Joe’s Week 3: A Voz do Samba
Hello all,
Apologies once again for a belated blog - things have been busy! Whilst here, I will definitely write a blog for every week, but when exactly they appear in the following week is going to vary constantly depending on my computer access, time, and the microscopic oscillations occuring in the blog-time continuum (as I’m now calling it).
Anyway, let’s waste no more words. As Brazilian signs say: ”Lugar de lixo é na lixeira.” (the place of waste is in the bin)!
So here’s a flavour of Week 3’s main events…
-The arrival of Kevin and Laura. This week, the English residents here at the centre have tripled…wahayy! From a single representative, myself, to a charming bunch of 3. First to arrive was Kevin, an elderly gentleman from Essex who’s come just to enjoy some time in Rio. He has openness and wit in equal measure, and despite not speaking Portuguese (and the staff here not speaking English), it’s amazing how well he gets on with everyone. Yes, there have been some comical and confusing moments when earnest attempts at communication have been made on both sides, but the essential message of mutual goodwill always seems to get through. It’s a pleasure chatting with him at mealtimes. A couple of days after, we welcomed Laura - my ‘flatmate’ and a new volunteer! At 21, she’s…some… years younger than Southern boy Kev, but just as nice to talk to. It’s good to have someone to share the house and the lessson planning with, so Laura - welcome. Hopefully I’ll drag her into writing on the blog soon, or at least posting some of her (expert) photography work.
-Back in the classroom. After the carnvial break, the work’s really started. Me and Laura are teaching together every week day - Tuesday and Thursday with the 3 kids classes, and Mon/Wed/Fri with the adults. Two of the girls from the oldest class have asked to join the adult sessions, which is a great sign. Top of the agenda this week have been telling the time, as well as bigger numbers. Hopefully the kids will put this practical knowledge to use in the future, and for my part, I’m a bit better at drawing clocks. I’ve also now added to my schedule the English tuition of the project’s music teacher, as well as adding a new subject to the PE curriculum: Frisbee. Every class will have a one hour lesson in this new discipine on Wednesdays, including some broader excercise and training. Cool, eh?
-Swimming. I have to say, using the centre’s swimming pool this week has been a real pleasure, especially in the sweltering heat, which is showing no signs, as of yet, of relenting. It reminds me very much of my great Aunt and Uncle’s pool in San Fransico (some will remember the many photos taken last summer), except slightly bigger, and with a more diverse wildlife population seeming to live around it! Planes also go directly overhead and so seem huge, which is quite surreal.
-Samba! (See last week for more carnival info). The event of the week that I will remember the longest, was our (myself, Laura, Beth and Bia’s) all night ‘Samba Vigil’, in the Sambadrome, watching Carnival’s winning ‘Schools’ perform an encore of their parades from the festival week. Each school has 82 minutes to get thousands of dancing members in elaborate costumes from one end of the 700m Samba ‘Avenue’ to the other. We watched the six highest placed parades. Start time: a loose 9pm. You can do the maths. It was a long night, but a great experience. The scale of the whole event, as I touched upon last week, looked huge on TV, so to be there in person to see the costumes, floats and sheer volume of people (The Sambadrome’s max capacity is 88,500 and it was virtually full…+ the dancers) was truly spectacular. The word ’spectacular’, I must mention, could also be applied to the way a “Bob’s Burgers” cheeseburger tastes at 1am, especially when accompanied by an ovalmaltine milkshake, of which I will be purchasing more from the many branches of Bob’s scattered around the city. Anyway, there quite a few photos below that should give some sense of what the experience was like. Here’s a map of the Sambadrome itself: MAP. As you can see, it’s less of a ’drome’ (whatever that may be), and more of a large ’runway’. We were positioned right at the end, in the Frisas in front of sectors 4/6, near the iconic archway. Whilst we had to wait a while at the start for the parades to arrive, it was great to see the dancers from ground level, and we got some good views of the detail of the parades when they split up at the end to go either side of us. I learnt about the various schools and the ‘themed’ parades, sang along to their samba lyrics where I could follow, and emerged from the drome (after dawn) bleary eyed but still tapping my feet. Eterna paixao! I’d love a cheeseburger right now though…
-Other cullinary delights. Whilst I’m on food, I can’t help but mention that scrumptious meat dish soaked in bread and white wine sauce at (local bar) Devassa. And it would be impolite not to discuss the creamy, fresh, house ale from the same place. And then there was that pizza in Copacobana, and the many ice cold glasses of the main brazilian soft drink ‘Guarana’, complete with slices of lemon or lime. And there was this Ice Cream we had under Sugar Loaf in Urca that you really should hear about….but, hang on - techically, it was week four by that point. So I’ll leave you on that cliff hanger…
Lots of photos (including, kindly, some of Laura’s shots)! Click to view or right click and ’save…as’ to download. Hope the connection speed is ok.
-The spectacular views from last week’s beach!
-The long Sambadrome in all it’s glory.
-Part of the winning ‘Salguero’ parade.
-In the dromo with Beth and Bia.
-Iconic city symbols, or shallow voyeurism?
-An amazing ‘human compass’ from the ‘Mangeuria’ school.
-Glittering Carnvial atmosphere.
-A stunning (and rather complementary) interpretation of Louis XIV, King of France.
-A towering, egyptian-themed display.
-Some of the more light-hearted costumes (they’re ’showers’).
-Another colourful float/car, whatever we should call it!
-Proof we really were there all night!
-Me, as dawn breaks across the Sambadromo.
……………………………….
To the commenters:
Thanks again, great feedback on the whole, and it’s great to have so much interest in the blog. Michelle (a close friend of Bia’s) and Katie, welcome! But hey hey hey…I thought I set the challenges around here! Only kidding…did I really think I could control my audience?
However, I would like to remind everyone that, whilst we all love banter, this is a public blog, not set-up, administered or owned by myself, and it needs to be suitable for anyone and everyone to read. If we could continue to post in that spirit, I’d be grateful.
Much Love,
Miss you all back home,
Joe
x
(P.S. Expect Week 4 very shortly!)
March 9th, 2009 at 07:11 pm
Hey Joe
Another brazilliant blog; this trip seems to get more and more incredible by the week! The pictures are awesome! Nice to hear about the arrival of some more Brits in Rio… please pass on my best wishes and regards to Kev & Laura… I hope they have safe/amazing/frisbee-filled trip! I assume they will be forced to participate in Wednesday’s Frisbee class… an outstanding addition to any school curriculum in my (highly regarded) opinion.
Ahh… the joys of a swimming pool with a view… a ‘wave of relaxation’ as it was once called. I hope you’ve been utilising your pool time well (ie. practising your back twist with a wave ready for the next Olympics… you still need to get that 10 from Canada don’t forget!).
The Samba all-nighta extravaganza sounds (and looks) absolutely amazing! The performances look incredible… right down to those poor few who forced to dress as showers! (And as to certain dancers being ‘iconic city symbols, or shallow voyeurism?’… I’ve thought long and hard and have decided that before I could possible give an answer, I’d need to come to Rio myself and make a closer inspection). What an experience it must’ve been to stay up all night watching such a stunning parade though… I hope you’ll be injecting some Samba style into the steets of Preston when you return
The Bob’s Burger meal sounds very nice indeed… I see on their website that they run a ‘Bob’s Delivery’ service… perhaps an order of one large ovalmaltine milkshake to Preston would come as a slight surprise to staff members. (Can you please enlighten us to the taste of an ovalmaltine milkshake?)
Talking of drinks, this ‘Guarana’ fluid has got me thinking… did the chocolate bar ‘Boost’ release a ‘Boost with Guarana’ variety a few years back? And everyone was wondering what this Guarana thingy was! Or maybe I’m just imagining it. Still, if its anything like Root Beer… I’m sure Guarana gets the taste-buds tingling.
Right thats quite enough from me (as the saying goes “Lugar de lixo é na lixeira!”),
Hope the trip continues to be full of daily wonders!
Speak soon,
John
PS. I’d just like to make a quick appeal to fellow commenters to vote for me in ‘UCLAN’s Got Talent’ (www.uclansgottalent.co.uk). ‘Frisboy’ (as I’m now known) is trying his best to keep his fellow University students in Preston just as interested in Frisbee as Joe’s students are in Brazil!
To vote, text the code “UGT 5″ to “82055″. Please note, votes will cost 25p but I will be happy to reimburse you if I go on to win the competition and claim the £600 prize
March 9th, 2009 at 08:54 pm
Hi Jose,
I must congratulate you on your blogging skills - the blog is fantastic - well done. It is wonderful to hear and see that you are really engaging with life in the project and indeed life in Rio - keep up the good work. Please give my kindest regards to Laura and tell her that I look forward to a few words from her in the next few weeks - remind her to keep that camera clicking!
All is well here - March 2009 has so far been an incarnation of wind and rain but the snow drops and dafs are raising their beautiful heads and beckening the spring to awake from her slumber.
All those involved with Volunteer-in-Brazil are very proud of you - keep up the good work
Abraco,
Joe
March 10th, 2009 at 01:53 am
Heyy,
Well seeing as I never got round to commenting on last week’s blog (I’ve been manically busy but I did read it, honest!) i thought i’d get in there early on this one!
Wow sounds like you’re having a fantastic time! The photos of the samba look incredible - it must have been an awesome experience! I’m particularly impressed with those shower costumes…
The teaching sounds like it’s going well and i’m loving the new addition to the curriculum! I’m sure there are some future frisbee stars in the making.
Glad to hear all the culinary delights that you’re enjoying. I’ve turned vegetarian for lent so i’m very jealous! In terms of the ice cream…well some may say that I am partial to the odd ice cream so i look forward with anticipation to hearing more! And John, i seem to remember those special Boost with Guarana as well. This was an obvious choice seeing as guarana is an effective energy booster – it contains about twice the caffeine found in coffee beans (about 2-4.5% caffeine in guarana seeds compared to 1-2% for coffee beans).
Anyway, keep having a fantastic time, it’s great to hear about (and see) everything you’re doing!
Curta que a vida é curta!
Frances
xxx
March 10th, 2009 at 02:34 pm
Ola Joe, Como vai?
Not sure if you know who we are….we’ll be the next two volunteers to hopefully fill your shoes!
We’ve been following your blog since week one and it all seems very action packed, glad your putting your own stamp on the teaching….frisbee sounds good, we’ll have to work on our skills in Manchester so as to keep up your new class!!!
How have you found it carrying on from previous volunteers? have you been using any particular sources to come up with lesson plans etc?
We are getting very excited now….9 weeks to go! All the pictures look incredible, the view from the project is fantastic!
We are going to try and contact British Airways to organise some extra baggage so we can bring things over for the project! Is there anything in particular you think would be really beneficial? We were going to start collecting old books that our friends and family may want to donate…Do they need to be factual? Fictional?Children’s books? what do you think!!??
Any tips would be great!
Keep having fun!
Polly and Joe
March 10th, 2009 at 09:46 pm
Hello again Joe :]
Well, i must say your video was amazing!!
I thought we were all in for a suprise solo frisbee video, but i was deceived indeed! Ingenious idea for a beginning that was.
Anyways….a samba hey?! how much fun does that sound!!
It reminds me of that song…samba dejaney (or whatever they say). I really wish i was there, it looks like so much fun. And i must agree the views are spectacular. I think they get better then more pictures i see.
Also, i like how you were trying to fit in wearing a brazil coloured t-shirt! i wont say it was a Brazil shirt just in case it isn’t. :] :]
Cuidado!
I hope the weather is ’sol’
Aproveite os próximos dias Joe
(I hope that all makes sense)
Love Katie
xxxx
March 11th, 2009 at 03:47 pm
Jose
The Sambadrome pics were a truly amazing sight. Carnival is perhaps what Brazil is best known for to us Europeans, but to see the detail of the floats (any ideas why we call them floats) was spectacular indeed.
The project curriculum seems to be expanding by the week; I’m sure that the Ofsted inspectors will be very impressed, and glad to see that your clock drawing is coming on; I always thought you needed to polish up in that area to beat the clock.
The culinary/beverage range also appears to be developing nicely, with Bob’s Burgers doing battle with Black Beans for the food honours! Mind you there is nothing quite like a ‘Boost Guarana’ as Tony Bilsborough, Cadbury’s spokesman recently said (well in Sept 2002 anyway) “Boost Guarana is fast, delicious, long lasting, mental and physical energy hit”.
Great to know that England is now represented by the ‘three lions’ Kevin Laura and yourself, although I trust you will stay out of the jungle!
Love Dadx
March 12th, 2009 at 03:27 am
Hi all,
While I’m on MSN with Joe and Laura combining the details of our trip tomorrow morning to Cristo Redentor, which will be great, here is a picture of bread and meat we eat and that Joe described: CLICK HERE
Today was the frist frisbee class for children and they had a lot of fun, but I’ll let Joe tell you how it was. I filmed….
Polly and Joe, I’m really glad to know you are already envolved with the project. Great! We can’t wait to have you with us.
Lots of love to all
xx
March 13th, 2009 at 06:35 pm
Hi Joe,
Great photos of the carnival. You look like your having a fab time, and the teaching sounds very rewarding. Also sounds like you have found your favourite food out there……..good old burgers! why do we all love them?
Your mum and Johns mum have both been in to my flower shop recently, which was nice to see them, didnt realise your house is so near to the shop!
I have checked out yours and Johns frisbee skills on U tube, Im now a big fan of free-style frisbee! lol! ….Oh and I voted for you John, but dont know if it worked as I didnt get a reply.
Its so interesting to read your blog and all the comments!
Bye for now, Maxine x
August 14th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
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