more pics from RC of Botucatu

Here's a few more.

Back from Botucatu

Here's a few pictures from Tuesday night's Rotary meeting. They were taken at the RC of Botucatu Norte by a Japanese Brazilian gentleman. It was our first formal presentation and went very well.
We're experiencing so much! I spent a day with a veterinarian last week and will get to do so again tomorrow. M-W we spent in Botucatu, a smaller town about 3 hrs from here. It's the home of a large veterinary school and agronomy/agriculture university. It's truly an awesome experience!
When walking thru the vet school and their small animal clinic, I visited with some students and saw some clients waiting with their pets. My hands were itching to examine them and reassure their owners. (I miss my job!)
I'll leave the details of this beautiful town of aboout 150,00 to M'Randa. She's already planning to move here! The area had a small town feel like any other University town. It's wonderful to see that college towns, students, and faculty are the same everywhere. We felt so at home here.
Mais tarde....
Betsy

Separation anxiety-not!

This is Betsy, putting in a good word for my team!
Some may have been concerned by the fact that we were split up at first, with Rhonda hosted farther away. But all is well. The team is back together for our first adventure outside the greater Sao Paulo City area.
Rhonda was being sponsored by the Piretuba Rotary Club, where they have many projects related to illiteracy. There are some very poor areas near this club. According to Emi, because this club hasn't as big a budget as some of the others, they could only sponsor 1 team member Also, as it was so far removed from the other clubs sponsoring us, that it was a bit of a hardship on the host to drive back and forth each day. Imagine someone from the Santa Fe club hosting a member when the rest were in Montgomery. Similar situation, traffic and drive-wise.
I am so proud of my team! They have been so willing to adapt to last minute changes, and what seems like little foreknowledge about the next day's activities!
Emi is wonderful. She's so funny, cheery, and a very hard worker. She is one of the most intelligent people I've met in a long time. She can make puns in 3 languages and even bilingual puns! She is Japanese-Brazilian, an Opthalmologist, a mother and a dedicated Rotarian. She speaks Portuguese, English, Japanese and maybe just a touch of French and a bit of Spanish. She's our fearless leader, the chairman of GSE in her district. She is also my host "mom." (Probably more like older sister!)
Today we are in Botucatu, the home of a very important branch of UNESP, the State university of Sao Paulo (State). They have very impt. biotechnica and veterinary programs. We were to meet with the mayor of Botucatu (Bow-too-cah-too) today, but he was apparently called out of town for an important last minute meeting. We met instead with the assistant mayor, or Secretary or something. He didn't speak English, so Emi translated. It's amazing how I can now understand the gist of what they are saying!
Emi wasn't pleased that the mayor was a no-show. To her, nothing is more important than the visiting GSE team! We are once again adapting to the situation! We were glad to be done early with what may have been a long, possibly boring meeting, with a politician! The Secretary was very nice and presented with a nice book about the city, it's history and all about the area. I'd like to read it excpt it's in Portuguese!!
Well, this was a bit long-winded, and no pictures, yet either!
Mais tarde-
Betsy (or as the Brazilians tend to pronounce my name, Bet-che)

Here are some pics of my host family and some of our group having fun. Don't be concerned-most of those bottles on the table are olive oil and mineral water :) I was planning to wait until I had some time to post a nice long discourse about the wonderful time I am having and my absolute perfect day with a fellow Veterinarian named Viviana last Wednesday, but i think if I wait I will never post.....................Enjoy. Mais tarde! (later!) Oh, and Feliz dia das maes! -Betsy

5.9-Families are families everywhere!

First off...I apologize about the orientation of the pics on this post...my computer and/or the program are just NOT tolerating my formatting requests.

This is M'Randa posting after a long day of eating...luckily I am a professional! Today was Mother's Day, so each of us spent the day celebrating with our families. This is my story. (Insert Law & Order sound here)

Fabio picked me up around 11 this morning to go to a bakery and pick up some pies and then pick up the rest of his family. We went to a neighboring town, Aruja (ah-roo-jah), to his sister's house. We were some of the first there, but were soon followed by the rest of the family and some neighbors. There were about 35 people there and thank goodness there was not a name quiz at the end!

I was amazed and comforted by the fact that families are families everywhere! In fact, they were the Brazilian equivalent of my family...cooking, talking, eating, watching futbol on tv, kids playing with the dogs, grandmas yelling at the kids for being too rough on the furniture...you know, the usual. But this was, in fact, the most cultural Mother's Day! A day in Brazil with my Brazilian/Japanese family, speaking Portuguese, English, and a little Spanish, and eating Spanish-style food (pallea and drinking homemade sangria). What a GREAT experience!

We head out for UNESP tomorrow morning...Emi is picking me up at 5:40am, so I am headed to bed! Happy Mother's Day to all those wonderful moms out there!

A day on the water...and in the rain!

This is Vanessa posting this time. (The others went to a birthday party last night, but I opted out because I had a cold from the lack of sleep earlier in the week. It turned out to be a very late night for them...maybe one of them will write about it sometime later, when they've fully recovered!)

Today, my host family planned a boat trip to the beach for our whole team. For the last few days, they've been a little uncertain about the weather forecast, and indeed, it rained most of the day. :( We had fun anyway...it was nice to see another part of the area and to have some free, vacation-like time (i.e. no uniforms required!).



Luckily, there was a below-deck area, so when the rain intensified, Erin and I went down there, soon followed by the others.



Once we made it back to the marina, we went to the restaurant there and had a delicious meal - some ate steak parmesan and others of us had flounder. We weren't given menus (although we saw other tables with them), so those were the choices the host family told us about. Good recommendations!



Now, it's Saturday evening. I'm sitting with Rhonda, Erin, and David and my host family. There's a nice fire burning in the fireplace and rain coming down outside. My host parents are in one side of the room watching TV, and we're on the other side talking with each other and their son (who is 29 and in Rotaract; he went on a GSE exchange to Germany last year).







Tomorrow is Mother's Day here, so each of will spend the day with our families.

Balada

Olá. Bom dia. Boa tarde. Boa noite. Aqui é Erin e David.
David and Erin have been staying with the same host family for the last few days (which is a definite plus since David is a pro at speaking Portuguese). Last night we experienced a bit of Brazilian nightlife at the balada. There was a live band, and we danced the night away at a Brazilian country music (or setanejo) club. The dance is very similar to a Texas two-step or polka so it wasn´t too hard to pick up the steps. Thankfully, we had free time this morning so we were able to catch up on a bit of sleep after our late night.

The weather here has been amazing. We had a few sprinkles of rain one day, but we´ve had beautiful sunny weather here the rest of the time. It´s fall here, but the temperatures have been very similar to the springtime Texas temperatures that we left behind. Most of the homes don´t use air-conditioning much so we´ve been able to leave the windows open to enjoy the outdoors.

This morning Erin and her host dad had a mini-concert, singing "oldies" music in English and Portuguese. Many of the radio stations here play the same songs we would normally hear in the U.S.

We´ve learned that flexibility is the name of the game here. We´re not sure what the rest of the day holds, but we´re sure it will include a few more adventures as we enjoy the Brazilian culture.