Jess' Adventures in Brazil

Still thinking like a brazillian

2006-09-07T18:39:00.000-03:00

So far I...

- waited for the cars to pass before crossing the street (when they stopped it felt weird)
- looked for the garbage can on the kitchen counter
- almost threw the toilet paper in the garbage
- said tchau to people
- thought I had to ask for help in portuguese
- almost kissed someone on the cheek when I greeted them
- thought it would be ok if I was a few minutes late
- thought it was odd that I could understand conversations around me
- scared my friends by greeting them with a big hug
- forgot to take my shoes off when I got home

It`s odd how everything at home is eerily the same. Nothing has changed. But I have.

Last Days

2006-09-04T16:28:00.000-03:00

Well, today is my last full day in Brazil. I fly out tomorrow night, back home to Canada. Even as I write that it doesn't yet seem real.

I've been meaning to write in here for the past week but I have been crazy busy.

Last weekend we went on an AIESEC trip to the beach, in a city called Peruibe. It was a lot of fun, even though not a lot of people could go. There were seven of us: Me, Fernando, Super, Judy, Koba, Victor and Carol (another alumni). On Saturday Fernando taught me how to surf! Well at least he tried :P I wasn't very good at it and I ended up swallowing buckets of sea water. But it was really cool. I have never seen waves so big, it was cool to just let yourself be swept away by them :) We also had churrasco and went for pizza and icecream. mmmm. On Sunday we lounged around and just relaxed. The guys threw me in the pool! Haha. It was nice to escape for a while after a stressful week.

This week was again stressful and busy. We decided this weekend to come to Ribeirão Preto (where I am right now) to give the extention there some training. So that meant that all the trainings had to be devided and then developed. So I ended up with 4 sessions to prepare. Plus, it was also the week on the Palestras, so I did eight presentations about AIESEC to the potential new members. The results were great! We got 122 people wanting to join AIESEC USP!! But it was a long and tiring process.

On friday night I packed up all my things, in the process finding some things I forgot I had... like granola bars from Canada (which I ate). Haha. Friday night I was officially done working (well except for the sessions).

Saturday was AWESOME!! I got up early and went to the subway to meet up with Renato, Fernando and Maira. We went to Mr. Fred, Fernando's restaurant, which was really good! Then Maira and I went SHOPPING!! Haha. I needed to buy a few more souvenirs and some things to bring back with be, so we headed to the mall and looked around. I didn't find exactly what I wanted... but I DID find a jockpot! A cookbook with 1000 brazillian recipes!!! Haha, so I bought it of course! (Chris, Emily and Bonnie, be warned). Then we went outside the mall and there were some street vendor who had more what I was looking for. Things that were very Brazil :P So I bought some and then Maira took me to get my nails done one last time! Aeeeee!!! Then we went to the supermarket and I loaded up on food to bring back with me.... goiabada, goiabinha, pão de qeijou mix (I can't spell...), sonho de valsa... and other things. Then... we met up with Fernando again and went to Buffalo Branco Churrascaria! A Churrascaria is an all you can eat place with meat, where they bring it around to your table and cut a slice. It was soooo good. But the best part was the people there. It was my goodbye dinner, so a lot of people came! Maira, Fernando, Rubinho, Koba, Flavia, Victor, Daniel, Talita, Super, Jorge.... I loved having so many of the @ers together because that's one thing that @USP struggles with. We joked and laughed and I admit I got a litte emotional. There were many many hugs. I didn't want to have to say goodbye to anyone. I kept telling myself, I'll see them on Tuesday, I'll see them on Tuesday....

On Sunday, Super and I met up with Rubão, Renata and Patrick to come to Ribeirão Preto for the trainings. It's a 4 hour trip and we were supposed to arrive at 12:00. We arrived at 4:30. How did that happen exactly? Haha. We left late.... stopped for a snack.... stopped in Piracicaba for lunch for 2 hours.... and then finally arrived in RP at 4:30. Needless to say the training has been a little behind schedule, haha. But they are a good eagar group and it's nice to work with them. Last night we went to Pinguim, which is a bar here that RP is famous for all across brazil (or so they say ;) ) Today we have been doing more sesisons. Right now they are doing selling training in portuguese so they let me escape to the computer for a little while. I have one session left to lead and then I am official done my CEED work!!!! Tonight we head back to São Paulo and I will finish all my packing.

Tomorrow will be really hard. I'm going to the office, but not to work, to say goodbye. I'm hoping everyone will come. I already had to say a few goodbyes, to Renata and Rubinho. At around 7:00 pm I'll leave São Paulo and head to the airport for my 9:30 flight. I get to Victoria just after noon on Wednesday, the 6th.

This will be my last post from Brazil. Next message from Victoria, Canada.

Softball again!

2006-08-25T20:54:00.000-03:00

So I moved again. Haha. I think I am settled now until I go home, but all my stuff in still at Renata's house. I'll have to get it back next week.

But today I went and played softball again!! aeeeee!! It was a practice, not a game, but it was still great to play. Our practices in Nanaimo are usually an hour and a half. This one was 4 hours!! Intense! We did a lot of cardio, and then a lot of fly balls and grounders and such.

At the end we split into two teams to have a little match. We divided everyone by pairing off and then playing rock, paper, scissors. The losers and winners formed the teams. I was a winner. When the team was together, one of the guys was trying to cheer for our team, but he said it with an accent so it sounded like "We are the weiners!!!" haha.

They use an interesting mix of portuguese and japanese in their softball lingo. They call their coach "sensei" (Japanese for teacher - see... I do actually learn things from anime ;) ) And, as I forgot to mention in my previous post about softball, they all line up before the game and bow to each other.

My batting was horrible tonight. I couldn't figure out why for the longest time.... then I realzed I must be bending my knees as I swung. So for my last at bat I made sure to stay standing straight, and I hit a gorgeous bomb....... right to the left fielder. Haha, so I was out but it still felt good.

They have another tournament next weekend but I don't think I will be able to make it. It's on Sunday and we will be doing @ work on Sunday ;)

Ok, now I'm off the the grocery store to buy some food for dinner. As Super informed me, all he has in his house right now is bread, meat and beer. Student house, go figure.

Santa Catarina

2006-08-23T16:55:00.000-03:00

I was thinking the other day that I have been feeling a little homeless lately. After I thought about it, I realized that since the Planning at the beginning of July, I have not slept more than 5 nights in the same place! So I think that has something to do with it. And I probably won’t for the rest of the time that I am here either, because this weekend I am travelling again (though not far) and the weekend after I might be gone as well.

So where did I go this last weekend? Santa Catarina! If you go south from Sao Paulo state, you get to Paraná, where Curitiba is, and if you keep going you get to the state of Santa Catarina, capital Florianopolis.

On Friday morning I caught the 6:00 am bus to Curitiba and met up with Igor at the bus station. It hadn't rained in Curitiba for four months.... until I came back :P That evening we went to check out the wire opera house, which was really cool. It would be a really great place to see the Phantom, which is ironic because my family was in Vancouver this last weekend seeing the Phantom.

On Saturday I got up early to drive with Igor’s family down to Santa Catarina. Our first stop was the amusement park, the largest in Latin America (though what in Brazil isn’t the largest in Latin America..??). Igor wanted to go on the “Big Tower” which was basically a 10 or more story fee fall. I said first we should try the smaller version, which was a good 5 or 6 stories. And OMG it was scary! You go up and then wheel forward and you’re thinking…. There’s no going back now!! And then…. Whoosh……. Down you go, nothing underneath you! That one left me shaking! The roller coaster was also really good, though much tamer. We also caught some of the shows they had, and wandered around the zoo. They had a little of everything, from elephants to baboons. It was cool to see all the monkeys (technically primates) and I soon realized how much of my primatology I have forgotten from Anth 250 :P

The smaller tower with the "Big Tower" in the background

Then we headed back to Igor’s aunts house and made pastels! Afterwards we went for a walk on the beach. I was walking with Igor’s brother and two cousins (Matheus, Rodrigo and Fernanda). It was really interesting talking to the kids. The older two appreciated that I didn’t understand everything and they spoke slowly for me. When I didn’t get it, they tried to say it in a different way, or communicate with their hands. The little girl however, talked to me a million miles a minute in Portuguese with a southern accent and I was lucky to catch a few words! She didn’t seem to mind too much though, haha.

The previous weekend I met Renata’s little 5 year old cousin, who responded to me a little differently. She asked Renata why she was talking to me in English (she knew it was English). Renata told her it was because I didn’t speak Portuguese. The little girl asked why I didn’t speak Portuguese, in a rather shocked voice. Renata explained that it was because I came from a different country. At this point the little girl was a bit lost, but upon request, she told me some words she knew in English, which was actually quite a few for a five year old, which demonstrates the influence of North American culture!

On Sunday we went back to the beach and had the brilliant idea of climbing the rocks…..which were very jagged…. with no shoes. It took us two hours, but we made it! With only one cut toe (mine) and a bit of sunburn. Once on the other side, however, we realized that the rocks were part of a ridge that extended inland. So to get back home we had to walk all the way around, which took another hour. So after three hours of hiking around the beach and city, we made it home for a rest. We had some food and then it was time to head back to Curitiba.

Making our way across the rocks

Success!! Me, Rodrigo and Igor

On Monday I slept in and then went in the afternoon to catch the bus back to Sao Paulo.

Today (Tuesday) was one of those days where you just get nothing done. I had an education meeting in the morning, and then we decided to go to Bandejão for lunch. So we went to find Fernando to borrow his car. Who would drive? Me! When Renato asked Fernando for the keys he replied “você?” [you?]. Renato said “Nao, Jess” [No, Jess] and Fernando said “Ah, sousa” [Ah, that’s ok]. Haha. So I was given Fernando’s keys and we were off driving around USP. AIESEC Roadtrip about USP!! Haha. I gave my camera to the girls (Renata, Tiaia and Maira) and they took a video of us driving around. After lunch we decided to go driving some more, and Tiaia suggested we stop at the Museum of Anatomy. Why we listened to her I’m really not sure, but a few human organs and deformed fetuses in jars of formaldehyde later, we headed back to FEA.

Ahhh, back behind the wheel!

We had an EB meeting, which I was supposedly heading. It is very difficult, however, to keep a meeting on track when the participants keep talking in Portuguese and you have no clue what’s going on! So it wasn’t the greatest meeting, but afterwards we went for icecream. (See what I said about not getting anything done?). Then I sent a few emails…. Talked on MSN…. And headed home.

Getting home was painful though, as I had to wait 45 minutes for a bus which I would ride for 30 minutes. Ugh. OK, I officially hate the buses in Sao Paulo. But now I am home and I plan on spending the evening drinking tea wrapped in my blanket and making AIESEC documents. So tchau!

Tidbits!! ..... mmmm... timbits...

2006-08-13T12:20:00.000-03:00

A few little things to update:

TN??

On friday Renato, Rubinho and I went for another meeting with the public school we have been in contact with about our Education PBoX. We took with us the JQ form and our contract and we are supposed to call them on Monday. Sooo.... we could have a TN next week!

Recycling!

On Thursday I went to Santo André again for a meeting with the people from the Recycling Project. They were giving a seminar about Micro Credit and even though I couldn't understand all that was being said, it was interesting to watch the reactions and how everyone got involved. I had a chance to talk to Jutta, the teacher at UVic who I first contacted, as well as the other directors and some of the Catadores (recyclers). I listened in on some of their group discussions with the help of one of the students at Santo André who will be coming to UVic in the fall as part of the project. The project is designed to be participatory, so there was a lot of interaction and discussion between everyone.

Are you Drunk?

This is by far the funniest reaction I have recieved upon telling someone I don't speak portuguese.

Girl: *something in portuguese*
Me: Umm.... Eu no falo portugês [I don't speak portuguese]
Girl: What? Are you Drunk?
Me: No. I just don't speak portuguese.
Girl: You are joking me!
Me: No, I really don't speak portuguese!

After a minute I finally convinced her :P

The big adventure

2006-08-09T17:08:00.000-03:00

Ok, here it comes. Final picture count for the 12 day trip? 486, plus some videos.

Curitiba

I took the 6:00 am bus to Curitiba and arrived just after noon. I met up with Igor at the bus station and then we went to downtown Colombo (exciting eh?). Haha. Friday was a relaxing day – we made Nanaimo Bars!

On Saturday I headed into Curitiba to meet up with the Rita, Mao and the trainees for our Curitiba Trainee event! We had five Canadians (Me, Rita, J-Max, Max and Marie), an Egyptian (Younes), a Slovakian (Michal) a Columbian (Mao) and a few Brazilians for good measure. We did a tour of the city and stopped at some of the tourist spots, like the 24 hour street and the Oscar Neimeyer Museum. It’s interesting to note that even though we had 5 Canadians present, I was the only native English speaker at the whole event. Which also meant I was the only one who was monolingual. Also, you’d think that getting a bunch of internationals together would be our chance to speak English, but some of the trainees were speaking Portuguese to each other! I thought that was interesting. After the tour we went back to Lizi’s place, where Rita was staying, and had an international dinner which consisted of Chinese, Egyptian and Lebanese food, and was delicious! Our “house party” ended up being more of a sit around and talk about tons of random stuff event, but that was fine with me.

Rita & Younes and some trainee craziness

On Sunday morning I got up early and…. Got trapped inside the apartment building! Rita let me out of the apartment, but the front door was locked. So I went back up to get the key, but Rita had already gone back to bed and didn’t hear my knocking and ringing of the doorbell. So I was stuck!! Haha, I ended up having to get Igor to call Rita to come open the door for me! Then Igor and I caught the bus to Paranagua (did I spell it right?), which is a small city near the coastline of Parana. We walked around the city and looked at some of the old buildings and bought some souvenirs at the local market. I discovered there was an archaeology museum, but when we got there it was closed! Darn. For lunch Igor suggested we have Barreado, which is a stew where the meat is cooked for 24 hours and is very typical of the region. It took us a while to find the restaurant, but it was worth it! Sooooo good! Afterwards we took a boat ride up the river a little ways. There were a lot of tree covered hills and it reminded me a lot of BC. Then we ran to catch the train back to Curitiba. Trains are very uncommon in Brazil and this one was maintained mostly as a tourist attraction because it runs along the edge of some gorgeous mountains. Unfortunately my pictures are a little blurry, but I assure you it was a very nice view.

Paranagua - so colourful!

On Monday I just relaxed in the morning and then in the afternoon we went to the mall and went bowling (yes, a bowling alley in a mall, go figure). Then it was time for me to catch the bus back to Sao Paulo.

I arrived back at Tiete station just after midnight and took the airport bus to Guarulhos (the international airport). After waiting around for a few hours I was off to Salvador and then after killing a few more hours in the Salvador airport I was off to Recife, my second stop.

Recife

My host from AIESEC recife, Samuel, met me at the airport when I arrived and the we spent the afternoon walking around Old Recife, which is on two islands. Of course of my first day there it rainied, after it had been sooo hot and sunny in Curitiba (no joke!). Old Recife was full of contrasts, with beautifully restored old buildings next to run-down, ugly ones. I tried to capture both sides in my photos, and when I was taking a picture of an ugly building one random guy said to me “If you take a picture of that your photo will burn”.

Welcome to Recife!

On the second day we went to Itamaraca, which is a small town about an hour outside of Recife. There, we visited Forte Orange, an old Dutch fort from the time of the Dutch invasion. Right behind the fort was a really nice beach. Of course, on that day it rained too, just because Recife was out to get me.

Look, I found a skeleton.... sort of!

We stopped for a snack and as we were eating two guys came up to us and started singing. I had assumed that they were singing some Brazilian song, but Samuel told me that they were actually making it up and they went along, and that they were singing about me!!! Haha. He told me afterwards what they had said. They had sung out the girl with the dyed red hair…. Dyed!!! Excuse me, I don’t think so!!! They sang about how I had red hair and was pale so I must be from Sao Paulo, or Rio or Parana. Then Samuel said something to me in English and they clued in that I was not brazilian. Then they started singing, oh she must be from France or Germany or Italy. Hahaha. It was pretty funny.

After lunch we went to see the Peixe-boi [in Portuguese literally fish-ox] Centre. They are these odd creatures that look like mer-dogs and are related to elephants. They had some big tanks there and the peixe-bois loved to just spin and spin around in the water. And they would stick their noses out of the water everyone and a while. Odd but cool. I bought a little stuffed animal peixe-boi, I couldn’t resist!

Aren't they... cute?

That evening we went to a place that had live Forró music, which is a type of brazilian music with an accordion. The band was really good.

The next day we went to the AIESEC Recife office where I talked with some of the members. For lunch I tried tapioca, which is not like tapioca in Canada. It’s a white power that you make into a pancake and put in different fillings and then fold over. It was pretty good. I had one with chicken and one with goiaba, banana and cinnamon. And then that night for dinner we had Cuscuz, which was an odd corn cake-like thing, but was quite good.

The next day was the Beach!! It was similar to the beaches in Rio in that there was beach, then road, then a row of skyscrapers. The beach was really nice though I only went in the water up to my ankles because there are sharks in the area.

We also went to Olinda, which is the Dutch town built next to Recife (which was Portuguese). Oldina in full of churches, 365 I am told. And almost all of them have only one tower. This is because as long as the churches were not complete, the priests could keep asking for money. And they were NEVER finished. While there we saw some dancers doing a cool dance with mini-umbrellas (I can’t remember the name…). My hosts ate a bean bread thing, but it was full of shrimp so I passed. After we found a group of people at a community centre practicing Maracatu, a type of African drumming. I wanted to try soooooo badly!!

On my last day we had an AIESEC event with some of the AIESEC Recife trainees and members. I met some people from Mexico, Holland, Turkey and Portugal there. We had Feijauda (spelling?) for lunch and then me and the girl from Portugal did presentations about our countries. Then Samuel and I headed downtown to try and catch a Maracatu performance, but we were too late. Still, we managed to find another group practicing and stayed to listen for a little while. Then it was off to the airport again.

Some overall observations about Recife…. They have a LOT of hospitals! Everywhere you look there is another hospital, it was weird. Also, their buses are crazy. They go really fast and then slam on the breaks when they have to stop. A couple of times I was holding on for dear life!! There are also a lot of churches, though not as many as Olinda.

Salvador

The beginning to my Salvador story is a little different. I got stranded at the Salvador airport!! Haha. My flight from Recife was an hour and a half late and when I arrived in Salvador, my host had thought I wasn’t coming and gone home! It was around 1:00 am when I arrived and I realized I didn’t have his phone number because we had been communicating through email. I wasn’t really worried because I knew that I just need to get on the internet to get a hold of him. But the internet café at the airport didn’t open until 7:30 am! So I got to spend a wonderful night in the airport, haha. But it was fine and as soon as I got online my host, David, had sent me an email with his phone number and I called him and he came and got me.

For the first day we went to the beach. It was not in Salvador but in Vilas do Atlantico, just outside of Salvador where he lived. Because it was a more residential area, the beach had a lot more trees and a lot of families. It was a nice day and we walked along the beach and then had some coconuts :P It was interesting because David’s brother is engaged to a Canadian from London, and she was there at the house. So I talked to her a lot about Brazil and about experiences being a foreigner in the country. She was really nice.

On the second day David dropped me off in the historical centre of Salvador. He took me to the tourist information place and so I was armed with a map and a list of suggested places to visit.

The historical part of the city

The atmosphere in Salvador is very different than the south of Brazil. Salvador is much more close to the image most people have of Brazil. Like Recife, the old part of the city was half beautiful and restored and half run-down. But the restored buildings were quite amazing. I managed to find an archaeology museum which had some cool stuff, and a museum about the city and a couple others. Plus there were a lot of churches to see and the interiors were absolutely stunning. Most of the things were free or only one or two reais. After I had exhausted all the museums I went to a few shops to pick up some souvenirs. Unlike Sao Paulo where there isn’t a lot of stuff that is very “Sao Paulo” in Salvador there is a lot of stuff.

Also unlike Sao Paulo, Salvador is a tourist city. So there were a lot of people in the streets who came up to talk to me, to sell me things or ask for money or offer me a tour. I had an interesting experience with one guy who was selling necklaces. He approached me and I said I didn’t want anything. Then he insisted on giving me a free bracelet (very typical of the northeast). But I still said I didn’t want to buy anything. He wandered off and then came back a little while later. He asked me again, showing me his collection of necklaces. I said I was just looking around and didn’t want any. Again he wandered off and again he came back, this time offering me a free necklace. I refused, several times, but he was persistent and eventually I ended up with the free necklace (hey, it was free!). But I was very clear that I did not want to buy anything. Then he switched tactics and started asking me if I had a boyfriend in Bahia (the state). I told him no, and he asked me again, several times. Haha. Once he had figured out the answer was no, he asked me if I wanted to go for Caipirinhas!! I told him no thanks. He said “so um???” [just one?] but I said no thanks. It was pretty funny. Eventually he figured out that I wasn’t going to ever say yes, and he wandered off permanently. Haha. I was never really worried or anything, but it was amusing. And if I had had a problem (which I didn’t) there were lots of tourist officials wandering around.

After some shopping I went down the elevator, which is a huge structure that take you up and down the cliff near the water. Then I went to the Mercado Modelo [the Modern Market] and looked at some of the things they were selling there. A few of the vendors tried to figure out where I was from. They were guessing things like France, Germany, the US, England. Never Canada… awwww. Then David came to pick me up and we went to the AIESEC office for a little while. I picked up Celso’s gift, which is HUGE!!! (Celso, you’re gonna owe me one! ;) ) Then we went to a pizza rodizio (all you can eat pizza).

The Elevator! Cool, eh?

On my last day David and his brother Danilo and I went to Arembepe, which is a place I really wanted to go. Why? Because we had read an enthography (an anthropological study) of it in my cultural anthropology class. It was really cool to see all the places the author had written about in the book. We went to Aldeia, the hippie village next to the town, and talked to some of the hippies there. It was a pretty cool place. I took a few photos of the habour with all the fishing boats. We also stopped by the sea turtle centre, which was built after the book was finished so I didn’t know about it. It was cool and the little turtles were really cute.

Hippie Village - woooo!!

Then the next day it was back to Sao Paulo.

Law School and NPM :P

I got back and found out that I would now be living with Renata, the VP People Development. That’s cool and she lives very near Paulista Ave. So I met up with her and Tiaia on Wed night and we grabbed some food at Habib’s and then I went to their classes at the law school with them. It was kind of funny, and the constitutional law prof kept looking right at me! Tiaia said he probably though I was American and he was talking about the American constitution.

Thursday and Friday were pretty quiet. Had some meetings and did some work and slacked a little bit….shhhh….

Friday was also the first day of NPM (National Presidents Meeting) which took place at USP! So I got to meet and hang out with the LCPs and the MC. I talked for a while with Morganna, who is the national Explora Program leader. She told me she was interested in recruiting Canadian SNs for the program, so I told her I could maybe help with that.

Then on Saturday I went with Renata to her hometown of Piracicaba, 2 hours from Sao Paulo.

The great leaders of AIESEC Brazil, with matching outfits!

Piracicaba

Piracicaba is Victoria sized, which was a nice change after 4 big cities. It definitely had a smaller city atmosphere. Renata is part Lebanese so on Sunday we had Arabian food at her grandmother’s house. Then we went for a drive out to the country and into the sugar cane fields that surround the city. I had never seen sugar cane before. Renata’s Dad grabbed a cane to take back with us…. Shhhh ;) Then he cut it up and we ate it! Well… you don’t actually eat it but you chew it and suck out the sugar juice. It was cool and, of course, yummy.

On Monday we came back to Sao Paulo and a few more meetings and hours spent researching on @.net brings us to the present.

Mmmmm... sugar.....

AIESEC

As for AIESEC work, we are still trying to make our education PBoX happen for this semester, but it is becoming less and less likely. We really need to have meeting with the private schools but we can’t seem to get a hold of them to set up meetings. It’s a little frustrating. But hopefully we will have some luck soon and start moving forward again.

I’m also working with Renata on People Development stuff, helping to get ready for recruitment and finishing some infrastructure stuff. This weekend we might have an EB retreat, which would be cool.

Ok and with a total now of over 2800 words, I think it’s time for bed ;) ********P.S. My appologies for the odd formatting... Blogger is having issues today... will try to fix it later

AIESEC Roadtrip #.... 4?

2006-07-21T04:30:00.000-03:00

This week I bought all my tickets for my big Brazil trip. I am leaving this morning and will be out and about for 12 days.

July 21 - July 24 - Curitiba
July 25 - July 29 - Recife
July 29 - Aug 2 - Salvador

For a map, you can go here. Curitiba is in the south, and both Recife and Salvador are in the northeast.

I am sure a huuuuge post, or several, will follow when I get back ;)

The Post You've All Been Waiting For...

2006-07-17T20:36:00.000-03:00

Oi Gente!

Eu escrevo esta post em Portugês!! (não bom portugês.... mas....)

Na Sabado, eu fui para o feira. Eu comprei mais de comidas. Eu comprei os batatas, as maças, os cenauras e mais. Então, eu fui para supermarcado. Eu comprei o leite, os biscoitos, o suco de morango, o arroz e um bolo de banana. Legal, não é?

Depois, eu vi uma filme em TV e eu almoçei. Então, eu foi para ponto. Eu peguei o ônibus para Vila Madalena e eu paguei o mêtro para Vila Mariana. Eu foi para Festval Japonês com quatro amigos. Lá, eu comi sorvete tempura. Muito bom! E eu bebi caipirihna de sake.

Na Domingo, eu levantei a quatro horas e meia. Eu fui para ponto e eu peguei o ônibus e o mêtro para São Judas. Eu fui jogar softbol com os personnes de FEA. Eu bati o balo :P Estavo muito muito divertido. Nós chegamos em São Paulo a cinco horas. Eu fui para minha novo casa.

Hoje, eu escrevi os emails e eu fui para USP. Então, eu fui a casa de Marina. Ela ajuda eu entender portugês.

Então, eu fui para minha casa e eu jantei - arroz e chá. Mmmmmm.

Amanhã, eu tenho uma reunion com os AIESECers a cinco horas.

Esta tudo para hoje!! Mais tarde!!

Tchau tchau

Muitos Japas!

2006-07-16T21:13:00.000-03:00

New Home

Friday was moving day. After our EB meeting (yes.. an EB meeting on Friday night during vacations... aren't we dedicated :P ) Fernando and Renato (both Japanese so I can still use the main title) drove me back to Iza's house to get my bags. I finished packing and said goodbye and then we we off in search of my new home. Yep... in search. None of us knew exactly how to get there, haha. But after a breif stop at Habib's to refuel (us, not the car) we found it. I am now, for the next two weeks, staying at Guilherme's apartment while he is away for vacation. So that works out well, but I will have to move again in two weeks when he comes back.

Japanese Festival... with a Brazilian Twist ;)

On Saturday afternoon I bravely took a bus to the subway and met up with Koba, Judy, Barbara and Kyle (LCP of @ITA) to go to the Japanese festival. They had a Taiko drup set up that you could try (pictures forcoming) and lots of little shops. There was a whole shop filled with manga but it was all in portuguese, oddly enough ;) They also had booths set up with food from all the different reagions of Japan. It was interesting, though, how everything was still a touch brazillian. One of the stalls was serving sake caipirhina, called saikirhina (don't quote me on the spelling). Other stalls were selling pastels :P Haha, so very Japanese. I tried some icecream tempura, which was veeeeery good. Then I had the great challenge of getting home. I took the subway and then the bus and asked for help in finding the right street, in Portuguese! And I made it back just fine.

Field of Dreams....

Yes.... this picture (which will be coming soon) IS in fact a softball diamond in the middle of a farm!

I got up at 4:30 this morning and met some of the members from the FEA USP softball team at the subway. Then we drove for a good hour and a half to a small town and then into the middle of a farm... where there were a set of beautiful softball diamonds. And wow, what a sight for sore eyes that was! I was in heaven! Softball diamonds!!!!!!!

So how does this section fit in with the main title? Well according to the team members, it was the Japanese who introduced baseball and softball to Brazil, and it is still largely this group that plays it. So 95% of the people there today were Japanese. The whole torunement was sponsored by Japanese companies and at lunch time they even had some Taiko Drum players come and perform, which was really cool.

I was so happy to be playing ball. They started me at shortstop (what on earth gave them that idea???) in the first game. I went 2 for 3 at the plate with the out being a line drive right at the third basemen that she caught >_<. We lost though. The in the second game I started in Centre Field, then went to First Base and then Third Base. We were down 8-0 after the first two innings, but had a great comback inning where we scored 7 runs... but it wasn't enough and we lost 11-9. I was 1 for 2 with a walk, the out again a liner at the third basemen (darn it!). But the hit was a really nice one, and I was very glad to have at least one really solid hit :)

Ok, ok... enough of the play by play... it was interesting playing in Portuguese :P There were cheers of "Vai Vai Vai!!!" [Go, go go] and I felt odd calling for the ball and yelling in English :P The team thought it was pretty neat to have me playing with them, and they cheered "Go Jess Go" when I batted :P Overall they were a really great group and I told them to stop by the AIESEC office in Aug for a visit. And I might get to play again with them later.

Playing today made me realize how much I missed softball, and if I have to opportunity to play ball at any point in the rest of my life, I should take it ;)

Oh, another intersting note, the rules they had were a real insult to gender equality (in a funny way). The guys were not allowed to:
- hit a homerun (if they did they were out)
- hit the ball "hard" at a girl (if they did they were out)
- steal
- slide
- bunt
The only thing the girls were not allowed to do was pitch. I thought this was quite humorous because I could hit the ball harder than a couple of the guys. :P

FEA USP FEA USP Vai Vai Vai!!! ;)

Essential Lessons from Plan

2006-07-16T20:50:00.000-03:00

Hey, I haven't updated for a while because I haven't had access and time. I seem to have one, but not the other, at any given moment, which makes it tricky. :P

***********

Originally I wrote a big long post about the whole LC Planning process and my experiences as a faci for the sessions. But then I thought that it was rather long and boring for those not interested in such things. So if anyone should so desire that I explain how we modeled out LC planning with the AIESEC 2010 Scorecard, by all means ask me and I will be glad to tell you ;)

Overall it was a crazy and stressful but fun weekend. We had meetings until all hours of the night and delivered sessions on almost zero sleep, with ENERGY! We reararranged the agenda like a million times and still managed to get almost everything done :P

Here's a list of "interesteing" things I learned at Plan:

- Flash drives are amongst the best inventions ever. They save sanity.
- Doing vision sessions on mattresses does not lead to active listening
- When you are running on no sleep even the World Cup Final cannot keep you awake
- I suck, and I mean really suck, at Samurai Intergalactica
- Brigadeiro makes an excellent midday snack
- When people are half asleep you have to be very specific with your intructions
- Gotta love the inputs
- I like the CSFs, but the KPIs are still evil
- When you are sleep deprived you can't tell if you are listening to Portuguese or English
- Freed from Desire should be required learning for New Members
- Tunuk Tunuk will always be more popular than it should be
- If you have an election, and there's a pool nearby, you probably don't want to win
- On USP roadtrips you discuss the merits of the Brazillian military
- A giant hat will ALWAYS get around ;)
- Queen + Rubinho = the funniest rendition of We Will Rock You ever created
- And last but not least.... When we are all at our wits end, we will be saved by the $R1 cookies

*Note: pictures will be coming soon, but this computer doesn't have a USB port (stone age?... just kidding) so I have to add them later*

tick tick tick .... boom!

2006-07-05T18:13:00.001-03:00

Haven't updated for a while because there hasn't been much to say. I've been working every day this week getting the sessions prepared for the Planning this weekend. I ended up with seven sessions in total. So I've been glued to Powerpoint and Word and @.net. Plus we are trying to finish our proposal for the Education project and capacitate the new EB.

I think my host family thinks I'm off partying every night because I come home so late :P And then I leave in the morning before they get up. I actually haven't seen Iza for days!

I'll admit that I have learned a lot in making the sessions :P But this week has been intense. I'm posting this right now just because my brain is totally fried from CSFs, ILPs, visions, values and other things.

I'd write something about the Planning process, but I think I would explode. Maybe later.

On a side note, I brought my laptop to school today, so I have internet! I even brought my webcam, but haven't had a chance to use it :( Come on MSN people!!!

Meetings, Futebol and Canada Day

2006-07-03T11:08:00.000-03:00

Meetings:

This was the week of meetings. Steering Team. Education. Executive Board. It’s been busy!

On Friday I stayed home in the morning to make Nanaimo Bars for Canada Day. And I’m pleased to say they turned out really well!! And it was a nice break from measuring Key Performance Indicators ;)

On Saturday morning we had an EB meeting at Super’s house. It was supposed to start at 9:00am. Everyone was there…. Except Diogo! Haha, but we made some pancakes and just hung out until the meeting got underway (at 11:00). A quick Churrasco decided that I would be doing the meeting minutes :P.

Futebol

The Good the Bad and the Ugly:

The good: After the EB meeting we met up with some other @ers and went to a bar to watch the Brazil-France game. It was set up by Benoit, the French trainee, and we all got in free if we were supposedly sheering for France ;) They wanted to put him on TV as representing the French fans. Everyone was really excited and the green and yellow was almost blinding (and the noise almost deafening!)

Cheering for France, Gasp! Benoit (French) and Alexandra (Swiss)

The bad: Brazil lost. A lot of people looked really crushed. Honestly France played better, and deserved the win. But it was still disappointing. The fever is over. A lot of people came over and congratulated Benoit and wished his team luck, which was really nice.

The ugly: A couple people took the game a little too seriously, and after the game two guys started yelling at Benoit. A few plastic trumpets were thrown and then a few minutes later a fight broke out, between two Brazilians. Daniel, one of the former LCPs for @USP, kept telling me not to worry, but I wasn’t really. The @ers were all really embarrassed at the display and kept telling me that only the stupid people get carried away, which is true. 95% of the people were totally fine.

And now... the bright plastic trumpets fall silent

Funny side note: At the bar we ran into an American and when she found out I was Canadian she asked me “Hey, do you know how to play Eukre?” which I thought was pretty hilarious.

Canada Day

Last night I had my Canada Day party, which was really more of a get together than a party. I was hoping for a bigger turnout, but we had about 15 people there. I made pancakes and maple syrup, then we ordered some pizza as well. One of them was tuna! On pizza! But the @ers told me this was very normal… Go figure. After the pizza we had the Nanaimo Bars, which were very popular :) Then we listened to some Canadian music, including some Arrogant Worms, which everyone liked. And then I talked for a little while about Canada, and they asked me questions. Some of the questions were really good, like why didn’t Canada join with the US when the US went independent? And why do we have territories and how are they different from provinces? How is Canada affected by terrorism? I missed the last subway back home, so I stayed the night at the MC house with Barbara, one of the new MCVP LC Coaches.

Yay Canada Day!
Judy, Koba, Rubinho, Rubens, Alexandra

Mmmm... Nanaimo Bars

Upcoming: Next weekend in the LC Planning, which will be really intense. I am doing double duty as a faci (facilitator) so I have to prepare sessions as a member of the steering team and the EB. So this week will be a lot of time on the computer and on AIESEC.net. But I’m learning a lot through this process and I’m really hoping we can develop a strong year plan for the LC. Plus it will be really cool to have everyone together for the weekend, since it’s so rare for us all to be together.

Congrats to the USP EB 2006!!

2006-06-27T08:17:00.000-03:00

Yes that’s right! My host LC has an EB at last! After a long election process, the chosen candidates were announced tonight!

LCP – Diogo
VPPD – Renata
VPER – Patrick
VPF – Fernando
PM Entrepreneurship – Rubens
PM Env Sustainability – Super (Marcelo)

Two more Project Manager will be added shortly, one for Education (woo!!!!) and one for Recruitment.

I will be working very closely with Renata once she returns from her CEED. Until then I will be VPPD. I will also be working a lot with all four project managers. I’m very glad that we finally have our team selected.

Back (L->R) : Patrick, Tiaia (standing in for Renata), Super, Rubens
Front (L->R) : Diogo, Fernando

In other news I had a really nice chat today with both Celso and Chris. Celso talked to me about his experiences so far in Victoria and we realized that we were experiencing a lot of the same excitements, problems and challenges. I told him about my ups and downs and talked to him about Brazil. Then I talked to Chris for a while about some different things. It was nice since I hadn’t talked to any of my roomies for a while.

Vinte-Cinco de Fantasma da Ibirapuera!!

2006-06-26T15:03:00.000-03:00

Title doesn’t make sense? Don’t worry, it will.

This weekend was my first weekend in São Paulo in a month. ….Ya. And I’m glad to say it was a very good one!

I spent Friday in the office as usual. There were quite a few people there that day, so that was nice. Then in the evening I went with Diogo to the MC transition party. For non-@ers, that is the party to celebrate the new national team taking over. It was at a club in Vila Madalena. Before we went there we met up with some other @ers from GV and one from Campinas at the house of a former GV LCP, Marcelo. We talked for a while and then we drove to the party. There were lots of @ers there. From USP it was me, Diogo, Super, Juan Pablo and Benoit. Vlad was there, and Gu from Itajubá. Plus a bunch of the trainees from GV that I had kind of met before. It was really awesome because they had a live band there that actually played good music!! (Note: Brazil in general plays better music than in Canada). They were playing anything from the theme from Friends to Born to be Wild to some swing stuff. Exactly my kind of music. We left the club around 3:30 in the morning, but the buses and subways weren’t running yet. So I went with some other @ers to a supermarket which had a little bakery attached. Not only was this supermarket open at 4:00 am, but there were a lot of people there! I was surprised. We had some snacks and killed time until the subway was running, then they dropped me off on Paulista and I headed home.

I only got a couple hours of sleep because I had to get up to meet Renata and Tiaia at Sé at 9:30. I managed to get there by 9:40 despite sleeping in until ten to nine. Our plan was to go to Vinte-Cinco de Maio which is a street downtown that is full of vendors selling stuff. We needed to get Brazil stuff for Renata to take with her to Mexico for her CEED. So we wandered around for a while. I wanted to take pictures, but I figured it wasn’t such a good idea to do so in that area of the city. I managed to find some stuff for Canada day in a party store. I bought red and white balloons and plates and cutlery. Corny… I know. After wandering around for a few hours we left the fair and walked around some other areas of downtown and grabbed some food at Habib’s. Then Tiaia had to home to get the tickets for that evening, so I went with Renata to her apartment near Paulista. When we got there, I was soooo glad to sit down. We had been standing and walking for 6 hour straight! We made some lunch – pasta with tomato sauce and meatballs, and then we both had a quick nap. Tiaia came back with the tickets and we headed off once again. The show? O Fantasma da Opera! Yes, I went and saw the Phantom…. In Portuguese! The girls already had tickets and I didn’t. In typical Brazilian fashion, we showed up 5 minutes before it started and still had to buy one extra ticket. We had some great luck though, because we found a lady who needed to sell a ticket because her friend was sick and couldn’t come. It was a $R150 ticket, right near the front. And I paid the student price for it - $R37. So I got to see the Phantom from like 5 rows in for less than twenty dollars! Good deal, neh? It was in Portuguese but I know all the songs well enough to know what was going on. And the singers were great. The whole production was very well done. After the show Renata had to go, so I went back to Paulista with Tiaia. We went to The Black Dog which is this place that has these absolutely famous hot dogs. And what a hotdog it was! It even had Parmesan cheese! Earlier we had made plans for Sunday, and it was getting a little late, so we decided I should just go back with Tiaia to her house. We had chocolate milk and watched Ray, which was quite good.

Our plan for Sunday was to go to Ibirapuera, which is a HUGE park in the middle of Sao Paulo. We walked there, which took around 45 minutes, but we got to see part of a really nice neighbourhood. We walked past an open house, so Tiaia decided we should go have a look. It was HUGE with a pool, sauna, high ceilings, crown molding and more rooms than I could count! And hey, it was only $R11 million!! Anyone interested? We made it to the park, which is gorgeous. And it was a nice sunny day to boot! There are a bunch of lakes and the place was crawling with families and cyclists and joggers. Lots of guys were without shirts, and this in “winter”.

A paradise in the middle of the city

We walked around a little, and then we rented a two person bike for an hour and rode around. I was very tricky to steer! I almost crashed a few times to Tiaia did most of the driving :P Then we went to a museum which was featuring an exhibition on design. It was pretty interesting actually. You can tell that Sao Paulo is very business focused though, because one of the panels was all about the evolution of a company’s logo, and all about their branding. Ahhh… !! There was also an exhibit all about Petrobras and some rather interesting furniture. Then we went to an art museum, but neither Tiaia nor I was that impressed. Not really much of an art museum fan I’m afraid. But outside the museum there were some interesting sculptures. They had one that it you threw rocks at made sounds like phasers from star wars! No kidding! And my personal favourite:

hmmmm.. I'm thinking they are probably not human....

We took a bus back to Paulista and stopped in a little market. They had some really cheap snacks and I loaded up on the rolls of cookies that are only one Real. Seriously. One Real for like 20 cookies. It’s dangerous! Then we went to a restaurant called America for dinner, which was really good. And then I headed to the metro Consolacio, which, in English, could be called Consolation Station :P. (pretty soon I’ll have funny names for every subway ;) )

So it was a really good weekend and I got to see a few of the places I had wanted to see for a long time. Plus I had wanted to hang out with Renata and Tiaia for a while.

My partner in crime (and photographer), Tiaia

On a completely unrelated side note, brazilian numbers keep confusing me! In Canada we would write a large number as such: 1,300.89. In Brazil, it’s 1.300,89. The dot and the comma and switched! It looks so odd to me, and I have to stop every time and figure out what the heck the number actually is.

Oh, and here’s another funny sign for Colin:

Water fountain..... or face wash???

*****

Time of posting note: This morning it was not only POURING but there was also thunder and lightning!! Crazy!

Recycling!

2006-06-22T10:19:00.000-03:00

Ok this is getting a bit ridiculous? Haha. Well in my denfense, the previous three posts were written two days ago, but not uploaded. This one is actually in real time. ;) Still... I think my readers will be ready to stangle me soon..... *runs away*

Yesterday I arrived in the office and discovered an email from of the directors of the recyling project I have mentioned before (I think). If you want to read about it, you can go here: http://www.geog.uvic.ca/pswm/

The director, Angela, said she was going to the project office that day and invited me to go with her. So I gave her a call saying I was interested. After sending some frantic urgent emails, I was picked up from USP by her daughter. I am still constantly amazed at Brazilian generosity. Her daughter came all the way to pick me up and then where we got to her house they gave me lunch and chocolate! Her daughter invited me to go see one of her plays (she's an actress) and asked me if I would like to be her conversation buddy, so she could practice english and I could practice portuguese. I, of course, was very interested!

Then Angela drove me to the university of Santo André. She told me a bit about the project and what stage they are currently on. Her english was pretty good, but not quite good enough to allow me to ask very in depth questions. Angela had a meeting, so I was left with Elza, who actually speaks less english than I speak portuguese! So that was intertesting. She showed me around the campus. She studies biology so she took me to see the animals they had there, including mice, tortoises and ..... HUGE spiders.

I came back to São Paulo with Elza, by bus, train and subway. I didn't even know there was a train!

I have a bit better understanding now of the project, and they invited me to come to on of their meetings with the catadores [recyclers] sometime. It seems like a really great project, and I like the approach that they are taking. Instead of just teaching and organizing, they are also focusing on building personal identity and self esteem amongst the catadores. I will be looking into this some more!

Missing Home

2006-06-22T10:03:00.000-03:00

OMG a third post. Ya, ya, I know. I like having different things divided up. Like my food.

Anyways, I’ve just been doing some thinking. I’m not sure I’ll actually post this, we’ll see. This is not really what this blog is intended for.

Today was the first day I felt really home sick. Honestly. Even when I was having problems before, it wasn’t that I wanted to go home, but I wanted to be able to live better here. But today, I think three things hit me.

One, Rita left. I’ve been spending so much time with her and I think she and I kept each other grounded. We provided each other with a connection to home and we are both here for the same thing. I think being able to hang out with her was a really big boost for me.

Two, I talked to my Mom on the phone. Granted we were talking about courses, which isn’t the world’s most fun topic, but it was the first time I talked to home since I first arrived. And, to be honest, I was grateful for the chance just to talk. I don’t have to worry about speaking clearly or being politically correct (or AIESECly correct I suppose). I can just be me. Whoever that is.

Three, I watched Igor’s CEED presentation again. I saw all the pictures of AIESEC Vic. Geeez, I love the atmosphere when I’m with you guys. It’s so special, and it can never be duplicated. AIESEC Vic is where my heart lies. I realized today how often I have been thinking to myself “oh, I can’t wait to tell my @ers about this” and “ohhh, that will be a great picture for my CEED presentation” and “Oh, when I get back I’m gonna cook this for the @ers”. Seriously. I really want to make that kind of connection here too. The AIESECers here are definitely my friends, but we don’t have that collective identity. Not like AIESEC Vic. I don’t know how to capture it, or exactly what it is. It’s magic.

And now, after writing that, I feel inspired to try to bring some magic to AIESEC USP. Not Vic magic though. I don't think it can ever be duplicated, and I wouldnt even try. AIESEC USP has to find it's own magic....

Post Rio

2006-06-22T09:46:00.000-03:00

On Monday Rita and I slept in because we were pretty exhausted. I had to go to USP for a steering team meeting, so I left Rita with instructions on how to get around on her own for the morning. I met up with her in the afternoon and we wandered around Sé for a while. Then we walked to Liberdade, which is a lot closer than I had imagined. Rita was in heaven with all the Chinese and Japanese food they had there. She bought some things at the market and then we went for Japanese food, which was quite good. She made me try yellow cucumber, which I liked. Ordering was interesting though, because the menu was is Japanese and Portuguese and Rita could speak Mandarin, Cantonese, English and French. Haha, and I was no help. But we managed to get what we wanted. Then we met up with Diogo and a friend of his who lives in Canada and went to hang out in Vila Madalena. The waiter brought around glasses of dark brown liquid. 'What could this be' I wondered? Chocolate? Liquor? But of course, I forgot I was in BRAZIL. So what was it? ......Beans.

Mmmm... Japanese food... in poor lighting

Today we slept in again…. Ahhh sooo nice… and then headed down the Azul [blue] line to Vila Mariana to meet up with Lucy, the MCVP Exchange (National Team for AIESEC Brazil). We had lunch with her and then headed to São Judas where Rita headed off to the airport. I headed home to sort out my courses. Tonight I have a bunch of @ work to do and then tomorrow is back to the office as normal.

I think I am feeling confident enough to start exploring the city more now. I know where more things are and I bought a map to help me get around. I want to get out of the office more and see the city. Right now it’s difficult because the @ers have exams, so they are all busy studying (except Diogo because his faculty is on strike). But after exams hopefully we can organize a bunch of fun activities. I have a couple in the works already.

I have managed to get myself working on a lot of different things. I really want to get something FINISHED because it seems like I have so many projects to do:

· Infastucture team leader

· Education Learning Circle member

· Steering team member

· Corporate Responsibility PBoX advisor

· Making member evaluations

· Doing a CEED application

· Organizing acceptance speeches

· Planning events

And a bunch of little things!

So I will be kept very busy for the next little while!

Rio!

2006-06-22T09:22:00.000-03:00

The first thing I ever learned about Brazil, I learned from playing Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego with my Dad. We used to play the original version, where you had three clues for each destination and instead of countries, you went to cities. In the game, if you went to Brazil, you went to Rio. And when you arrived, up would pop a little pixelated picture of a steep hill with a statue perched on top, the city spread our beyond his open arms. I remember always thinking that it looked like such a cool place and I was pleased when our crook decided to escape to that exotic local.

A wonderous sight

This weekend, I was there, and saw it for myself. Rita and I, after some worry, bought our tickets for the night bus to Rio, where we went to the Trainee Reception Weekend, hosted by AIESEC Rio. Marcelo, one of the @ers, was kind enough to arrange for us to be picked up. As soon as we left the bus station you could see that magnificent statue, Christ the Redeemer, looking out over the city. Driving to our meeting place was fantastic, the sun was shining and the water sparkled and city had a vibrant energy to it. We met up with the other trainees at an English school in Ipanema, near one of the most famous beaches in the world.

Welcome to Rio

After our welcome chat we headed to the beach. We were quite the group: four Canadians (a fifth arrived later), a Slovakian, a Dutchman, two Columbians, two Poles, an Australian, a Serbian, an Egyptian, two Nigerians, a Frenchman and a Swiss girl. The beach was exactly as one would imagine a Brazilian beach. Sunshine, huge waves, soft sand and many bikinis. It was very hot, and I made sure I put on a heavy dose of sunscreen. After some soaking up the sun, we gathered everyone together and headed towards that tallest of peaks in Rio.

Could this be any more stereotypical?

As great as the city was, unfortunately the event itself was not so well organized. The bus took us up towards the Cristo [Christ] but we discovered that tour buses could not go to the top. So we had to walk the rest of the way. Twenty minutes, we were told. Try an hour. We walked and walked and walked, and by the time we reached the top, it was dark. The Cristo is lit, so it was still very impressive, but the view of the city was just a sea of lights. Taking pictures was tricky and sadly most of my photos are blurry. The statue itself was amazing, though I think the perch from the top of the hill is too close. From that perspective you can see either the Cristo or the city, but not the two together. The connection between the two is divided. I preferred to observe the statue from a distance. I was also a little disappointed that there was very little information about the statue itself, save for a small unlit plaque near the back.

The Man Himself

That evening we went for dinner at a restaurant across from Copacabana beach, probably the most famous beach in the world. It was night, so we couldn’t see much, but without all the people the beach looked very peaceful.

All of the trainees were divided amongst the Rio AIESECers for accommodation. Pei-tien and I were put together at Gustavo’s apartment, which was in Ipanema and very nice. The next day we were to be picked up in the late morning, but the bus had to go to each house individually and this took much longer than anticipated. As a result, we got a very late start to the day. At one point we stopped at a gas station for some snacks and the bus actually drove away!! We had to wait for it to come back. I never did quite figure out where it went to. Once we were finally all together we headed to a interesting little neighbourhood up in the hills for lunch. We took a street car up to the site and we could see the whole city stretching beyond the old style buildings. While we were at the restaurant they had the Holland world cup game on the TV, so Leonard (the dutch guy) was watching intently.

Cheering (or praying) for Holland

Then we were off to the Pao de Açucar, the Sugar Loaf. It’s an oddly shaped hill that looks out over the whole city. After a long bus ride we arrive at the tram which took us to the top in two stages. Unfortunately, by the time we reached the top, it was once again dark. But I did manage to get a few good pictures of the sunset while we were half way up. At the top we ran into a family of Canadians and looked out over the city. And then it started to rain, just our luck. During a clear day the view would be fabulous, but ours was not so ideal. I was still nice to see though.

The Sugar Loaf

A gorgeous sunset in Rio

Despite not getting to see and do as much as we had hoped due to logistical issues, most of the trainees were still having a good time because of the people. Having such a diverse group led to some very interesting conversations. I tried to talk to everyone over the course of the whole weekend. I had a really good talk with Younes about Egypt and learned a lot about the different countries represented. It was very interesting to talk to the Serbian, who found out after CONADE that his country had split! So he was a citizen of the newest country in the world and we asked him what he though of what had happened. Just don’t ask him about his soccer team ;) I also talked a lot with Carlos, who told me about his experiences with the violence in Columbia. Sadly, he found on the third day that the brother of one of his friends had been accidentally shot during an incident, which was a huge blow.

The Canadians

After the Sugar Loaf we went to a fair which featured food, music and good from the northeast of Brazil. It was really interesting, though I didn’t buy anything. I did try some Caipirihna Maracuja [Passion fruit Caipirihna] and Carlos and Koge talked me into trying some new foods. The first was marrow soup, which was ok but not outstanding. Then then got me to try a small piece of mystery meat, which after I ate they told me was chicken heart. It was kinda chewy. But hey! I tried it!

The third day was Global Village. We arrived quite early and found that very few of the trainees were there. This was the most disorganized of days. We were there but the people who had our stuff weren’t, and we didn’t know where they were. Everything was late and there were few supplies to be had. I was getting a little frustrated that we were wasting so much of our limited time in Rio. I would have liked to walk around the city or something. Eventually the others arrived and we did talk to some people about Canada. Then each country did a presentation. I was nominated to represent Canada. I really enjoyed watching the other ones as well.

Sunday wasn’t what it could have been. Again, we started very late. We were going to a bar to watch the Brazil World Cup match, but when we got there the place was already full. So we walked and found another place which was actually nicer. So we watched the game and had some snacks. They won 2-0 against the Aussies, but they didn’t actually play all that well. But it was fun to be in the world cup atmosphere, and when they scored the cheering went on for quite some time. After the game we piled everyone into the bus and headed for the bus station. I would have liked to make another trip to the beach, or a few more sites, but we didn’t have time. Rita and bought our bus tickets, grabbed some snacks and headed onto the bus. We got back to Sao Paulo around midnight.

Rio is a beautiful city. The atmosphere is very light and the landscape is stunning. I wish we could have seen more of the city itself – walk around downtown, go to the beach, see the sites – but it was still a good trip. I think the fact that we had such a great group of people helped to make up for some of the poor planning.

An amazing group

Brazil 1 Croatia 0

2006-06-14T08:14:00.001-03:00

Wow, a post in real time!

Yesterday we had our steering team meeting. We talked about the purpose and function of a steering team as well as started outlining our goals and values. I'm going to be working with Super on the Balanced Score Card and adapting it to the reality of @USP. Should be challenging and interesting work.

Afterwards Diogo drove me to the airport to pick up Rita. The traffic was TERRIBLE so we were really late (sorry Rita!). And why was the traffic bad? Because everyone was one their way to watch the Brazil Croatia World Cup Game!! After we found Rita, the three of us headed to GV where we watched the second half. Honestly, Brazil wasn't playing very well. They weren't running and Croatia had much better scoring chances. But they still managed to pull off a win, and you could tell. For several HOURS after the game you could hear horns and whistles and loud music and general craziness. Soooo many people were dressed in green and yellow! It was cool to walk along Paulista and see everyone.

Rita and I met up with Vladimir, who is a GV trainee from Columbia and was the former MCP. It was nice to talk to him. On the way home we stopped by Tiête and bought our bus tickets for tonight. I wasn't actually that hard, though trying to communicate with the lady in portuguese was challenging. But we have our tickets and we're ready to go.

Right now I'm at the office and Rita is napping on the couch :P Not used to getting up at 6:30 am, haha. I have some meetings around midday and then we are going to head downtown for some sightseeing and shopping. Then home to pack and off we go! Should be a great weekend.

CU-ritiba!

2006-06-13T08:40:00.000-03:00

*Note, first of two new posts*

On Friday morning my plan was to sleep in. But Iza woke me up at quarter to seven to ask me, “Are you not coming with us this morning?” Oh well. I got up around 9:00, had breakfast and packed. And then I had nothing to do! My plane didn’t leave until 2:40, but I left the house at 10:30 with the idea of taking my time getting to the airport. I took the subway to São Judas, and then a taxi to the airport. Even around noon the traffic was still crazy! Still, I got there ridiculously early. I was a little nervous about checking in, and the first person I spoke to didn’t speak English, but he directed me to someone who did and there were no problems. So I had loooots of time to kill at the airport.

The flight itself was only 40 minutes, and I got better service than 11 hours of Air Canada! We were given free chocolates and granola bars and nuts and juice. Not bad, eh? Rita and Igor were there to meet me at the airport and then we headed to the university. The @ Curitiba office is about 3 times as big as the @ Vic office, and it has windows and three computers. There were quite a few people there to meet. Igor showed me the botanical gardens, which were really beautiful. Too bad it was a little too dark for really good pictures. Then I sat in on a PBoX meeting to get some ideas and see how they were approaching it. Then Rita and I went with a few of the @ers to a June party being held at the university. It was similar to the one in Itajubá but smaller. They had a live band, and they were playing some seriously corny Brazilian folk music. Lots of people had dressed up in country outfits, straw hats and chequered dresses. We headed back to the office and met up with Igor and then headed home. The three of us were up till all hours making powerpoints for the event the next day. Haha, this is so normal for @ers. Long live the powerpoint!

The Botanical Gardens -
Yes I'm actually in that picture :P

On Saturday we had to get up early and head to the university. We were supposed to meet at 8:00 to go to an AIESEC “random” event. Our rides were not there at 8:00, so I hung out with Rita and Mao for a while. We went for coffees and witnessed some great Brazilian generosity. A whole class came in for some snacks and they bought us all free soup! And it was really good! I don’t think that would happen in Canada. We finally headed out around 10:00 and drove across the city to a park. There, they had rented a little room and the use of a barbeque. We chatted for a while, and then had some presentations about CONADE output. It was hilarious to watch the presentations about leadership and teamwork and then see Rita and Mao say “well… in the work abroad track we didn’t really do anything” Haha.

Mao wondering... what DID we do at the Work Abraod track??

Then we had Brazilian barbeque for lunch. We started off with some sausages (which are not actually sausages but I can’t remember the right name), and then they had some steaks. I had one sausage and then asked for another and Pedro, who was cooking, asked me if I wanted steak instead. I said no, I’d rather have the sausage. He said usually Brazilians start off with the sausages to fill up, and then eat the good meat, so he didn’t understand why another trainee and I had both asked for more sausage. I thought about it for a second and then told him it was because the sausages were brazilian and the steak we had eaten before, so we wanted to eat the brazilian food. This seemed an acceptable explanation for him, and he gave me another sausage. After lunch we had some cultural presentations. Mao did a very long, but very good presentation about Columbia. His mission was to break the image that most people had about Columbia. And he did a very good job, I learned a lot. Next was a Polish trainee, who told us about some polish traditions surrounding Easter and Christmas. Next was Canada, and we had to squish three presentations into half an hour. Rita used a modified version of my powerpoint… what I really mean to say is she butchered my work and took out all the parts that said BC is the best part of Canada and @Vic is totally awesome ;) . Then Igor had a powerpoint about his CEED that was amazingly good!! Made me miss Vic a lot! Oohh ahh ooooh ahh ahhh Victoria!!!!! So many amazing memories!!! But before I get all emotional, let’s continue… Rita finished off with a quick powerpoint about Hong Kong. We all headed back into town and stopped by Lizi’s (@ Curitiba LCP) apartment, then drove over to Habib’s for some dinner. I had some of the mini pizza things whose name I will never remember. Cutting them is tricky though, and in the process I’m sad to say that half a mini pizza ended up flying onto the floor…. !! Umm… whoops. Then I went home and did some research about buses and flights to Rio for next week.

Habib´s, ahhh Arabian fast food

On Sunday morning I made pancakes! They actually turned out pretty well, I think, considering I had never made them from scratch before. Then we went to the fair, which was really awesome. It went on for block after block and had everything from furniture to jewellery to bright green and yellow world cup decorations. It was really neat to wander around and look at everything. I bought some really cool stuff, and it’s really inexpensive as well. We (Igor, Rita and I) had some pastels for lunch, buying the $R1.50 ones before we realized around the corner they had some for $R0.50.

Rita´s really enjoying that $R0.50 pastel

Then we headed to the mall to meet up with another @er, Lette (Rita did I spell that right?). The plan was to go see the DaVinci Code, but neither of the Brazilians had their student cards with them. So Rita and I bought our tickets and then we bought two more when just before the movie started. In the mean time we went for a walk around the city. We went to a really great icecream place. I had peach and strawberry… mmmmmm.

Eu gosto sorvette! [I like icecream!]

Then we walked over to the Oscar Neinemeiyer (sp?) museum, and Rita and I freaked the other out when we started singing the Oscar Meyer Weiner song :P The museum is really cool looking. It has a huge eye outside, and these interesting cones around the outside. Made for some good pictures ;)

Check it out!

Whooooaaaa....

Then we headed back for the movie. We needed student cards to get in, so Lette used my Uvic card and Igor used my “borrowed” card from USP. But they didn’t really check anyways. Too bad, because if they asked we were going to say Igor was from Belarus and didn’t speak Portuguese. Haha. The movie was pretty good. However, there are some parts that are in French, and some in Latin. Normally, these parts would have English subtitle… but not in Brazil! The whole movie had Portuguese subtitles! So for the French and Latin parts I had to try and read the Portuguese subtitles. I actually managed to understand the basics of it. I was the only one who was lost though, because Rita could understand the French. Honestly I don’t think I missed much. After the movie we pondered for a while on the way home. We stopped off for pizza near Igor’s house, and got some interesting toppings. One had chicken and corn and peas, and was really good! And we had some chocolate pizza as well, which isn’t quite as good as the banana pizza I had. The chocolate pizza still had cheese on it, and chocolate and cheese don’t go together well in my opinion.

On Monday morning Rita and I slept in. I got up around 9:30 and had some breakfast. Then I read some of Rita’s book on social entrepreneurship. It’s very interesting actually, and I borrowed it from her to finish it. Igor’s Mom made a fantastic feast for lunch, with meat, fish, veggies…mmmm. Then we headed back downtown. We had a few hours to kill before I had to catch the bus to the airport, so we went and saw X-Men 3. It was pretty good, though I think they missed a huge opportunity to introduce a moral dilemma, but I won’t get into that. The movie ended at 5:00 and the bus was supposed to come at 5:05 so we ran to the stop. But I caught the bus with plenty of time and made it relatively uneventfully back to Sao Paulo. At the Sao Paulo airport, they did the announcements in Portuguese and English, but in Curitiba it was only in Potuguese so I had to listen closely to the numbers. When I boarded the plane I double checked that it was indeed going to Sao Paulo, and it was.

Rita arrives tomorrow in the afternoon and hopefully we can get our bus tickets to Rio and do a little toruing around the city. Then on Wednesday I have a couple meeting and then it's off to Rio!

On an interestering side note, Tuesday is the first Brazil game in the world cup. I was told not to schedule any meeting for that day, because nobody would come :P All of Brazil stops when the soccer is on. But Brazil has to win. I mean not only is the entire population behind them, they even have the architecture on their side!

[This column cheers for Brasil]

Also, I found this particular sign at the university to be particularly amusing:

When in doubt... Run into the wall!

That is all. ;)

P.S. Rita, how did you end up in ALL my pictures??!!!

Good Days

2006-06-13T08:06:00.000-03:00

Thursdays are always awesome. Why? Because there are PEOPLE in the office! Thursday is the day of meetings and I love sharing our ideas and leading the meetings and making so much progress. Plus Thursday is the day of my two favourite teams!

In the morning decided to stop by the bank to get some extra cash for Curitiba tomorrow. So I got off the bus one stop early and headed over there. On the way back I had to pass the little café, so I decided to stop and have some tea. They didn’t have any of my usual apple cinnamon (I order it as “cha maça por favor” [apple tea please]), but I had a very nice mint tea. I was also a little hungry, so I ordered a bread thing with three cheeses inside. It was really good. Then I made my way to the office. I turned on the computer, updated my blog and answered some emails, and by then a good part of the morning was gone and people were starting to arrive.

I have attended the last two education meetings, and I think I’m hooked. There are only 5 of us, but everyone is so passionate and dedicated to this project. I love it!!!! I had a chat with Diogo about it on the weekend so I went into this meeting with a strong agenda and a lot of ideas. We had a really good talk about what exactly the project will be, what the goals are, why companies and schools should be interested in this project, and what are we going to do to make it happen. This group is still an “Interest Group” and not a full project yet, but honestly they are doing much better than the two “projects”. We are now ready to begin developing a proposal. Man, I have never been so excited to write a proposal in my life! I really hope this project can be successful. It has a lot of potential, but one main challenge that may hold us back. Can you guess? Language.

I guess I could explain a little about how these projects work for the non-AIESECers reading this. A PBoX is a Project Based on Exchange. It involves partnerships with companies and organizations to facilitate a large number of exchanges which are centred around a specific issue. Our issue is education here in Sao Paulo, which I have learned so much about these last few weeks. Our other issues are environmental sustainability in conjunction with corporate responsibility and entrepreneurship. The education project aims to directly impact the disparity between public and private schools here in São Paulo. The idea is that we bring students from both public and private schools together as a team to work on a project. What that project is could vary, depending on the interests of the team members. The Project Manager of this team will be a trainee from another country. They would work directly with the kids and give them the skills and training they need to create, develop and execute a project. The kids would get to work with an international, so there would be cultural sharing as well. The kids would develop essential skills that their schools might not be offering them. Plus they would be developing networks and a better understanding of the situation and students from the different types of schools. Ideally, social discrimination would decrease amongst the participants. There are still some details to be worked out, but I really want this to happen. It would be such an amazing experience for those kids. The other projects have objectives based around their specific issue, but all PboXes aim to impact a social or economic issue. In Canada, PBoXes have always failed. I don’t think many Canadian companies are prepared to support this kind of a program. Here in Brazil it is very different. The need is great, and so the companies are willing to sponsor programs on a larger scale.

Back to the day! After that meeting, which I left feeling very inspired, I had my infrastructure meeting. We are starting to produce results and my team is really great. I made some plans to help them with their tasks and we decided to try to have everything done within two weeks. I’m really excited to see the end results. The taskforce isn’t a major project, but it’s fun and I think the members are learning and enjoying it. My infrastructure meeting was a riot today, we ended up spending half the meeting laughing.

By then we were all starving, so a bunch of us went for lunch. The Bandejon was closed (another strike) so we went to a little buffet restaurant near the physics building. It was really good. And it was so nice to do something all together. I’d have to say my biggest complaint about Sao Paulo is that it’s so big it makes it really hard for people to get together. Even just going out for dinner together is a major thing because for some people it could take an hour or two to get there. So whenever we have a chance to hang out together it’s cool. It also doesn’t help that some people have classes in the morning, some in the afternoon, and some in the evening. So I might see quite a few people because I’m there all day, but they don’t see each other. Each period has its regulars. Maira and Iza and Koba and a few others are always there in the morning. In evenings are my evening hermits, the guys who come and hang out for hours but never seem to do any work :P Jorge, Fernando, Renato and Rubinho. The others are more sporadic. But getting everyone together in one place at one time is a big challenge. In Victoria we will just spontaneously say “lets all go for dinner!” Call a few people and 20 minutes later we are all there. I didn’t really appreciate that until now.

Once we got back to the office, I helped Renata to make sugar cube envelopes! It was a lot of fun, and we got into a discussion with Diogo about the best way to mass produce them. I also taught Maira how to do meeting output properly and talked to her about some other events we are working on organizing. Then I talked on MSN for a while with Igor and Rita, getting everything organized for tomorrow. I sent a few more emails and then finally decided to head home.

I wish all my days could be this good. Unfortunately they aren’t, but I have to work towards making my time alone in the office more productive. I always seem to get so much more done when I’m working with other people, so I love the days when we have lots of meetings and discussions. But working alone is something I will work on.

I’m really excited about going to Curitiba tomorrow. It should be awesome! Then next week is Rio and I might be going to visit another extension the week after that. I also received an email from the recycling people. I might not be able to go visit them for another two weeks, but hopefully we can figure something out. I really hope I can make it there to learn about their program.

Good music, good food

2006-06-08T08:52:00.000-03:00

Tuesday was pretty quiet in the office. I had a whole list of things to do but couldn’t seem to get anything done. Just one of those days where you can’t focus. So I decided to go sit on the couch and read my portuguese book for a while. And I twisted my ankle. Haha. Ya, Tuesday was one of those days where nothing goes right, but lets not dwell on it. One good thing was I was going to the symphony that evening, and it was fantastic! It was a Sala Sao Paulo, which was built in 2004 from an abandoned train station. It’s gorgeous, with a mix of classic and modern architecture. In the main room they have these giant cubes on the ceiling which can be adjusted up to 10m. Because of this you can get almost perfect acoustics, and apparently Sala Sao Paulo has been studied by acoustic engineers worldwide. The music was performed by the Freiburger Kammerphilharmonie from Germany. The orchestra was great and they had 4 awesome singers and a full choir as well. They played a lot of songs I recognized… some Mozart, some songs from Carmen. There was a lot of opera music, but I really enjoyed it. We had seats in the third row, so it was great. The only downside was having to hobble around all evening. When it was time for the standing ovation at the end, Diogo said I could stayed seated :P

Today my ankle was MUCH better. It still hurt a little, but I had only a slight limp. Paulo, Iza’s brother, dropped be off right in behind FEA so I didn’t have to walk far. Today was pretty mellow as well. We need more action!!

I just finished dinner and it was a FEAST! Iza’s parent’s friend from Portugal was visiting, so they went all out with dinner, including fancy plates and cutlery. There was cheese bread and cheese and herb spread to start and then a Brazilian river fish from central brazil for dinner. Iza’s Dad cooked it, and apparently to make it tender you have to bake it with four pounds of salt on it. But it was VERY tender. Plus there was rice and vegetables and a kind of fish sauce. We also had some excellent white wine, and Iza’s Dad kept refilling my glass! For dessert there was a kind of cake pudding dish, and the chocolates I had bought in Campos do Jordao. Then came Brazilian coffee. It was the first time I tried it. I was told that every brazilian family has coffee after dinner, except Iza’s. But because tonight was special we had some. So now I am VERY full. However, I’m still not used to eating dinner so late. I always get hungry at 6:00 but dinner is never until 7:30 or 8:00. Today it was at 9:00. I have to make sure I eat big lunches or else I’m starving by the time dinner arrives.

Tomorrow I have some meetings and then I have to get ready to go to Curitiba on Friday. I think I know how to get to the airport, but I’m going to the domestic one this time instead of the international one I have been to before. There is a metro station nearby, and then I think I will take a taxi.

I’m starting to get to know the subway very well. I can recite the stations as they go by on my way home. Except I can’t spell the first one. I start at Anhngabau, on the Red line, then I transfer at Sé to the Blue line. Then I go from Sé to São Bento, then Luz, Tiradentes, Aremênia, Tiête, Carandiru, Santana and finally Jardim São Paulo, where I get off. Now I’m starting to learn why each of these stations are where they are. For example, Sala São Paulo, where the symphony was, is at Luz. Sé is the old cathedral downtown. Tiête is the bus station. Clinicas is the hospital (go figure) and there’s a whole bunch along Paulista (basically the whole green line). São Judas is the one closest to the airport, so that’s where I’ll be headed on Friday. There’s still a bunch more to learn, and I was thinking of asking the members to tell me about it in Portuguese but I haven’t tried yet. When they speak very very very slowly I can understand most of it, just like reading it. But most of the time it is much too fast. Though tonight at dinner I understood most of a conversation. They started talking about McDonalds, haha. But I understood when Tati said she only liked their icecream and her Mom said that the French fries were very good. Simple stuff, yes, but I was pretty happy. I told them that I understood and Tati’s Mom said she would have to start watching what she says! Haha, I don’t think she has to worry about that just yet ;)

Ok, this was really supposed to be a short post, so no more! tchau

AIESEC Roadtrip #2 ! Itajubá and Campos do Jordão

2006-06-06T08:27:00.000-03:00

Another mega-blog!!

Thursday didn’t turn out quite as expected. I had an education meeting, which was actually very productive, and then had my infrastructure meeting. We are finally starting to produce some results! I talked to them a little about what kind of atmosphere we were trying to create and what kind of questions we should be asking ourselves as we work on the office infrastructure. Then around 4:30 Diogo called the office and told me that the ride we were going to get to Itajubá the next day couldn’t take us, and if we wanted to go we had to leave right away! AIESEC in Itajubá had invited us for the weekend to help with some training sessions, specifically ILP (Individual Learning Plan) and CR (Corporate Relations). So Diogo asked me if I could go straight home and get ready. So I said a quick goodbye (Ha! That’s a laugh. There are no quick goodbyes in Brazil because you have to say goodbye to each person) and headed for the bus. I rushed home and packed up some things, making sure I had some food with me in case we didn’t have a chance to eat later. Then I headed back to the subway and took the Azul (Blue) line to Paraisó where I transferred to the Verde (Green) line and went to Clinicas, which apparently is the largest public hospital in Latin America. There I met up with Diogo (after waiting 45 minutes… but don’t get me started) and we found the guy who was giving us a ride. It was already after 9 pm so there wasn’t much to see on the way there. However, we were out in the countryside where there are no lights, so looking out the car window I could see more stars than I have ever seen before. It was gorgeous. Plus the constellations are different down here. I keep looking for the big dipper and Orion out of habit, and not finding them. We were going to another state, Minas Gerais, which is north west of the state of São Paulo. Itajubá is a smaller city of around 80 000, so it’s Nanaimo sized. The AIESEC there is an extension, which means that they are applying to become a full fledged local committee once they complete certain requirements. We arrived there around 1:00 am after driving for around 4 or 5 hours. Our driver, Eduardo, dropped us off where we would be staying, where we were greeted by our hosts, Natalia and Carol, and the Extension Leader, Gustavo. We were tired so we had a snack and headed to bed.

On Friday we got up around 8:00 because Gustavo was going to come pick us up at 9:00. At breakfast we had warm milk, which apparently is fairly standard, and very tasty, especially with chocolate added! Gustavo picked us up and we headed to the University. The University of Itajubá is fairly new. It used to be a school just for engineers, but in the last few years they expanded to a few other areas and so they are now a university. But almost all the students are engineers. You can’t take history or anthropology there, but you can take entrepreneurship and stuff like that. We headed to the AIESEC office (the LC :P), which was a largely empty room. I learned later that they had just aquired an office and that’s why it was so sparse. They had a couple desks, a computer, some chairs and some old AIESEC posters from the 80s and 90s which were very amusing. We stayed there for a while, but Diogo was helping their VPPD (VP People Development) in Portuguese, so I decided to wander off for a while. The campus is quite small, so I wandered around and took pictures. The buildings were very nice and a lot of people were on bikes, which was nice to see. The school was surrounded by hills which often had houses perched on the top. The earth in Itajuba is very red, and so the hills were deep red and green. There were a lot of open grassy areas, so I sat down in the glorious sunshine and wrote down some ideas for how to change our messaging to potential members in Victoria. Of course I still have to sell these new ideas to Sang :P It was such a nice day and I really liked being in the countryside away from the big city for a while. In Itajubá there are no skyscrapers and there are a lot of praças [open squares] with parks. We had lunch at the University cafeteria and then did some more work in the office. Unfortunately most of it was in Portuguese so I couldn’t contribute as much as I wanted to. I ended up on MSN and talked to some of the members for a while. Everyone there was really nice, and they asked me questions about Canada and about my AIESEC experience. In the evening we headed to a bar for some snacks. Unlike in Sao Paulo, where it takes half an hour to go anywhere, in Itajubá it was across the street!

University of Itajubá campus

Saturday started at 8:00 as well. There was a general meeting at 9:00 and Gustavo came to pick us up again. We walked into the room and heard the AIESEC songs playing and people were dancing. It was an excellent way to get some energy going in the morning. Then Fernanda led a session about the ILP. The powerpoint was in Portuguese but I could read enough of to get the gist. Then the members were given time to fill out their ILPs. Diogo and I didn’t need to do this since we have many times before, so told me about some of the stuff he learned from Brodie (the PAI – president of AIESEC international – from Calgary!) and AXLDS in Columbia about leadership. Apparently all the LCPs got to have two days of sessions just with Brodie, and what they learned was pretty cool. It was about the different types and qualities of leadership and what is necessary to run an organization well. I copied it all down ;) I think I would like to attend an AIESEC leadership conference some day. It would be amazing! The LC in Itajubá is doing very well. They have 21 members and they are starting to contact companies about potential TNs. And they are hoping to get a CEEDer to help them as well. After the session we went to a Brazilian restaurant which served traditional foods from Minas Gerais (the state). They talked me into trying some feijuada, which I had thus far avoided. It’s a stew made from beans and pig, but the WHOLE pig, from foot to tail… literally. It actually wasn’t too bad. And I had some sausages and what I recognized as Bete Batata (ya Igor I know I can’t spell it ;) ), but when I told the others I knew what it was they didn’t know it! They called it something else, haha, oh well.

Minas Gerais Food

Not your typical buffet

After lunch we went around the city a little and stopped at the central praça [square]. We went to an icecream place that makes the icecream with real fresh fruit. I asked Gustavo to translate the menu for me, and so I asked for what was supposed to be peach icecream. Haha, when they gave it to me it was almost purple and Diogo told me it wasn’t peach. But he couldn’t remember what it actually was in English. After 10 minutes, he remembered and told me it was plum. So I had plum icecream. Go figure, and it was actually quite good. And the guy there gave me a little bit of avocado icecream for free too, because I was a gringo (foreigner). Then we headed back to the university. Diogo helped with some CR training, again in Portuguese, so I went online and looked into flights. Gol, an airline here, is having a promotion where you can book tickets for $R25 (like $12) so I was very interested. They didn’t have any for Rio or the northeast, but they did for Curitiba! So I snagged one for the way there and then found a cheap flight for the way back as well. But you have to book with a Brazilian credit card, so I ended up using Gustavo's card to book them, and then gave him cash. So next weekend I am going to Curitiba!! But I’ll talk about that later. Gu (Gustavo) dropped me off at Natty’s (Natalia) in the afternoon. I talked to her for a while and then she asked if I wanted to come with her to the supermarket. I said sure, and that I needed to go to the bank as well (because I had given Gustavo all my cash). So we started our quest to find the bank, which turned out to be very close to her apartment. Then we went to the supermacado and got some food and snacks. Around 9:00, Gu came to pick me up and he, Diogo and I went to a June party. It’s basically a fair that they have in June on the days of some saints. It was a bit chilly in the evening, but other that that it was really cool. It’s sponsored by the universities around the city, so each booth was operated by a different faculty. You could go to the physiotherapists and get warm wine with cinnamon and then to the health booth to get chocolate (go figure) and then the entrepreneurs to get cachaca and honey in a bamboo stick! Plus there were Krepes Suisse (Swiss Crepes) and meat sticks and lots of other snacks. I actually ate a lot, but it was all pretty cheap. And they had live music and a bonfire. We stayed there until around 2:00 am and then headed back.

The crew
The sign behind us says Delicious Icecream, and it was!

On Sunday the plan was to go to Campos do Jordão, which I was told is like a Swiss mountain city. And it was! Actually, it reminded me a lot of Whistler Village. The architecture was very European and it was up in the mountains so it was quite cold.

Brazil??

We got there around 10:00, having left at around 8:30. The road there was gorgeous! I loved looking out at the countryside. There were amazing rolling hills and trees scattered all over. It looked almost like an African savannah. There were farms and cows dotted along the roads, as well as some little cities. In the centre of each little city could be seen a church with a tall steeple, and then the city circled around it, which larger houses and buildings nearer the centre and smaller ones near the edged, a kind of semi-flavela. There was one little town that must have had only 100 buildings. All I could think when I saw it was “Anthropologist’s Dream Village!!” One person could easily survey the whole population. Most of the other towns were a little bigger. Itajubá and the countryside was honestly a lot more like what I had imagined Brazil to be from my reading in cultural anthropology. São Paulo is still very Brazilian, but it is also very western. The countryside was all Brazil. I imagine that the people there don’t travel often to the big cities and they probably eat only locally grown foods. There were lots of bikes and more trucks. Everyone seemed to know each other. These were communities, more so than you see in São Paulo. Several of the members of AIESEC Itajubá also told me that they liked being in a smaller city. Some were originally from São Paulo, but they said that even still they were never bored in Itajubá.

Back to the drive! … we started up into the mountains and the view was incredible!! We went around one corner and we were looking out into a valley that was filled with clouds. It was truly amazing. There were more trees in the mountain area. Finally we got to Campos do Jordão. We spent the first hour or two jut wandering around. Diogo had been there several times before so he knew his way around a little. The building are all Eurpoean in style and could have been found in Zurich… or Whistler :P And all along the main street are maple trees from Canada! That is the only place in brazil that they can grow. And so everything was maple everywhere! The restaurants had maple placemats and maple signs and maple decorations. It seriously felt like Canada, except everything was in portuguese. And everything was really expensive too!

Ahhh Whistler... no wait...
FYI those are maple leaves

Apparently the city is famous for is restaurants, beer and chocolate, so we went to a chocolate store and I bought some chocolates for Iza’s family. Then we headed to a chairlift that took us up one of the mountains (no snow though). The view from the top was really nice, you could see the whole city nestled in a valley and surrounded by trees. Then we went for lunch at Santanas and I had cheese fondue, which was very good but very rich. Then we went and met up with a group of trainees who happened to be in the city as well. They went skating (yes there is skating in Brazil!) but we decided to go to the Kilombo. It was quite a drive away on a really rough road that was hard on Gustavo’s poor car. But we made it. A Kilombo is a place where the slaves used to escape to before slavery was abolished. It was a really huge cave with much graffiti added. At the very back of the cave was a little escape hole in case the authorities found them there. It was clear that the cave had been lived in. You could see the modifications and wear on the rock. Maybe I am the only person who would notice, but I thought it was very interesting how they had made a drainage system. Having a hole in the back of course meant that water could run into the cave. They had developed a rut in the rock that the water could travel down, all the way out the front of the cave so that the whole cave didn’t get wet. It was dry when we were there though. We climbed up above the cave and had a look at the view. I took lots of pictures because it was so gorgeous. They have a tree (the name of which I can’t seem to remember) which only grows in this region and is quite endangered. It is also the symbol of the city, along with the maple, so it’s picture was everywhere. It’s a very interesting looking tree. We drove back to the city and went to a restaurant called the Matterhorn for dinner. I had meat fondue this time, which I was a little leery about because you have to cook the meat yourself. But I think I cooked it more than adequately. It was good. Then we walked around a little more, stopping to look at things and to get hot chocolate, which was literally hot melted chocolate! Mmmmm….. Then we went in search of the group of trainees. It took us a while, but we eventually found them. Then Diogo and I joined them for the ride pack to São Paulo while the three from Itajubá headed back home. I ended up in a car with three Spanish speakers and a dutch guy. So we drove home listening to Spanish music. Normally that would be cool, but by this point I was really tired and wanted to get home. They dropped me off at a metro station on Paulista, so I had to take the verde (green) and then the azul (blue) lines to get home. I arrived around midnight and went straight to bed!

A very interesting and unique tree

View from above the Kilombo

This morning I slept in until 10:00 which was fantastic. I won’t go into detail because I’ve already written a lot, but I had a really interesting conversation with Renato, Fernando and Jorge (the “regulars” at the office”) about languages. Tomorrow I am going to the symphony and then on Friday I go to Curitiba for the weekend. And the week after that is Rio! I just have to figure out how I’m getting there :P

There’s probably more I wanted to say but that’s all I can think of at the moment.

Oh, and on a random note, all the AIESECers think I’m crazy because I laugh when I am talking to people on MSN. I’ll be in the office and start giggling and they look at me like “what are you doing?” Funny conversation, I swear!

MASP and more!

2006-06-01T08:00:00.000-03:00

Today was awesome. It was warm and sunny and overall really nice. I was locked out of the office again… which sucks, but I found an @er quickly and he let me in. I decided today I was not going to do computer work, even though there was some stuff on the computer I needed to do. Instead, I made a World Cup pool! I stuck some sheets of paper together with tape and wrote out each of the groups and spaces for everyone to predict the rankings in each group. Then I will assign points for every correct ranking, with a prize for the winner. I am going to do another one for the round of 16 once the preliminaries are over. I think it should be fun. I drew some soccer balls (ahh, they are really hard to draw!) and stuck them up around the chart. I also made an activity list with some suggestions and put it on the wall.

Take the challenge!

Then I had a really awesome meeting with Renata. She is doing some case studies for the infrastructure task force and I showed her how to find the resources she needs and how to do everything. And she was really excited about it. Plus, today she found out that she is going to Mexico in July for a CEED!! It’s so exciting, I’m very happy for her. After that, I had a really good chat with Super and Rubens about Pboxes and LC direction. Then Super and I went to another bandejon (the cheap cafeteria) and then caught the bus downtown to Paulista Ave.

ahhhh, Paulista

We walked down Paulista Ave, which is the business centre of Latin America, and headed to MASP, which would be translated as the Art Museum of Sao Paulo. There was a show all about Edgar Degas, who I had never heard of but he’s not bad. They also had some really famous stuff there. I saw Picasso and Van Gogh and Renoir and a bunch of other really well known art. Plus, they had a HUGE bust of Augustus. Ahhh, I love Roman art. It’s so powerful. So we wandered around the museum for a few hours and then headed back out to Paulista.

OK, so I didn't actually take this picture.. It's MASP

We walked down the rest of the avenue and the Super went to go buy a new cell phone and I headed home on the subway. I finally went to what I call the chocolate subway station (Brigadeiro ststaion)

It was really nice to get out of the office, even if I did have stuff to do :P I still have to work some more on my travel plans, but I can’t do anything until I get replies to some emails.

I have two important meetings tomorrow, one for the education learning circle and one for the infrastructure task force. Then Friday should be interesting. I am supposed to be in two places at once to I’ll have to figure that out.

I made sure today to take some pictures! I hope you like them.

Gearing up for World Cup!

P.S. The lady who does nails came beck today! Check it out!

French style!

P.S. You should be able to click on the pictures for a bigger size

There are NO CHOCOLATE CHIPS in Brazil!

2006-05-31T08:27:00.000-03:00

Which makes it very hard to make chocolate chip cookies! Which is exactly what I was trying to do!

Monday was a bit of a wasted day. I did all the work I had to do in the morning, and then I could have done some research or something, but instead I talked to people on MSN and didn’t do much of anything. I wanted to do stuff, but there just wasn’t much to do. And it was just me in the office. My area is People Development, so it’s difficult to do much without any people! I did go to an Arabian fast food restaurant for lunch with two former LCPs though, which was cool. I had these little pizza-like things, one with chicken, two with beef and one with cheese. I hung around because I was supposed to have a meeting at 6:00, but then I found at 4:30 it was cancelled. At that point I wouldn’t be able to make it home before rush hour struck to I hung around a bit longer. I went to the bandejon (absolutely guessed the spelling…) with Renato. Basically it’s the really cheap cafeteria that is subsidized by the government so students can afford to eat. It’s $R1.90 for a whole meal. You are supposed to be an USP student to get in, but I have Diogo’s old card and they don’t really look that closely. In all, I spent around 10 hours on the computer on Monday. Note to self: don’t do that again.

Today was better. I was supposed to have a meeting with Renata, so I prepped for it in the morning. Turns out she couldn’t make it, but it kept me busy. I ended up exploring @.net for several hours. And I found so much awesome stuff! @.net can be the most horrible thing and the most wonderful thing sometimes. I must have joined 10 or more communities today, and I found loads of resources about PBoX, Explora, CEE PBoXes and implementing the @XP. It was like AIESEC euphoria, and finding all these recourses gave me a lot of ideas. I find that I approach @ very intuitively. I figure out what needs to be done and I do it, without really realizing what I’m doing. So when it comes explaining my roles and responsibilities, sometimes I have trouble expressing what exactly it is that I do. But going over the documents on @.net really helps a lot. Instead of saying “I make sure everyone has something to do in AIESEC” I can say I’m in charge of “Talent Management”, or something like that. I’m getting better at breaking down jobs and responsibilities, but I still have a ways to go. Anyways, back to the day… it was pretty quiet as well. There were a couple people around, but I was basically on my own. After a while I got to a point where I just couldn’t look at the computer anymore, so I decided I would go home early. But if I went home early… what could I do? Dinner isn’t until late, so I’d have a lot of time to kill. But I really wanted to DO something. So… I decided to make cookies! I grabbed a recipe off the internet and then Renato went with me to the super market to buy everything. I came home and tried to explain to Iza’s Mom that I wanted to bake cookies. She said it was ok, so I set to work. Paulo came home shortly after and I guess he had never made cookies before, because he seemed very interested in what I was doing. He asked me some questions and kind of watched as I made the batter. Of course I had no chocolate chips, so I just used a knife to chop up some baking chocolate I had bought. Oh, and ovens here (at least at Iza’s house) don’t have temperature settings. There’s just, hot, medium and not so hot. So we decided to go for medium. The oven also does not tell you when it is hot, so you just have to guess. The cookies turned out ok. They were kind of crunchy, and I prefer the soft cookies. But Iza’s family seemed to like them. And I was very glad to do something a little different. Even if I’m not that good at it, I like baking and cooking, and it makes me feel useful and productive. I think I will try again soon.

In other news, I made myself a calendar and I’m working on some travel plans. I’ll be going to Rio June 15-18 and possibly to the northeast after that. This weekend I might be travelling as well, on a mini @ road trip. More to come.

I also tried contacting the recycling people, but the person I got on the phone didn't speak english. I might try again later, but it might not be as easy as I thought.

Sorry, no picture today, I need to take some more!

Weekend Report :)

2006-05-29T08:28:00.000-03:00

Isn’t it odd how sometimes the weather mimics one’s mood? Early in the week it was rainy and I was feeling kind of glum. This weekend, it was warm and sunny, and I felt great!

Fri May 26

I mentioned in an earlier post that Diogo took me to the anthropology department, FFLCH (pronounced fafelachee and literally the Faculty of (F)ilosophy, Literature and (C)cience Humans). This week there were some seminars being offered, and the one on Friday was about ethnographic film (WOOOO!!! …… what?) and was being presented by a guy from the University of Manchester. So I decided to go. I went really early because I didn`t know exactly where I was going. But it turns out it was really easy to find, so I was there 45 minutes before it started. So I waited around. Then it was supposed to start at 9:30, but in traditional Brazilian fashion, it was late. It finally started at just after 10:00, after I had been waiting more than an hour. And guess what? It was in Portuguese!! Go figure the guy from Manchester spoke perfect Portuguese. No fair! So after a few minutes I gave up and left. I could understand a few words, like filme and anthropologie and ethnographie… but that’s not quite enough to be worthwhile ;) So I headed back to the office and did some work. Actually I got quite a bit done. I finally feel like I have stuff to do and things to contribute. And I think soon I will be quite busy because we are starting some new projects. More later. I left around 5:00 and managed to get stuck in rush hour traffic coming home. The bus was ok, but the subway was crazy!! When people told me that sometimes you don’t need to hold onto the pole because you are so squished the people around you hold you up, I didn’t believe them. But it’s true! In the evening I went out with Iza’s family to what her Mom called a “Happy Hour” but I think she was a little mistaken in this translation :P It was just a social gathering and dinner at the hospital social club. It was nice, and I had some caipirinha.

Can you read this? I can read most of it!

Sat May 27

Saturday was awesome!! Iza and I had to get up early, because we had an AIESEC General Meeting at 9:00am at FEA. It was cool to go to the university and see everyone gathered (well most people). And I was also really excited because I was doing my Canada presentation!!! I got to go first, and I think they really liked it. I asked them some questions, like “what do you think of when you think of Canada?” Ice! Hockey! French! Etc. And I stumped them with a few questions, like “Who is Canada’s Head of State?” At the end I played Canada is Really Big and they loved it, and then I passed out pins and maple syrup and candies. So it went really well. Then in the rest of the meeting we talked about the new structure and the new projects we will be working on. In @USP there is a lot more that the members are “required” to do, and all the new members will not be considered full members of AIESEC until they are done. It is much more strict that in Victoria. But that’s another issue. After the meeting I went with Koba, Judy, Koge and Isabel (from Columbia) to Liberdade (the Japanese community). We did some shopping and bought some food. It was very odd to walk into the mall and hear music from Kenshin being played. There was a lot of anime stuff, but I’m pretty sure most of it was bootleg. Then Isabel and I went to Koge’s house for dinner. He lives with his family in an apartment on the other side of the city from Iza’s. We all chopped up the veggies and talked about different things. We talked a lot about CONADE and how it could have been better with more integration between the new and old members. Then we cooked dinner, which was of course Japanese food. We put all the veggies and some meat into an electric pot on the table and then coated it with Soiya (Soy Sauce) and then covered it and let it cook for a few minutes. Then you spoon some out with chopsticks and eat it over rice. It was very good! A couple of the veggies were odd choices (like lettuce) but it was pretty yummy. After dinner Isabel had to go home, but I stayed and talked to Koge some more. I have to spend as much time as I can with him because next week he is moving to Rio! He got a job there, so I won’t see him any more (except on trips to Rio ;) ). Everyone is sad that he is leaving because he has done so much for @USP and he’s a really nice person. We talked for a while and then his Mom came home and I talked to her (through Koge) for a long time. She and Koge asked me a lot about Canada. I also found out that his sister has done a lot of volunteer work in Sao Paulo and that she can arrange a tour of a flavela for me. It seems like of odd, actually, to do a “tour” of such a place (the flavelas are the shanty towns) but I would really like to see what they are like, so I might take her up on the offer. I took the subway home and went to bed fairly early since I had been up early in the morning.

USP Wooo!

back (L->R): Koba, Judy, Maira, Iza, Guilherme, Koge, Renato ... front (L->R): Flavia, Fernando

Sun May 28

Today was fairly mellow. I slept in a little and then after breakfast I went with Iza’s parents to her aunt’s house for lunch. There was a old guy there who made genuine Italian pasta from scratch! It was interesting to see. There were a couple of little girls there that were soooo cute, but they kept trying to talk to me and I didn’t know what to say! I ate some bread with cheese spread, hamburgers, several plates of the pasta and then some dessert as well. But it was good. We watched some TV and just kinda hung out. Actually there’s really not that much to say. It was a really nice warm day and I could finally pull out my sandals again. I had some coconut water and pineapple juice as well, and while both are drinkable, I’m not a huge fan.

Laundry? No, Pasta!

Ah ha! Fetucchini!

Sorry again for the super long posts >_<

One more section, that I hope I can add to later:

Life as a Gringo (foreigner): Part I

Now that I have been here for three weeks, I’m starting to get more used to things. I have noticed that people on the bus and the subway sometimes look at me funny. The thing is, São Paulo is so multicultural I COULD be Brazilian, so nobody is quite sure. Sometimes people will start talking to me in Portuguese and I usually just nod or, if I have to, say “Eu não falo portugês” [I don’t speak Portuguese]. On Friday, I had to call Tatiana while I was on the subway. So I called her and told her I was on my way home, and then as I hung up the phone, I realized that everyone was looking at me. Oh ya… I was just speaking a foreign language in front of everybody :P I hadn’t really occurred to me that that was weird, but I guess it is. Just something I noticed…

I have some more “Things I noticed” as well (I started writing them down) but since this post is fairly long, maybe I’ll save them for next time ;)

Tchau!

Rainy Days

2006-05-25T07:46:00.000-03:00

Wed, May 24

It has been raining for three days in Sao Paulo. Not hard, but enough to make the city a bit gloomy. I spent loooong days at the office on Monday and Tuesday, like… 12 hour days. So today I decided I could come home early. Yesterday was somewhat productive, today more so. I worked on the VP job descriptions like Diogo asked me to and I sent out some important e-mails. There was hardly anyone at the office all morning, so it was really quiet, but in the afternoon there were more people to talk to. I had an infrastructure meeting. I want to structure the “taskforce” like a project to give the new members a taste of project management. However, office infrastructure doesn’t make for the best project. Some parts are ok, like researching best case practices and such. But others are too basic, like “Get a clock”. So it kinda worked, I guess. I hope they got the idea. I’ll work with them some more on it.

After feeling a little stuck in the office, today was a nice change. Not only did I come home early, I also made some plans. I talked to Fuspa and he said he would take me around downtown sometime, or perhaps around liberdade (the Japanese community). Then Tiaia and Renata said we could go to some museums next week, and maybe go see the DaVinci Code, which apparently would be in english with subtitles. Then on the way home Koge invited me to his house for Japanese dinner on Saturday after the general meeting. So I will finally be getting out and about and start enjoying what Sao Paulo has to offer! Also, I took the bus with Renata to Sé metro station, which is not the one I usually take. And it’s right down town by the cathedral and Renata’s school! So now I know how to get there on my own and I can go exploring without having to worry about buses. The only problem is needing a bus to get to USP, but I could probably find one if I needed to, or just go downtown on the weekends. I’m starting to feel a little more confident again. And Fuspa said to me this morning “I have never heard you speak Portuguese” so I tried to say some things. At first I couldn’t think of much, but once I got going I could actually say quite a few things (very simple things). Granted, they aren’t all the most useful things to say, but it’s a start.

Here’s some examples: (note, I’m sure the spelling will be horribly wrong because I am learning verbally)

Eu gosto quixou [I like cheese]

Eu vou a LC [I’m going to the LC]

Vamos! [Let’s go!]

Eu quiero agua [I would like some water]

Ondé está o metro? [Where is the subway?]

Nos gostamos frango [We like chicken]

Eu não quiero ir [I don’t want to go]

…. And of course…

Eu não falo português!! [I don’t speak Portuguese!!]

CONADE and the shock

2006-05-23T10:37:00.000-03:00

From last Wednesday to this Sunday, I was at CONADE, the Brazilian national AIESEC conference. It was there, that culture shock finally hit me, and it hit me hard.

Rita and I left at 4:00 am on Wed morning and took a cab to the subway station where we were meeting everyone. After a long bus ride we made it to Caraguatatuba, where the conference was being held. It was really nice to see the countryside for the first time. There were hills covered in trees, farms, cows (vacas!) and it was very beautiful. The view on the drive into the city was amazing. I could see the water and the city all surrounded by trees. It was really nice to see the water as well. I keep looking out over Sao Paulo half expected to see the ocean in the distance, but instead I only see city. Seeing the water was a special treat, and I didn’t realize how much I longed to see it.

When we were almost to the… I guess you could call it a resort, the bus broke down. We had to wait about half an hour, but then it was working again. The result, however, was that we missed most of opening plenary and had to run onto the stage to do our dance as soon as we got there. Haha, good thing “U” is near the end or we would have missed it entirely.

CEEDers!

The first day was corporate responsibility day. They had a bunch of guest speakers to give a talk, but it was in portuguese, so Rita, Sue and I escaped and did some exploring around the place. There was a pool and soccer fields and tennis courts and palm trees everywhere. The rooms were in these odd little round structures. I have never skipped a track before, but I wouldn’t have learned anything. Later we went to presentations by some companies about social responsibility. Two were in English, so I picked one of those. The presentation wasn’t the best, but I did learn about the concept, which honestly I didn’t know much about before. Then we went and got dressed up for the banquet. At Canadian conferences we always have the banquet on the last day. Here it’s on the first. Part of it was a “cocktail party” so they had these free drinks. I tried this one that was passion fruit and cachaca. It was really good…. And really strong!! I had two and I was a bit wobbly. Haha, but not enough to stop the AIESEC dancing!!

@USP looking good!

Ooo ahh oo ahh ahh Victoria!

Thursday was good and bad. The Work Abroad track in the morning was rather boring, and I can’t say I got much out of it. We painted pictures and meditated. To me, that’s not the most efficient use of a conference, but whatever. A lot of the main tracks were in Portuguese, so I had to follow along with the English powerpoints or have someone translate for me. Some of the members were really good about helping me. Jorge, Maira, Renata, Tiaia, Koge and Rubens all translated for me. I really appreciated it, especially on this day because the speakers were talking about social entrepreneurship and it was really amazing to hear their stories. Although I could follow along, I found it a bit frustrating that I couldn’t contribute. I was kind of stuck just listening. After the speakers we had a world café, which was awesome. I helped J-Max, from Quebec, to talk to the new members about volunteering and NGOs. I finally felt like I was able to contribute something, and I really liked that. In the evening we had a soccer tournament. I said I would play for team USP, so I headed off to the soccer field. When it came time to actually play, I didn’t get to. I was a bit disappointed, because I had been looking forward to it. Granted, it was all guys playing and they were really intense, but still. Later they asked me to play in a girls game, so I said I would love to. We couldn’t get enough girls from USP, so I played with a team of girls from Recife, which is in the north east of brazil. Amazingly enough, I scored the first goal! Haha, kind of a fluke, but I’ll take it. After the soccer, it was a costume party. Lots of people were dressed up in crazy outfits, so it was pretty funny. But during that party, there were very few people dancing. Instead, the were all outside either playing or watching Johnny Cash Mo!! Hahahaha. It was hilarious. Rita, Sue, Igor and I taught everyone how to play and they LOVED it! It was a huge hit. Even the next day, people were asking me how to play it. So there we were, at a national conference in Brazil playing Johnny Cash Mo. Pricesless.

Friday was very hard. At this point had had been dealing decently well with the Portuguese. Getting by at least. But after a while, it starts to build up. All the tracks were together on Friday, and they were all in Portuguese. We did break into smaller groups a few times and did some worksheets in English, but much of the day was sitting in the plenary listening to the externals. And it started to get to me. I read the powerpoints, so I had a general idea of what they were talking about, but I find it very taxing to sit and listen to another language and not understand. Even though I know it’s Portuguese, my brain is trying so hard to hear familiar words and make sense of it. I hear words and it doesn’t make any sense and it can be frustrating and mentally exhausting. I think I might have gone mad if it wasn’t for Igor. We ended up playing tic-tak-toe during the session.

This was the day I truly felt what I would call culture shock. It had been building up during the days before, but on Friday it finally got through. We talked a lot about culture shock at CIL training, and I thought I would be able to handle it. At least I am able to recognize that that’s what I am feeling. At CIL, they warned us against blogging during culture shock, because you can be overly negative and give people the wrong impression. However, I recognize that I am experiencing culture shock, and I think writing about it will help me a lot.

Having most of the sessions in portuguese was mentally straining. But I could read the powerpoints and at least follow along a little bit. What was the hardest was the social activities and intstructions. Whenever the facis told us where to go next, I had to turn to somebody and ask them “what are we doing now?” “where are we going?”. I felt very helpless and dependant on others. Especially on the weekend, when I switched tracks, I had to rely completely on Diogo to tell me where to go and what to do. During the breaks, I found it very awkward. Normally, if I don’t have anyone to talk to, I would just wander over to a group of people I know and join in. But here, everyone was speaking in Portuguese. I could hover around and pretend to listen, but I felt very isolated. I hate to ask people to speak English, especially when I am joining the conversation late and when I know that some of the members struggle with English. So I ended up “floating” a lot. The members did try to help me out. They would come talk to me and say hi, and Jorge was really good about including me. He would stop everyone and say “Hey, Jess is floating again. Speak English!” Haha, so I appreciated that, but I still felt like such a burden. Sometimes we would have a session or a conversation in English, and it would be great, I would be able to contribute and understand and learn, and then I would be hearing Portuguese and be completely cut off and isolated. It’s hard, because I totally understand that the sessions need to be in Portuguese. We were learning about some very in depth concepts and while most of the AIESECers speak English, it is very hard for them to understand complex concepts in English. It’s just unfortunate for me. And after a while, it really got to me.

LC meeting

That night we had global village. It was good, but I think I would have enjoyed it more were I not so exhausted from the day. We set up the Canada booth with pins, a flag, maple syrup, Canadian Club, and some postcards. After about an hour of telling people about Canada (how cold is it? Are you from the French part? What is maple syrup?) I escaped for a little while to look at the other booths. There were booths from all the internationals plus each of the regions of brazil. Igor told me about the different foods and drinks from brazil, and got me to try a weird seed which actually wasn’t bad, if a little hard to eat. I went back to the Canada booth to find that it had been populated by USP members who were teaching others what I had taught them about Canada! I thought that was kinda cool, actually. I ended up going to bed early (well… relatively) that night because I was soooo tired I honestly thought I might fall over.

mmmm ... maple syrup

Saturday was the best day of the conference. Instead of going to the work abroad track, Diogo asked me to attend the leadership role track to better understand the reality of the LCs in Brazil and where USP fits in. Of course, this meant that more of the information was in Portuguese, but I managed to learn a lot. We broke up into groups to discuss the areas where AIESEC brazil is the weakest with the intent of discussing solutions and creating a library of good case practices. Diogo told me to go to the Talent Management group and ask for them to do it in English. So, I did. The faci asked everyone if they were ok with speaking in English, and a couple people objected, saying they preferred Portuguese. Livia, from Curitiba, rescued me though, and said that I needed English and she thought I would be able to contribute a lot. I was really grateful, because I did learn a LOT from that session, and did give some input of my own. I had some really good discussions with a few people about managing human resources and I felt very empowered for the first time at the conference. Unfortunately, after the break, someone stopped me to ask me some questions about Canada, which was cool but caused me to be a little late for the next round of discussions. And they had already started in Portuguese. I was, once again, left floating. Later I went to some workshops. One was in English and the other Rubens translated for me. I did manage to learn a lot on Saturday though, about AIESEC in Brazil, about USP, about implementing structures and other things. That night everyone had free tequila! We did some AIESEC dances and I talked to people and hung out.

Sunday was not quite as good. I got up early and packed and went to opening plenary, and there were hardly any people there. Too much free tequila ;) So we had to wait around for everyone. Then we started to sessions. I went to the leadership track again, but I lost Diogo in the crowd so I had to just read the powerpoints and ask random people to translate the instructions for me. I still felt somewhat isolated, esoecially since I was the ONLY person in both the leadership role and taking responsibility tracks that didn’t speak Portuguese. At one point on Sunday the Chair was trying to explain something in English and he turned to me in front of everybody and said “I’m sorry do you mind if I say this in Portuguese?” I said it was fine. I did, however, have a really good conversation with Mao, one of the trainees from Curitiba, about the city. He started telling me all about the recyling programs that they have there and how it is a world leader in standard of living. He is from Columbia and I could tell that he was really impressed with the city and the programs there.

Closing plenary was a bit rushed, and we had to leave a bit early to catch our bus back because the people from Salvador had to catch their plane. The ride back was fairly uneventful. I was hoping to sleep but of course didn’t. I talked to Jorge and Fuspa about lots of things, from video games to languages. Over the weekend I did get to know most of the new members better, which is really nice. I’m feeling more comfortable with them now.

Today I was back at the office. It felt weird to be back in Sao Paulo. Familiar yet not. I managed to get sick today with a cold, so I haven’t been feeling well. I had two naps at the office because I was so tired. I did manage to get some stuff done, and I had several meetings with Diogo to discuss plans for the coming weeks. I think he has a knack for making this more complicated than they really are though. He makes it sound like what I have to do is really intense. I’m going to see how it goes and do what I can. Diogo has a very different focus than I do, so sometimes our initiatives don’t match, though I think we understand each others perspective. Today I also went to the university cafeteria, where you can get a whole meal for R$1.90. Crazy, neh? And then we went to the anthropology department and looked into some seminars being offered. Diogo was really trying to help me, but of course the seminars are almost all in Portuguese. Today I still felt really dependant.

Culture shock is a process though, and if I work through it I should be fine. The limitations will not disappear, but I have to learn to adapt and to get around them as best I can. The initial “OMG I’m in Brazil” has finally worn off, but that means soon I will be ready to start to have a deeper understanding of Sao Paulo and the people here, at least I hope so.

New Understanding

2006-05-16T10:44:00.000-03:00

Well, I have to write about my weekend... but some rather important things have been happening.

I went all weekend without knowing, but apparently there has been some gang and police violence over the past few days here in Sao Paulo. Over 90 people are dead, mostly policemen and yesterday the buses were shut down. Some buses were torched and a lot of stores were closed. I have not witnessed or been affected by any of this, but it certainly makes you stop and think. Everyone has been telling me this is very unusual for Brazil, and I believe them. Yet it's happening here in Sao Paulo. I will be careful. Some things with CONADE are a little up in the air, but hopefully everything will work out alright.

Ok, here's what I've been up to, amidst all this.

Saturday May 13:
Saturday was fairly quiet. I slept in a little and then went for a walk around the neighbourhood. We took a drive around the city because we had to pick up Tatiana's car. The picture of the neighbourhood in the previous post was from my walk on Saturday (ok, so I cheated with the pictures). In the evening, I went with Iza's parents to a birthday party. Wow! It was at a MANSION of a house, absolutely amazing, with a pool and everything. They had pizza being freshly made all night for dinner. I wanted to try them all but I couldnt because I got too full. I must have eaten 10-12 pieces!! But OMG it was soooo good!! I also talked to a few people at the party and learned some new words. But the best part was the banana pizza... oh yaaaaaaa.....

Sunday May 14:
Sunday was Mother's Day, so I e-mailed my Mom and then we went to Iza's gradmothers house. Guess what I did there? Eat more! Ahhh, they had a huge lunch and I wanted to try everything! It was sooo good! And they had a million desserts too! I think I gained a hundred pounds this weekend!! Then we went to their aunts house for dinner, and ate more! haha.

Monday May 15:
Today Rita came. I got to sleep in a little, then I took the metro [subway] to Tiete to catch a bus to the airport. I coun't find the bus (I didn't know yet that some were not running beause of the violence) so I took a taxi to the airport. There, I met up with Igor (from @ USP) and we talked for a while as we waited for Rita to arrive. We found her and headed out to the car (finding it was tricky ;) ) Then we headed back into Sao Paulo (the airport is outside the city). Igor dropped us off at Tiete and then we took the subway to Jardim Sao Paulo, near Iza's house. Then... we walked :P Rita hates me for this, haha. We carried the luggage up the hill for 20 min to the house. But we made it. There, Tatiana called and told us about the trouble with this buses. At this point, we were told it was a strike. So we decided to stay in the area around the house for the day. We went for a walk and bought some snacks at the bakery. Woo, I ordered food! ...well kinda... it's a start. Then we went home and had naps and then had dinner. Then we found out more about what had happened that day and over the weekend. I'm still trying to figure it out. Watching the news in portuguese doesnt help much.

Not as much detail today because I'm at the office and I don't want to hog the computer. However, I felt this was important. But I am safe and being careful. And hopefully the coneference will go as planned.

Independance

2006-05-16T10:34:00.000-03:00

Ahhh, the sweet smell of… independence! Whoo hoo! I just came all the way from USP home all by myself! Well almost. Truthfully, Maira rode the bus with me, but I asked her if the stop was just around the corner and she said yes, so I would have found it fine on my own. Then I rode the subway and walked back without even needing my map. Ok, I’m seriously proud of myself considering I was only taught how to do it once and I wasn’t sure I would EVER be able to get around on my own in this big city. Granted, I can only go to one place, but hey, it’s a start. And getting home is a very good thing to be able to do. Ok, that’s enough self praise for today ;)

Wed May 10:

Another fairly relaxed day, actually. After Monday I thought I would be worked to the bone within a week, but the last two days have been much slower. I got to the school and guess what, my name was still scratched out. But! Luckily I had seen Rubens on my way in, so I went back and found him and asked him to get the key for me. He also talked to the guy at the desk, who told him that Diogo couldn’t just add names but had to submit a whole new sheet of names. So I got into the office and hopped on the computer, uploaded yesterday’s blog, read other blogs and sent of my Canada presentation. The morning was sooo dead. I got there at 7:30 and aside from a few people coming in and out quickly, there was nobody there until almost noon. I did some reading, but I wanted people to come! Then Diogo showed up and I told him about the name sheet and we headed off to Japanese lunch! We went all the way to the Japanese area of the city, which was a 40 minute drive. I don’t know how he could afford that much time, but then again I read that Brazilians often take long leisurely lunches, and I had nothing to do anyways. I told him a lot about how we do things in Victoria, and he was surprised that we have no selections and applications and intense new member training. But I don’t think Victoria is unusual amongst Canadian LCs. After we got back, it was time to head home, because I promised Iza’s Mom that I would be home for dinner tonight. Diogo scared me because he said there was a meeting tonight and I was so sure there wasn’t! But he was mistaken, whew. Tomorrow and Friday I won’t be home for dinner. Tomorrow is the general meeting and I’ll be doing my presentation. Diogo asked me to keep it to 20 minutes. I’ll try! But the final product is 83 slides of Canadian goodness!

OMG what’s this? A short post? Well it’s only one day. And it’s nothing too too exciting. I’m just writing to kill time before dinner. Hmmmm… what to chose for today’s picture…? The AIESEC office! I should have taken a picture in the Japanese community, but I hate snapping photos when I’m out because I feel like such a tourist. But I will try to do better ;)

**********************************

Thursday May 11:

This morning I met up with Thays (pronounced Tayeece), my buddy, and we went for a campus tour. We headed over to ETA, which is Iza’s building and Thays’ former building (since she already has a degree and is on her second). She showed me where the cheap cafeteria is and then we caught the internal campus bus, which is not only free but very brightly coloured :P . So we took the bus around campus and Thays told me what the building were and I was the tourist taking pictures. Not the greatest pictures, mind you, since they were out the bus window. There are so many traffic circles at USP it’s crazy. I don’t think there is a single light, only round-a-bouts. We went almost the whole way around, and the stopped at the athletic centre. It’s quite the facility! With tennis courts and basketball courts and soccer (futebol) fields and such. We had a snack there and then walked back to FEA, the faculty where the LC is.

In the afternoon, the “oldies” had our workshop on the new LC structure. Basically Diogo explained it to us and I think I finally understand. Structure and stuff like this isn’t my specialty. I find that usually I just do what seems necessary and what works and I end up doing whatever structure there was supposed to be. This is a lot of theoretical stuff, and now that I understand it, it is a very interesting concept. But making concepts into reality is the harder part, and making this work in @ USP will be a challenge. This is a brand new structure that is pretty much untested. We are to have another workshop on implementation soon, after CONADE I guess. Another interesting note, Diogo analysed the structure by looking at who the members were accountable too, so the bottom up, whereas I looked at it as the responsibilities of the leaders, from the top down. He mentioned this different perspective in our meeting too, on Monday, saying while his focus when he was VPPD (VPMD) was to get the most out of the members for AIESEC, my focus was always to get the most out of AIESEC for the members. I don’t see this difference of perspective as a problem, but it is definitely something I hadn’t really thought about before.

In the evening was the general meeting. Turnout wasn’t as good as it could have been, but I was told it was pretty good. I was supposed to do my Canada Presentation so I brought my laptop and my maple candies. However, there was so much other stuff to cover, like CONADE and learning circles, that we ran out of time. So I’ll do it at the meeting after CONADE. I’d rather wait and do a good job than do a rush job anyways, since I spent so long making a good presentation.

Then I went home entirely on my own, and at night! And it was fine.

Friday May 12:

One week in Brazil! Crazy. I have learned SOOOO much in this short time. This morning I met Ju Japa (the Japanese Julianna) on the bus ride in to USP. We stopped off at the bank to get money for CONADE and then she gave me another little tour of some areas I hadn’t seen the day before. Then we headed over to the LC (it’s starting to seem normal to call it that :P ). I still can’t get the key, so Ju Japa got it instead. I checked my e-mail and did some general stuff. Several members came and asked “Where’s Koge?” because the money for CONADE was due today. So I was the bank until he arrived, collecting the money and double checking everyone names. My pronunciation is terrible though, and one who gave a chuckle was Patrick. I said it like I would my own name, and he though that was funny. He says it very differently, like Patreeky.

Then Koge gave me a portuguese lesson. I practiced some verbs. He made me a worksheet and on the first one, I got more than half wrong…. But then on the second sheet I only got one wrong. Woo! Then one of the members started putting post it’s with the portuguese name on items around the office. Pretty soon everyone who was there was putting up stickies :P The office is covered! But it’s cool! And they loved it. They were writing things like “cool guy” and putting it on themselves.

Then I had a learning circles meeting. These are in preparation for multiple PBoXes (Projects Based on Exchange) that Diogo is planning. Knowing next to nothing about PboXes, this is a learning experience for me too. I couldn’t help too much with the project planning because I don’t know the reality of Sao Paulo, but I could help with the practicality aspects as an AIESEC project. There were some really good ideas thrown out, but sometimes the members got carried away and starting making plans that were not really feasible. So I hope I helped. Sometimes they switched to Portuguese, if they had something they didn’t know how to say in English. But then, sometimes they forgot to switch back, so I was a little lost in the conversation. I hate asking them to switch though, because I don’t want to be a hindrance.

After that meeting, I had my own meeting as team leader of the infrastructure task force (ooooh, doesn’t that sound cool!). We did a little icebreaker and then some brainstorming and them made an action plan. I tried to structure the meeting like a proper AIESEC meeting to help the new members get an idea of how it should be. They seem excited about the ideas we came up with, so I think this will go well. Then I wrote out all the output and sent it to everyone.

Then some other people showed up, one of which was Renato. Since he dances professionally, we tasked him with coming up with our opening plenary dance. And today we got to start learning it. Wow. It’s quite the dance. Not like a typical @ dance. It’s tricky! It look us an hour and a half to master 1 minute of dance. Good thing that’s all we need to know! But it’s also very cool. Now we just need to teach the other members. It was cool though, there was about eight of us dancing around the LC. :P We are gonna knock-em dead at CONADE!!

After that, I hung around for a little while and then headed home, taking the bus with Koge. After I got home, we watched a brazilian soap opera (I had no clue what was going on…) and then ordered pizza. Pizza in Brazil is VERY different! And apparently Sao Paulo pizza is the best in the world, or so I’m told ;) I dunno about that, it was a little too much for me. One was covered in brazilian white cheese, but it was TOO cheesey, yes even for me! Like your mouth is glued closed cheesy. And the other pizza was covered in tomatoes. I tried it, I really did. And I truly just do not like tomatoes.

I’m so excited for the conference, and for Rita coming!! I have so much to show her and tell her! It’s gonna be great J And on Monday I don’t have to get up at 6:00 am! But on Wednesday we have to MEET at 6:00 am which means leaving the house at 5:00 and getting up maybe 4:30. Wish me luck >_<

This weekend looks to be fairly mellow. It’ll be nice the sleep in and maybe wander around the city a bit or something.

Things I noticed: Brazilians don’t seem to have answering machines. The phone just rings and rings… and they are never in a hurry to answer it either, haha. The phone will ring a couple times before they even acknowledge it, and then they wander over and answer.

my neighbourhood

Work!

2006-05-10T08:16:00.000-03:00

Another update written back at Iza’s that I will upload tomorrow. I don’t like writing in my blog at the office because the computers are in great demand and I feel like I should be doing more crucial things.

Sunday was quite quiet, as I mentioned before. Iza and I watched a movie in the evening and I just did some more work on my computer.

Monday, however, was nuts.

First Day in the office:

I went with Iza to USP, which meant getting up at 6:00 am to leave at 6:45. Paulo, her brother drove us for 40 minutes to the bus stop, then we waited for the bus (the one that says C. Universidade) and took that for another 20 minutes to USP. Iza showed me which stop to get off at and how to get to the AIESEC office, which they call the LC. In Victoria, the LC refers to the people. We, the members are the LC. But here, the LC is the office. I guess it is because the words local committee don’t mean as much to them, so they adapted their own meeting. But I’m getting used to saying I’m going to the LC :P. Anyways, we made it to the LC and Iza got they key and then headed off to class. So I was on my own in the office for a little while. I uploaded what I wrote on Sunday, put up my flag and checked my e-mail etc. Eventually some other members showed up and I talked to them a little. Around noon Diogo came and it was time for our meeting. The office was busy, so we headed to the café nearby for tea (strawberry vanilla mmmm…..) and coffee. He asked me what kind of AIESEC work I liked to do, and then gave me a detailed history of AIESEC USP and all the problems they have had over the past couple of years. That was good because knowing the history helps me to understand the current reality. Right now @ USP has no EB and a few “experienced” members are helping Diogo do everything. After that, he explained to me what he wants the LC to be. He wants to implement a new LC structure based on projects and in line with @ 2010. This is both exciting and intimidating. If we get it going, I think it could work really well, but getting it set up will be a challenge. But that is a plan that will be gradually implemented through the next months. Additionally, he asked me to start a list of things I’d like to do while I am here. So after we got to the office I started working on that. Then he asked me if I wanted to lead the “infrastructure task force” which basically means make the office fun and useable. So I will be leading a group to make a calendar for the wall, put up AIESEC information, and some fun stuff too. Also, it means organizing the new computer that’s coming and dealing with all the files. I’m really looking forward to it! I’m gonna make the office an AIESEC paradise! ….. or something like that :P Diogo also asked me to stay for a meeting that evening. It was Diogo, Me and Isabell from Columbia who is also helping out, the members who have been the effective though not official EB and the former LCPs. We talked about a million things, such as some major problems USP is having, about CONADE and also what I was to do for the next few months. We all agreed that USP lacks a LC culture and hardly has any social events. So it will be my job to create this. I think CONADE will really help, because conferences help to create LC history and culture. And decorating the office will help too, and I have some social activities planned. And during the meeting Diogo said I had an accent because I said “aboot”. I swear I didn’t!! I’ll have to watch myself more closely… It was after 10:00 pm by the time the meeting was over (good thing I like meetings, eh?). Koba dropped Koge and I off at the subway and then he rode the subway with me to my stop, where Iza’s Dad came to pick me up. I was extremely tired by the time I was back at around 11:30, but I also had so many things going through my head that I couldn’t sleep at all!!

Things I noticed: The office way pretty busy all afternoon. The morning was quite dead. Whoever comes in has to go around to everyone who is already there and greet them with a handshake (for two guys) or a kiss. It seems one a day is adequate though, because if a person leaves and comes back, they only greet the people who came while they were gone.

Tuesday May 9:

Today was weird, though a little less crazy. I slept in because I had so much trouble falling asleep, so I had to get ready really fast. Then Iza’s sister dropped us off at a different bus stop, though we took the same bus. I got to FEA (that is the faculty where the office is – Finances, Economics and Administration) around 8:00 and went to get the key. They guy who was at the desk didn’t speak English, and he was asking me for the room number. I told him it was the @ office, but he said he needed the number. So I went upstairs and got the room # (203, by the way) and came back down. The he looked for my name on the list of people he is allowed to give the key to. Diogo and I had asked them yesterday to add my name to the list. And my name was there…. But it had been scratched out! I don’t know why. So the guy wouldn’t give me the key! So I had to sit and wait for the first AIESECer to show up. I was there at 8:00 am, guess when Diogo came? … 10:40. So I sat there for almost 3 hours. Uhhhhh. I couldn’t really call anybody because the reason they were not at the office was because they were in class. I could have gone for a walk or something, but I still don’t know the campus very well and I didn’t want to get lost. So I sat there and listened to my MP3 player. And had a nap :P . Diogo was very surprised when he arrived, and could get no good explanation as too why my name had been removed. I hope it is there tomorrow. So I was a little behind schedule, to say the least. All the stuff I was going to do that morning got pushed back. I still did some research and talked to members and organized my first team meeting. Koge had told be the day before on the subway that he would teach me some Portuguese today and had asked me to try and read something before hand. So I set about translating something I found in the office. I actually didn’t do too badly, but I definitely needed help. Then I had to leave a little earlier, because Iza was going to teach me how to get home. So I left at 3:00 and met her at the bus stop. We took the bus for around 40 minutes, then got on the subway. We rode for two stops and then had to switch lines. Then another 20 minutes on the subway and we were at out station, Jardim Sao Paulo. Then she made me a map and I had to lead her home. It’s actually not that hard and I think I will be able to do it by myself tomorrow. The hardest part is making sure I get off the bus at the right time. But I was watching for landmarks so I think I can spot it. We had a snack when we got in, and now I’m here writing. So other than being locked out of the office, today was much more mellow. Of course, I was so tired from Monday that I didn’t have the energy to do much :P . Tonight I will hopefully finish my Canada presentation because they want me to do it at the general meeting on Thursday. Ahhh, not much time but I think I will make it. I’m still trying to think of a Canadian activity to do.

Things I noticed: Even though he couldn’t give me the key, and couldn’t really communicate with me, the guy at the desk made every effort to try and help me. He asked everyone who came in if they were from AIESEC and he found someone who spoke English to tell me that he couldn’t give me the key (even though I had kinda figured that out). And then the guy who spoke English tried to help me too. Everyone is very friendly.

Other notes:

In the office (the LC) I put up my flag and today we found a brazilian flag to put up to. The new members really like it. I also put up on the wall two big pieces of paper. One is a mindmap of what USP and Sao Paulo are famous for. I’m hoping to use to it create an LC cheer, since they don’t have them in Brazil like we do in Canada. The other paper asks the members to write me a phrase in English and Portuguese. The members were having a great time with both of them, coming up with crazy things USP is famous for, like producing nine of the country’s presidents, and writing me phrases like “I want another beer!” and “teach me how to make caipirinha”. I’m glad they like them.

I also tried some more brazilian food! For dinner on Sunday we had a munch of different breads and meats. For lunch on Monday, Diogo took me to a hot dog place near the office. I ordered a traditional hotdog… but it certainly wasn’t what I would consider a hot dog. The guy started with a bun.. ok good. Then added a weiner… ok good. Then added ketchup and mustard…ok fine. The he added onions…ok fine. Then he added corn… wha?? Then he added mashed potatoes… eh? Yes, corn and mashed potatoes (Colin this it a hotdog you would love ;) ) It was very weird, but also very good! For dinner I had a pastei, which is a deep fried pastry and you can order many different things inside. I had a cheese one, and it was really good. And apparently I am being taking on a “gastromic tour” of Sao Paulo, starting tomorrow with Japanese food. Haha, I hope this turns out ok. But one on the list they started creating is an Itatian restaurant, so that should be very good! I also learned that Sao Paulo is made up mostly of Italians (as in Italian background). Interesting, I though they looked Italian but I thought I just didn’t know how to recognize Portuguese :P

***

Break

***

Ok, I was away from the computer for a little while, but now I am back. I had my nails done… wooo! There’s a lady who came to the house to do Iza’s Mom’s and they asked if I wanted mine done too. Haha, I just got a very neutral colour. Then I went with Iza’s Dad to the Supermarket. It definetly is a SUPERmarket because not only do they have food, but TVs and stereos and DVDs and appliances and everything! Iza’s Dad is really nice and he told me what all the food was called in Portuguese. Though I can’t remember all of them :P They had some food I had never seen before. After we got back we had dinner, which was soup (I think pea soup) and tuna bread. For desert it was white cheese with guava, and it was quite good! Very different but good. And I tried some Portuguese port wine, which is thicker and sweeter than regular wine. I only had a taste, but I was quite good too.

Other things, I noticed: The air in Sao Paulo is very dry, at least compared to Nanaimo/Victoria. My lips are always drying out and I am thirsty a lot more often. Which is a shame because there are so many water fountains around the campus but I’m trying not to drink from them! I think I did have a little bit of water by accident, but not much (ahh, icecubes).

Emergency vehicles turn on their flashing lights when they are going somewhere, but none of the cars get out of the way! They just keep driving like normal as the police car or ambulance swerves around them. Odd, to me at least.

I was trying to figure out why the houses look different. One is that they all have gates. I don’t think I’ve seen a house without one (I’ll take a picture sometime soon). But the other thing, and I think the more important thing, is there is no yard. Off the road is the driveway and then the house, so the house is very close to the road, and I think this is what makes them look odd to me. And it also makes the road look narrower, though I don’t think it really is.

When we got back from the subway today, there was a turtle in the driveway! Iza told me this was not unusual, but I thought it was pretty cool! So what’s today’s picture? The turtle!! And it was pretty big too!!

Turtle says: Happy Birthday Dad!!!

Also, sorry these posts are ridiculously long. If they are too long or boring just let me know and I will make them shorter. Obrigada [thanks]

.... Hello Brazil!!

2006-05-08T08:35:00.000-03:00

Hello from Brazil! I haven’t had too much time on the computer, but here’s what has happened so far. It’s gonna be long :P so I’ll try to break it up into sections:

Flights:

My flights were fine. Long, of course. It was really nice to be able to sit with Susan on the flight from Toronto to Sao Paulo. We talked about a lot of stuff and compare what we had brought. We both went to the Duty Free in Toronto and bought some Canadian booze. It turns out you buy it at the store and then they give it to you after you’ve gone through the gate and are about the board the plane. Sue and I were both very pleasantly surprised that they served us dinner! Which was good because I was a bit hungry. Not that I had eaten all my snacks or anything, but a hot meal (even airplane meals) are just better. Plus, international flights have free drinks! So Sue and I each had some wine to help us sleep. It worked for her, not for me. After we talked for an hour or two Sue fell asleep for about 5 hours. I tried really hard, but I just couldn’t. I ended up watching the horrible airplane TV show and movies. Well the first movie was Narnia, but I missed most of it because of dinner. The second movie was some old murder mystery from 1993 with Woody Allen. It was pretty bad…. But whatever. When the sun finally rose I was eager to look outside. There wasn’t much to see, just expanses of farmland. It could have been Saskatchewan :P We got breakfast around 8:30 in the morning, which was pretty good. Then, we started spotting some cities outside. The first few were quite small, but after a while we saw a larger one. ‘I wonder if that is Sao Paulo’ I said. It looked a decent sized city, and I could tell we were starting to descend a little. About two minutes later, we saw a BIG BIG city. This city went as far as we could see, had several clusters of skyscrapers and was just overall huge! THIS was Sao Paulo.

Things I noticed: There was a fair amount of English at the airport and most of the people who worked there spoke some English. The airport looked pretty much like any other airport.

Arrival:

Susan and I got off the plane and followed the crowd towards the exit. We had to have our passports inspected by an official, then we picked up out luggage and headed for customs… which ended up being just walking through a doorway. Then we turned the corner and I saw a whole group of hands go up, waving to me! My AIESECers!!! There was around eight of them and they introduced themselves and greeted me with the Brazilian kiss of the cheek. I was feeling a little overwhelmed and didn’t know quite what to say! They gave me a bottle of Cachaca, limes (which they called lemons) and sugar, all the ingredients for Caipirinha. Plus a box of Brigadeiro chocolates and a bracelet of brazilan flags!! Then Thays, my buddy, helped me find the bank machines and one that would work with my card. So I got a few hundred reais and then we headed out to the cars. They asked me where I wanted to go, but I really didn’t know! So they decided something and we split into two groups. I went in Rubens car and we headed downtown

Things I noticed: They told me it was “cold” but I was fine in my t-shirt. In Sao Paulo, the small compact car rules. There are very few trucks or SUVs, and most of the cars are not kinds I have heard of. They are similar to, say, a Toyota Camry of a Ford Focus kind of thing, but some if the manufacturers I have never heard of. Also, I have been in five cars now, and they are all standard. Automatics are very uncommon. The gas stations are interesting too, because the sign reads Gas: 2,34 Alcohol: 1,65. Driving is crazier than in Canada, but not as crazy as in Egypt. They honk sometimes but not all the time. Lane markings are more recommendations then rules and the motorcyclists just race between the cars, especially when traffic is backed up. Getting anywhere takes a very long time and people will sometimes try to sell you things at a red light. On the way downtown from the airport we also saw the flavelas, or shantytowns, that surround the city. In one spot, underneath a highway overpass, was a group of little shacks.

The Market:

We went to the downtown area and stopped first at a huge market. Apparently it used to be an abandoned building that was rebuilt. We left my suitcases in the cars, which they told me was very safe, and it was. We looked around for a while and then went to one of the food places and I had my first Brazilian food! It was dried meat and onions and cheese in a fried pastry, and it was really good! And I had a brazilian softdrink with it. All this would have cost probably $6-7 in Canada, but cost only R6, which is like $3. And they told me that was expensive!! The Brazilians really love their meat (sorry Metta). Some of the sandwiches the others had were just a bun with literally two inches of meat stuffed in it! I also had coconut water, which is, amazingly, the water from inside a coconut. It’s sweet and fruity.

Things I noticed: They have so many different kinds of fruit at the market! And mountains of different kinds of cheese. They also have a lot of hanging meat, which they told me surprises most foreigners.

Downtown:

We then headed downtown. Parking in Sao Paulo is very different. They have the bottom floors of buildings which are just empty and you pull right in off the street, after the people who work there flag you in, and park like you would on the ferry. But then when you come back, you might be boxed it, so you have to leave your keys there and they move the cars out of the way so you can get out. So we parked in one of these (there was only one car of us now, the other had gone to drop my stuff off). We walked down a street full of little stalls, not unlike the market in Victoria, except a lot of these vendors were did not have permits, I was told. We went to a large Jesuit church which was where Sao Paulo was founded. Rubens is really interested in the history of Sao Paulo and he knew a lot about it. The church is now half church, half museum, so they had some displays. One of them was the femur of a priest who used to preach there. I had told them, when they asked me what I studied in anthropology, that I had studied bone, so they made sure I saw it, and I told them it was a left femur ;) Then we headed over to a huge cathedral, which had spectacular gothic architecture. It was much more ornate than the Jesuit church, which makes sense. We then went to Renata’s school, which is part of USP (University of Sao Paulo, pronounced uspee) but was build much earlier as a monastery before becoming a school and is therefore downtown instead on the campus. She showed us her classroom, which was well over a hundred years old and had these ancient wooden desks with tablets to write on that had graffiti from years and years of use. I couldn’t imagine having classes in there, it was so cool! And she has all her classes there, she doesn’t move around. We had a look around the rest of the building and she told me a lot of the history, like how one of the paintings was shot and how it might be haunted. She also told me that on the school grounds, the police and military are not allowed to enter. So the school has been the site of many rebellions and protests. Much of the art outside was stolen from other places by the students, but the police can’t come take it back!! After the school, we went to the stock market, which has an observation deck. It was odd to watch the people yelling and screaming and waving their hands around. I had not idea what they were doing, so Rubens explained it to me. Also, there were only men in the stock market. Then we went up the cities tallest skyscraper which also has an observation deck. If you go up Mt. Doug in Victoria, you see the city, some farms, the ocean, the mountains. Here, it was only city for as far as the eye could see! HUGE!! And this from 37 or so stories up! The city goes on forever. I asked Rubens how long it takes to drive from one end of the city to the other and he told me 2 – 2.5 hours. So you can easily drive from Victoria to Nanaimo faster than across Sao Paulo. After the skyscraper it was time to head out of downtown.

Things I noticed: There are a LOT of people walking around downtown. The sidewalks are always packed. Also, there are crosswalks but the cars don’t actually stop, so you have to wait for a break in traffic to cross. A lot of the buildings downtown are really rundown. Rubens told me that, rather like Nanaimo, the downtown core had become really ugly and there is a campaign going on to fix it up. They had a new theatre (haha, like the port theatre) and some other nice new buildings. The sidewalk is not flat, especially downtown, so you have to watch where you are going. I tripped a few times already :P Another thing I noticed was that I was really stupid to have packed my camera in my luggage so I couldn’t take any pictures! But I’m sure I will be downtown again, and I’ll take pictures then.

USP:

After downtown we headed to the university, which is quite far! It was nice to drive around and look at the city though. We arrived at the university, which us set up rather like UBC. It’s a huge area like it’s own city with buildings all over. Each faculty has a building or two and there are some nice gardens. The first place they took me? The archaeology museum! :P Haha, which was actually really cool! It was focused on the Brazilian aboriginals and it was interesting to see how many similarities there were with Canadian aboriginals. The basketwork was similar and some of the tools as well. After the museum, we headed over to the AIESEC office, which I was really looking forward to seeing. I had been told that there is almost always people there, and it was true. The office is HUGE! Like 6 or 7 time the size of our office in Victoria, and Diogo, the LCP, apologized that there were only three computers and said we would be getting more soon. Ha! Considering AIESEC Victoria’s closet and lone computer, it was amazing! There’s tables and desks and out the windows (yes windows too!) there are palm trees! There were several members there that I got to meet. The only downside about the office is it is very plain and there is nothing on the walls. I think a nice Canadian flag will look great! The office is where I had my first, I dunno… negative culture shock? The others had spoken in Portuguese before, but because they were showing me around, most of it was English. In the office, people were doing work and they were all speaking portugese. I mean I understand that it’s easiest for them, but I felt a little out of place not being able to understand anything. So I hopped onto one of the computers and posted on the @ Vic blog and checked my e-mail. The computers were against me too! All the windows buttons are in portugese :P. I just had to work from memory, which was fine. The keyboards are awkward though, because they have the accents on them which means some of the buttons are in different places. If you see me doing a ~ instead of a ‘ it’s because those two are backwards and I have to make a point of doing the apostrophe. Eventually I just butted into the conversation and they kind of realized that I was being left out and started using some English. We also joked that I have to use the AIESEC hand sign for “speak more slowly” for “speak ENGLISH!”. Occasionally they would switch back without realizing it and then laugh and go back to English. People stayed in the office until very late, and then some of them went to class! At 7:30 pm! Odd. Diogo then said he would drive me to Izabella’s where I would be staying. I asked him lots of questions on the way and he asked many of me. We are going to have a meeting on Monday to go over what I am to do.

Things I noticed: The main university campus is a lot more modern than the law school downtown. Some of the buildings are very new. Also, the washrooms have strange flushes, just in case you wanted to know ;)

Home: Diogo and I stopped off at a “shopping” (they are called shopping centres but most people call them shoppings, he told me) which looked like a Canadian mall, and went to the food court. They had lots of different food, but I opted for a brazilian buffet. After more driving (everything is far away), we got to Isabella’s house. Her house is in the north end of the city and USP is in the east (I think). I met her and her parents and sister, Tatianna. She also has a brother, Paulo, who I met the next day. They welcomed me and asked me some questions. The parents speak some English and the kids all speak it quite well. They have had international students before and, amazingly enough, Izabella’s parents have been to Victoria before! The even have a little plate with a picture on the parliament buildings on the counter. And Paulo (and perhaps Tatianna) has been to Egypt. Their house is very nice, almost like a Victorian house (not as in from Victoria but from the Victoria era) because they have a lot of heavy furniture and picture of the walls. My room is the TV downstairs which has an extra bed. That’s where I am right now, writing on my laptop. When I arrived they were just finishing dinner, pizza in a round box! We talked for a while and then I headed to bed. I was just a little tired, having not slept for a good 35-40 hours!

Things I noticed: When I first entered, the first thing I did was take off my shoes, and Izabella gave me an odd look. I also thought it was weird that there were no other shoes. I guess at Iza’s house you wear your shoes indoors, because they all had sandals on inside. Another interesting thing, Iza’s house has a lady who comes to clean and does all the laundry too.

So that was Day 1! Pretty amazing, eh? Here’s Day 2:

Morning:

I got up and had a shower and joined the rest of the family for breakfast. Breakfast was tea (herbal), milk, a banana and yogurt. So a nice big breakfast. The milk tasted different than Canadian milk, I’m not sure why, and I found it very amusing that it’s called “Bom Gosto” which I was told means “Tastes Good”. After breakfast Iza’s parents left to go to the beach for the weekend. I was to go to a barbeque at 2:00. Ha! Pei-tien wasn’t kidding about being late! I got a ride with Tatianna, Iza’s sister, and her boyfriend.

Things I noticed: almost everyone has a cell phone, which they call mobiles. Most of the cars are very nice and quite new as well.

BBQ:

I arrived at 4:00 for the 2:00 barbeque and I was the first one there! The next person arrived an hour later an most people didn’t come until 7:00!! I know AIESECers and always late but that was crazy! Since I was there early, Marcelo, who was hosting the BBQ, played some brazilian music for me and taught me how to samba! It’s actually not that hard. After Koge arrived, we talked about some AIESEC stuff. I learned a lot about AIESEC USP yesterday, more to come later. For dinner we had these things that were like sausages but not sausages. They were really tasty! You eat them with bread. And we had some caipirinha as well. There were a lot of new members there and some other internationals. There was a group from Columbia, one from Sweden, I think, Alexandra the trainee from Switzerland, a guy from Germany and probably a few others. Apparently the house we were at is the USP AIESEC house. The first LCP still lives there, as have several AIESECers over the past few years. They have signed flags up on the walls from past trainees.

Things I noticed: In Brazil you don’t have “your” drink, there is only “a” drink. People share everything!

AIESEC USP:

I learned a lot about AIESEC USP from the people I spoke to at the BBQ yesterday. AIESEC USP has only been around for 5 or 6 years. At first it was going very well, but then after a couple years, they were down to a very few members. Right now they have only 4 or 5 experienced members, and some of those “experienced” members, like Koge, have only been in AIESEC for 6 months. Some haven’t even been to a conference before. So basically, what @USP (@=AIESEC for you non-AIESECers reading this) lacks is experience. So my two years in AIESEC is going to help me a lot. A lot of them just need to know exactly what AIESEC is all about. And they are very eager to learn. I was already talking about AIESEC dances and they wanted me to teach them right now! The conference will be a great experience, so I’m glad we are the fourth largest delegation at 23!! (with hopefully more to register soon). It will be a great way for the members to realize what AIESEC is and to connect with AIESEC nationally and internationally. I talked to Koge, who is the head delegate, about the plans for CONADE. Since we have such a big delegation, he wants to have a really exciting opening plenary roll call to prove to both @Brazil and to ourselves that we are here to make an impact! So I told him I would try to think of something. Koge is also getting some t-shirts made and I really like the concept. (not telling yet!) @USP is also project based, so I will have to learn exactly how that works. And I think the first part of my job will be to talk to the new members and share my experiences and tell how @ works and how to do @ work. Which is fine with me!

Things I noticed: @USP has a pretty good alumni base. Almost all the former LCPs (all 4 or 5 of them) are still around and still help out with @ work when they can, so they do have that resource that we don’t have in Victoria. Some of the former VPs and around too.

Balada Japa:

At the BBQ, Ju Japa (The Japanese Julianna) convinced me to go with her, Koba and Victor to a Balada Japa, which is a Japanese club, after the BBQ. Of course, there were mostly Japanese people there, so I guess I was an honorary Japanese, Actually, I was told that I know more Japanese than a lot of the Japanese Brazilians! And I don’t know much! The club was at a big house and the music was WAY better than in Canada! They played actual music and not just boom boom boom boom. And they played some old stuff, like the Beach Boys! (a dance version, granted) It was fun. And when you are hungry and need a snack, what do you get? Meat on a stick of course! And it tastes so good! Once we got tired, Victor drove me home.

Things I noticed: When dancing, everyone sings along to the music, and when I say sing, I mean yell! Sometimes the DJ would stop the music and the song would keep going with everyone singing. They sung in English, in Spanish, in Portuguese and made up words when they didn’t know them. I dunno.. but there is something very amusing about watching a bunch of guys singing “Let me be your sunshine” at the top of their lungs!

Some of my AIESECers!!

Ok, there’s Day 2. And it’s now Day 3. Not too much happening today. I slept in (nice…..) and had breakfast and wrote this (hey, it took a while!) They have internet at Iza’s house, but not wireless so I think I will just save this on my memory stick and upload it tomorrow at the office. Tomorrow I have my meeting with Diogo and I get to learn all about where everything is in the office, where the keys are and other very useful things to know!

Goodbye Canada...

2006-05-04T03:39:00.000-03:00

I've been putting off writing in here today, but I should. I'm flying tomorrow. I have to leave the house at 8:30 am and I will arrive in Sao Paulo at 10:00 am the next day. As excited as I am, I can't help but feel a little sad as well.

Tonight after the ball game all the girls and I went to Fast Eddies to hang out. We just talked for several hours, about ball, about life, about crazy stuff we've done, whatever. It's really such a great bunch of girls and I'm gonna miss them this season. A few of them I have played with for a lot of years. We exchamged e-mails and MSN, so I will be able to follow along with the season and how they are doing, but it won't be the same. I realize that I can't have it all, obviously. And I'm still super excited about Brazil, but I think I can feel a little sad about leaving as well. I will miss my team, my family, my friends and my AIESECers.

I got an e-mail this morning saying that I will be staying with a new USP member named Isabella. I'm glad to know that things are ready for me when I arrive, and Marthy told me that there's a barbeque on Friday night.

Even though I'm flying tomorrow, it doesn't quite seem real yet. I don't think it will hit me until I get there that I will be living in another country for 4 months. I just hope that when it does hit me, it won't be in a negative way. But I'm a pretty adaptable person, I think, so I should be fine. I've been away from home before, though not this far. But I won't be alone, and I have so many new friends to meet and spend time with. Honestly, I'll probably be too busy to be homesick.

And I'm not gonna sleep tonight either am I....

And so I'll arrive, wearing my red AIESEC Victotia t-shirt, full of excitment and anticipation.

Next post - from Brazil!!

Taken today with my webcam
Will I be different when I come back?

Captain's Log: Supplimental

2006-05-02T14:50:00.000-03:00

Ok, so I woke up this morning and I can't lift my head up. That's great..... it's worse than I thought. I might have to make a trip to the physio after all....

*Bonus points for anyone who gets the title reference*

Everything looking up... except me!

2006-05-02T03:51:00.000-03:00

Ouch. I played ball again tonight... and we won... but I managed to pull a muscle on my left shoulder. It's one that I've damaged several time before... ironically enough by playing softball. It's not too bad, at least. The first time I did it I couldn't hold my head up for a week, missed school and had to go to three weeks of phisiotherapy. This isn't as serious, but still unfotunate because I can't hold my head quite upright >_<. I just hope it heals before thursday because flying with a head that doesn't stay up doesn't sound like much fun. I guess I'm on a roll, eh? Lost my voice at CIL training and now hurt my neck before I fly :P Ahhh, well. I'll live, even if uncomfortably.

In other news, I set up my webcam tonight and it works. So that's cool. I also talked to my Brazil buddy! Her name is Thays and she seems very nice. I don't think my accomodation is figured out yet, but she told me not to worry. I'm not worried yet, but consodering I need accomodation for friday, I hope they get it sorted out soon. I'll start worrying on Wednesday ;P

Today I also cleaned out my purse, my wallet, my flash drive etc... I also registered with the Canadian embassy in Brazil. You can do it online and it's recommended for people staying abroad for more than three months. It's an online application but you have to go to the embassy (or in my case the consolate) and activate it when you get there. So I have to remember to do that. I'm not sure if the other girls have done this already...or if they will need to. I also made myself a table of addresses and phone numbers in Brazil just in case anything happens. I have all the info for the AIESEC office and a couple of personal numbers just in case. I should probably add the consolate number and address as well.

So now I am to curl up in bed with an ice-pack on my shoulder and my portugese book. Tomorrow is my last appointment, lunch with my old piano teacher and hopefully another trip to my highschool. And of course general "stuff".

So close... and I admit the "worry" is beginning to set in.

Steps Closer

2006-05-01T01:55:00.000-03:00

Haven't been up to anything too exciting the last couple days. I went to my highschool and visited my old teachers. I deleted a whole bunch of crap from my computer and copied a bunch of CD overt to put on my MP3 player. I started packing (1.5 suitcases full right now) and did some more odds and ends shopping. I have more appointments this week (it never ends!!!).

I can't believe in less than a week I'll be in Brazil. It seems so surreal, really. I'm feeling pretty confident. I just hope I can make the impact I want to. AIESEC in Brazil has more structure than AIESEC Canada, at least AIESEC Victoria, so I hope I don't come off as knowing nothing because I don't know how their system works. Like for conferences, every LC has a Head Delegate who organizes everything. And they have working group teams and such as well. I think I will learn a lot from them.

And amazingly I know all this stuff because I got an e-mail today from the LCP, Diogo, and I could read most of it! I was so proud of myself, haha. I had to get Jorge to help with a few spots over MSN, but for the most part I understood. Not that I knew all the words... not even close. But I knew enough words and recognized enough others because they were either similar to english or french that I could figure it out. Of course, knowledge of the subject matter always helps, and the fect that it was all about AIESEC stuff gave me an advantage. So my reading comprehension is passable, but speaking and writing and still non-existant.

Tonight I went and played softball again. It was nice. My coach was telling me I should cancel my trip and stay and play, but I told him no such luck. As much as I love playing ball, this is a no-miss opportunity I won't be missing out on.

Less than a week and I'll be in Brazil! Crazy!

Quiz and Update

2006-04-29T01:27:00.000-03:00

I am truly passionate.

Find your soul type at kelly.moranweb.com.

Virtues: You appreciate humor like none other. Puns might even spark laughter in you (TEHY R FUNNI). You seek adventure and connection with your surroundings. You seek friends who will not only share laughs with you but actually form a deep bond of trust and empathy beneath the surface. You look for adventure and courage in people, and variation is necessary to keep you under control. You see yourself as multi-faceted, so you need people who can see you in your many lights. You're constantly trying to figure yourself out while analyzing the people around you. Silly, silly people.

Aspirations: You can't decide what you want to be yet, but you know you want it to be adventures and interesting, with constant changes. You don't know what love will do for you yet, but it's competing with adventure for a place in your heart. An internal conflict has begun: can you be a successful worker, lover, and parent all at once?

Quirks: Noise of any sort is irritating when you're in the mood. Smacking gum, loud chewing, humming- it's about as pleasing as bodily noises. You dislike emaciated people because of jealousy and just plain disgust. You're a procrastinator but a hard worker, too.

Factors: You need constant attention and support. You're high-maintnence, but a great, reliable friend. Nature needs you and you need nature; it's helped thus far, so keep in touch with the outside world.

Future: Who knows! You absolutely need constant change, so vacationing is surely in the cards. Will you settle down or not? Love will find you eventually, as it does to everyone. Will you choose the sweet home life or the rewarding busy-bee life?

******

This is actually pretty accurate....

And nothing to do with CEED..... :P

Today I went to the optomitrist and got new glasses. I need a point stronger in my right eye and half a point in my left. When will it end! My eyes just get worse and worse >_< I got new frames though too, and I like them. They are a little darker that before, and a little smaller. And they are purple! Bonus!

I also bought a book for the plane ride and some other odds and ends that I needed.

I'm up to around 80 slides in my Canada presentation. I hope it won't be too long! I might have to cut some stuff out... but I'm already skipping so much! Haha, there's just too much to say :P

Ohhhh, and I got a goodbye present today from Patrick and Maddie. A webcam! So I will be able to show everyone a bit of Brazil while I'm there. I have to figure out how to use it though :P

Also, I finally remembered to look it up and yes... there are anime conventions in sao paulo while I'm there!! Cool, eh? Ok, so maybe I'm obsessed, but I think that's cool. Talk about an intercultural experience :P A Canadian going to a Japanese anime convention in Brazil! Haha, I wonder if it's all portugese subtitles and dubs. Quite a few of the members down there seem to be anime fans, so I can probably find out. That would be fun to go to if I am available at that time.

I love AIESEC because...

2006-04-27T22:10:00.000-03:00

Over on the Victoria Scope (http://aiesecvictoria.nomadlife.org/2006/04/true-love.aspx) our wonderful alumni Celine posed this simple question:

"Why do you love AIESEC Victoria ? Blog it down.. coz this will be read for YEARS to come !"

So here I go.

I love AIESEC Victoria because this group of people, this organization, has helped me to grow so much. When I first heard about AIESEC, I was very shy and horrible with people. I had a few good friends, but few in Victoria. I was quiet and hesitant to get involved in too many things. AIESEC and the people in it have showed me how much friends mean to each other, how friends can always be there for each other, and how those ties are unbreakable. AIESEC has shown me how to be a leader, has pushed me waaaay out of my comfort zone, but also offered me a ladder with which to bring myself higher to a higher level. In AIESEC you never do anything alone. You challenge yourself, celebrate victories and analyse failures all together. It's a team. AIESEC is where everyone is your friend and you can finally just be yourself. AIESEC has given me the confidence, support and opportunity that I've always saught. And as I have grown, so has my AIESEC. Our LC, our friendships, our membership, our accomplishments, our networks. AIESEC is not perfect just as we the people who are AIESEC are not perfect. But we learn and we grow and we do it together.

And my learning is not finished yet! This CEED will be the start of a whole new type of learning! AIESEC Brazil style!

2006-04-26T07:05:00.000-03:00

Some non-logistical stuff for once.

I've been talking to some more USP members. Doing so has made me realize the magic of AIESEC. Yesterday I talked to one of the USP SNs who is in Romania right now, Vivian. She was so friendly and willing to help! Then today I talked to a new member, Jorge, and he offered to show me around the city and help me with anything I needed. I have never even met these people, but they are automatically my friends. It's amazing. And it makes me super excited!

I also read another two chapters of my portugese book tonight... while watching playoff hockey :P How's that, eh? I wonder if there will be any playoff hockey on in Brazil... you never know!

I also started my Canada presentation tonight. I've done around 25 slides and there's still a lot to cover. I'll glad I'm doing this ahead of time instead of when I'm down there. I'll try to make it as fun and interactive as possible. And I'm putting in lots of pictures. I'll try to work on it some more tomorrow.

Tomorrow night I'm going to play softball for my old team. They are short players right now so I gladly volunteered to fill in!! I'm very happy to play as much as I can before I go! I think I will try to organize some sporting activites while I'm down there.

8 days to go!

More Prep Stuff! - Money and Phone

2006-04-25T20:17:00.000-03:00

Wow, today was another crazy day getting ready for Brazil.

I was supposed to have an eye doctor appointment, but I got there and they had me down for an appointment sometime in 2007 ..... -_- ..... Sooo, I had to reschedule for Friday.

After that I set about changing my flights.... again! But I did it! I am now flying May 4, and I'm flying from Toronto to Sao Paulo with Susan! I got the travel agent to put our seats together. That will be nice, since it's an 11 hour flight. So I arrive at 10:00 Friday May 5th. I'm happy with that. Should be good. The only thing is that means I have that much less time to prepare everything!

Next stop was the bank, and what a stop it was! Wow. I was fortunate enough to get a banker who had just returned from Brazil!! So I not only sorted out the money situation, but also asked him tones of questions. So, I got my limit raised on my debit card, to $1000, for both withdrawls and debits. Next, I got a second card. This one I am supposed to keep somewhere safe so that if the first one gets lost, stolen or otherwise unusable, I have a backup. Then I got my Mom put on as a joint owner of my account, so she can access it and transfer funds to it if necessary. The applies to my visa too, I think. They, she ordered an extra visa card for HER visa with my name on it. So I have that for emergencies if I need it - Access to my Mom's visa. So I now have two debit cards, a main one and a backup, and two visa accounts, mine and my moms. So I should be covered.

He also told me the best way to deal with money is to take out a bunch of cash and work through it. I get charged for every transaction, so I he said to take out like $200 or whatever and spend that and then get more. I can use my visa and debit, but I get charged every time, so cash is cheaper. Plus he said it wasn't a good idea to "flash plastic". So I will probably do that. Also, he said to use ATMs only that are attched to banks, no free standing ones. And not all the ATMs will accept my card. He said one that starts with a B takes CIBC cards, so I'll try that (I can't remember the whole name :P). And apparently when you get to the airport in sao paulo, if you turn to the left there is a whole row of different bank machines. So that is where I will get my cash. I just need someone to read the portugese intructions for me :P

We also asked him about phoning. He said that while they exists, good international phone cards are hard to come by. He recommended instead using Skype, because you can talk over the internet for free or use it to call real phone numbers and it's not too expensive. So I think I might do that. I have a Skype account and a microphone already anyways. And I think I'm going to get a webcam as well. Which means I'll probably be taking my whole computer.

If I remeber anything else, I'll add it later, but I think that covers everything from today. Tonight I might start working on my Canada powerpoint.

T-minus 9 days to departure!! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!

Tomorrow's forecast: Another crazy day of shopping and appointments and getting ready

VISA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-04-24T19:58:00.000-03:00

WOW!!!!!

My dad just brought in the mail and it had an extra special envelope! My Visa!!!!

Yay!!! I wasn't expecting it for at least another week! So this means I can look into moving my flights!! I'll have to see what is available, but wow!! I'm so excited!!

Prep Update!

2006-04-24T18:40:00.000-03:00

I just moved home from Victoria, so things have been a litt, crazy. But being home also means it's easier for me to get ready for the big trip. I have access to a car again and I'm more familiar with what is available.

This morning I went to the travel clinic and got my shots. I got yellow fever, Heptatitis A and Typhoid. My arm is really sore right now! The lady also talked to me about prcautions against malaria if I do venture into the more rural areas (which I'd like to) and about being careful about food and water. She recommended bottled water, which is unfortanate because three and a half months of bottled water kinda sucks... but we'll see.

I also went to the bank and asked for some Brazilian money. But guess what? They don't have any and can't get any for me. So I might have to head back to Victoria to get some or go to a money changer in an airport somewhere. Hmmm.. I'll have to figure this out. I want to have some money with me when I land just in case I need it. Note to future CEEDers - banks usually like around a month to get the money in for you, so ask early!

I also stopped by my MP's (Member of Parliament) office and picked up a package. I e-mailed his office a few weeks ago and asked for some canada stuff to take, so I picked it up today and it's pretty awesome. I got a flag and tonnes of pins and stickers and some information books on Canadian government. Yay, cool stuff to take with me! And it was free!

This week I have a million appointments.... ok well four. Travel clinic today, optomitrist tomorrow (new contacts for the trip!), doctor on wednesday (just a check-up) and dentist on Thursday. Ugh, but at least it gets me out and about and I feel like I'm getting closer to Brazil! There's still lots to do, but my check-list will gradually get smaller and smaller.

The registration for CONADE came out today, so I will fill that out soon. And I have lots of questions so ask USP people next time they are online. Ohhhhhhh, I'm so excited!

Still waiting for my visa, but I'm hoping it will come early and I can move my flights up. I've been reading my potugese book and I bought a potugese/english dictionary. I wish there was someone I knew who spoke it so I could practice, but I guess I'll just have to do my best on my own. Once I get there I'm sure I will be learning very fast.

I know my Mom is still really nercous about the whole thing. I think the travel clinic scared her a little. But I'm careful and I don't do anything stupid and risky, it's just not my style. So I won't deny being a little nervous, I mean I've never lived in another country before, but I'm not as worried as she is. Then again, I never seem to freak about things until right before, haha.

I'll keep posting what I've been up to. Hopefully this will be helpful to CEEDers next year in knowing what in necessary for getting ready. It's a kind of learn as you go thing, but I figure some past experience can't hurt ;)

SUMMER!!!

2006-04-20T21:01:00.000-03:00

Time for a happier post!

I just finished my last exam today! I am freeeeeeeeee!

Yay, this means I'll be able to dedicate more time to getting ready for my trip and learning portugese. And goofing off and enjoying my little bit of summer before I head back to winter of course!

My visa application hasn't been sent back yet, which means they are reading it! So I take that as a good sign. I'm still hoping it comes back early, but not holding my breath.

I've been amassing questions to ask of the USP members before I go. About credit cards, debit, transportation, CONADE, my computer and other stuff. Next week I have many many appointments with the doctor, travel clinic, optomitrist and dentist. I think that about covers everything :P

Oh and if anyone is interested, we started an LC blog for AIESEC Victoria. You can have a look at it here: http://aiesecvictoria.nomadlife.org/ I hope people continute to write in it over the summer so I can keep track of what's happening in my home LC while I'm gone ^_^

On Sunday I'm leaving Victoria and heading back to Nanaimo. It will be a rather boring three weeks that I have to wait before i fly. But I'm sure I'll find stuff to keep me busy.

It turns out I will be the last one to arrive in Brazil, of the three CEEDers going :P. Haha, I guess that's ok since I will be staying the longest. Too bad Rita and I can't fly together, she's going to meet my LC before I do! I'm jealous! Haha. As long I make it for CONADE I'll be satisfied.

Change of plans and some minor crises

2006-04-17T21:39:00.000-03:00

I haven't written anything for a while....

Partly because it's exam period and despite what people will say, I do actually study for my tests :P

Partly because the last week and a half has been one crisis after another for my CEED, at least it seemed that way to me! Needless to say, I've been a little stressed out and things haven't gone quite according to plan :P

I found on Monday nightlast week that the payment for my flights had been due that day and Travel Cuts hadn't recieved it yet. So those flights I booked? .... bye bye. Then, the same night, my Mom called me and said my visa had been rejected. Why? Because I sent the wrong kind of cheque! I didn't know there were different kinds. So Monday night I was panicing that all my plans were falling apart.

On Tuesday I went to travelcuts and looked into some new flights. The same ones were no longer available and I had to push my departure day back because I needed to allow time for my new visa application. So I booked some flights and tried to call AIESEC Canada to ask for help. Unfortunatly, Karolina, who's in charge of exchange and all of the CEEDers, wasn't in the office that day. I didn't know when to book my flights for because I didn't know how long the visa would take. The Brazillian websites are so inconsistent. One website says it takes 10 working days, another 15, another 20. I didn't know what to do. So I tried calling the consolate directly. No answer. For a Brazillian visa you also have to send a plane ticket and I didn't know if a reserved ticket was good enough, or if I had to have an actual, paid for ticket. I wasn't sure what size picture they needed because one site said they wanted 3.5 x 4 cm and another site said they wanted 5 x 7 cm. I wasn't sure what to put for where I was staying. Ahhhhhh, I was going crazy! So many questions and no answers. Plus, my new plane tickets could only be help for 24 hours, which meant they had to be finallized the next day or I would lose them again.

Now it was Wednesday. Finally, I got a hold of someone at the consolate (by calling the embassy first) and the lady there tried to answer my questions. Feeling a little relieved, I finished my application and headed over to travel cuts. I changed my flights again, this time so that I would have 22 working days by the time I sent in my application to the time I fly. That way I figured I was covered. I called Tai, the finance person at AIESEC Canada, and she was so helpful and did all my paperwork right away. I had my flights booked and paid for in a few hours. Then, I was off the the post office and sent my new and improved application by overnight mail to the consolate in Toronto. Hopefully everything was correct this time. I asked one of the AIESEC USP members, Koba, for his address and phone number for the application. Apparently an important thing for Brazillian visas is proving that you have somewhere to stay.

So by Wednesday afternoon, my flights were booked and my application was off to Toronto. It's not perfect, but hopefully everything will work out this time.

As it stands, I will now be flying out on May 16th and arriving the morning of May 17th. This is unfortunate because that is the day CONADE starts and the rest of my host LC will be leaving at 5:00 am to get there on time. Which means I won't have much of a reception, and then I will be somewhat on my own to get to the conference, and I'll be late. As I said, not ideal. But that's the best I could do.

If I have any more problems wit my visa I will have to delay it even further, which would mean missing CONADE, and I would hate that. But if by some miracle my visa comes sooner, I will change my flights if I can to go earlier. I'd really rather not get off an 11 hour plane ride and have to find my way to the conference, but if I have to, I will.

There isn't much I can do now but wait and see. I might call the consolate this week and ask them how it's going. I don't think there's anything I can do to make them process it any faster. Just hope I guess.

Here's some advice to future CEEDers: Get your visa application in as soon as you can! It takes a long time, and if you mess up, it takes forever to fix! Ask questions and make sure you get it right the first time. And yes, there are different kinds of cheques :P

In the meantime, I've been talking to people online and trying to learn a few more words. I also found out that obe of the professors from my university is in sao paulo doing research on recycling! This is right up my alley so I might try to meet up with this person while I'm down there.

I haven't got any of my shots yet. I need to look into that soon. I will have three weeks at home now before I fly though, so I figure I have time. Next week I have a gazillion appointments.... dentist, doctor, optomitrist etc. Should be fun, eh? Haha.

So I'm less stressed than I was, but still a little worried. I can't help that, I'm a worrier!

Once I'm done my exams I'll be able to ficus more on learning portugese and researching things about Brazil. I still have so much to learn. I should make a to do list of all the things I want to do while I'm there! I will be a very long list ;)

Hopefully I will have some good news to post soon, and I'll try to write more often.

I hope this very long post is somewhat coherent!

Tah tchau!

Flights are Booked!

2006-04-03T20:24:00.000-03:00

My Flights!!

**********
EDIT:
I removed my flight information since it's no longer accurate. I'll post my new flights soon.
Thanks
**********

And the whole process was really fast! Wow, I leave in 25 days! So much to prepare!

I will be sending off my visa application tomorrow if all goes well.

CIL Training in Toronto

2006-03-27T21:47:00.000-03:00

I just got back from the CIL training in Toronto this weekend. Going in I didn't really know what to expect. My goal for the weekend was to participate as much as I could and to talk to all the other CEEDers, not just my Brazil buddies. Here's the results:

I flew out on Thursday evening and arrived Friday morning. I met up with Vannarady (SFU) who is going to South Africa and we headed downtown for some shopping. After spending too much money we took the subway to one of the CEEDers from AIESEC York's house, Llorene. Angela was there too from AIESEC Windsor. They were India buddies. We had some lunch and talked about our CEEDs and what we were doing to prepare, then we headed back downtown for our first session.

We met up at the MC office, which was really cool to see! Not fancy, but interesting. Karolina talked to us about logistical stuff: visas... plane ticket.... reimbursment... etc. and then we had to past CEEDers share their experiences. It was really cool.

Being with all the other CEEDers was a little overwhelming at first. I admit to being kinda shy in big groups. At first, I felt that even though they were all AIESECers, they were not MY AIESECers. I didn't know them. I though about how when I arrive in Sao Paulo I will have the same feeling.

But then the second day came. We introduced ourselves again and talked about what it means to live in a different country. We talked about the stages of culture shock and played a really cool game that demostrated how frusterating it can be when you don't understand and you can't communicate clearly. The best part of the sessions was actually the debreif. We talked about our expereinces and how we felt, and this allowed us to learn about each other.

In the afternoon, we we matched up with a person from our destination country to ask questions and get insght from them. Rita, Susan and I talked with Antonio, originally from Sao Paulo. He was great! He told us a lot about Brazil and about each of our cities. He gave us recomendations on places to visit and address each of our concerns. It was also a really good chance to get to know Rita and Sue better, since they are my Brazil Buddies! They are both really awesome people and I'm really looking forward to doing some travelling with them and keeping in touch while we are in Brazil.

By the end of that second day, the other CEEDers no longer felt like strangers, they felt like friends. I have never made friends so fast! I loved it. I spoke to each and everyone of them and as a group we are a great team! I learned so much from them, both in the sessions and talking to them during the breaks and afterwards.

Back (L-R): Vannarady (South Africa), Joey (China), Rita (Brazil), Ryan (Dominican Republic), Jen (Kenya), Puneet (Pakistan)
Middle (L-R): Erika (Togo), Me (Brazil!), Veronica (China), Pam (Kenya), Llorene (India), Susan (Brazil), Angela (India)
Front (L-R): Benoit (Togo), Karolina (MC), Vincent (Togo)

The hardest part was... I totally lost my voice! I was really raspy on Friday and Sunday but on Saturday I could only speak in whispers. It was really frsuetrating because I couldn't talk to people as much as I wanted to and ouldn't give as much imput. But I suppose that in itself is an exercise in not being able to communicate. :P By Saturday night I was having to write everything down because nobody could hear me!

Sunday was also good. We did a lot of group work, so I got to work with a lot of different people. We talked about adaptation strategies and looked at case studies of cultural misunderstandng and tried to figure out why they had happened and which values were being challenged on both sides. By the end we were all very sad to leave!!

I headed back to the airport with most of the other westerners and eventually caught my very late plane. After a rough ride home, I went to my classes and now I'm writing this!

Overall it was a really good weekend. I made some awesome new friends and I am soooo excited about going to Brazil!!

Left: Me (Victoria) Middle: Rita (Toronto) Right: Susan (Edmonton)

Today I also talked to an SN from AIESEC USP named Renato. It was really nice to talk on MSN with someone down there. I also got another e-mail from the LCP. I will e-mail him back soon with a whole bunch of questions! I have to decide soon when I am going and coming back, so that I can fill out my visa applcacation and look into booking flights. It seems like May is a long time away, but it really isn't! 6 weeks and I'll be in Brazil! There's a lot of prep work still to be done. I want to be well prepared!

Houston, we've made first contact!

2006-03-23T00:20:00.000-03:00

Today I got an e-mail from the LCP of my host LC! I was very glad to finally hear from them. He explained they were really busy with recruitment lately, which I totally understand. Here's part of the e-mail:

"We're really excited about your CEED here! I think you'll be able to help us a lot, and you'll definitely learn a lot from your experience!
So, if you want a quick idea of what we'd like you to do, i'd sum up with two main jobs: new member induction and structured learning process. We need someone to coordinate our coach program and stimulate learning on all members, having ILP sessions and learning events in general. "

This sounds awesome! Recruitment and member training are my strongest areas. I love doing training sessions and leading workshops! I'll just have to familiarize myself with what resources they use in Brazil. (Probably not BMO Learning Centre ;) )

He also said they would like to me come as soon as I can. Apparently they are having a mini-conference at the end of April, but my last exam isn't until April 20th and I was hoping to go to NLDC as well. So I'll have to think about it and talk to them some more.

Tomorrow I fly to Toronto for our training session. I'm really looking forward to it, and to meeting all the other CEEDers. Unfortunatly, I've managed to catch the flu today, but hopefully I will be able to shake it before Friday. I want to get as much out of this weekend as I can.

I'll be sure to write about it when I get back, and hopefully I will be a little more coherent ;)

First Stumbling Blocks

2006-03-19T18:59:00.000-03:00

I haven't been able to get ahold of my host LC, AIESEC USP (University of Sao Paulo) yet. I've e-mailed the LCP, and e-mailed their general address, and now I've e-mailed the LCP again. I really hope they get back to me soon because it's kinda weird to think I'm going there and I haven't made contact yet.

I'm talking to the VPP of AIESEC Curitiba on MSN right now and she said it may because they are really busy with the selection process. If that's the case, I totally understand. I know how crazy recruitment can be. Still, I wouldn't mind just a "Hi, I got your e-mail. I'll talk to you more soon" kind of thing.

I have the e-mail now of the VPP, so if the LCP doesn't reply I'll try e-mailing him. If I don't hear anything before the training in Toronto, I'll talk to the coordinators at AIESEC Canada.

I'm not really that worried... but I'd really like to talk to them. I already have so many questions! Most of the other CEEDers have been talking to their host LCs. I don't want to get in their way if they are really busy, but I will keep trying!

Learning the Language

2006-03-16T04:07:00.000-03:00

Tonight Igor taught me some Portugese! I wrote out all the pronouns and we picked a regular verb and congugated it. Then I picked some other regular verbs and applied the congugation pattern. I actually figured most of them out! Then he taught me some useful verbs that didn't follow the pattern, like TO BE and TO GO. Now that I could say things like "I want...." we wrote out some useful nouns, things like "bus", "car", "house", "carrots" :P. Then I learned the numbers to 20. I almost have them memorized, but for some reason I keep getting stuck on eight @_@.

There are some similarities between french and protugese. On one hand this is helpful because words are similar and therefore easier to remember since I still remember a fair amount of my french vocabulary. On the other hand, it makes it tricky because I try to pronounce things as I would with French, and it's wrong. Like "er" at the end of a word is actually pronouced as it looks, and not as "ay" like in French. It will take some practice to avoid that.

Obviously I am just barely scratching the surface, but I'm looking forward to learning more. I haven't studied a language for several years, but as long as there's no homework or marks, I'm set!

Here's some first attempts*:

Eu quero treis pizzas

Nos gostamus arroz

Ele come alface

Eles compram batata

*sorry for any spelling mistakes and the lack of accents...

AIESEC Ski Trip!!

2006-03-13T04:09:00.000-03:00

OK, so this isn't directly related to CEED, but hey, it's AIESEC!

Yesterday my LCP Dave, our Brazillian CEEDer Igor and I went skiing! It was an absolutley glorious day!

I headed up to the top of the mountain in the morning and took WAY to many pictures of the gorgeous view.

Igor really liked the snow covered trees. I like to call them whipped cream trees, because they look like they had a good dousing.

Teaching Igor to ski was fun. He did amazing well! I was so impressed! Of course there were ups as downs, literally :P

After skiing we went tubing. That was awesome. We all went down in a big group. I took a video of one of our runs down.

I'm really glad we decided to go on this mini road trip. It was totally worth it!

*definetly not the best pic of me.....

The Beginning

2006-03-10T19:18:00.000-03:00

Yesterday I recieved an e-mail which said I had been accepted into the CIDA CEED program through AIESEC and that I will be travelling to Brazil this summer on an exchange. I was so excited I ran across campus to tell the other AIESECers and continued to jump up and down for the entire day! (just ask my roommates...)

I am really honoured that I will have this oppoutunity and I am so excited!!

For those of you who don't know me, I am a third year anthropology student at the Universiry of Victoria. I joined AIESEC in Sept 2004, and have since become and AIESEC addict. This past year I was the vice president of member development and I was on the organizing comittee (OC) for Coastal Conference, a 3-day conference for AIESEC UVic, SFU and UBC. Now, I am the vice president of Logistics for our Global Village that will happen in October of this year. I have been to 5 AIESEC Conferences and I will be going to two more in May!

AIESEC has really had an impact on me. Through AIESEC I have made some of my very best friends and met some truly amazing people from all over the world. I have been enriched through this experience and I still have a lot to learn.

I really wanted to participate in this CEED program because I have always wanted to experience living in a different culture and South America has always interested me. I have done a bit of travelling before, to the Carribbean, Egypt, England, the US... but I never felt I got as much out of the trip as I wanted to. Especially in Egypt, I felt trapped in the role of tourist. I wanted to learn about the people and the culture and the history, but all I could see was the "tourist" spots. I realized that just travelling and visiting a place is not enough. One must live there to truly understand and experience it.

Outside of AIESEC, I'm really interested in archeology and paleoanthropology. I also have a passion for environmental studies and I've worked for the past two summers in the field of environmental education. Brazil is currently a world leader in environmental innovation and I'm really excited about learning more about it.

As of right now, I don't know any Portugese. I speak fluent english and a little bit of French. However, I have asked Igor, our CEEDer from Brazil in AIESEC Victoria to teach me a little, and I will try to learn some on my own. I am a pretty fast learner, so I'm hoping to be able to pick up at least the basics fairly quickly. I definetly want to learn. I'm very jeaulous of all my multi-lingual friends.

I have been in touch with the two other Canadians who were selected to go to Brazil, but to differet cities. One is from AIESEC Edmonton and another from AIESEC Toronto. I'm really looking foward to talking to them more and seeing them in Toronto for our training in two weeks. I also need to get in contact with my host LC in Sao Paulo and the Brazillian MC.

The purpose of this blog is to record my experiences as a CEEDer in Brazil. It will be open to anyone who wishes to read it. Please feel free to post comments and ask questions. I don't know yet what will happen, but I'm eager to find out!!