First of all—Thank you so much to everyone who donated money to the project that Julie and I are doing at Cruzeiro! We really appreciate it! We were able to get supplies for our project–cameras, pens, paper, clay, etc.–which will also be great for the Y to have in general. We’ve been going there every day (minus one day spent lesson planning) and finally had our first class this week. For our first class we worked with some of the younger kids talking about important spaces in their community and having them model them with clay. It was a little frustrating because it is hard to keep the kids’ attention, but we learned a lot about how to work with the kids that we will use to make our next class go better and we will start working with the older kids next week!
Julie and Asgeir (one of the other volunteers. From Iceland!)
Kids using clay to model an important place in their community.
Making a church.
Most of my time lately has been filled up by going to Cruzeiro. On a typical day, Julie and I work out until 9:15, shower, and then catch the bus to Cruzeiro. We stay there until 4:30 or 5pm and then head home. Occasionally, there are other YMCA activities that we participate in-the dedication of a statue at the airport, making videos, meeting with the general secretary or having parties thrown for us by English classes! Today, some of the older kids from Cruzeiro have a street football tournament which is a type of soccer where the two teams agree on whatever rules they want to play by so we are going to go cheer them on. It’s pouring here though so we may only cheer briefly.
Outside of my time with the YMCA, I’ve been trying my best to really explore Brazil and Porto Alegre. A couple of weekends ago, I went to a beautiful beach and got to eat seafood and swim in the ocean for the first time in a long time! And no worries, I wore sunscreen the whole time and there was not a pink patch of skin to be found afterwards J Last weekend was really busy too—I went to my first feijoada (which is slowly brewed black beans with lots of different meat in it—yum!), ran a 10k and made a delicious Thanksgiving Chester.
Happy camper eating Salmon at the beach!
Beach
Feijoada
After the 10k (yes this is after, I know we look shockingly good considering we just ran 10k in the heat)
Once a month or so the kids don’t come to the YMCA and the teachers have meetings to plan the next two months. Yesterday was one of those days. Julie and I went to the meetings in the morning so we got to see the activities for the next month—they look super fun! Starting in mid-December it will be summer vacation here so the activities at the Y get really fun—water balloon fights, movies, lots of sports and many field trips! It made us excited for the next month and it was nice to interact with the teachers without the students being around. It was the first time seeing each other in non-gym clothes.
Afterwards, we went to have lunch with our friends Alex and Asgeir in an awesome vegetarian restaurant and grabbed coffee in one of the really nice parts of town. As we were finishing our espressos on the patio, a very famous model from the city came in and the restaurant closed the window/doors to the patio so she could have some privacy. It was very exciting and was my first model spotting! After recharging our batteries, we headed to the Catholic University’s science museum. It was super fun and interactive and we got to push a lot of buttons and learn science-y things! A Friday well-spent, I would say.
Dessert at the vegetarian restaurant! Tasted like sweet cornbread!
So that’s what I’ve been up to lately. Tomorrow is the soccer team Gremio’s last game in their stadium, as well as the game against Internacional, their biggest rival. The games when the two teams play each other even have their own name-Grenal-and the city is all about soccer this weekend. A lot of my friends are spending the whole weekend near the stadium or in sports bars. I’m not going (way too many crazies) but I will be watching from the comfort of my home tomorrow with a good cup of tea in hand.
Hope you all are doing well! I’m going to leave you with a link to my new favorite Brazilian song:
Megan's Wanderlust 