American Camp

I'm really proud of myself for staying on track with the weekly blog posts. Not sure who reads them, but if nothing else forcing myself to do this is a good lesson in self-discipline. Anyways, what did I do this weekend? I went to American Camp. Where students at CNA got to meet a real live American. Yep. Now, don't get me wrong. It wasn't like we were being objectified into "the other" for all my LAS readers. We actually helped. So although the camp was being held at a chacara literally 1.25 miles outside of the city, the students took a bus which was really cute. While we were waiting to take off all these people in costumes started walking past us. Not sure what was happening but I decided to photo document it anyway.

And they arrived. This is where all their major activities, food, shows and such happened. It was a really nice place. In fact I found out that one of the students had just gotten married there last month.

Walk a little further in and you get acquainted with the floresta (tropical). Students kept asking me how to say floresta in English. The closest thing I could come up with was tropical forest but as I explained we don't need a word for it cuz we don't have it,lol.

They slept in tents and everything.

They even had potato sack races, three-legged races, capture the flag, and tug-of-war. They introduced me to a game called quemada which is kinda like a more complicated dodgeball. The last game was a pop chugging contest. The last round was campers vs. staff. I got asked to play. Luckily I was last and the campers smoked us to I never had to chug my cup of guarana.

At the end of the night they had a Saturday night live followed by a campfire and s'mores. I gave a free concert singing I got a feeling, I'm yours, Oh happy day, and Someone like you (cuz those are some of the most popular English songs in my city)while the rest of the staff got ready for their skits.

After a great weekend of reminders of home including "American" food we got ready to board the bus. But it got stuck... twice. 

After some time we got back on the road and drove the ten minutes back to the city. It was a great weekend  with great people and grass. Yay for grass. Till next time.

Strike and a Toucan

I am an English Teaching Assistant (ETA) at the Federal University of Tocantins (my state). The 31 students in my group are all teaching at Federal Universities and the Federal Universities of Brazil have gone on STRIKE. Yep, Strike. If you remember from an earlier post, our first workshop was moved because it was scheduled for April 27^th, the day of the paralisação.  That day there was a freeze on teaching as a warning to the Brazilian government that they would strike if their demands weren’t met. They weren’t and as of May 17^th, one by one the universities began to stop.  At first this didn’t really affect everyone all that much. Classes were still being taught, students were still coming to campus, but as time goes on UFT has begun to look like a ghost town.

So what are we doing since we’re not teaching classes. Well, I’ve spent a lot of time working on our program blog. If you wana check it out, here’s the link : http://etauft.blogspot.com.br/ If you’re reading from the states, I’m pretty sure it works with or without the “.br” Starting today, every Wednesday I’ll be making a blog post about American holidays, traditions, and adding assignments that the students can do and I can correct. I’m also trying to meet with the students in random locations throughout the city to practice in an informal conversational setting. My first attempt was a fail. I said I’d be somewhere at 21:00 or 9 p.m. I waited till 9:45 cuz I know South Americans have a tendency to be late. At about 10:15 I was informed that students were waiting for me. Le sigh. So, next week I’m going to try these English Round Tables twice, take a book with me,lol, and let you know how they go.

We’ve visited a couple of our students’ estagios.  That just means their student teaching internships. There’s this literary fair going on this weekend: music, poetry, workshops. Michol and I have helped plan a 4 hour seminar tomorrow and will be presenting there. Our guitar teacher is playing tomorrow night as well.  Also, Michol and I are going to an American Camp this weekend. This school here called CNA is hosting it. Michol and I attended an Aloha Party they had last month so next week’s post will have pictures from both of those events!

In addition to working, cleaning, working out, getting stuff re-fixed,lol, I’ve also had the chance to travel a little. The pictures below are from our trip to Uberlandia. There was a Portuguese language congress in Uberlandia complete with a free luxury bus ride. Obviously, Michol and I went,lol. The picture below is the bus but I posted it because everyday we were there is was someone's birthday!

We stayed with the lovelies Maria and Olivia. They are ETAs at UFU (Federal University of Uberlandia) I didn't really get to know them that well at our conference in Sao Paulo this February so it was GREAT getting to know them. They are the sweetest and I can't wait to see them and the other ETAs in August.

 Part of their job there is to attend English classes for the elderly. It was so cute! The classes are offered as part of the university. They're free although you can only participate for a year I think. Either way I had a great time and the lady in the very middle of the picture was cool. She's 80 something and has a great grandson in the states but he doesn't speak Portuguese. That part made me sad but she's well traveled. They were doing an exercise about NYC and where they'd like to visit and she was like "I've been to all these places,lol, and asked me and I'm like yeah... I've never been to New York,lol)

Then it happened. When I least expected it. I was at the university attending a class Maria and Olivia help teach when I heard this really large noise in the tree. Olivia's like... It's a toucan. Seriously? Yep. I know I need some culture cuz I definitely thought, "He doesn't really look like the one on the box,lol" But I was SO excited.

So now you understand why I started my post with the strike

(they want better working conditions, higher salaries, and restructuring)

Lastly, a photo from a restaurant/bar with some students. We stayed there for hours and not one song of sertanejo (the pop country on 24/7 in Araguaina). It was nice to change the station for a while.

So there you have it. I'm gonna try to be better about putting events and such up here, but if you're ever curious you know how to reach me. Till next time

Cavalgada "the diary view, part 3"

And here we are in our third and final installment of the Cavalgada series which actually stopped being about the Cavalgada a long time ago,lol. In the next posts, I'll write "the journal view" which instead of being about how I feel about what's happened, I'll just tell you what's happened. Thus, pictures! But I digress...

Time-out. Can I just say that Luciana just spider-manned her way up the back of my wardrobe past my suitcases like 8 ft in the air. I wish my camera was working I'd definitely post the video. I'm kinda interested to see how she gets down. I was standing ready to catch her if she fell but she's a g so I'm guessin she won't need my help to get down either. So... the perspective again. I have cock-roaches. Day before yesterday was a great day in spite of the fact that I opened my same wardrobe and there was a cockroach just chillin on one of the shelves. I've tried for the life of me to figure out how it got in there but it doesn't matter. I've realized that no matter what I do/clean I'm going to have roaches. And that's ok (for now). I've accepted that I'm going to see the bike/computer repairman more than once again before I go. I started talkin all everything's grand and someone told me that's cuz I'm goin home in 6 months and to imagine if I were here for years. There's that perspective again.

One of the common questions I get is, "How long you gonna be here for?" When I say nine months, the typical response is, "Oh, like a baby." That conversation is usually summed up with me saying, "Um... yeah, I guess so." Other than the equivalent period of gestation I saw no similarities between the two but now, I do.  Instead of growing a baby I'm growing a lifestyle change. For example, the gym thing. You don't just up and be a runner. You have to work at it. Now I see myself running an hour three times a week for the rest of my functionable life. I'm always evaluating myself on some self-imposed standard of ok-ness. Like I've been here x amount of time I should have learned... or I should be able to... but the truth is the only acceptance I need to be seeking is God's and He's already granted me that through Jesus. If that weren't enough, and as much as I hate to admit it, my flesh is weak and more often than I'd like it tricks me into thinking it's not... I have done something.

I've fought a 12 year war with my hair and self-esteem and won. The media and therefore boys and girls have told me all my life that long straight hair is the epitome of  beauty. And I believed it. I started to think I was better than other girls because I had it and didn't think I was "as pretty as I could/should be" when I didn't. I was jealous of any one else I deemed having "better hair" than I did. But now I know that I jealously is simply counting someone else's blessings instead of your own and that I'm way too blessed to do something silly like that. So Thursday I went to the salon and... (pauses to take webcam pics,lol)

And I bought these gloves cuz ridin my bike and doin pull ups were givin me callouses so I look like a beast at the gym. G.I.Jane status,lol. 

So yeah, at the end of my "1st trimester" I cut all my hair off. I'm really interested to see how life continues to surprise me over the next six months.  Anyways, thanks for readin. And I'll be back soon. <3

Cavalgada "the diary view, part 2"

So... now you've got some background here's where the story starts to butterfly into perseverance. North Point Pastor man said "When your dreams (expectations) meet reality, choose hope" and talked about how a lot people get stuck in the suffering part. You'd think after the blessing of getting my fridge back for less than I was quoted and surviving a potentially deadly situation damage-free I'd be the most grateful, giving person in the world, right? Nope. I too was stuck in my everyday "sufferings" But this past week something clicked.  Perspective overload. One of the elder members of my church gave me her home number and told me to call her while I was away. So yesterday, I did. As a retired teacher she asked me how it was going and I told her about both the good and the struggles of teaching/living with limited resources. She proceeded to tell me about how when she was little they went to the outhouse. Prospective, right? So I just sat quiet for the rest of the conversation and listened and learned.

There are a lot of little sayings I've heard since being here that I like:

• "Se Deus quizer, e Ele quer" ~Esmeralda (It more or less translates to "God willing... and He is" but it's more tickling in Portuguese)
• "The point of life is to live"
• "If you're depressed you're living in the past, if you're anxious, you're living in the future and if you're at peace, you're living in the present"
• "When we're washing the cups, we're washing the cups"

Now that one comes from a story. A restaurant had 300 year old china. A woman asked how do you still use china that old and the lady said, "When we're washing the cups, we're washing the cups" meaning we're not thinking about the GRE we have to take or bills to be paid.  We're not thinking about the boy who ended things with us. I say this to myself every time I start to feel restless about the past or the future. I also say the famous part of the Serenity prayer almost every day. One of the hardest parts about living here is my U.S. work oriented on-the-go mentalities clashing with my slow pace of life reality. A lot of the time I feel like I'm not doing enough with my life. I don't know who I'm comparing my self to but I just feel like at some point I'm going to be held accountable for "not doing anything" which is what I felt like I was doing most of the time. But this past week I realized that's not true at all. I'm doing a whole lot of something.

My U.S. brain has taught me achievement-based living. A productive day is based on how much a got done on my to do list. Days like the ones I live here in Araguaina I considered rest-days or wasted-days. But I've realized much like the conclusion of my thesis that this is such a U.S. arrogant way of thinking. Like our way is the best way or worse, the only way of living. So what exactly do I spend my days doing?? Well, I teach. That's what I'm here doing for those of you who don't know. Apart from that I spend time with myself doing stuff that you probably don't think/have to do.

1.  I spend a lot of time in transit. Not having a car, I spend a legit amount of time simply walking/riding my bike to and from places.
2. I go to the gym three times a week. I just finished week 10 or a 17 week goal to get myself fit enough to run an hour on the treadmill. Yesterday was 39 mins. Tomorrow, 40.
3. I eat. As I've previously explained the concept of fast-food/to-go simply doesn't exist here. Also my food is prepared fresh everyday so I spend a decent amount of time more than I did back home waiting for my food to cook and sitting at a table.
4. I drink water. It's a minimum of 100 degrees here every day. Everyday. 
5. Therefore, I pee. I literally go to the bathroom between 6 and 8 times a day.
6. I play with the cat. She's bad as hell (yes, she passed heck a long time ago) and super needy. While I still wish she were more like other cats that just sat around I recognize that we are all she has and at the end of the day all she wants is attention and who doesn't want that?
7. Lastly and most importantly, I sit, say hello and goodbye. Here, friends talk to/see each other everyday. If not, they think you're mad at them. I  had to explain my distant nature a couple of times before I got with the calling program. I was already familiar from Chile with having to personally greet every individual in the room including the ones you don't know. Anyways, with seeing/talking to people every 24 hours other than the latest gossip, you really run out of things to say so you just sit.

In my sitting I've realized that I used to move so fast sometimes I didn't even know what day/date it was. More incredible, I liked it that way. It was easier running on auto-pilot with a set schedule that follows the same pattern every week and being able to make appointments and keep them. Now I take time to acknowledge everyday for what it is because God took the time to creative it and predestine it.

Almost home!

Cavalgada "the diary view, part 1"

In Araguaina, today is the biggest day of the year. It's Cavalgada. The day of "the largest horse parade in the world". Not sure if it actually is but with more than 2,000 horses walking today it's definitely one of the biggest. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to show for it because for some reason I haven't figured out yet my memory card is locked. The fortunate part of this story is that I wasn't even the least bit saddened or surprised. This marks a major milestone in my immersion into the culture here. See, as I might have (ok, actually have,lol) mentioned before, things here usually don't work right the first time around. And issues you'd get fixed once in the States and be done with must be fixed multiple times here and remain in a perpetual state of semi-brokenness.  And that's ok. I've gotten a lot of perspective this last week. These last 3 and a half months actually, but specifically this week and so I share...

I watch sermons every Sunday morning on North Point's website, these sermons have been a real blessing to me since I've been here. Last week's lesson was about Romans 5. About how we "Rejoice in our suffering because suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope". I knew coming here was God-breathed. Since I've been here I've actively prayed for God to make me by any means necessary a more patient, less sarcastic, less money-oriented person. I prayed for the hard lessons to not stop coming until I learned them and Kirk Franklin's "Hide Me" became my anthem. I haven't written in a long time because honestly it was just hard to type out what was happening, but this week I can say with certainty that I see myself moving from suffering to perseverance.

What was my "suffering" you may ask? Well, Our fridge has a freezer inside of it. The freezer had accumulated so much ice that the door wouldn't shut. In an effort to thaw my freezer i decided to take a pair of scissors and hack at the ice. One of my brighter ideas I know,lol. As you probably guessed I punctured a hole in the freezer wall expelling all the refrigerant and leaving me with a worthless fridge.  For those of you who don't know I am extremely cheap. Always have been. Having to shell out $150 bucks plus the cost of everything in my fridge and eating out everyday for the 2 weeks it took to get it fixed was a major blow.  Feeling pretty low, the next day I managed to cause a gas leak in my apartment. Yep.

Michol and I were watching movies on our wall every night. (We borrowed Elisa's projector while she was at a congress) I made popcorn on the stove (which I do often because we don't have a microwave). I went to turn of the gas tank and the switch broke off. I recognize that this may be a bit confusing so let me explain. The stoves here don't have gas in them. Every house has a gas tank on the floor next to the stove that looks like the helium tanks you use to fill balloons. You then buy a $6 handle/hose set at the store. So to cook: gas handle up, light match, turn burner on and the opposite to turn off (minus the match of course). Anyways, the handle with the 5 year guarantee broke off on the floor causing a gas leak so loud all my neighbors came outside to see what it was.

We evacuated the building, called the fire department (who took 25 mins to show which apparently is good timing for them) and waited. After the danger had passed we told our neighbors what happened and they took it well, laughed at us even.  Although it had never happened to any of them, it's apparently common knowledge here that if anything like that were to happen you just unscrew the hose cuz the tank itself it sealed for that reason. No one bothered to tell us that so my fellow Fulbrighters if you're still reading take note and pass the info on.  Michol tried hard to assure me it wasn't my fault but I still felt like it. I'm still a little scared of my gas tank but I work hard to tell myself that my fear is a lack of trust in God. A downer I know but the story gets better in part 2 :-) (unless you read these reverse chronologically in which case I guess this is it,lol) Toodles