We arrive in Sao Paulo on time at three o’clock in the night, stand in line for hours for passport control. When we are finally outside, it is already lightly dawning. Claudio welcomes us with an enormously elegant car with seven seats.
For over an hour we drive through the streets of Sao Paul, (although there is still little traffic). There are over 25 million inhabitants in the city. Huge skyscrapers rise into the morning sky, next to them are the many slums, close together, small makeshift buildings, partly made of wood and partly of stone, partly still without water and without electricity.
Finally we reach Sao Paulo. Here there is electricity and most of the houses are built of bricks.
Claudio and Helen have worked a miracle with their group. Their joy that we accepted their invitation to visit them here with the “Defend the sacredAlliance” resulted in them completely renovating and expanding a kind of ruined house. They have done all this in the last three weeks.
It has been done up with so much love that I immediately feel at home.
All the rooms are tiled, and a large terrace makes it possible for us to meet here with more than 20 people.
We live with five women in a small dormitory, Vera, Aida, Barbara, Andrea and me. They have set up a little extra niche with a curtain for me so I can write when I wake up early. On each bed there is a gift ready. In my case, a small handmade sleep mask, earplugs and a small homemade writing book.
I had settled into a much simpler camp and feel safe and very warmly welcomed. There are now 18 people, from Africa, Palestine, Israel, England, Peru, and Portugal arrived, tomorrow the meeting officially begins.
Andrea and I lay down after a first round of greetings and sleep like a rock for now, so that our soul can land fully. In the evening there will be a first O’ffering, held by Miguel Angelo from Peru, it is a tradition of the indigenous people of the Andes, one gives small gifts, always accompanied with coca leaves, to the earth to ask the earth and the beings that live here for admission and protection. I love this ritual that I myself often take care for in a similar way in Tamera. It reminds us of the community of all beings, animals, plants and all elements, it also reminds us of the cycle of give and take and of the economy of this earth.