Three weeks ago I went to an AFS meeting in Iriri (sorry for the delay, but meanwhile I have been booked up by homework, and other more important things), and it was a success - except from the speaker which unfortunately malfunctioned at the party, resulting in almost no music; a minor disturbance.

I left home Friday night 11:30pm with the AFS exchange students from Rio de Janeiro and Paraty, together with some of their counselors, heading for Iriri in Espírito Santo. The ride took about seven ours, giving me a bumpy nights´ sleep with too many breaks. Hence, all of us arrived tired in Iriri the next day.

I shared room with two brazilian exchange students, and to my big surprise one of them did his exchange year in Denmark; speaking danish. I conversed with him a bit in Danish, and I had another surprise within several minutes, when he told me that he was one out of five. I didn´t know that Denmark was that popular among brazilian youngsters.

The first day went by, making activities of any kind, doing stuff together, and talking. This is the heart of the AFS meetings; to be social with other exchange students, discuss points of view, and develop your vision of other nationalities. Relaxing and interesting. More important, however, is the part where you try to find a solution to your family problems with help from the AFS volunteers.

It was indeed very necessary for some of the exchange students to free their minds for the heavy weight of their problems, which were truly sad. One girl was forgotten by her mom in the mom´s restaurant late at night with all the doors locked - another girl had a native brazilian brother, momentarily exchanging to Canada, which from there wanted to speak with her every day. He even called her classmates to check if she slept during the lessons (which is normally here), if she did her homework and stuff like that; scary.

The day ended with a party, where, as stated earlier, the speaker went dead. Alcohol, however, was only for people over eighteen, which in common was the persons from AFS only. You´re normally not allowed to do an exchange year at the age over eighteen.

The next day we just slept, ate, swam, and enjoyed the weather, before we returned to Rio de Janeiro. Enjoy the pictures.