Checking Things Off Our Bucket List!

As you may or may not know, the police in Rio are on strike. They get paid incredibly low wages each month and are sick and tired of it. So they're striking for higher wages and using the upcoming Carnaval as leverage. I'm not good at summarzing details, but you can easily Google it and find out the information for yourself.

[By suggestion of the wonderful Mrs. Kasych, I would like to add that there ARE national police here in Rio to keep the peace and keep up with general police duties. There are just less national police than there are local police. The local police have also worked out some sort of agreement where some of them are still going in to work to protect the city. I think that's how it's working out. So the city isn't completely police-less.]

Due to the strike, many people in Rio think that it is too dangerous to go outside and way too dangerous for us to go outside. We stayed in Friday night, but then decided that we absolutely could not sit in the house any longer. We've played it very safe the past couple of days while going out to explore the city. [Again, the city has police here. We aren't going out into the snarling teeth of hoodlums. We're sticking to safe, well-policed areas and avoiding sketchy areas. If anything ever felt unsafe, we'd hightail it back to our little apartment, pronto.]

Saturday afternoon-ish Amanda, Brittany, and I hopped in a cab down to Hotel Sofitel in Copacabana. Melania had mentioned that there was an antique fair there every Saturday and that it might be something to check out. We wanted something safe and something cheap, so it seemed like a good bet. It was interesting enough to look at, but antiques aren't really my thing, so it wasn't necessarily something that I would be dying to do again.

The antique fair-- so many floors!

The best part was when we stopped at the souvenir shop right outside the antique fair. We said hello to the person working in Portuguese and then continued talking to each other in English. After a few minutes, the man asks us where we are from. We said Ohio, of course, and he goes "Really?! I'm from Ohio, too! A little town called Painesville, you've probably never heard of it." As a matter of fact, sir,  I HAVE heard of it. Such a small world.

After going to the antique fair, we crossed the street to go to Forte de Copacabana, or the military fort at Copacabana. We paid R$4 to get in and spent a couple of HOURS walking around. The views were gorgeous and the whole place was very educational. There was a little cafe and a restaurant inside the fort that overlooks the Sugarloaf and Copacabana, so we're hoping to go back soon.

Forte de Copacabana.

Notice the flowers made out of bullets.

Later that night, Amanda, Brittany, and I went to this little store called "Americano Express" that sells DVDs for cheap. I know, I know, why spend my money on American DVDs? But we were cooped up inside and Claire didn't feel well, so we had to get something. I ended up buying 'Transformers 3' for only $7.50. Which is a huge steal, if you ask me. Sure, the menu screen is all in Portuguese, but I can figure out how to change the language, no problem.

We had a lazy morning this morning, just hanging around the house working on lesson plans. I was flipping through one of the thousand travel books that we have sitting around the house when I landed on the page about the Jardim Botânico. It was 2:30pm when I was reading the book and the garden closed at 5pm. I gave everyone half an hour and told them to hurry up and get ready because we were leaving at 3pm. And we did.

Claire and I by the incredible trees.

The gardens were breath-taking! We could see the Christ Statue every time we turned around, the plants were incredible, and the weather turned out to be fantastic. We left before seeing the whole thing, but agreed that we will definitely be coming back!

Christ Statue.

Enduring Understanding and Essential Questions.

Yesterday afternoon all of the elementary teachers had a meeting to discuss curriculum mapping and how to deepen the understanding of the students. Although this didn't directly affect me because I will only be teaching at OLM for three months, I was able to walk away from the meeting with valuable information that I can use in my own classroom.

Enduring understanding and essential questions emphasizes the fact that students need to understand what they are learning as opposed to just knowing what is being told to them. For examle, the upper grades are taught mean, median, and mode in math class. It would be easy to give an assessment that just has students regurgitate information, but they wouldn't know why this information is important to them. An assessment that utilizes essential questions would be asking the students to tell the teacher what their final grade should be for the unit by using either the mean, median, or mode. By doing this, students are motivated to find with method will give them the highest grade, thus actually learn the material as opposed to just repeating it.

After this presentation, I realized how important is to relate information to students lives and how it's necessary to ask questions and faciliate discussions that require a higher level of thinking and encourage debate. It's not always easier, but it strengthens the learning of the students and the teaching of the teacher.

My First Shiatsu Experience.

According to Wikipedia, Shiatsu is Japanese for "finger pressure;" it is a type of alternative medicine consisting of finger and palm pressure, stretches, and other massage techniques. OLM has a fairly new wellness program that they are promoting which offers free sessions of Shiatsu on Wednesdays and Thursdays. You can sign up for a fifteen minute time slot at any time thoughout the day and then go in for the massage.

Last week Amanda, Brittany, and I decided to sign up for appointments just to see what all the hype was about. My appointment was today at 11:15, so off I went. Let me tell you, I was really freakin' nervous. Other teachers told us about how he cracked their neck and apparently that really freaked me out. As soon as I walked in I told him that I absolutely did not want my neck cracked.

The massage was pretty relaxing, but I think that I'm just too ticklish to actually enjoy a massage. I laughed the entire time. ENTIRE. And my body was tense because I was trying not to laugh. I don't know if I'll be doing shiatsu again, but at least I've experienced it. I'd rather have a life of "oh well's" than a life of "what if's", right?

"Gato. Meow. Pato. Quack."

Preparations for Carnaval are well underway! Last night the librarian, who is also named Mónica, took us to a samba festival. We all thought that we would be sitting down watching a samba competition, but it was more like a fair or festival. We didn't actually see samba dancers until we left, so maybe things just hadn't picked up yet.

The festival was at the place where they build the floats for Carnaval. There are 14 major samba schools who participate in Carnaval and each make seven floats for the parades. Seriously, the work that goes into these floats is ridiculous. They work year-round on the floats and people are able to see the progession, but then a week before Carnaval the windows are all covered so that the finishing and most extravagent touches can be completed in secret, not to be revealed until the Carnaval parade.

Part of the winning float from last year.

We were able to see a lot of the floats and take pictures with pieces of some of the floats from last year. We also rode on a trolley that was driving back and forth at the festival. The trolley was an old Carnaval float from the 1950's or 60's. It's amazing to see how much they have changed since then!

Hanging out on the old-fashioned Carnaval float.

Us with the trolley driver.

 The festival took place in downtown Rio, so the school driver, Elias, took us there and then we caught a taxi home. Elias speaks very little English, but is such an awesome person-- we all love him. On the way there we we having him help us pronounce different words in Portuguese, mainly types of fruit. Pineapple is spelled abacaxi and pronounced ah-bah-kash-ee. Claire was just sitting in the front seat saying "ABAAAcaxi. AbaCAXi. Abacaxiiii." Elias couldn't stop laughing and we finally realized how strange it must sound to have her sitting in the front seat saying "Pineapple, pineapple, pineapple" over and over again. When we got into downtown Rio we passed a park or something that had ducks and cats on the inside of the fence. I meowed and Elias goes "gato", then he pointed to a duck and said "pato". There was some giant hampster/ miniature cappybara thing also inside the fence called a 'cochilla' (which is not the correct spelling). We were trying to ask what noise a cochilla makes and couldn't really get our point across. Amanda finally goes "Gato-- meow. Pato-- quack. Cochilla..?" And then we find out that the cochilla doesn't make a noise. But I was pretty much crying in the backseat because I thought it was so funny. See? Despite the language barrier we can still communicate with others. They probably think we have really low IQs, but we can still communicate.



"I Don't Eat Ugly Food"

I cannot believe that I have been living in Rio de Janeiro, BRAZIL for a whole week already! It's already been full of ups and downs, but overall, it's been incredible. Before coming down here, I was bummed about all the things at Ashland that I would miss while I was here in Brazil, but after being here for awhile, I wouldn't trade this experience for anything.

Our Internet was down this weekend, which was a bummer, but forced us to get out and do things and become more immersed in the culture. Don't get me wrong, we don't spend all our time on the computers, but it is nice to be disconnected for awhile. Although it's a little disgusting to see how dependent we are on our phones.

Friday afternoon, we went to the mall in Botafogo with one of Brittany's teachers named Viviane. Apparently it's one of the smaller malls in Rio, but had eight stories and the top two were strictly food. My kind of mall! The view from the top was incredible! We could see the bay and the Sugarloaf-- it was amazing. I really cannot wait to go visit the Sugarloaf and see it up close.

Bad panoramic of the view from the top of the mall

After walking back from the mall, we went to Drink Cafe with Viviane and Mónica for their friend's birthday party. Two of Vivi's friends, Carol and another Mónica, were there and they were a riot! Carol is in the catering business and tries out her food on her friends before offering it as something she would cater. She's working on barbeques right now and invited us over to hangout and eat some of the food. You don't have to ask me twice! They had also ordered a cheese and vegetable platter type thing and Claire was the only brave soul who would try the food. One type of food was capers and cream cheese wrapped in eggplant. Mónica said she wouldn't eat it because it tastes like a wet dog and Vivi didn't want it because she doesn't eat ugly food. Good thing we were all in agreement, it looked pretty nasty. It was nice to go out with some locals and hang out with them and get accustomed to the culture here in Brazil. Even if they were adults and our mentor teachers.

On Saturday we woke up bright and early to go to Copacabana. We got there around 10am and Vivi met us around 11am. We stayed until about 3pm until we decided that we absolutely could not hang out there anymore. The heat and warmth was fantastic, but they aren't kidding when they say that the Brazilian sun is brutal. All four of us left with some sort of color, whether it be brown or red or a combination of both. To esape the sun we really tried to get in the water, but it is so cold! Seriously, after standing in it for a minute or two, my ankles get that sore feeling like I've been icing them for awhile.

Flat Stanely goes to Copacabana

The sun must have wiped us out because we came back to the apartment that afternoon and crashed. Showers and naps all around. We woke up that evening and just hung out in the living room chatting with each other about the weirdest things-- weddings and suicides were just two of the topics we touched upon.

Nomming on some watermelon at Copacabana

Sunday morning we kind of slept in a little bit before waking up and going to the Hippie Fair in Ipanema. We braved public transportation and took a taxi to Siqueria Campos Station where we hopped on the metro which took us straight into Ipanema. We're still trying to figure out the most efficient time and manner in which to travel-- I'm sure we'll figure it out sometime.

The Hippie Fair is a giant, glorified, not junky flea market. There were vendors EVERYWHERE selling anything that you could imagine. It was a great place to buy souvenirs, I've made quite a dent in my shopping and gift list. I think we're hoping to go back sometime while we're here because we didn't even make it all of the way through the fair.

Typical Carnaval headpieces

Later that night Claire and I went to the indoor/ outdoor market and went to Rota 66 for dinner. The waiter didn't speak English, which we're finding to be pretty typical here. We both ordered grilled chicken sandwiches with french fries-- true Americans. The food was delicious; we both blinked and our food was gone.

Each time we go out we feel more and more comfortable talking to people and conversing with people. And it always feels good when you taxi drops you off in the right location or the food place in front of you is the same food you thought that you had ordered. It's definitely A LOT tougher living in country that speaks Portuguese than I had expected, but we're surviving quite well.

"Have You Met Beyonce? What About Katy Perry?"

I cannot believe that a week ago today we were just heading to Detroit to embark on this adventure. Here I am seven days later, living and teaching in a country over 5000 miles away. It seems like so long ago, but at the same time, it feels just like yesterday.

I can already feel myself integrating into this classroom and school. The students and faculty are all SO friendly! I've been introduced to every single staff member, either by Ms. Souza or because the staff member has come up and introduced themselves to me. That's something that doesn't seem to happen in the States, and frankly, it's something that I could get used to.

I did a read-aloud today with the book Sam's Snowy Day which is about a dog and his adventures in the snow. The students were incredibly well-behaved. I was shocked because they always seem to be talking and moving around here. But I had 19 little bodies sitting there staring at me for the entirety of the book-- it was awesome!

After reading the story, the students started coming up to me more and asking me to answer more of their questions. I think they are finally starting to see me as another teacher in their classroom and not just an observer who sits in the back of the room.

I was able to see the students at Religion class today before going over to plan lessons with my mentor teacher, Ms. Souza, and the other first grade teacher, Ms. Weber. I don't know what the Religion teacher does to the students, but they are SO well-behaved for her. She speaks quietly and the students are quiet and calm. I´m going to have to take a few pointers from her before beginning my teaching.

Some of the things that my students say are just hilarious! A lot of them ask me if I've met Barack Obama or if I know Beyonce. They were quite impressed when I said that I've seen Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers. I´m not sure what that says about me, but it scores big points with them.

I know that this week was a short week as we only had three days of school, but I cannot believe that it is already over!

Meet My Roommates!

I've got to be in the running for an award or something-- six different roommates in one school year. Luckily they've all been wonderful people, so it's been an awesome experience. If not crazy.

For the next twelve weeks, I'm living with these three lovely ladies. Claire and Amanda are both from Bowling Green and Brittany is from Ashland. Since they're in all my stories and pictures, I figured that I'd at least (officially) point them out so everyone can put a face with a name.

L to R: Amanda, Claire, Brittany, and myself

Amanda and Claire are both studying Middle Grades Education. Amanda is in fourth grade with Mr. Freire, so she's considered to be an elementary teacher. Claire is working with 7, 8, or 9th graders in Math and English. Brittany is also getting her degree in Early Childhood, so she's teaching third grade in the classroom right next to me.

L to R: Me, Brittany, Amanda, and Claire

 So, logistically, that's who we are. In real life, we're a lot more fun than our stats make us seem.