August 25, 2009

So, I haven't written anything in almost 2 weeks, so I'll try to write everything I've been doing since my last post!

I continued going to school all last week and this week.  I love it there.  It's close to impossible following what the teachers say, so whenever the teachers give handouts, my friends and I always take my Portuguese-English dictionary and translate everything.  The rest of the time in class I either attempt to understand what is being said or I study some Portuguese books that I brought with me here.  I think I'll start taking tests in a month or so when the language isn't so hard!

The Sunday before last, Marisa, Pedro, Lucas, and I went to church.  Most people here are Catholics, so everything at church was a lot different from what I'm used to.  After church, Marisa dropped me off at my cousin Lara's apartment.  About 10 of her friends were there because every Sunday she has a choreographer come for a dance class.  They taught me a dance that was a mix between Reggae and forró.  Pedro came and got me after the class and we went from there to his dad's apartment and then out to lunch with Pedro, his dad, and my 2 older brothers Lucas and Daniel.  When we came back home, Lara and her friend Amanda came over to the apartment because they wanted me to help them with English.  We went to Lara's house later and then went out walking with a bunch of friends along the beach at night.

Tuesday night Pedro and I and a bunch of his friends went out to a Japanese restaurant because it was his last night here in Brazil.  He's going to live in New York for the year as an exchange student like me through Rotary.  Afterwards we all went walking on the beach.  The next day we went down to Recife to bring Pedro to the airport.  

(Pedro's going away dinner)

Thursday I went to Cabral, Adriana, and Luana's house (the same people I went to Natal with) and I stayed there until this morning because my mom was in Belo Horizonte visiting her family.  My friend Kricia was supposed to leave for Canada on Tuesday, but couldn't go then because she needed something more for her visa, so she and her mom were staying at Luana's house too so the whole weekend Kricia, Luana, and I hung out.

Saturday a group of about 20 friends went to an island called Picaozinho.  It was about a 10 minute boat ride from João Pessoa and it was sooo pretty!  It's a place where people can go snorkeling and swimming, and there were so many fish and coral there.  Later that day the whole group went to a beach called Intermares where there is a windsurfing/kitesurfing competition.  When we got there, it wasn't windy enough for them to windsurf/kitesurf, so we all just swam in the ocean until it got dark.  Luana, Kricia, and I went home and showered quickly and then went out for açaí with the same group again.

(Kelsie (from New York), me, and Kricia in Picouzinho)

I just got home from Luana's house after school this morning, but even though I've only been here for 3 weeks, it feels nice to be home :).  

This weekend there is a huge Rotary conference in a city called Maragogi.  All the exchange students in Northeast Brazil will be there and it's held in a huge hotel on the beach.  I hear it's one of the best Rotary conferences of the year and that it's a lot of fun.  I'll let you all know how it goes!

I know I'm forgetting to write a lot of things in here, but I've been so busy that it's hard to remember everything! :).  To sum it up though, I love everything here.  The people, the food, the weather, the beaches, the school, the Brazilian culture, the language, my city, my friends, and my family. 

And even if you're not following my blog, you still can comment on it because I would love to hear from you all!  Also if you would like to email me, my email address is raethompson93@live.com.  And lastly if you want to send me letters, my address here is:

Rae Thompson

Rua Major Ciraulo, 745-Apt. #1302

Manaíra

João Pessoa, PB 58038-291

BRAZIL

Tchau Beijos :)

August 13, 2009

Now that my foot is almost all healed, I have been a lot busier than before.  

Two nights ago, Pedro and I made chocolate chip cookies from the mix that I brought.  It called for 1/2 cup of butter and an egg, so I asked them what they use to measure things here in Brazil so we could convert it online.  They brought me into the kitchen and after looking through all the drawers, they realized that they didn't have any cups or things to measure food with!  I asked them what they do when they cook and they said, "Oh we don't cook, the maid does, and I think she just throws in whatever she thinks would be good!"  All the food here is really good, but I thought that was really funny that they didn't have anything to measure with.  After guessing how much we thought was 1/2 cup of butter, we mixed everything together and put it on a pan to cook.  It turns out that it was Pedro's first time cooking in his whole life, because they always just have the maid do everything!  The cookies turned out really good, and the Brazilians loved them.  

Yesterday Kelsie (through Rotary from New York) and Julia (through Rotary from Finland) came over to my apartment and we went from there to the beach.  We all have light hair and blue & green eyes, so everywhere we went, people stared at us because here in Brazil everyone has dark brown or black hair and brown eyes.  

When we came back from the beach we had some ice cream and juice and tried watching Spongebob in Portuguese.  When my host mom came home from work, she took Kelsie and Julia to Julia's apartment and then took me back home to get ready for a Rotary meeting that night.  She had just bought fresh pão de queijo (cheese bread that Brazil is well known for) and so we ate a bunch of that and then got ready for the meeting.

The Rotarians here in João Pessoa asked me to speak a little about myself, so before we went to the meeting, my mom helped me write a speech in Portuguese to give so I wouldn't sound completely dumb!  We got home from the meeting and Pedro and I watched Saw, which here in Brazil is called Jogos Mortais (Death Games).

This morning I woke up bright and early at 5:30 to get ready for my first day of Brazilian high school!!  I'm going to a private school called GEO.  Here in Brazil, most students go to private schools because the public schools are terrible.  A lot of the time the teachers don't show up and the kids don't learn anything in the public schools.  Pedro's cousin, Lara, came and picked me up to take me to school.

When we got there, we walked inside and it felt like everyone was staring at me because of my hair and eyes.  Lara and I went up to her class room and sat down and everyone came over and started talking to me in Portuguese! 

The schools here are different than in the U.S., because here, instead of the students switching classes, the teachers switch instead.  So I stayed in the same class of about 50 people for the whole day.  Everyone was so funny and nice, and the whole day everyone was telling jokes.

My brothers Pedro & Lucas came and picked me up from school when it was done, and we went home and ate lunch.  My mom took me to Luana's house later and from there Luana, her mom, Kricia (from a city in the Amazon going to Canada in a week through Rotary), her mom, and I went to the mall to watch a movie.  Movies here are really cheap.  I only paid 5.00 reais ($2.50) for my ticket!

I have to go to bed soon because I have another early morning of school tomorrow :).  

Tchau Beijos!

August 11, 2009

This last weekend I was invited to go to Natal with some friends here.  I went with Luana (she was an exchange student in Michigan last year) and her mom and dad.  It was sooo pretty there!

On the first day there, Luana, her cousin Camila, and her cousin's boyfriend Rodrigo and I all went to the beach.  Everything started off so well.  The weather was nice, the beach was amazing, we got agua de coco (coconut water) and we were just sitting down talking for a while.  Then we started walking into the water.  We got about knee deep when I felt a really big pain in my right foot.  I lifted it up and (sorry if this is too graphic) blood was going everywhere!  The first thought that came into my head was "Oh my gosh a shark is going to come with all this blood!" Luana and her cousin had me put each of my arms around them and the brought me back to the table where her cousin's boyfriend was sitting.  I left a trail of blood on the sand too :/.  They had me sit in a chair and put my foot up and they brought a bottle of water and ice over to clean it up.  I wouldn't look at my foot until they told me that everything was fine and there was no more blood!  Luckily Camila is studying biology at the university in Natal, and she specializes in the ocean, so right away she called her professor and talked to him about what could have happened.  They concluded that I stepped on a bagre.  A bagre is a type of fish that when you step on it, a long spine goes up, so the spine was what went into my foot.  They are pretty uncommon in the beaches here, but you know, since the exchange student came to the beach, it decided to show up!  

We went to the closest hospital just to get it all cleaned out and to be sure it was nothing bad.  It was my first experience in a hospital ever!  We got in and were talking to the doctor and she sent me to a nurse to get it cleaned out and to get a band aid on it.

The whole time from sitting in the chair at the beach to driving home from the hospital, I was laughing.  Of course a super uncommon fish would happen to come to the huge beach where we were and I, the exchange student, would happen to step on it just right so it would cut me!  

The rest of the day we just sat around at Camila's house and I rested my foot, and later at night her parents took us for a drive around Natal along the beach.  I told them that everything there felt like a dream, but my foot made me remember that I wasn't dreaming!  

Sunday was Dia dos Pais (father's day) here in Brazil.  It also happened to be Luana's grandma's birthday so there was a big party at her uncle's house.  The whole time I had to sit down because I couldn't walk very well, but I tried talking to some of her cousins in Portuguese.  

We came back from Natal on Monday afternoon, so once again, on Monday I just sat around and rested my foot.  It's looking a lot better now.  It's not too swollen anymore, and hardly hurts.  They think I'll be able to walk like a normal person tomorrow or Thursday. 

I'm going to go to school later this week too.  I'm really excited to go!  Everyone tells me that school here is really fun, so I'm really looking forward to it.

Portuguese is becoming easier to understand.  If I'm not able to understand full sentences, I get the main point of what people are talking about.  I've only been here for about a week, so hopefully in another week it'll be even easier!

There isn't too much to update here in this blog because I haven't been doing much lately because of my foot :(!

Tchau Beijos!

August 4, 2009

I have been having so much fun here!  I was supposed to start school yesterday, but since I just got here on Sunday, my host mom Marisa isn't having me go until later this week or next week because she wants me to just get settled in first.  

After the last blog that I wrote when we went walking on the beach at night, there was a small group of people doing capoeira.  Capoeira is an African danc

e that was developed many years ago from the slaves that came over.  It's pretty common to see in the Northeast still.  I took a few pictures and I'll put one on here!  After that we went out to a Chinese restaurant and by far Brazilian Chinese food is wayyy better than American Chinese food!

Yesterday, Pedro and I went to Bessa Beach, a 5 minute drive from the apartment for a few hours.  It was sooo pretty there!  We first sat at a 

restaurant on the beach for a while and talked.  The waiter kept staring at me and talking with his fri

ends because he had never seen an American before!  

Later on we went swimming.  After I had Pedro promise me about 3 times that there were no sharks at the beach, we went out swimming a little farther o

ff the beach, which was really scary for me, but so much fun!  After that, we came home and I took a nap, because I'm still a little jet lagged :/.  

Later on last night we went to Marisa's friend's birthday party at his house.  A lot of family and friends were there, and for most of the time we were sitting around talking... in Portuguese.  It's really frustrating for me, because there is so much that I want to say, but I can't say it because I don't know how to.  Understanding is hard too ri

ght now, but everyone tells me that I'll be able to understand and speak in a month or so, so that gives me some hope!

This morning two of Pedro's friends, Rodrigo and Diogo came over.  Rodrigo was in New Mexico for a year through Rotary a few years ago, and Diogo is going to New York through Rotary with Pedro in a few weeks.  We watched the movie 17 Again and they were looking at my high school year books for a lot of the time too.  The movies here in Brazil are mostly in English, but with Portuguese subtitles.  That's really helpful for me so I'm able to hear it in English but read it in Portuguese.

The lunches here are SOO good!!  Lunch is the biggest meal here in Brazil, and it is always eaten with beans and rice, and some kind of meat.  

After lunch today, I spent about 3 hours in my room studying my Portuguese books I brought.  I'm really determined to be able to speak it soon!!

Tonight I think we're going out to the same Chinese restaurant for a going away dinner for Pedro and his friends at Krav Maga (a type of martial arts they do here).

Tchau beijos!

August 2, 2009

Olá do Brasil! (Hello from Brazil!)

Wow what an adventure it was getting here!  Everything imaginable that could go wrong happened.  

It started out great in Minneapolis, where the five exchange students going to Brazil (Courtney, Anne, Hattie, Cristian, and me) were all super excited to get there!  We were about ready to land in Atlanta to take the connecting flight to São Paulo, but because of the bad storms, we had to fly around in circles above Atlanta until the storm went away.  The next thing we knew, we were in the middle of no where at an airport in Alabama.  We had to stop and refuel because we almost ran out of gas.  The pilot was walking around talking to people when we were stopped, and he told someone behind us, "If we flew into Atlanta, we wouldn't have come out."  And that made us feel so much better....  

About an hour later we finally landed in Atlanta.  We thought we would have to run to our flight to São Paulo, but that flight was delayed about four hours so we had a long wait.  Our plane to São Paulo was downgraded they said, so we had almost no room to sleep on it, and there were no tvs!  

Finally we got to São Paulo, but by that time, everyone missed their flights to their connecting cities, so Marcia (the Brazil country officer) was super helpful and scheduled new flights for us.  Everyone's flights left fairly early, but mine didn't leave until 9:15, so I had about 6 hours sitting in the airport by myself.

After all these problems, everything started getting better!  I got on my flight to João Pessoa, which made a quick stop in Recife to drop people off and get more on.  When I arrived in João Pessoa, it was about 2:00 in the morning, and Marisa and her family greeted me with a huge sign.  It was a relief to finally be done traveling!

This morning I woke up at about 11:30.  Lucas took his girlfriend, Pedro, and me to a small science museum type thing for a little bit and then from there we went to Ponta do Seixas which is the lighthouse where the sun rises first in all of the Americas.  The view of the ocean was soooo pretty there!  After that we went out for empanhadas (a muffin with cheese and meat in the middle) and we got guaraná juice with açaí in it, which was amazing! 

We're just kind of hanging out now until dinner time.  It feels like it should be so much later here because the sun sets at 5!

I have to go get ready now because Marisa and her sons and I are going to take a walk on the beach!

Até logo! Beijos! (Until later! Kisses!)