Volunteer in Mission to Brazil

19 December 2006

Time flies...

when you're planning to, in the process of and recuperating from hanging out with 600 kids (as well as looking for an apartment). Because I spent yesterday walking around looking at the neighborhoods that had apartments available for rent, I forgot it was Monday and didn't post on the blog.

First things first, some photos from the Belo Horizonte Shade and Fresh Water Christmas party. It went pretty smoothly considering how many kids traveled in buses to arrive at the Central Methodist Church and were in the sanctuary for three hours. I rode on one of the buses with the group from São Gabriel, and I once again noticed how nobody counts the kids or takes role before setting out on the voyage. Somehow, that system works for them, but it still makes me very nervous.

Most of the groups at the Christmas party had a little performance to share (singing, dancing, etc.) and there was a ventriloquist as well as two clowns (one of whom became Spiderman). The groups processed with their respective banners, and everybody sang some of the songs from the Shade and Fresh Water CD. The idea was to hand out their gift bags and snacks on their way out so they wouldn't be eating (and littering) on the church property, but that didn't work out perfectly because of traffic limitations bringing the buses back to pick them up. All in all, the kids seemed to have a good time, and no one got hurt. Bonus!








Banners from the different Shade and Fresh Water Projects










Streamers and stars were distributed to all of the kids














A view from the top












Kids from the Betim project













Kids from the Betânia project














Kids from the Taquaril, Alto Vera Cruz and União projects












Kids from the PTO project







I spent most of Sunday researching apartments before going to church at night, and I decided to call some of the promising ads first thing Monday and walk to see the locations. In a city of 2.5 million people, it's mind-boggling to me that there are only two pages of apartment rentals in the main newspaper here. I've also been looking on the internet, but there aren't that many apartments listed online either. I walked for three hours Monday; thankfully it wasn't raining, although it was quite warm. By the time I got home for lunchtime and called a few of the places about making an appointment to see them inside, they were already rented. In the afternoon, I decided to try a different tactic and went to a real estate office in my neighborhood that had several interesting listings online. I figured I'd go to the source and then they could show me the places the same afternoon. It turns out that branch of the real estate firm was only for buying/selling, but they patched me through on the phone to their rental branch, and the interesting apartments they had listed online were already rented and they didn't have anything else. It's one thing to try to learn the real estate vocabulary and the bazillion different neighborhoods and try to set some criteria for what type of apartment and where, but it's something completely different to beat your eight million competitors to finding the place. All that being said, I am not panicking or super-duper stressed because I know God will come through with something wonderful--I just have to do my part. My supervisor has helped me enlist somebody to drive me around the day after Christmas, and hopefully I can find something.


Today was the first day of our two-day year-end staff evaluation and planning meeting for Liberdade and São Gabriel. Once again, I'm experiencing the cultural differences as some of the things I'm proud to be in my culture (independent, gets things done) are not necessarily seen as good things in Brazilian culture. For example, it was driving me crazy that after Daniel decided to mow the grass and "plugged in" the electric lawnmower (i.e. he put the two wires directly into the outlet), a fuse blew and the lights went out in two different rooms, including where the teachers were assembling the hundreds of stars for the Christmas party. Nobody seemed to be interested in seeing if we could get the lights back on; they just said "oh, the fluorescent bulbs here never last very long." When I asked about the two rooms losing lights at the same time and the likelihood of a fuse problem, one person said "oh, I looked, but I didn't see anything." When I returned two days later, the star production had been moved to another room because the lights still weren't on. I finally bugged people to discover where the fuse box might be, tracked down the key, and flipped a fuse that seemed to be partially off, and that did the trick. To me it seemed much easier than moving all of the star stuff to a different building. However, one "needs improvement" thing that my colleagues wrote on my evaluation was "authoritarian." They also wrote, much to the amusement of my friends, I'm sure, that I need to talk MORE. I find myself doing a lot more listening here just trying to figure out what on earth people are saying.

One last thing...

It's mango season, and mangoes are one of my favorite fruits. People with fruit trees are very generous about sharing the fruit. Our household received some from my roommate's brother, and then the neighbor lady next to São Gabriel called to have the project come get another couple of buckets full. (She'd already given us some a couple of weeks earlier.) Here they don't "eat" whole mangoes and oranges, they "suck on" them leaving a lot of the stringy pulp behind. The oranges here are different, and actually aren't that tasty if you try to eat them like you would a navel orange in the U.S.

I almost forgot to show you a picture of this particular flowering tree that I'd never noticed before, but it just started blooming within the last couple of weeks. I haven't discovered the name of it yet, but it reminds me of fireworks.

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