New host families, 3 schools, and a Rotary Club meeting

This is Vanessa posting. Last night, we changed to our second host families and I feel as though I'm in a new town and it's a new week (although it's Friday). During our first week in Sao Paolo, we were shown around primarily by the Liberdade club, which is in the Japanese part of the city. This week, Rhonda and I are being hosted together in the same family and our team's coordinators are Italian (as is the area of the city we happen to be staying in - called Mooca). Mooca is in the east side of the city and last week, I was in the west side.

Today we visited 3 different schools. The first one is called SENAC and is a private vocational school for students at the post-high school level. One of the GSE members of the group who went to Texas last month works there, so he was the one showing us around. We saw classes such as cosmetology and computer design:





We were really taken with their espresso machine, which freshly grinds the coffee beans and automatically dispenses the cup before filling it:



The second school, sponsored by the local Rotary district, is a 6 month job prep program for disadvantaged students in area high schools.





We attended the lunch meeting of the Vila Alpina Rotary Club, which was held in the facilities above the school. We gave our short presentation, which consists of us saying not much more than our name and profession in Portuguese and exchanging banners with the Club president.



The third school was a technical, industrial preparation school for high school aged students; the name is SENAI. It was a marathon visit...4 hours!! The director of the school spent 3 hours talking (in a lot of detail) through a Powerpoint presentation (with David translating so very well!!...we have felt blessed to have his language skills every day!). Students at this school learn how to operate various types of machinery during the 2 year program.







Tonight, I had the earliest dinner yet in Brazil - finished by 8 p.m.!! It seems to be typical for people here to start eating dinner at 10 or 11! So, I'm glad to have had the energy and time to post a little about our school visits today...and still have time left to go to bed early!...TGIF!! :)

Feliz dia des Maes!

(We're a little late with our posts, but here's a recap of our activities from the last few days.) On Mother's Day, we woke up with a mission – to sneak away and buy a gift for our host mother. David and I tried to make up excuses to visit the supermarket, but our host family had such wonderful hospitality that we didn't actually need anything. We were finally able to slip away to the supermarket across the street and buy flowers for our host mom. We weren't quite sure how to sneak them into the apartment, but David had the brilliant idea for me to create a diversion by running into the apartment while screaming and waving my arms. The family would then follow me to find out "what's the matter with this gringa" while David got the flowers into the apartment…luckily we didn't have to resort to that plan!

We've had an amazing host family this week, and have eaten delicious Brazilian, Italian, Arabic, and Japanese food. Thankfully, we were able to spend a bit of time in the gym that afternoon. We were also able to show off our karaoke skills with our host dad. We sang everything from Elvis to the Beatles, U2, and Banda Eva in both English and Portuguese.

That evening we enjoyed a family dinner at a churrascaria at Murumbi. We met the rest of the family and really enjoyed our time with them. I tried some new foods including raw oyster, raw kibi, chicken hearts, goat, and warthog.

We got home from dinner about midnight and then packed our things for our early morning departure (5:30 am!). David and I rode the metro by ourselves to meet the rest of the group and then boarded a bus (a Brazilian version of a Greyhound) for a 3.5 hour ride to Botucatu. We visited the city hall and then attended a Rotary Club meeting that night. Our Tuesday activities included a visit to UNESP's (Sao Paulo State University) Fazenda Lageado (very similar to Texas A&M University's Agricultural Experiment Station) where we met with several professors of the college of agriculture and life sciences. We visited the eucalyptus plantation where we saw examples of the amazingly quick growth of this tree species. The trees grow about 10 feet the first year and can be harvested after 8 years. They are used for paper production and as an energy source. We also visited the coffee museum where we learned about the process of harvesting, drying, roasting, and grinding. The free coffee samples at the end of the tour were a definite bonus!

We had our first Rotary Club presentation that evening, and the club members were extremely welcoming and generous. We had worked hard to learn how to present our presentation in Portuguese, and they were very receptive to our efforts. It was a great first presentation experience!

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!