Message from Griselda at Rio+20

Hi everybody! Greetings from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  I arrived yesterday morning to this city that is welcoming thousands of people around the world who will participate in one way or another in the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development.
 

The climate here is "winter" with 18 to 25 degrees!  So far, the experience is of people being very friendly, attentive, kind and helpful.  We have some limitations due to language differences.

The delegation of Sisters of St. Joseph (22) is hosted in two different houses, with considerable distance between them.  The house where I am will have 11 CSJs, who have been arriving little by little.  Today we are 7. There are other religious organizations hosted here also.

Yesterday was the day to explore ways and times to reach the Rio Convention Center, where the sessions and side events official UN Conference will be held. It's an adventure! It takes at least 2 hours to get there by bus.

We have obtained our authorization passes and tickets which will be required in the following days. The process was very quick, in and out.  Those arriving in the days closest to the conference will have more time in line waiting their turn.

There will be another meeting space for the civil society, “the People's Summit” where we will also be present.  It is closer and only took a bus.  We discovered that route today. We were able to do some exploring of the civil space site and some of the city.

We had the opportunity,  not planned to be in an alternate event with a painter and sculptor! haha He was unique and very in tune. His art was something like the seeds of change, women and the environment through art. It was something different that made us realize that we come to this conference with a different perspective.  We live it from a different path. We say enough of control, , manipulation, exploitation, use and abuse, of all living things.

I think these two days we had time to locate and explore. Hopefully during the following days we do not lose the ability to let ourselves be surprised by the day to day, so unplanned.

The photos .. ha ha ha will try to upload! They are the first we have taken, of course we will share between us which we take, but that takes time and we walked in the street all day yesterday and today.