Daiana and her family live at a mere subsistence level in one of the most impoverished neighborhoods or ‘vilas’ in Novo Hamburgo, Brazil.  She is one of 153 children living in a vila of nearly 500 people.  In her 11 years, she has only been outside her vila once, apart from going to school. 

Daiana begins her day with outstretched arms and an exhausted yawn, as she crawls out of bed to get ready for school.  Her tired, chestnut eyes half smile back.  She takes a few steps into her living room and starts brushing her waist-length brown hair.  Only her mother’s heavy footsteps can be heard in the distance.

The wooden bathroom door creaks open on rusted hinges at her touch, revealing a dark bathroom comfortably sized for only a young child’s frame.  To the right, an aged slab of wood separates her bedroom from a toilet she manually flushes with soiled laundry water.  To the left, a metal shower rod hangs from the ceiling alongside a white sink protuding from the brick wall. Worn toothbrushes stick out of a brick in the wall above.  Daiana leans on the plastic sink faucet for support, as she splashes cool water on her face.  She brushes her teeth with water and then makes her way back to the living room.  There is no toothpaste.    

Searching through a heap of clothes on a chair rather than a closet, Daiana mechanically pulls out a blue shirt and a pair of pants.  She struggles to remove the wrinkled clothes she wore the day before and changes .  As she emerges once again from her room, young voices edge closer and closer.

“Daiana, Daiana!” her friends call out and shout greetings in Portuguese.

A tiny, pale blond child shyly enters through the back door.  Daiana instantly wraps her arms around her.  She holds her protectively and an innocent maturity comes over her face.

They don’t seem to notice the garbage strewn over the grass or the chained, attention-starved dog crawling to them in submission.  They are lost in the lush mountain vista stretching for miles.

More children arrive, and then they all take off running and giggling on their way to school.  Pieces of cardboard cover a muddied path along their way and steep stone steps provide a welcomed challenge.

While Daiana learns, plays and dances at school, her parents and extended family members pass the day sitting outside in the doorway of their home.  They sit peacefully and quietly most of the time, sharing a container of a bitter tea-like drink called “chimarrao”.  After school , Daiana sits with her parents for a while.  Later she takes off playing with her friends down the dirt road.

This is Daiana’s daily world.  She goes to school for about five hours on weekdays, and then comes home and plays until the time she goes to sleep. Her father, Ivanor Pereira, and her mother, Lucia Ribeiro Pereira, are both illiterate.  An older sister is the only immediate family member who has a high school diploma.  Her remaining four family members are limited to a fifth grade education.

 “I like math, history and art the most,” said the fifth grader when asked about her favorite subjects.

“I want to be a model when I grow up.”

“She’s intelligent and a very good student,” said Ribeiro Peirera, Daiana’s mother.

Unlike a majority of the children in the vila, Daiana has never been held back in any grades.  Both her mother and her teacher see her potential, but the lack of a defined work ethic and low level of education in Brazil, in her vila, and in her family, all work against her. Still, the Pereira family seems content with their situation.

Neither parent is near retirement age, yet they rarely seek work.  The only sources of income for the family is the money Daiana’s brother earns working at a shoe factory, and funds the state provides the family for her attendance at school.  Her brother earns 240 reals or about $80 a month, and Daiana’s attendance provides and additional $10.

“It’s a vicious cycle with the parents and their children,” said Vanderlei Cavalheiro Mello, the vila vice president.

“The children grow up seeing their parents hardly ever work, so what would you expect?  They have money to eat, and they feel fine where they are.”