Familia Familia

Familia Familia

Hopefully, this new year will bring a much less lazy me, so here I am back to blogging! So much has happened since my last post but by far the most exciting has been my family's visit here to Brazil. Mom, Dad, and Helen came down to see me so I could show them around my new home here in Alvorada. The weekend was mostly rainy so we spent a lot of time just hanging out and I got to enjoy Dad making breakfasts of omelets fresh fruit both mornings, even got a little teary seeing four plates at the table the first morning. We waited for the bus downtown in the rain Friday morning, ridiculously standing out in our raincoats (which Brazilians don't wear) and our inability to get on the bus correctly, probably my fault because I didn't explain the process well enough. Anne, my coordinator from ICYE met us downtown and walked around the touristy places with us while explaining a lot of the history of Porto Alegre that I didn't know. The night before flying to Rio we had the most amazing churrasco. It was amazing how we all managed to somewhat understand each other and I have never been so happy to see everyone I love in the same place. Taina and I spent the evening translating and the food was so good Helen said after the whole trip that it was the best she had in Brazil.

Christmas day at Praia Itacarazinho

Sunday morning we flew through Rio to Ilheus in the state of Bahia where we went with the wrong driver for about an hour before turning around to get in the right cab and finally make it to the beach. We spent the next few days, including Christmas, hanging out on beach chairs in Itacare, drinking coconut water and eating tapioca (essentially enormous savory or sweet tacos that could give Taco Bell a run for its money). My absolute favorite part about the beaches were the amazing palm trees that looked like they were out of a movie, all up and down the coastline. I tried to climb one of them to be kind of like Tarzan, not very much success there. After we were full of seafood and just burnt enough to not need any more sun we moved on to Salvador, the capital city of Bahia.

View of the beach in Salvador from a lighthouse

After the four of us took our first bus trip in South America in over 8 years, we hopped on a ferry to reach the peninsula Salvador is on. Within the first 10 minutes, I fell completely in love with the historic district we were staying in. Friday morning we took a trip down to walk along the water where we tried some Acarajé, Bahian street food made from a bean biscuit filled with shrimp, salad, and spicy, spicy, spicy sauce. I split mine with Dad and only realized after he had eaten all of his that he took the half of the biscuit she hadn't put the "picante" sauce on since my mouth was on fire and he seemed unfazed. We stopped by a touristy public market to get souvenirs, I bought some tapioca flour for my host family (to make me tapioca waffles) and took a very uneventful elevator ride up back up to the historic district.

Momma in Copacabana

Dad just loves smiling for pictures

Before our afternoon flight for the last part of our trip to Rio,  Mom, Dad, and I went morning swimming in water so clear we could see our toes in the sand. Flying into Rio was incredible, there are so many houses even on these huge hills that pop in random places all over. Since we were only there for two days, there wasn't time to see the whole city. We did make it to the most important places, Christo do Corcovado (now known as White Jesus among the Vance family), and stopped by the most amazing churro stand on Copacabana beach. Since all of us were flying out on New Year's Eve, Copacabana was all set up for the party they would have and we got to listen to them testing out the speakers for the tiny amount of time we managed to stay in the most crowded place I have ever been in my life.

Saying goodbye was hard, and I spent the entire Uber ride to the airport crying in the back of the car but the excitement to come back home to see my host family was enough to make New Years truly special when I returned.

I am so grateful to have the most amazing family on the planet, and I'm so glad they got to come to see me in my new home. (Tão grata!)

FILHOTES

Two blog posts back to back because I couldn't not post about the most amazing that has happened to me so far, but I had to finish the last post first. Yesterday I "adopted" a street mom and her 8 puppies. I helped move them out of the hole they were living in into our handmade dog house where we think they will be much happier.
They are in a lot right next to the language school Eduardo (the president of ICYE Brazil) owns and he was the one who took me to see them. I sat down in the hole with them for about 45 minutes to make sure that the mom would be okay with us moving her puppies. Eduardo thinks they are about 2 weeks old now and they're so tiny that if they weren't so fidgety, I could probably pick three of them up with one hand!
We are going to try and find homes for them through Eduardo's connections at the language school and I just might be able to convince my host mom to let one of those homes be ours, at least for a little bit!!! Sometime soon we are going to take pictures of them individually and name them just for the fun of getting extremely attached in case something goes wrong... ha. We went back last night to feed the mom a healthy dinner of leftover beans and rice and to check on the pups, all is well!

Definitivamente, os filhotes mais fofos que eu já vi! (Definitely the cutest puppies I've ever seen)

Nossa, Que Fim de Semana

By far, last weekend was the most fun I have had yet in Brazil. Thursday was the last of the 3 holidays we had almost back to back; the 7th was Brazils independence day, the 17th was Feriado Municipal (holiday for the town I live in), and the 20th was Feriado Estadual (the holiday for the state of Rio Grande do Sul). Almost everything was closed on those days, no one in my family had to go to work and there were outdoor bars and churrascarias (barbeque) set up all around the city park. My host mother works at a shelter and they were serving dinner for the homeless as well as the other workers. I got to meet a Brazilian who lived in Boston for a few years when he was 5, and I was absolutely shocked because he spoke with an accent like he lived in West Asheville. Everyone that I speak English with here is European, and while it's interesting to see how English is pronounced in Germany, Denmark, and Finland, it was so nice to hear an "American" again.

After we ate our typical churrasco dinner all the people that lived or ate at the shelter got together to give speeches. I didn't understand everything since many of them were either screaming or talking extremely fast but all of the general messages were thanking God for the food and the people helping them. Before everyone left we all got together to pray, the workers, families, and all the people helping cook. After dinner, my family went across the plaza to where many tables were set up and there was a band playing to have some drinks and talk to almost everyone that walked by. I'm convinced that between my host mom and my host dad the two of them know everyone in Alvorada!








Saturday we all slept in and then cleaned the house which always involves something being moved to a different spot before I even wake up. This time it was the fridge and I turned the corner in the kitchen while I was almost still asleep to run right into it hiding behind the wall. In the evening I went downtown to Gasometro which is the pier to watch the sunset which was one of the most incredible things I've seen since I got here. Mom says it's just the pollution but I don't think I've ever been so amazed by fossil fuels. There were so many people but we got a spot right by the water so if I didn't turn around, you couldn't tell that the whole population of Porto Alegre was at the park. We headed home just as it was getting dark and slept all night and day Sunday to get ready for the next week.

Nossa, Que Fim de Semana (Wow, What a Weekend!)

Fotos Fotos!

Mirror Selfie!

Sunny days were rare for a while and the kids
were really excited to be outside 

I'm pretty sure they make up a new rule every time they want to get
rid of another card but UNO is the favorite game.

I tried my best to get him to smile

Bathroom pictures

Centro Franciscano

I wish I had a good excuse for not posting sooner, I was sick for a while but the best thing that I can think of is that I've been busy falling absolutely in love with my job. I work at Centro Franciscano Pedro Chaves Barcellos helping teach kids English, doing art projects, and most importantly tying lots of shoes. Since the kids only go to school for half the day here, places like Centro are for them to be and participate in all the electives that they don't teach at school while they are there. Centro is run primarily by the four nuns that live on campus, one is the director, one the music teacher, one the art teacher and I have yet to see the fourth but I do know she exists. There are no religious classes but we do sing some sort of prayer every day before the kids eat, and it took me a while to realize that they weren't singing the same song every day considering I still am not completely sure what they're saying.

Group 2 with Their Eagle Art Projects

Gustavo and Luis

I spend the majority of my time with Group 1 which are the youngest kids from ages 6-10. The entire program has 3 groups up to ages 15 but so far it's easiest for me to work with the little kids because the older kids have more discussions that are harder to keep up with whereas the little ones are easy to help with the activities they do. As far as instant gratification, dance class is the most fun for me to watch, there isn't a lot of talking I just have to keep their shoes tied and some of the music is even in English! I do most of my talking with the kids during snack time where the cooks make all sorts of food. In the middle of the week, the food is smaller like a hot dog but on Mondays and Fridays, they get an entire meal normally with dessert in case they aren't able to eat a lot at home over the weekend. Other than dance, the kids participate in music, technology (which is just an hour of them getting computer time to play games), P.E., and art. I'm trying my best to learn all the songs they sing but since that isn't going as well as one would hope I mainly clap and hum. I play more of a supervising role in P.E. after being fought over my first week only for them to find out they didn't really want me on their soccer team anyways. I couldn't bring myself to knock over the kids like they were knocking over each other to get the ball so now I just watch. During art if we have a project I help with the things they aren't allowed to use like big scissors and the hot glue gun, and if it's a free day where nothing is planned I draw lots and lots and lots of flowers for them to color in.

Kids playing Simon Says in P.E.

I've started some great relationships with the kids, they are all so sweet and always want hugs and to give kisses on the cheek. I can't wait until my university Portuguese classes are over and I'll be able to go to work every day of the week!



Eu amo meu trabhalo! (I love my job)

Casa en Alvorada

I have been living in Alvorada for a week now and since I was finally allowed to wash the dishes the other night, I feel like I'm finally a part of the family. I live with my host mother Marines and her daughter Taina who is 20 and will turn 21 on the 17th of October so I'm super excited for our joint birthday party. I absolutely love having an older sister and I am now also an aunt to my niece Elena who is 3 and my nephew Thales who is 7 months. They live upstairs with their parents so they're around the house quite a lot and I even got woken up one morning by Elena who told me that it was time to wake up because "the whole world was awake but me".


Alvorada is one of the suburbs of Porto Alegre, the nearest big city. Because it's winter, the house is always freezing and I sleep with 5 blankets but I know it's going to be so nice to come inside to the cold when it gets hot in the summer. The food is so so so good, I have abandoned my gluten-free lifestyle for my new favorite breakfast - white bread with Doce de Leite. For lunch and dinner, we always have beans with either rice, pasta, or polenta and some sort of meat or vegetable to go with it.

I live close to the main road and I walk there in the morning to catch my bus to go to work. So far the bus system has been hard to master but thanks to my new favorite app, I know the bus times and I can follow along on my phone with where I am on the route so that I don't get lost.
I haven't done many touristy activities yet, I mainly hang out with the family or Taina and her friends who make cake spontaneously when they're bored which I think is the greatest thing on the planet. Today for Dia dos Pais (Fathers Day) we had a barbecue with all of her family who are all so nice but speak so fast especially when arguing over soccer teams. I cannot say enough how good the food is but I hope some of these pictures can do it justice.
Tomorrow starts my first full week at my host project and I hope to get comfortable enough to start taking pictures to share!

Se está sintiendo cada vez más en casa! (It's feeling more and more like home)

Finalmente Aqui

I arrived at the airport in Porto Alegre over 24 hours of traveling later to be welcomed by my in- country coordinator Anne, and the other two volunteers Suzanna and Steffan. We all got into the car, headed to a house out in the countryside headed towards the house where we would have our arrival camp. At the house I took a much needed shower and fell asleep only to be woken up for dinner which was delicious, not sure exactly what I was eating but I do know it was good, and right back to bed where I remember nothing for the next 11 hours. a cow made a noise that scared Suzanna half to death but I’m just glad that it wasn’t me who woke her up.

Friday morning I woke up to breakfast already being eaten and Eduardo , the ICYE Brazil President joining us for the day to show us around. First we went to see some of the lakes around the countryside where I learned that fences and signs do not have much influence over anything, and that capybaras (the huge guinea pig) can swim! From there we drove to a hike to a small sand formation that reminded me almost exactly of a mini Zion and southern Utah. The rocks were all sand and difficult to climb but we scrambled to the top and the view was beautiful.



Lastly on our tour we went to an ecological reserve where the main purpose of the workers is to preserve the swamp deer whose population is endangered in Rio Grande do Sul. There we climbed to the top of the observation deck and could see all the way to Porto Alegre, and to the edge of the mountains on the other side.

After lunch Eduardo left with Suzanna and Steffan and I went through some ICYE information and guidelines before doing an art project about our expectations of what the year ahead will look like. Mine was supposed to be in the shape of Brazil, but I’m not convinced. Before dinner we took a walk around the neighborhood, followed by many dogs, and passed a bar looking to sell a sheep that was 70 kilos, and I only know this because those words were written all over the side of the outside wall. Dinner was amazing as usual, so far I have not been hungry once, and we finished the night with card games and some jamaica (hibiscus) tea. Tomorrow I will meet my host family and on Wednesday I find out my project placement where I will be working for the next year!

É bom estar finalmente aqui! (It’s good to be finally here)

Brasil aqui eu venho!

Even though my last three days in Asheville felt like seconds more than hours, I realized this morning that even if I had all the time in the world it wouldn't have felt like enough - and then it means I wouldn't ever leave. So after many tears (knowing there will be many more to come) I am sitting at my gate in the Atlanta airport trying to think of what in the world I can do with my 7 hour layover in Orlando. So much love to all of you. 

Brasil aquie eu venho! (Brazil here I come!)

Consulado-Geral do Brasil em Atlanta

And the journey begins.
Early morning at the Brazilian Consulate with my mom and a cup of Starbucks coffee. Almost done with my visa application and will receive the final copy in my passport soon! T-20 days and I'm off. Probably should start packing :)

United Planet and ICYE Brazil

After realizing my heart wasn't in applying to college, and that staying home for another year would drive everyone in my house crazy, I started looking for other options after high school. I found a program called United Planet and looking through my host country options I settled on Brazil which can offer me new experiences as far as language and culture, while still being in the South American environment I love. So far I'm looking forward to the culture more than the language - my Spanish isn't as close to Portuguese as I thought.
For my senior project on the importance of bilingual education, I interned at a local bilingual preschool and continued to work there throughout the summer. This set up such a great foundation for the work I will be doing in Brazil, my host project will be in a school where I help out in English classrooms and anywhere else I can. I'm so grateful for all the support from my friends and family during this process, much love to you all.
T-21 days and counting!

ICYE Brazil Website
United Planet Website