Volunteer in Brazil: The Blog

This week I began teaching and being taught …

I attend the project from Monday to Friday, teaching English every Tuesday and Thursday and also receiving Portuguese lessons from the teaching assistants twice weekly.

I am finding teaching very enjoyable but I have to say that it is not always easy keeping the class settled and focused on getting the work done. That said, I feel confident that once my language skills improve I will be able to engage in a greater level of dialogue with the children which hopefully, in turn, will get them more tuned in to what I am trying to do with them in class.

On the days that I am not teaching in the classroom I take the children for games out on the court at the convent. The children really enjoy sport and, unsurprisingly for Brazilians, take their football über seriously – every game of football they play is played as if it were the World Cup final! I took part in one such game and I like to think I gave them a good run for their money but I feel that I must own up to that fact that this particular game was played with P Group whose median age is approximately 8 years old, so suffice it to say I had the height advantage! When it came to playing footy with G Group, however, I am honest enough to admit that I was substituted inside the first two minutes, ´goodbye Professora´ rung out across the pitch!

I have been getting to see more and more of the city during my free time and am getting a feel for how to get around, i.e. which buses go where, etc and so I am starting to feel a bit more independent. Last Sunday I visited a Jesuit college with Javier and Amourie (a Brazilian student who is staying here at the convent) who were attending a CVX meeting. The college building is outstanding, it dates from the colonial times and is truly splendid. I couldn´t image what it must be like to go to school in such palatial surroundings. It was also a great opportunity to meet new people and it was made all the more sweeter that they spoke English as it saved me from embarrassing myself with my pigeon Portuguese!

Before arriving at the college, however, we had to get the bus and the bus rides here in Rio are similar to the white-knuckle rides they have at Alton Towers … you have to hold on for dear life and the bus driver always seems to get into an argument with another bus driver and it always seems as though a fight is going to break out, much to the amusement of on-lookers!

I am enjoying living in Santa Teresa, it has a nice atmosphere with plenty of restaurants, bars and shops and it is a great place just to go for a long walk and look at and enjoy the architecture. On one such walk yesterday, myself and Rose took the bonde (the tram) part way back to the convent - it was such fun. Admittedly, like the buses, it is not the smoothest of rides and you do alight slightly ruffled and even a tad bewildered but it is all part of the experience! Plus if you stand up you don’t have to pay so one can´t really complain.

On Saturday I attended the Bienal do Livro with Beth and her daugher, Bea.  I don´t think I have ever seen so many books under one roof!  Judging by the volume of attendees I think it´s fair to say that Brazilian people love to read … I am not sure whether the turnout for such an event back in the UK would be as huge!  They even had their own Brazilian Barak Obama look-a-like there which proved highly popular with many people having their photo taken with him. 

The week has been a really mixed bag. On the one had it has been a good week and I have learned a lot and also enjoyed seeing more of the city. With each day that passes I feel I am getting to know the children more and more and I like to think that they are starting to feel that I am less and less of a stranger to them. On the other hand the past week has been very turbulent within the local communities – there appears to have been a notable ratcheting up of violence and unrest, the theories as to why this is are numerous.

Although I feel secure, the safety and wellbeing of the children who attend the project and the teaching assistants, who live in the surrounding communities, does play on my mind somewhat. It has reinforced, for me, that no matter how much I get to know the children and learn about their lives and background, I will never truly know what life is like for them to live the lives they do and this is something that I must not only accept but must have at the forefront of my mind when I am dealing with the children, for example, if they are having a bad day, etc.

I am a guest here at the project and I respect that privilege and am thankful for the experience(s) I have gained and, no doubt, will continue to gain from being here. 

I will post further news next week.

Goodbye for now.

Anne.x

Oi, tudo bem todos!

I have almost completed my first week at the To Ligado project here in Rio. The time has passed by so quickly but I will give you a run down of what I have experienced so far …

When I arrived at the airport I was met by three smiling faces, those of Sister Regina of the Assumption community in Rio, Beth and her husband Eduardo. It was so nice to be met by people after the long flight, it was like leaving one family and going to another.

I am not quite sure how to explain the feeling I had but as soon as I arrived in Brazil, once I had managed to get through the queues for immigration and customs that is(!), I immediately felt at home … I did not feel like I had arrived in a strange land, maybe that is because I have been building up to my arrival for such a long time and I had been briefed so well by Joe Howson, but either way I think it is a very good sign and bodes well for things to come.

Beth drove us from the airport to the convent through the city´s winding roads which snake their way around the neighbourhoods. I enjoyed looking out of the car window at the urban landscape under cover of darkness. Rio is, by anyone’s standards, a special city as not only is it a huge metropolis but it is blessed with so much natural beauty, the contrast really is quite something to behold.

The convent, where I am staying, is fabulous and is high up on a hill and when I say a hill I don’t mean the sort of hills Londoners like myself are used to …. I think we’d call it a mountain but as many of you know we tend not to venture beyond the M25!

Upon my arrival at the convent I was met by Javier and Rose; Javier is an exchange student from Mexico and is here in Rio for 6 months and Rose works at the convent and is my next-door neighbour. They are so friendly and are always happy to help me to learn Portuguese.

Sr. Regina was kind enough to give me the guided tour of the convent and what stands out in my mind is the view the convent has from the roof. It offers, what must be unparalleled views of the city, I just love it. However, it is quite unsettling watching the planes come in to land as the view gives you an almost optical illusion as the airport is, as Sr. Regina informed me, on an island and so you see these planes which fly around Sugar Loaf mountain and then descend closer and closer to the water … at that stage I just have to close my eyes!

I had my formal introduction to the children of the To Ligago project on Tuesday and I spent the afternoon observing Beth teach so that I could get a feel for the teaching methods which work best, etc. The children are bundles of energy and are overflowing with enthusiasm. They are so intelligent, even the very little ones who completely left me in their dust when we were doing an English vocabulary building exercise which involved completing a word search themed on the children´s tale of Jack and the Beanstalk, which is this semester’s theme. But the less said about my being out-thought by 8-year olds the better, for my own ego at least!

I start to teach English at the project next week and I am looking forward to it but am wondering how I am going to manage with such minimal Portuguese but I feel confident in the knowledge that there is always plenty of help at hand from the monitors/teaching assistants at the project and, of course, Beth. Speaking of Beth I really cannot emphasise how much time and dedication she devotes not only to the project but also to volunteers like myself. She is like superwoman and I have so much admiration and respect for her and the work she does on the ground here.

I am not sure what else I have to report right know, I am sure there is more but it escapes me at this moment in time but I will say that the climate here suits me very well, it´s lovely and warm but up at the convent it catches a refreshing breeze. Also, the food is great and there is plenty of it … bet you wish you were here, am I right?

Already I feel at home and I am thinking to myself, mmmm is one year really enough?! We will see ….

Bye for now and I will be back with an update very soon.

Anne, x