Another week in Brazil

Another week has flown by and once again I have had many valuable experiences.

On Monday afternoon, we visited another favela in central Recife next to the main Metro station. Having previously visited a favela, I thought that I had an expectation of what I would experience, but I was in a for a surprise. The home that we visited was even smaller than those from last week. It had one room probably similar in size to the school office. The family invited us in and offered for us to sit on the mattress and then the father proceeded to show us his home. At this point, I did not understand entirely as he only spoke Portuguese and my Portuguese is very limited (it is a challenging language to learn). In another corner of the room were utensils for cooking and he showed me a small stove which they owned. It was more basic than a cooking stove many people would use for camping. Unfortunately, he also showed me that he had no more fuel for the stove. In the third corner, I could see the toilet! There was no bath or shower - that is done in the narrow alleyway in front of the home. In spite of all of this and the unpleasant living conditions, he still showed me his possessions with great pride most proudly his DVD collection. It is important that you understand that DVDs in Brazil are readily available as cheap illegal copies. In a difficult life these must be so important as it gives the family an escape from the reality of their lives.

All of this was made more real to us by the fact that we had actually met this family before on the streets. In fact, this was the home to the four year old little boy whom I mentioned in my last blog. However, during our time visiting, he was such a joy! He played with my wife and I with a plastic sword and a toy camera - it hurt when he 'hit' us with the sword but he was only playing! Then he climbed onto my wife's lap so he could watch a DVD - Disney's Cars. 

On Wednesday, we went to school and spent a morning with a class of 20 5/6 year olds. This was an interesting experience as no one in the room in which we were helping spoke English including the teacher. Communicating with infant children who are only speaking to you in Portuguese was challenging. During our time there, the children learned about names of shapes and drew pictures (and so did I).

circulo = circle

retangulo = rectangle

quadrado = square

trangulo = triangle

We also played games with them during their breaktime which was fun. School is not so different for them other than they attend for half a day each day. From a West Leigh point of view, it was very clear how lucky we are to have so many resources  (books, ICT, PE equipment - I could go on!) In comparison, they have very little in their school e.g. they learned about shapes only by drawing them on the board. Consider how you first earned about shapes.

(The photo above is of the school we visited)

Meanwhile...

We have no washing machine here just like many of the people living in Brazil so we have had to handwash our clothes. I never realised how physically demanding this was and now love my washing machine a whole lot more! 

Last weekend, we went into the town of Camaragibe and took a new form of transport for me - a Kombi which is a VW camper van. It has three row of seats in the back. How many people do you think it can fit? Wrong! More than that! Standing, sitting, on top of you - basically, if it is possible, another person can be squeezed into it.

Finally, again there have been some interesting findings. I have learned that:

cars don't go 'beep beep' or 'honk honk', they go 'faw faw'

frogs can be massive

Guarana is my favourite drink in Brazil (it's a fizzy drink!)

Bye for now!