I took this photo at last week’s lunch of club member Mark Quinnell (center) with two youth, Alexander Santos (left) and Javier Arevalo (right). Click photo to enlarge.
I asked our club’s Youth Exchange Coordinator Vicki Dilley for more info on these young men.
She wrote:
Alex is from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He lives in Leblon, 2 blocks from the beach, next to the infamous Ipanema! He is thrilled with the snow, and said to me this morning, “We South Americans always think this white fluffy stuff looks so fun, but we don’t know how cold it is with it!”
Alex is my daughter Riana’s host brother. She lived with his family last spring while studying at PUC university in Rio and she is there now with his family. We found his family by contacting Lino Krohling who was a GSE team leader here and stayed with us. She needed housing so I contacted him and he then contacted Sergio Misse who is the Youth Exchange officer in Rio and he knew Alex’s family as they live in the same building as Sergio. Small world when Rotary makes the connections!
Javier is one of the three students Rotary has now. He is from Macas, Ecuador in the Amazon forest and the Quinnell’s are hosting him. One great kid! He is a triathelete and Ecuador wanted him back while he was here to do a try-out for the Olympic team (I think I have that right).
When you follow the Wikipedia site for Ipanema and you look at that picture of the beaches of Ipanema and look into the hills you will see the favelas (slums) where Riana is right now doing her research. We sat on that beach last August…was great. Thanks for the cute picture.