5.6-Rio Branco School

This is M'Randa, again! Well, today was interesting...when I woke up, my host mom was gone to play golf with her friend, so I was left with the maid to take care of me. Language barriers are funny when you look back on them! Yesterday, Fabio told me that his wife was probably going to pick me up...so when the call came that someone was downstairs to pick me up, I thought the maid was telling me that she was in a Suzuki car...I was wrong. I had forgotten that Suzuki is the name of one of the Rotarians that is taking care of us. So, it was Suzuki in a Nissan downstairs to give me a ride. :)

Rhonda is still out visiting sites in other areas of Sao Paulo at this point. Betsy, Vanessa, Erin, David, and I visited the Rio Branco School today. It is a school that was founded by and is still supported by the Rotary Foundation. It is also a private school, like the Oshimon school we visited. Our tour guide, who is in charge of international relations of the school, was a hoot! She has so much energy and passion for the school, the students, education, and life. The teachers were also very excited to have us there. They were very willing to show us how they educate their students, and to share their methods. We were able to go into a few classrooms and interact with the kids...my favorite was the music class...who knew The Girl From Ipanma sang in Portuguese could be so beautiful? The students at this school are also being exposed to English most every day. We would see students interacting and studying in class and realize that kids are kids all around the world. At the end of the tour we made our way to the 5th floor of the building which is where the Leste Rotarians meet. We had lunch and presented ourselves to the group.

After the meeting, we made our way back to Emi's office where we were met by an Interact member. He took us back to the Mercado that we visited the other day to spend some time. We were able to try some of the nuts, cheeses, meats, olives, etc....A tasty afternoon snack! We then returned to Emi's office (from the pic you can see that she is an eye doctor) and worked on our presentation for a couple of hours before dispersing to our host homes.

I find the diversity of this area interesting. As we ate dinner, we communicate using a combination of Portuguese, English, and Spanish...as we watch Japanese tv. Sao Paulo has a truly unique culture!