very, very happy with the outcomes as well he seems to be by showing great appreciation for my work.

I also take the chance to celebrate the good relations I have with our family at 12 Clos-Belmont!

My last post described my travels to Asia and Pacific and since I was back from there, a lot of things have happened. September, October and November have been crazy months with many things to do and some changes.

I left my old flat and moved together with Luiza and Oliver to a new house, their new house, where I will be until end of January. This move was a mix of many factors and very appropriate given all practicalities related to find a new flat, save some money and also help my good friends to take care of their new property once they were traveling for a long time.

From the right, Luiza and Oliver - My house mates

I’ve been investing, since October, in diet and exercises to recover from the time in USA and my holidays and as well to be prepared for Christmas and New Year’s Eve with all food my family would prepare and make me eat to show their appreciation for me to be back.

So far, I have lost almost 9 kg. I will make my best to keep it like this once the doctor also advised to do so!

This is only an illustration!

When I was back to Geneva, my intention was to be really closed in the office to invest some quality time in very important projects we are undertaken, but it took just one week for me to fly out again and visit my loved YMCA of Germany for the meeting of YMCA Universities. As usual, I had good and productive time, meet very interesting and inspiring people and had the opportunity to meet some good friends, especially one of my newest ones, Basti, from the great Treysa, a place probably unknown for most of you!

More or less on the same time, I started volunteering to the YMCA of Geneva and, supporting some other friends, we started a youth group. So far things are going well. We had already two good meetings with more than 30 young people each.

November had also a special guest from Germany, Steffi, a YMCA friend that I know for almost 10 years, and have been in touch frequently. We had a good time together visiting Geneva, watching movies, eating, riding bikes etc. Her visit also brought me back the boomerang lost weeks before in the threes of the backyard! She was able to see the object up in the three!

I forgot to say that we went to a concert of James Blunt and it was great!

December came and with it a great visit to Northern Ireland to participate in a meeting with young leaders from the 4 UK countries. The sessions were very good and we also had time to visit a pub where 10 or 12 of us danced, talked and had fun. There were also some “moments of panic” when my friend Robbie and I were “attacked” by senior drunk women and the men, whom stopped kissing his girlfriend and came to check out my abs. Yes, he came from nothing and pulled up my t-shirt to see my abs!

View of the Irish sea

I took all of it very easily and in a fun way, reason why no therapy is needed.

The week after I spent in NYC at UN and with some other side meetings. The time was very productive and I was very happy with my participation during the specialist’s panel. I think they will invite us again to attend!

NYC was beautiful and chaotic as usual, but for sure, more empty than normal, I believe, because of the economic situation. I could not say that I was not happy because the prices were very good for Christmas shopping!

The work year was over and I was all about get the flight and arrive in São Paulo, what takes us back to the first paragraph of this post.

I wish to you a very blessed year in 2012!!

It will be as good as your whishes, work and some luck allows!

Romulo

It is funny how life brings us to certain moments. For almost 10 years Andi and I have been in touch after our participation in the YMCA World Council in Mexico, back in 2002. Wow… that’s a long time!

It was not possible for me at the time to communicate with him given my English limitations in that specific moment, but it did not stop us to keep in touch with the help of another friend, Marcelo, whom you will get to know in the lines bellow.

The wedding was such beautiful moment and I have to say, kind YMCA event. The YMCA kids were there to sing in choir, friends from the YMCA scouts helped with the organization of many things. You could find lots of them with uniforms around the church and even some kind of scout’s tent for the guests to walk though.

The ceremony started 13h and went the all day long with lots of celebrations and a great dinner full of games and activities. Even not understanding most of the things, especially jokes made in original swiss-german, I had lots of fun especially because of the nice people around me and also some friends introduced to me couple years ago in a joint activity that Andi organized back in 2008.

After that wonderful day in Pfaffikon, time was really short given another important trip for professional reasons. Destination: Malaysia!

This was my second Asian experience after China last year and I was pretty much excited about that because of my interest in get to know more about the people, the culture and the YMCA.

The departure from Geneva was just perfect as usual (I love GVA airport) and also the boarding in London, but, before departure, we were informed about “technical issues” that would de delay the take off. After almost one hour delay I was starting to have the feeling that I would lose my connection in Singapore and arrive late for the activities.

Suddenly security came into the airplane to invite one of the passengers to leave the aircraft. That delay was so announced not as technical detail but as a health issue. The passenger had mental disorder and has no authorization to fly. So, doctors and police were looking for him because he escaped from somewhere.

One hour before landing the crew came to talk to me and said: “Mr. Dantas, because of your very short connection you must be the first one to drop off of the plain. Please, come with me for the first class. On our arrival a car will be waiting for you”

Is it not amazing? Why did not she invite me 12 hours earlier?? Anyway, my first “first class” experience was delightful!

As promised a car was there and I felt like those stars or politicians with lots of assistants to take care of their “needs”.

Another first experience I had in this way to Pennang was to see someone using the “vomit bag”. This part I will not describe to respect the audience of this blog!

Once in Penang everything went well and I meet lots of new and nice people already in the airport and the upcoming days. Getting to the YMCA, 250 young leaders from Asia and Pacific were waiting for the start of their Assembly which was a success.

During all the time a common question was made to me. “From what part of India are you from?” – After couple times, I learned to respond that I am from the “northern part of India”, but I could not give further explanations. I like to be Indian and I like to be Caribbean, African, Brazilian and even Argentinean, as a gentleman from Spain asked me once.  (If you do not know about Brazil X Argentina issue, please, goggle it! Ahha). I am proud of been human and that’s what I like most.

One experience during the youth assembly that I will remember always was the experience of making a presentation and had, as part of the audience, the members of the deaf club.

Once I never had the experience to have this kind of interaction with deaf people, it was particularly interesting to answer their questions and to “hear” their points of views presented to me with the help of a translator.

Intense days of work, meetings and the jet leg could make me tired. But, the motivation to interact with those new friends gave me lot of energy and enthusiasm. I was very happy also to share room with Babu, from Bangladesh and hear his stories in the YMCA world.

After the youth event, we had the Asia and Pacific Assembly which was brilliant and very well organized under the leadership of Kohei Yamada, colleague from Asia and Pacific Alliance of YMCAs.

Discussions with substance and engagement of everybody! Great learning!

One of the things that will be in memory is the cultural night and especially the presentation of our friends from Japan dancing very energetically and engaging a lot the audience. Well done!!!!!

10 days later and we started the last part of this trip with a dialogue with key leaders from Asia about programmes for youth and how to connect it with the NEW WAY strategy that we are implementing for the YMCA movement.

Dialogue was done and time for vacations was getting closer. When I realized that I would be in Asia, I decided to achieve another dream which was to visit Australia!

I was close, I had the time, I have a good friend there… so… all perfect!

I arrived in Sydney and spent most of my days there. It was really vacations. That one’s when you wake up only when you cannot sleep anymore, eat as much as you can and have a “tourist guide” 24h available!

The tour guide is Marcelo. My good friend from university living in Sydney for couple years already and now officially citizen of that country. He works mainly in Marketing Research but strategically not working when I was there.

Marcelo Queiroz, good friend from University: To see more pictures, click in this photo!

We walked a lot and visited the most famous parts of the city such as the Opera house, the Harbor Bridge, the “City”, Aquarium, the beaches and everything else.

During the Brazilian festival in the public park of Sydney (Super coincidence), once again, I understood how the world is small meeting by accident an ex-ymca-camper walking around. What are the probabilities of such thing happen???

To see more pictures, click in this photo!

To not be 100% of the time in Sydney, we rented a car to go and visited Jervis Bay, around 2h30 hours from Sydney. It was my first time ever driving a car in the “wrong side”.

After few minutes you just get to use it. But you must be careful and not be so comfortable by thinking that is easy to just do everything you use to in another direction!

I also visited the Blue Mountains and I want to go back there for a hike. I did not camped there because the invited ones were quite lazy to walk long distances and go by yourself is just not appropriated for security reasons. Anyway, that’s a phenomenal national park and I was glad to do not be there when the fire started one day later. Nobody got hurt, but there was some good damage for nature.

To see more pictures, click in this photo!

To see more pictures, click in this photo!

To see more pictures, click in this photo!

Wow… I wrote too much again, but I wrote all or, maybe, almost all. Have you heard that things that happen in trip should stay in the trip? So, let us keep some “mysteries” haha!

Au revoir!

It does not mean that there are not challenges, moments you feel sad, lost or even alone, especially when you have so many loved people far away from you. Anyway, I am not the first or the last one to fell like this.

July has the potential to be one of those months that will certainly be in my mind forever.

As some of you may heard I was selected to speak to the United Nations General Assembly on behalf of youth organizations, on behalf of YMCA. I have never imagined something like this and I accepted the responsibility with a notion of how important this moment could be both for the YMCA and for me.

To write the speech was not so easy, once I had to find agreement within a collision of 28 youth organizations. Given the good impact in the audience, I believe we’ve managed to be very decent in representing the voices involved.

I woke up in that day after a good night of sleep. When you rest you can definitely do better!

My good friend Rodrigo Merino was there to take me for a breakfast and try to make me as calm as possible before using the UN podium.

We got there on time as planed and I was taken to a restricted area where I would meet the three other speakers. We did so, but Ban Ki-moon was not there, he just came to the very moment few minutes later.

It was time to start and I saw the other speakers giving their messages to a not so enthusiastic audience, and then I was called by Joseph Deiss.

After little mistakes in the beginning I started to feel very comfortable and my sensation was that the people started to get interested in my speech. The eyes, before focused in papers, tablets and telephones, started to look at me and I responded by looking to people’s eyes.

To see the speech, click in this photo!

10 minutes and I was over after signing a quote of a YMCA song that means a lot for all that understand the hard times young people are having in different parts of the world.

I was done! Looks like I did a good job and all I wanted was to hear the feedback from Johan, back in Geneva and for that, I ran away as fast as possible to give a phone call. It was very positive! Thanks boss!

The repercussion of it  was very positive. I had the opportunity to mediate a press conference after that and many meetings took place, as well lot of networking that already resulted in opening doors in different organization.

UN was done and it was time to take care of important business in Geneva: Family!

My dear cousins arrived in the same day and it was great to see that  familiar faces coming into the hall of the main station. Big smiles, big hugs and a lot of joy. We would spend the whole week together including a little trip to Rome, Italy!

The road was great, as well the temperature. Summer in Europe to be seen and felt during 900 km and about 11 hours.

Rome was great and the horrible impression I had from years before was gone. Nevertheless, they still need to improve their hostels and their services to make tourist happy.

Along the days we meet another girl from Brazil that we adopted and developed a very good friendship. All the time together and having fun! Lots of pictures, food and, for sure, lots of walking. My legs were in deep pain!

I had to work in the week after, but they were happy at home and we would enjoy the afternoon and night together. Even before they leave, I left to Germany to take part in the Ten Sing Festival. 2000 young people from all over Europe and special guests from Brazil.

I was particularly proud to see the results of a project that I had the honor to implement back in São Paulo few years ago and it was part of the plan to bring them to Germany to motivate even more the grow of the program back there.

The time during the festival was also very good because of the time I spent with a friend and YMCA partner, Peter Posner, a great leader!

Back home more guests would come to spend sunny days in Geneva and make my summer here very livelly. First Marilivia, than Sebastian and Vladi. Brazil, Germany and Czech Republic respectively.

Lots of “water sports” involved and some tourism around town; Issue that I am becoming a specialist!

Now is time to prepare myself for the Asian trip and after, some days of my annual leave that soon I will let you know about.

Time to go!

Be happy! You do not to be lucky. Just work hard!

I do not know how to start this post or how to make it simple, but let’s try.

I am in the plane on my way back to New York.

If you read my last post you saw that I was in New York, but after 19 days in Geneva, I am going back for reasons that I will explain later on to avoid confusion.

I arrived in USA on June 2ed for the Ford Motor Company International Fellowship and I invested 20 days in this amazing program. The group in 2011 had 8 different nationalities and amazing personal stories involved. From a person who survived the Tsunami in Indonesia few years ago, to a social entrepreneur who organizes 250.000 workers in the chaotic traffic of India until a blind activist for the advancement of people with disabilities in Israel.

We took amazing classes at Columbia University around Strategic Thinking, Finances, Communications, Resource Mobilization and Management to improve our skills in leading our organizations for the future.

Free time was something very hard to have, but the program was so well organized and with a variety of activities that I did not see the days going.

The program provided a series of meetings and visits to different organizations which helped me to see different examples of social impact and management of NGOs.

We meet with the president of Open Society Foundation, (George Soros Foundation) and a very inspiring conversation took place after some delay, very well enjoyed by the participants, I must say, by singing songs from our countries.

We worked for one day in a free restaurant for people with no resources to pay for food and we visited the “Doe Fund” an organization to help men with difficult backgrounds to find a job and a place to live. To be simple, it is a very complete employment program, but it is also the best treatment for drug users that I have ever seen in my life.

In the Brazilian night I had two hours to talk about my country and, I believe, a did a very good job by surprising people with a very diverse presentation including singing, dancing, quiz, movie, interviews, videos and more…

I was also very proud in the night before to meet the deputy ambassador of Brazil in New York, Mr. Pedro Terra.

We flood to Michigan for one night to visit the Ford Motor Company and the executives from Ford Fund, the sponsors of our great opportunity. We visited the factory the museum and had a great barbecue in the evening.

In the two free Saturdays we had, I worked in the mornings and afternoons because life did not stopped in the World Alliance and I had to complement the one hour per night to keep things under control!

But, in the evening, I had the opportunity to see two great friends from Brazil, Diego and Débora, and watch two musicals that I wanted very hard. “Billy Elliot” and “The Adams Family”. Both are great productions but Billy Elliot is, for sure, the best one!

Diego, Débora and Myself!

Right after this program I had meetings with the YMCA in New York talking about our ideas for UN representation in the city and in the end of the day I found my way to the airport and to Chicago where I would meet our colleagues and friends from the YMCA of USA.

The weekend came and with it free time to relax a bit after 25 days. I spent this wonderful time with my Mexican brother, Toño and his lovely wife Adriana.

When you spent time with YMCA people during a weekend, it do not mean necessarily that you stop to work, because if you are part of the YMCA; you know, we find ways to talk about it all the time.

We watched some movies, went to bars and restaurants, to “The Chicago Taste” and also to the Pride Parade. All funny and with lot of food involved!

4h00 in the morning. Time to wake up and travel to Vancouver to visit the beautiful Canadian YMCA. The reception, organized by Rita Douglas, was just great and as usual in the YMCA, I felt at home. I meet the participants of the Youth Peace Network and as part of this task I spent two nights in Camp Elphinstone, one, in the woods camping with the participants.

YPN Participants

Other meetings in Vancouver took place in the YMCA and outside of it. All great and inspiring! Great people! I loved to be in Canada!!

Back to Geneva, after 23 hours in flights, (Vancouver, Minneapolis, New York, London and Geneva) you can imagine my situation when I arrived on Sunday!!!

Anyway, not time to complain, I did all my laundry, cleaned the house and went out for a dinner with friends. The house was very easy because the guests, Jose & Family and Lucas left everything in order after 15 days in the Dantas Youth Hostel in Geneva.

The jet leg made me a bit tired along the week, but after 3 days I was 100%.

Already full in the daily work, I participated of one more ICMYO conference calls, around 10pm,…

Just after that, I saw in the in the Facebook, news about the selection of one of ICMYO member organizations to deliver a speech during the UN High Level Meeting on Youth. For my surprise; it was me!

I wanted to call Johan in the very moment, but it was after mid night and I do not often wake up people with phone calls, especially because he was probably tired, but happy for sure, of a day with 600 women in Zurich. What a boss!!!!

So, as you can imagine, life got busier after this announcement that we are celebrating a lot in the YMCA movement and I can see that through the many websites, blogs, e-mails, posts and other places where the news have arrived.

Wish us look in addressing this speech together with Ban Ki-moon and Joseph Deiss next Monday July 25^th, 10h (New York Time). You can watch it in our website www.ymca.int by visiting few minutes before to get the link!

Many things happened in between those days in personal life, but nothing unusual! (friends, food, parties etc)

Life is smiling… let’s do it too!

I am writing from New York, United States, place where I will be for the next 22 days.

The reason I am here is because of a training program sponsored by Ford Foundation and lead by a Jewish organization named 92ndY – Nothing related to the YMCA.

After 8 hours and a nice lunch in London at Heathrow, I arrived safe in NYC which is very hot at the moment and also humid. I envision hard days in terms of weather here for me.

As usually, last month was intense and full of activities. I believe I am getting to use to live in Geneva and also in the new job. Things are advancing and going well. First we launched the New Strategic Plan, “NEW WAY”, and we have been sharing the ideas of this document in different opportunities, especially abroad. The first test was in England, during their national conference and you can see the video here!

One of the challenges that I have is to understand how we can be more effective in the relations with UN and some other organizations. I have spent some time trying to understand but also developing advocacy activities. As I learned and like to say: “We are exchanging the wheels with the car moving”. Nothing stops to wait for you to understand!!!

I spent Easter with my cousins in Ravenna, Italy and it was great. Especially to be for some time playing with little Chiara, who is a cute girl!

Just in the week before I went to Turin, Italy to visit a long term friend, Marilívia and we had good time together visiting city and going to parties. It was my first time driving in European road and except to get the wrong cabin and get a 70 Euros ticket, it was perfect. There was more than one month and the ticket did not arrive. Hopefully they understood my situation!

After this great relaxing driving experience, the idea of buy a car in Geneva has grown, but I know from intelligence that I really do not need it in a place where public transports are very efficient.

May was the time I started to feel the bad sensation of missing family and friends that you use to see all the time. From many perspectives this is good. Because it means I left back in Brazil lot of love and friendship. Anyway… this is part of the consequences of decisions I took and I would do it all again!!

The week that I may have been more down it was the same one I went to Germany for the International Conference and, suddenly, I was taken by great happiness because I had the opportunity to meet good friend such as Steffi, Bjorn, Sara, Juan, Daniel, Nadine and, of course, meet new good people.

I took the risk of speak Germany during an interview and I believe everybody was impressed by my accent, but specially for the content of my answers. Romulo, what do you do in your work? “I am a biscuit”, I said in very laud German! Questions and answers in the same level came in the sequence and I believe that the idea of making people have fun and break the ice was successful.

After arrive after 00h, I had just five hours to sleep and go to the airport for an important meeting in London with sponsorship/public relations agencies related to a global initiative that we are about to launch. The free two hours I had after that, I spent in HLM buying a brand new pijama!

After intense days of work I took a Friday off and went to Lugano with my good friend Oliver and it was a great place to go. Lots of beautiful things to see and do in the Swiss Florida! I have fallen in love for a particular neighborhood named Gandria.

The days after were more normal and I spent them in Geneva doing some sports, going to church and meeting with friends for dinner, movies and walks.

That was it for now….

Remember… I am waiting for your life report!

Romulo

Here I am!

I little bit late, I admit, but just because I had a few challenges in the past days related to housing, travel, internet access etc.

So, as I promised, I would like to talk about the biggest change in my life in the past years, which is the new position in the YMCA.

On the 1^st of November 2010 it was published the announcement for a new position in the World Alliance of YMCAs, in Geneva, Switzerland, and I applied for that. I felt that I could have a chance taking into consideration my background in São Paulo, Brazil and Latin America, but also because of the moment of the YMCA movement.

Lots of doubts and questions were coming into my mind about this possibility and things would change too much depending on the results.

2011 would be a year of change anyway because I would pass for a rotation process in São Paulo that would take me out of youth programs and probably from the international work, what would make me quite sad, but as a good YMCA server, I would accept new responsibilities with the same enthusiasm. Anyway, I was already preparing myself and organizing the area as much as possible to transfer my responsibilities without any problem to the successor.

Tension was quite part of my day-by-day for lots of days. I prepared my documents to send to the W.A and finally I got confirmation for an interview that happened in November 15^th in the same day that I would take vacations in Europe. It was a crazy day for many reasons. The interview happened in the morning of the mentioned day during the Young leaders Annual Summit, so, I needed to give an excuse to leave for one hour because I really did not tell anybody about it. Just my referees and two key people had information, I did not tell even my parents.

I was very tired during the interview because of the work in the past days during the summit and in the same day I would go to the airport, so, it was quite crazy!

Starting in that day I did not sleep one single night without wake up or have dreams about the process. My actual boss told me that the answer about the process would come in the beginning of December and for me beginning is around the 5^th day.

Around this day I started to have some pressure from my General Secretary that needed a definition from my side because of the budget for 2011 and people started to talk to each other in the YMCA because I was not listed in the budget and also all the conversations about my rotation in São Paulo stopped.

On the Dec. 14^th I was quite sick and I needed to go home to rest, so, I left the office felling bad and also quite disappointed because after 10 days of the deadline I imagined there were no answer. I concluded that I was already out of the process even still having hope.

It was raining very hard and I could not see the road very well. The mobile rings. The screen was written “The news of your life” (It was how I saved the number of the World Alliance in my phone). It was Johan  Vilhelm calling with news about the process, but to do not crash my car I just had time to say, please, call me in 30 minutes, I will be at home! He said yes, but I waited for painful 90 minutes to get a phone call.

I was mentally stressed!

The phone rings again and he says. “Your Christmas came earlier. The job is yours”

From that time life has changed and exactly 30 days after the phone call I have arrived in Geneva, after few days of preparation.

To leave your family and friends it is not easy, especially when you are very happy, but I understand it as a call and as a mission, what makes things much easier.

Bellow, you can see the picture of my family party few days before the departure.

Home now is Geneva!

Here I am again!

I am sorry to not update the blog for so long, but as you may know my life was in a big transition!

The last post I did from the airport when I was going to a few days of vacation in Europe. I had the opportunity to visit England, Scotland and Netherlands.

The experience, once more, was just great and could not be better. The marvelous component, of course, was the nice people around making me and my friend Marcela fell very, very welcome.

The trip started in Amsterdam taking a train to London, but, once we arrived in time, we got a train earlier to Brussels to walk a bit around. The cold afternoon was great but the temperature would decrease much more in the whole way up the north!

The arrival in London was easy and the hostel was front of St. Pancras Station, very nice! The first good surprise was that London was less expensive than we tough. We went to nice restaurants without pay much!

Nice walking tours, specially the one to St. Peter’s Cathedral where I could meet George Williams after the hard work of the attendant to realize where and who he was. At the end, we passed by George lots of times because he is the first  and one of the biggest ones at the entrance!

After that, a great lunch time and visit to the headquarters of YMCA England with Ian and Phil. Warm welcome and, of course, YMCA conversations…

Later, Robbie came to pick us up for walk across the city, taking pictures and talking more about life in London. In addition, he took us to a YMCA Branch to meet Andre but, after a while at the front desk, he realized that Andre was not from that branch… we missed him!

We left Marcela in the hostel and after couple minutes of meaningful conversation, we went to a restaurant to meet Simon, from Geneva, another very good friend!

Night was over and it was time to the next step: The Center of the World: Norwich! Am I correct Tim?

Tim came to pick us up in the station and take to his lovely house and family. What great time we had there! After a great 5 pm tea in that fancy place that I don’t remember the name, but definitely remember the food, we went house and spent some time in fellowship.

I was very happy to visit the University where Tim has studied. I love Campus!

Time for dinner, but this time, Brazilian dinner at the Sweeting’s House. We are not 100% sure if Anna, Fifi and Freddie liked the food, but we did our best and after… Harry Potter!

Time to go, good bye to everybody, nice picture in the garden and very good sensation of get to know better a friend! Tim, I want to be a good father as you are!

London, here we are again! This time, in St. Pancras, to meet Peter Posner and go to a concert. The Classical Spectacular! Very nice, but I must admit that I slept a while during Ravel!

On the way, we meet the lovely Gill that would take us for very nice tour in the other day. After, already in Duffield, some walk around the city to get a better picture of Derbyshire would be included.

The day with Gill taking us around to a castle and other sites was just lovely.

I am also thankful for the conversations and support Peter!

Edinburgh (Edimbráaaaa)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nice city, but we could visit it in less time. Very nice free walking tour provided by students, food, museum and, of course, the Scottish particular way of talk!

Following the plan, Amsterdam would be next and last stop. Walking, buying, one rat at the Mc Donald’s, blá, blá…until we meet the wonderful Jacqueline for the Heineken Experience and than Marnix, two of the three good friends that worked with us in São Paulo for couple months, years ago. (Connection provided by Martin, who I missed in this trip)

Time to meet more lovely people at the restaurant; Fenna  and Dynand who would take us for some walk in the Red light district (very fun I have to say!). Before leave the restaurant I meet Svenn; the gold medalist in skating of Netherlands who I have never seen in my life but I made him to believe that he has fans in Brazil where snow is just part of nice Christmas stories from books and movies for the majority of our territory.

That’s it for now, next, I will tell everything about the life time opportunity that made me move to Geneva!

God bless you all!

After a few months of lots of work and adventures, it is time to take some time to myself.

I am posting from the airport in São Paulo waiting a flight to Amsterdam. Tomorrow will be the first day of a very short vacation in London, Scotland and Netherlands. I hope to arrive on time, do not miss any train or flight and enjoy all days with no stress!

A few wonderful friends will be in different places to meet us (me and my friend Marcela) and invest some time to talk and see around. This is going to be my first time in England and Scotland and looks like this is going to be a very nice experience.

Before come to the airport I was just finalizing the Young Leader’s Annual Summit, one of the most important activities I have to do every year. This is not because of the size of the event or the amount of money involved, but because of the impact in terms of YMCA’s mission.

The last days were kind full of emotions around here because the time of leave my department to serve another YMCA’s area is coming. I have being preparing myself  for a couple months already, but now I fell that the day of change can be soon. I have to say “I fell” because I really have no idea exactly when this is going to be or even what I am going to do. Over here in São Paulo we have a rotation process and the decision of it is the role of my General Secretary. This is a good thing in many perspectives!

Let’s see what future is preparing for me. I will be waiting and full of optimism for the next chapters.

Love you all!

PS1: Steffi. I am praying!

PS2: Sarah. Thanks for your help this month.

Ps3: Rodrigo. Thanks for the great partner and friend you are!

Today is a great day for Brazilians. Today our population decided to have the first woman as president, Ms. Dilma Rousseff
Dilma was not my candidate, but I accept with respect the decision of my people.

Independent of it I believe she will be capable to lead our country and keep us in the right way, specially helping the poor people that still suffering in different parts of this country.

I also want to congratulate José Serra, my candidate, my state governor, for his strength and courage to represent a considerable part of the population that wanted a different way.

Now elections are gone and its time to create national consensus for an agenda that will serve all the Brazilians.

God bless all of us!

I fell that I have this capacity of love in the very first moment and the reasons for it are very different. What I see in general in my relations is that people I like have big harts and they show it to me by a smile, by the way they talk and also for many other little actions. Another characteristic is that they challenge me a lot!

I have been asking myself what to do to go forward in these relations and when, sometimes, I should give up of people. Not stop liking or speak anymore, but just let things like it is and hope that life decides for me what’s better in terms of future.

Normally, I don’t care much about reciprocity, but I like to let my friends and people I meet to know how much they are important to me and the impact they have or had in my life.

The question persists: What’s the message?

Once I believe in God, for sure, I ask him what to do and why some people were brought into my life. Why some times, this people challenge me by making me have deep reflections of everything I do, everything I want etc?  The answers I have got until now it wasn’t  formal answers, but are sensations that even without have any sure, I need to continue invest in keep those relations because they make me feel good.

Very recent facts made think about it again. Believe or not, I fell extremely happy to have these things in my mind because for me it means that something will change really soon. For good, of course!

Is this post too weird for you?                                                                                                                         

Have you got any ideas?

Cheers,

Romulo