14

Here in my house, we cultivate the tradition of hosting a Christmas dinner every December 24th. On this day, I love to wake up very early to start preparing some of the dishes and to wish a beautiful Christmas to my loved ones. This year, it had a more special meaning for me to be at home with my family just 20 days before starting my travel journey.

Though it was always special for me, and I was very open and excited to start traveling and living the new experiences I was looking forward to in India, that night came with a sense of “don’t forget the amazing family you have at home, the amazing food you have on your table, and the profound love they have for you.”

Some years ago, when I was a very immature Alice, I used to kinda separate people from my life according to different moments of my journey. For example, when I started studying at IFPB and became a little bit distant from my family because I had to move to the city to be able to catch the bus and study in the neighboring city, I later reflected on how I hadn’t communicated much with my family. In my mind, since I wasn’t with them every day, it felt like they weren’t part of my current life.

Looking at it now, one of the things I care about the most is keeping them updated about my life and being present in theirs as well.

This Christmas dinner reminded me of this learning and encouraged me to keep cultivating it during my time away from home physically. 🎄

I'm so, so, so grateful to Margit for introducing me to Rummikub, teaching me how to play it, and playing it with me so many times (it was one of the best moments of my day)!

While playing with her, I could feel how it's so rewarding and easy to learn and develop systemic vision through certain games. Now, back in Brazil and still playing Rummikub, I'm reflecting on how I can make the most of gamification + tech + culture in order to give low-income Latin American girls access to innovative tech literacy! 🥹

In my last week in India, I had such a really cool goodbye dinner with Priyanka and Surabhi at Toscano. We ate delicious pasta while reflecting on our two months of work together. After presenting to them the final version of the first-ever Tvarita website, they fell in love with how I helped them present their work.

For me, I was even more grateful to be able to work with them and get to know India’s rich and one-of-a-kind culture. It made me reflect on my own culture (from Brazil and Latin America) and allowed me to consider: how can I teach meaningful tech literacy to low-income women and use culture to connect them, while also keeping the unique Latin American culture alive?

It was such a gift to me!!!! I'm so happy for the time we spent together and for being able to broaden my animating questions, getting curious about aspects that I never thought could be related before. 🥹

P.S. the girls gave me such a beautiful painting as a gift and I loved it so much!!! It was from a project that uses the money from the paintings to help low-income kids in India. I left a pic of the painting in the link.

One of the last pictures I took of the way I got so many times to join in the cootage during my 2 months in Bangalore. The cottage became my second home and I was so hard to leave that place in which I could resignify to be with my own company.

My time in the cottage and in India helped me rediscover how people matters a lot to me. At my home, I live together with 10 people, guess how I'm feeling living by myself for the longest period in my life? Alone. Even though I had this feeling of them as important to me and have done my best to show it and care for them - which doesn't make me feel guilty now -, being most of the time doing things alone has been teaching me how I love to be with people and how I also need to learn to love more and find power and house on my own companionship. My plushy monkey has been helping on that as well hahaha. The friends I'm making here has been really important in this process. With them, I know I'm not 100% alone and can be enlightened by their souls sometimes in the week, but also I have time to experience how I can love more to be with myself. 🌼

This cottage was room for so much change and the discover of potential on myself, I'll never forget this place.

Prasanth and Sarubhi are the kind of young people I look up to!!! 💖

This day we first met on a nice coffee here in Bengaluru, they dropped me an exciting list of places, orgs, and people to connect, including themselves. Both of them are involved with culture, arts, tech, and education, which are the main areas I'm looking forward to work here in India towards the development of my animating questions. 🥹🥹🥹 I cannot wait to watch the seeds of those connections growing up through my life and academic journey.

Also, this same day Prasanth have presented me to the Raintree School, which made me more sure yet of my passion for education and working with kids (I will be sharing more about this day and its reflections soon, stay tuned!) 🏫🇮🇳✨️

When arriving in India and hugging Arman, I just could think "HOW CRAZY IT LOOKS LIKE". We just have switched from the computer to real life and I couldn't be more fascinated by Indian culture and people, as well as Arman's vibrant greetings!!!! 💖💖🥹🇮🇳

From now on India and the cottage will be my home. I'm so excited for everything I will be able to learn about others and myself here in this land!!!

To break the as much as we could the jet lag effects + get to know everything we could in some hours because Arman had to left in the same day I've arrived to Sri Lanka, I met Rohini!!! 🥹✨️

She became my second mother and best friend here.

In our first day together, she introduced me to the Pongal Festival, which is named and celebrated differently across India. She made sweet Pongal-which is like sweet rice, with milk and sugar-and I could go with her deliver to her friends and family. In the way, we got invited for a festival happening in the end of Jan and I met Yogesh, who is involved with arts and social justice and will be gathering soon with me!!

So far I've been loving to get tuktuks with her and learn more about Bengaluru and its people through her eyes 🥹🇮🇳

My first circus of 2025 and in a while! 🥹

During my early days in Germany, in Groß-Gerau, I went to a circus with two friends, and it was so rewarding to see lots of people laughing and having fun with the performances.

A fun fact about this day was that all the content was in German, so I just caught some words here and there; still, the experience was as joyful as it would have been if it had been in Portuguese or English.

I felt impressed seeing the abilities of each member of that circus and was so excited to see a camel and a llama for the first time in person!!! Sometimes you do not need to fully understand things to be able to embark on them and cultivate unforgettable memories!

3. To be disconnected where at 10pm you can still see the sunlight:

This time "off" I had in Norway was an opportunity to be "on" with life and with what's happening, to be present in what really matters. Waking up early every day and going to sleep with light made me reflect on which kind of light I do want to cultivate before going to sleep: the light of the sunset because I'm going to sleep early, OR the light of my cellphone in my face?

It was definitely a time for me to reflect on old and unhealthy habits.

4. Exploring a mine:

The mine wasn't that long, but every spot gave me a sense of discovery and of doing something new. Its water was so crystalline and calm. I was with 2 friends who were also volunteering at the host family and they brought a touch of excitement to the opportunity too.

I believe that for me, what could best describe it is: "I'm in a totally different world and everything, including nothing, can appear to me at each new direction I take here."

After this experience in the mine, I want to keep looking for ways to explore more unconventional parts of our world in order to re-signify my ideas and memories of magical places.

5. Digging to find Norway's emeralds (you can find them only in Eidsvoll):

Right after leaving the mine, I went with my friends to a nearby beach in front of the mine, where people come to dig and find Norway's emeralds and other kinds of rare stones. I was excited about the idea of trying it but not really hopeful I would find anything. So, I focused on enjoying the time with my friends.

Suddenly, I saw a little drop of turquoise blue in my hand full of sand and other stones. It was so interesting to reflect that the right things, experiences, and people will come to your life at the right moments, just like this emerald, which is so rare to find. 🥹

6. Coming back home knowing I can take more retreats and that I can always rely on nature to reconnect with myself:

Before the Flight School and my retreat, I had really never thought about the possibility of taking a retreat nor that I would ever need it. Crazy, right? But yes, that was me.

After experiencing all the benefits and growth that a retreat can give me, I'm going to take at least one per year, but hopefully two! A final learning from this experience is that when I give time to heal myself and to fill up my glass, what goes beyond the edge is one of the most beautiful and true gifts I can give to others around me.

P.S. There are some pics of my retreat experience in the link space :)

My time volunteering at La Cigale was a one-of-a-kind experience!

Steven and Jenny were really committed to the gardening activities, which made my work even more meaningful. I was able to learn a lot from them (I'm so excited to go back to Brazil and implement my new gardening skills in my own garden!).

1 highlight: I had some really happiness-filled days there. While working with the soil, cultivating life, and being nurtured by the nature around me, at the end of most days I was like, "If today were my last day in the world, I'm sure it would be the best one." And it had been a long time since I had felt like that.

1 lowlight: I made a lot of mistakes while doing some of the gardening activities — for example, taking out all the 30+ blueberry plants. I didn’t recognize them correctly and had to replant them. The guys were very patient and showed me some easy ways to recognize very similar plants.

I won’t forget all the dinners we had together: nice music, Chica (the family’s doggo) walking around, conversations about our life experiences, and amazing food made by Jenny, the MasterChef!! Her food took me to heaven and inspired me so much to explore vegetarianism.

My time in Kraichtal made me realize again that happiness is in the simple things and introduced me to an activity that I can easily cultivate and that can help me maintain the connection with myself.

P.S. Some pics of the delicious meals that Jenny prepared and Chica in the link!