I met Marly Winckler in 2007 at the 11th International Vegan Festival. It wasn't sure yet then but it already seemed like the 12th International Vegan Festival was going to be in Brazil. Of course, I wanted to go, but I never really thought I would be able to make it, because I was living in Germany and Brazil is quite far from there. By a number of coincidences - or as Colin would call it “the divine plan” – I ended up in Santiago de Chile months before the festival and, through the eyes of a German, Chile and Brazil are basically "next door". It took us 3 days on the bus to get to Rio de Janeiro from Santiago and on the way, by coincidence, we met Marly at a motorway restaurant!

The organizers of the festival did the impossible by organizing an event of this size so professionally with all volunteers. It was very impressive to see the Brazilian vegan movement so strong and well organized, to see and meet so many Brazilian vegans, to receive new information, inspiration and make new connections. The Brazilian vegan community has a great potential to inspire the vegan movement all over Latin America and the world. Names like Eric Slywitch, Alberto Gonzalez, Rafael Mendonça and Alan Chaves should become “household names” (well known) everywhere in the Latin American vegan movement (and beyond of course). I hope that in the near future we’ll have an extensive network for vegan information all over Latin America. I hope that due to the similarity of Spanish and Portuguese translations can be done easily and correctly. If there is a new book, video, brochure, podcast, T-shirt, TV-report, PowerPoint presentation, etc. about veganism available in Spanish or Portuguese everyone should know about it.

When we arrived in Rio we realized that the location for the festival couldn't have been picked better. Rio is breathtakingly beautiful (even though the poverty is shockingly sad) and the Brazilian people have a light-heartedness, openness, readiness to dance and friendliness much bigger than I have ever experienced anywhere else.

I want to thank everyone who was at the festival, everyone who helped in some way and especially Marly Winckler. I also want to thank Kamilla, Ortegal, Letícia, Pedro, Jeanne, Saulo, Dennis, David, Leandro, Adriana, Federico, Ruth, Roberta, Zalan, Colin and again Marly.

Christian Köder, Germany/Chile

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