Life in the Countryside

This week I helped out with more classes at ACG, hung out at the water park with Miriam and went to an all-you-can-eat pizza dinner with the coordinator of the language school and some of her students. My goodness, there are so many delicious types of pizza here… including sweet pizza! My favourite was white chocolate and peach :) I definitely over-ate… again… and it only cost $8.00! Well, I’m cultivating my curves Brazilian style, heh heh. On Thursday I also visited the fire department. I found it very well equipped and the fire fighters seemed knowledgeable and passionate.
Friday I took the bus to São Jose do Rio Preto to visit Anieli and her family. At church in the evening I learned that they cover all the statues and images with purple and pink drapes during Easter to hide the images of Christ suffering. Later we went to an old theatre to watch Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. Even though it was in Portuguese, I understood nearly everything! I’ve really been noticing this week how much my Portuguese has improved in just one month.
Saturday I took the bus back to Olimpia where I got a ride from Weberson, one of the English teachers, to the nearby town of Severinha to help out with some classes there. It was interesting to talk to him about the difficulties of living abroad since he has lived in the United States. In the evening, I went with Carmen and her husband to their farm near Severinha. It is simply picturesque, like a Swiss chalet with a view over Tuscany! Carmen and I went horse riding as the sun set over the sugar cane fields and rolling hills. I will never forget as it got dark we climbed the hill towards the chalet, with fireflies dancing around us and lighting flashing in the distance. Antonio Carlos and his wife joined us for a glass of wine by the pond, under the stormy sky and nearly full moon – simply poetic!
Today (Sunday) I went with Antonio and his wife to a Rotary benefit lunch in Barretos. It took place at the rodeo grounds where there is one of the world’s biggest rodeo parties in August. The picture is of me with a 27-metre-high cowboy!! Tonight, I made pancakes for my host family to continue my family tradition of waffle Sunday. I also feel like I traveled home today as I was able to participate in a ceremony with my family through Skype. We are all sending our love and positive thoughts to my best friend, Lisa and the 4 other crew members of the yacht that is missing off the coast of Chile.

São Paulo - Round 2

In a random turn of events, I ended back in São Paulo for the weekend! I caught a ride on Thursday with a lady I tutor and her family. She is a lawyer here in town, as are her husband and 30-year-old daughter. Their son is also a lawyer and lives in São Paulo.
The Rahmilevitz family welcomed me into their home again and on Friday, I visited the bilingual school they own. It has classes for kids ages 2-15. The half the classes are in English and half in Portuguese. The school is very beautiful with lots of green space, playgrounds and even a pool! I also visited two outreach schools that they support through a foundation they’ve created. Between the two schools, there are 165 kids ages 1-6 who are taken care of and schooled during the day so that their mother’s can get jobs to support their families. They also fund a centre for the women of the area, providing training and job support. Later that day, I met up with Carol, a past student there whom I met 9 years ago in Nelson when she was on an exchange. It was awesome to see her after so much time! We had a lot to catch up on! In the evening, Larissa and I went to her friend’s birthday party.
On Saturday, Larissa and I went with her parents and grandma to the beach! I took off my watch and relaxed the whole day long with no idea what time it was! The beach was beautiful, the sun warm, water refreshing and the company lovely! Larissa’s boyfriend and his friend joined us for a while and we played a type of beach tennis. For dinner, we went to a very nice restaurant and had delicious muscles and white fish with a rich butter and caper sauce, accompanied with Brazilian white wine. Later that evening, Larissa and I prepared banana splits for everyone and we all watched a movie.
On Sunday, we enjoyed the beach some more, before driving back to São Paulo. I met briefly with Ilan, a friend of the family who also lived in Nelson 5 years ago, while we were both in grade 12. Again, we had lots to catch up on! After another 6-hour drive, I arrived back in Olimpia Sunday night, well-tanned and pleasantly tired :)

Um fim de semana mas tranquilo

Saturday I went with a group of Rotarians to the cancer hospital in the neighbouring town. It is the best hospital for cancer treatment in the country. There we all dressed up as clowns and visited the children in their rooms and sang with them.
On Sunday, Miriam and I spent the morning relaxing in one of the pools at the waterpark until the sun got too intense. We had lunch at her house with the whole family and in the evening I made pancakes for everyone – almost like Sunday waffles back home!
A random piece of information, lime juice stains skin! Last week when we were at the farm, I squeezed a lime and some of the juice stayed on my hand then I spent some time in the sun and now I have a red spot by my thumb that apparently will last for quite a while. Ah well, it’s a good souvenir :)

Getting Busy

Ok, I admit it, I like to have a schedule and be busy. This week I started helping out with more classes, sometimes accompanying the teacher in the basic classes, getting the students to ask me questions in English, or teaching a conversation class for a group of advanced students or for individual students. In one class, for 5-7 year olds, the teacher would often say comic little sentences like “Qual é o < name > de sua < mother >?” with a strong Brazilian accent on the English words.
On Wednesday, I helped with an English class, attended Portuguese class, went for ice cream with the teacher after and got talking in French because she’s also the French teacher and later met the Spanish teacher and went to a Japanese restaurant with the exchange students, including Gregorio from Mexico and the French and Spanish teachers showed up there after their classes as well!! I was thoroughly tongue twisted by the end of the day :)
Antonio and his wife both work and their maid is sick so there’s no one in their house during the day so I am still living with the same host family. I’m really comfortable here. Yesterday morning, I went with Cristina (my host mom) to Las Thermas (the water park club) to lay in the lawn chairs and swim some laps. Last night we went out to the best restaurant in town – an Arabic buffet, to celebrate my sister’s birthday :)

First Weekend in Olimpia

I went with my host mom and brother to the hot springs/ water park which is the main attraction in this town and is claimed to be the nicest “club” in South America. We tried out the hot pools, the wave pool, the big bubble slide thingy, the river and the water slides – and that was just a part of it, there’s an exercise gym and lap pool, sauna, beach chairs, cafes, go karts, peddle boats and even a little zoo! You could seriously spend all day there.
Friday night, the exchange students invited me out with their friends to an event at a local bar. The main band didn’t come on until 1:00ish and then everyone started dancing. By the time we were ready to leave at 3:00am, I had somewhat learned the basic samba step!
Saturday I met up with Miriam, the host sister of a fellow Nelsonite who was here on an exchange about 9 years ago. We hung out with her family at their house, visited her sister’s beauty salon and took a drive around the town to visit the Açai restaurant where I’ve decided that my favourite thing ever here is iced açai, topped with vanilla ice cream, butterscotch sauce, bananas and granola :)
Saturday night, I went to a surprise birthday party where I tried to learn Truco, a popular card game that is crazy complicated! It may have been a language thing, but it seemed so illogical and the Brazilians who were playing kept debating things too.
Today, Sunday, we went out to the house on the family sugar cane farm to have a churrasco (BBQ), swim in the pool and generally relax! It was a beautiful, sunny day and the farm is very peaceful. I feel refreshed and ready to start the next week here in Olimpia…

Small Town Brazil

Ok, everything Brazilian and a little Canadian... I arrived in Olimpia, a small town of 40 000 in the rolling hills and endless sugar cane fields east of Sao Paulo, on February 28th just in time to meet one of my host families and sit down to watch the Olimpic gold medal men’s hockey game! And was it ever exciting – yay Canada!
Before coming here, I had been in contact with Antonio, a Rotarian who participated in a group exchange to Nelson last year and who owns a language school here in town. He arranged a host family for my first week and when his wife is less busy, I will go to live with them. I started studying Portuguese at his school along with an exchange student from the US and soon I’ll start helping out with his English classes and possibly the French and Spanish classes too.
This week I am living with Christina and David Berti and their 10-year old son, Guilherme. Their other son, David, is on a Rotary exchange in Germany. I’ve been living completely in Portuguese and loving it! Every day I learn so much just from listening and expressing myself. I am also learning a lot about the culture, which I wrongly assumed would be closer to that of Ecuador than that of Canada. But actually, that city is very clean and safe and the tap water is drinkable!!! There’s at least one Volkswagen Beetle parked on every block!
My first day here, I went to the post office, bank and a few shops with Christina. We had lunch at a buffet restaurant where you pay $1.00 per 100g for the meat dishes and then $2.00 to fill your plate with rice, beans and salad fixings – so cool! For dinner, we had two of the exchange students over for feijoada, Brazil’s national dish. It was developed when the slaves at the slaughter houses would make a black bean stew and add all the meat scraps to it. I ate mostly the beans and it was quite tasty!
That night, I went with Antonio, his wife and 2 kids to the town party at the rodeo grounds. I hung out with the exchange students and some local school teachers they knew. There were fire works at midnight and then a good concert until 2:00am. We all got a ride home with one of the teachers, but not without stopping at a burger shop, so by the time I got home it was after 4:00am!
The next day was a municipal holiday, so I went with my host family and the grandpa to Sao Jose do Rio Preto, a city of 450 000 about 40mins from here. There we tried to extend my visa, but I was missing some paperwork. Then we went to the mall where I bought Havaianas (flip flops), capris and a Brazil t-shirt – necessities in this climate! That afternoon, I met up with Anieli, a girl who did an exchange to Nelson about 7 years ago. We hung out at the science museum where she works 6-days a week.
Yesterday I ran some more errands during the day and in the evening, we all went to the monthly Rotary meeting. There Gregorio, an exchange student from Mexico, did a presentation about his country. I also got up to present myself and gave a Canada flag pin to each of the Rotarians. Everyone is very friendly here and always surprised that I can understand and kind of speak Portuguese.
Today I went with the secretary of the language school to one of the public schools here to visit the classes. I introduced myself in Portuguese and then the students asked me questions or got me to speak different languages. The secretary gave away some discounts and pencil cases. It’s been really rainy lately, but today it’s sunny and very hot!