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!

5.4 and 5.5...the blur

This is M'Randa posting, and I am going to do my best to recall the last couple of days. Between jet lag, time change, culture shock, busy days, and just general lack of sleep, I will more than likely forget some details to this already amazing adventure!

5.4-

On Tuesday, 5.4, we managed to drag ourselves out of bed to pack our bags and have a quick bite at our hotel (Nikkey Palace Hotel). Our fearless resident leader, Emi, took us to the Metro Station headquarters. Here we learned about the Metro system as it is now, problems they are facing, and development plans. We were then led around the city by Metro services and were able to see the control center and security. There is a lot more going on behind the scenes than you think!!

We then ate a wonderful lunch at a market place. The food was great...I will have to leave it to another team member to fill in the holes on what the food was (I would compare the set up to something like fajitas, for all you Texas folk reading this) Sizzling beef and onions on a hot plate...YUM! We walked around the market for a bit before heading back to the hotel.

We had a little rest time (30 mins) before we left for the futbol match (soccer for all of you gringos!). We met up with some Rotary people and headed for the game. I believe that it was Rhonda, Vanessa, Betsy, and Erin's first professional match. Please correct me if I am wrong... after the game, we returned to the hotel to retrieve our luggage before getting carried away to our host families. Maybe a few nerves, but the excitement is, well, exciting!

5.5-

Happy Cinco de Mayo, amigos!!

I think we have all learned that sleep is a precious commodity! Today we were split up by vocational interests. Rhonda was by herself at a school, Betsy was at a vet clinic by herself, and Vanessa, Erin, David, and I were at a school together.

Our group visited Oshiman. The word incredible sums up my feelings about this school! The students speak Portuguese, learn English, Japanese, and Spanish. Their art department was great, too! They have music classes where they don't just play instruments, but are now learning to build guitars. They work with outlets such as stained glass, clay, quilting, and let's not forget...they recycle and make their own paper!!! Melting paper, screens, hang-dry and everything! At this school, they are also trying to recover some of the Japanese culture, such as the tea ceremony, to pass on to the new generation.

The students eat lunch in their classrooms with their teachers (good food, homemade in the kitchen everyday). We were separated into classrooms so each of our experiences are slightly different during this time. I was sat at the front of the room, and the students were each required to ask me a question in English. I thought this was a lot of fun! Most of questions were simple..."Do you have a dog?" "Do you like music?", etc...By the way, even the 5th graders in Brazil like Lady Gaga, Beyonce, and the Beetles!

In the afternoon we visited one of the tallest buildings in Sao Paulo. Here we went to the top and were able to get some great photos of the city from a birds-eye perspective. We also visited one of the stock exchanges, walked around the "zero point" of Sau Paulo (the center of the city), and visited the foundation place of the city before walking back to Emi's office and then dispersing to our homes.

My host family is wonderful! Mr. and Mrs. Yoshioka and their son, Fabio, are taking great care of me! I may pack Mrs. Yoshioka in my luggage if she will come to the US and cook! I suppose this is a good time to mention that Sao Paulo has the largest population of Japanese people outside of Japan. The culture is an interesting mix of Brazil and Japan; for instance, I had a huge, Japanese style dinner...with beans and rice... :)

Well, I hope that this is the last "marathon post". We will try to be more diligent in our posting frequency from now on!

We're here!

We arrived in Sao Paulo and were greeted by Emi and Governor Juvenal. We attended a 53rd anniversary celebration for the Rotary Club of Suzana. We were treated like kings and queens!

I'm having an awesome time at Texas Multi District Conference here in San Antonio!  There are 7 inbound teams presenting this weekend. Here is a pic of the whole bunch of them.  Thanks to the Rotary Foundation for this great program!
Betsy

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Meet the inbound GSE team!

Today we met the team from Brazil at IAH.  They'll be visiting Texas for 4 weeks.  Welcome to Texas!

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

March 21. It's getting closer!

We've got our visas and our tickets! We leave in 6 weeks. Our presentation is in progress and things are moving along. Rhonda gave us our official nametags today along with thank you cards we can use for our hosts. Our shirts are in, but M'Randa is snowed in somewhere North of here and couldn't make the meeting. Business cards, pins and brochures are ordered. Whew! We've accomplished a lot in a few short months since our first meeting in November. It'll soon be time to start packing!

These pics show us working on our presentation. Erin gave us a rough first draft. It's a great start.

Technology is great! My tiny netbook computer is powerful enough to run the powerpoint projector and speakers. At this meeting, M'Randa was able to "Skype in." Since she couldn't make the meeting, we called her up on Skype. We could see her and she could see us and make suggestions on the presentation.

Deby couldn't make the meeting because she was ill. (I'm sure she had no desire for us to see her 0n Skype, so we let her recover in peace. ;-)

Feb 28. Decisions!

At our group meeting on 2-28, we decided on the embroidery for our team shirts, pins for exchange, team business cards, brochures, and much more!