the salty coast

As you may have heard, last Saturday February 20th, there were devastating floods and mudslides on the island of Madeira.  Based on government estimations, there could be as many as 42 victims of this tragedy.  With at least 120 people injured. On Monday, the government declared three days of mourning.  On the left, is the cover of the recent edition of the national Portuguese newspaper, O Publico.  It is terribly sad what has happened to this island.  They need as much assistance as possible at this point. Cristiano Ronaldo, who is from Madeira, has paid tribute to the victims - during a recent match, after scoring a goal he lifted his shirt to reveal a white t-shirt with "Madeira" written on it.   He later offered his assistance.  Being that I'm living in Canada, I looked for a way to help, and I found a web site that is currently accepting donations to help - a disaster relief fund .     PLEASE DONATE!  Even $5 will go a long way if we all donate.  Another way

Danny had the unfortunate result of placing last in this year's 15 Cross-Country Skiing event (at the 2010 Winter Olympics).  Great effort, and keep it up - if you do what you love, that's all that matters.   It's been great to even be able to look for Portugal in the Winter Olympics (in Portugal, normally, you don't see much snow...although it hasn't been like that lately).  Perhaps, we can look forward to more athletes competing in the future.  For now, we can put all our hopes in the 2010 World Cup.

Back in 2006, during the Torino Winter Olympics, I had blogged about Danny Silva, the sole Portuguese athlete representing Portugal at the Winter Olympics.   It was great to have him visit the site & leave me some feedback.  It is something to be proud of - I can only hope that we have more Portuguese athletes competing in the coming years.  This year, in the 2010, Danny is back, and will be competing tomorrow, February 15th,  in the Men's 15 km Cross-Country Skiing event.   Good luck Danny!  Força!   Read this great article about him ( em portugues ). Danny's personal site - ( em portugues )