I think I´ll write as if this happened today, as my tenses are getting confused.

Today I had cereal for breakfast.  With milk, which was a massive surprise to my host family, though they don´t really eat cereal here.  It is normally bread and cheese; french bread is common, but also brioche or crackers.  They don´t have the loaves of bread like we do commonly in Britain.  They also don´t have a kettle or a toaster in my host´s house.  Hot drinks are made in the microwave and toast is not eaten.  I asked and sometimes they have fried bread, but not grilled like us.

Also I have milkshakes every morning here, thanks to my host mother who is an amazing cook.  These are not like the milk shakes I have at home, with the flavourings and colourings and tons of sugar.  It is basically a mix of fruit - sometimes just strawberries, sometimes also apple and papaya - blended with milk.  It´s really, really good and I was surprised to find there was no sugar in it.  I watched Bruna make a drink once; she put six spoonfuls of sugar in one glassful.  This is remarkable to me personally but others may find it less so.

At school in the mini cinema we watched a strange film about lies and the afterlife.  I don´t know, it was kind of complicated and starred a character called Jack the Cricket and involved blessing dogs and piggy banks containing dowries.  I followed it fine but it wasn´t really my sense of humour to be honest, though I could see why it would be funny to others.  It is apparently a big film here, although it is quite old.

We had to prepare presentations about ´being young in the UK´and ´education and culture in the UK´ to perform to the Brazilian students.  I was in the first group and it was quite fun in a stressful kind of way; I wrote on the blackboard as my voice wasn´t up to much and the others suggested and argued in turns.  We worked it out okay though, and would be using it later this afternoon.

Lunch at a Mexican place was fun as I can´t remember the last time I had Mexican food and the vegetarian option was really good.  We ate with a girl from Australia who is staying with Prab´s host family; she´s really nice and helped us order as she speaks good Portuguese and we are not so good.

Next my group gave the presentation and did it quite well; we had a different speaker for each topic and although some of us spoke a bit quickly it was interesting for the Brazilians nonetheless.  The other group had two speakers and covered a lot of aspects of UK life, and then fielded questions from the floor.  We also dropped in from time to time.

We turned out onto the games courts and pitches, which was strange for me as they have no grass ones and they´re surrounded by all these office blocks - very different from my school field at home.  Some of the boys played hardcore football against the Brazilians; aparently Muj was the star of the show there.  I chatted on the bleachers a bit with the Brazilian students, then a group of them and us Fellows went to play volleyball-passing in a court, which then evolved into football.  I haven´t played this for years and I suddenly realised how much I´d missed it; whilst I was not good it was really fun.

This evening I went to two English classes whilst some of the others went swimming.  The students asked us strange questions which the teacher had set such as ´What would you like your children not to have to live through?´ I answered as well as I could and the conversation soon turned to music and Harry Potter which was cool.

Home, bed.

April

I attended my first day of school.  I woke up a little earlier than my alarm as I couldn´t operate the window properly so the light was pouring in.  I was feeling slightly better than previously but my voice was still missing.  I´ve decided that I feel better on the inside if I look better on the outside, so I did my hair how I used to in Britain and decided to smile lots all day.  It kind of worked.  Bruna accompanied me on the metro - they have little flashing lights to tell you which stop is next and when the doors are opening, and lovely multicoloured lighting in the stations - and I arrived on time which is unusual for me.

Fellows accompanying day students arrived at seven, and I came in at ten with the rest of the night Fellows.  We attended a presentation by one of our leaders, Tuna, and did a tour of the school which is amazing (see my school blog).  Jonny and I got lunch at the canteen which was deficient in vegetarian options but that´s common here; I had a protein-deficient but very tasty meal of rice, carrot and chips.  My voice was still out so Jonny chatted about stuff and I contributed with gestures. 

We watched a film about education in Brazil.  It was fairly fascinating actually; we got a real insight into the problems in public schools and also saw the social concerns of students our age - they are just like those in the UK: grades, families, boyfriends and girlfriends.  There are others as well; struggling to meet university requirements because you can only attend one school day in four due to broken buses and teachers who don´t turn up; trying to support a family as well as work, etc. 

These are my notes:

Of the 215,000 schools in Brazil, 13,000 have no bathroom and 1,900 have no running water.

´I like being at a party showing off a gun.  The girls like it.´ - Boy aged 16

One teacher sees a psychologist twice a week because she commits to her work and has to cope with the kids´ problems and behaviour, unlike others who skive off.  ´Teachers have lost their dignity... The state just does not care.´

If the teachers give a student a ´pass´ so they can continue on to the next year, they don´t have to do any paperwork.  So it´s the easiest option and gets bad kids out quicker.

One student seemed to have had depression (undiagnosed) - she didn´t like to leave the house and cried a lot.  She went to school because she felt it was the only thing left in her life which could lead to anything.  She thought about killing herself´, but someone spoke to her: ´If I´m dead, the last thing I felt in my life will last forever.  So now I don´t want to die anymore.´ She had dreams of being a writer; she wanted to make people cry with her poetry.  Now she works folding pants in a factory, and has lost all contact with friends and family.

In one fight in school, one girl stabbed another to death.  There were many witnesses as it occurred physically inside the school and it only started because they were always snapping at each other.  Nothing happened to the murderer as she was under 18.  She did not regret it.

One student said that no matter what happens – what education you get – there are no jobs.  So you turn to crime.  That´s all there is – apart from drugs. ´I don´t have any more dreams.  Life is a lottery.´

Another said – and I don´t know how true this is, so please don´t take it as fact - ´The politicians steal – they are the real thieves… Criminality exists because of them.´

So the video was pretty interesting.  We watched it in the mini-cinema with the tiered seating etc.  We went to the theatre in the school and discussed the education systems in the UK in comparison to Brazil.  Kids here don´t get any qualifications from high school, it all weighs on university.  The public universities are more prestigious than public ones but it is the other way around with high schools.  When asked why, the boy next to me replied: The government doesn´t care about people in public schools – they won´t be anyone.  But in public universities they want the brightest and the best because they will be the most useful tools in bettering the country and the economy and thus need to be trained by the government to be internationally competitive.

 Day Fellows left at 5pm and the night Fellows stuck around until 10:45.  It´s not so bad as we get the run of the school.  This day I attended Chemistry with Bruna and Chemistry with Stevie´s host sister.  The students worked hard and quietly; they got the results back for their end-of-last-term test, and Bruna was pleased with her results.  In Portuguese, the students were told that proper understanding of the language was essential for writing and speaking correctly, for things such as letters.  They did a lot of grammar – syntax.

I checked emails and blogged a bit after that in a computer lab which the Fellows take over during the night as it is not used.  It was great to have a long time on the internet again; whilst I love it here it is good to be able to catch up with friends, family and the news websites.  I ate lunch in the local mall and had fun trying to find veggie options on the menus.  I went for a place where you weigh your food and pay per 100 grammes, which are quite common here and lots of fun as there´s always something weird to try.

I met up with Bruna as the evening rush from classes began; it´s just like my school in the UK in that everyone fights their way out and there´s loads of shouting and laughing.  I went home via the Metro with Bruna, Muj and his host Raquel; Bruna and I got a lift home from the station even though it was only a quarter of a mile as it´s really dangerous to be young girls walking at night around here.  I pretty much fell asleep as soon as I got in.

April

On my first full day with the host family, Bruna, Bruna´s boyfriend (Lucas) and I went to a shopping mall.  It was big and airy and looked much like our own malls at home, apart from there were all these interesting food stalls in the middle of the walkways, which sold fruit and chocolate kebabs, sweetened nuts, chocolate, tiny cakes etc.  They talked to me about all sorts of stuff and showed me the ridiculously high prices of imported products, since the government imposes such high import taxes here.  This level of protectionism is interesting as whilst it will encourage business for domestically produced goods I am unsure as to whether it will win the country many friends on the world stage.

We also sampled Brazilian music in the record store, including samba, funk and country music.  This was interesting, as I had not realised that their domestic music industry was so big; normally when I go abroad (to Europe) there is loads of British and American music with a few domestic records in between; here there is a thriving industry.  It is probably just because Brazil is such a big country but it is nice to see that they have not lost their musical identity in the drive for globalisation.

Bruna soon started speaking about the problems they have here, but as I couldn´t talk back it was really difficult.  She also talked about things like the views on alcohol - the youth drink a lot here too - and although the media don´t go on about youths being violent and useless in general like in Britain, young people can find it difficult to get heard, and in the favellas it´s virtually impossible.  5% of the Brazilian population volunteer, but they are unsure as to what else they can do and since it´s difficult for young girls to go anywhere without being noticed in the wrong way, she is unsure of how to help reduce income inequality.

I had to go to bed early because I needed about 14 hours´ sleep and obviously felt terrible for not being more sociable, but I knew we had a long day on Monday and was dead on my feet.

April

´If my mother dies, and they take my house and my car and everything, the one thing my mother always tells me is that they cannot take my education.´ - Bruna da Silva.

School.  So.

My school here is Colegio Sao Luis.  I would put the accents in but this blogger is struggling.  It´s a private school.  Private schools are more common here than in the UK, because public schools here are generally terrible.  Public schools - we would call them ´state´schools - are funded but teachers are undermotivated and it´s really normal to be sent home for part or all of the day because your teacher isn´t there; they just don´t care.  Kids rely on them for so much, and the teachers who turn up get massive workloads.

Education is the way out for many of these people, but sometimes with the bad public schools kids don´t make an effort as they don´t have the support.  No-one wants to be in the poor majority so they work really hard here to have a comfortable life in the future.

So this is probably why the Council put us in a private school.  The private school is one of the best in this city, and was founded 143 years ago which is pretty cool here because everything is so new.  Here they have a day school and a night school.  Day students pay the fee of about 800 pounds per month which is really, really expensive here.  Night students are on a scheme for those from poorer backgrounds and have scholarships or bursaries.  So effectively they´re divided into rich and poor kids here, and don´t mingle.  The day goers think the night goers are violent and coarse etc, and the day ones are seen as posh and stuck-up.  I personally am not sure it´s helpful but I guess wealth inequality is even present here.

I am with a night student, and the Fellows do all our formal activities in the day, so I arrive here at 9 am or whatever and leave at 11pm; it´s a bit weird for a British kid who spends about 7 hours at her own school.  But none of the students do both shifts.  I´m getting quite tired already and it´s only the third day!

What a school, man.  Like, my state school is excellent but not a patch on what they have here.  This school has a card system to scan in and out of these turnstyles for security, and then the school is seven floors in one block and five floors in the other.  There is a proper theatre, a massive gym with bleachers like in a US high school, the courts are all brilliant colours, there´s a mini cinema with tiered seating, a helicopter pad on top of the school and get this - a mini museum.  What?  It has stuffed animals in, lighting, sound effects, everything.  This is not like my school.

The system here is different from ours.  At this school you can start aged one and a half, but it´s obligatory from age 6.  You take various subjects and can´t drop any - they range through the sciences to Portuguese, English and Spanish, also Religious Studies and IT.  Things we have really.  You´re exmained in all of them aged 18.  You do one day of high school exams which don´t really count for much, then you do a few days of university exams - these are set by the university you´re applying to, and to pass them you have to do loads of extra study or get a private tutor. 

Public universities are the best here and are really hard to get into.  Private universities vary.  I am told by some that they are terrible, and others that it´s all hype; the only value in public universities is their reputation.  Anyway everyone aims for the public ones.  Curious that it´s the opposite of schools.

Thus far I have attended a few of their classes.  Chemistry I think is slightly more advanced than ours, whereas their English is less advanced than our AS level languages, which was the age group I sat in.  English classes were fun because they were meant to be interviewing us with all these strange teacher-set questions such as ´Have you ever invented anything?´ which none of them really understood.  They didn´t get our accents that much because obviously they learn US-style English since the USA is closer and more powerful than us.  Also they sometimes struggle to pronounce English words - Portuguese is very phonetic whereas English has many rules so it can be difficult to read aloud.  I really enjoyed talking to them and we started chatting about music and Harry Potter.  They would speak in Portuguese which I understand if they go slowly, and I spoke in English which they would guess at mostly.  Having said that, the ones with private tuition were excellent. 

Portuguese was curious.  They were doing syntax and the functions of phrases and the reasons words are what they are.  To me it seemed easy.  The kids said it wasn´t so I guess I´m missing something major here.  It seemed similar to our way of learning modern foreign languages in the UK, and the level of work seemed equal to our Year 8 classes, but I´m just an outsider so I guess I don´t understand that much about it.  Maybe I just caught an easy lesson.  I was thrilled though because I understood everything they said.

The classes in the evenings are optional so we do other things.  I am helping teach some of the Fellows to swim in the outdoor pool which is really, really fun; that´s our informal project these two weeks.  We also go out to the mall or whatever to get dinner, where there´s a really big food court.

I´ll finish this tomorrow; the school night is over so I´m going to get a few hours´ sleep.

EDIT - Written 2 days later on 7th August 2010

This is a Catholic school, and all the classrooms have a crucifix in.  There is a very modern chapel on the ground floor, and after breaktime every day they recite prayers - I think it´s the Lord´s Prayer.  Also in Brazil when you say goodbye it´s common to say ´Vai com Deus´- Go with God.  There are churches everywhere here, and most people are Christians of some sort.

Teachers have a uniform of white Colegio Sao Luis tabbards.  The uniform for students here is different for day and night students.  The day students have sports tops and jackets, often with matching trousers.  Night students have darker sports jackets with ´noturno´written on them, and can wear jeans or whatever.  They are not allowed into the school during the daytime to study, and until last year did not have a student council; they had to fight to get one.

Many of the night kids have jobs which they do during the day.  They get up early, work all day and attend school at night; they have good teachers but these are not at their best as they teach at other schools during the day and so are pretty tired by night-time.  The toilets are sometimes locked for night students, and all floors but the second are out of bounds usually, with giant metal doors barring the way, as the night kids are only meant to use the second floor.

This school rings bells to signal the end of each class, with a five minute changeover inbetween.  Day classes are 7-5.30, night are 6.30-10.45.  I think.  Day kids get 45 hours a week and nights get 36, and lessons last 45 minutes.  Here the students don´t move from one classroom to another, the teachers do.  This is because they don´t really have set rooms for subjects, and don´t have certain books or equipment kept in certain rooms.  There is only one Smart Board here, despite its being a private school, and the walls are all bare of work displays or even clocks.  Night students get to go to the science laboratories less than the day ones, and seem overall to have less.  However it´s a better option than going public.

There is little in terms of interaction in class; no games or quizzes to help students learn, no going to the front to perform.  It´s kind of like lectures; the teacher talks and writes on the blackboard (which is green) and the students choose to listen or not. 

Teachers here at CSL do not have the job security that public school teachers do.  To be a public school teacher, you take an exam and then you have a job for life.  It is almost impossible to fire a teacher here - whether they turn up for lessons on a regular basis or not, and nothing is made of how good their results are.  So the teacher has nothing to lose if they don´t do their jobs properly.  At CSL they are expected to produce good results though.

I mentioned about the close student-teacher relationship.  They will hug and kiss eachother and teachers may go to students´ birthday parties or whatever out of school hours.  The night steward or head of Christian stuff has a close bond with everyone here and is always being sought after for advice on social problems at school or at home.  The kids are thus really happy here because there´s always someone to turn to.

I´ve decided that this post is long enough.  I will start a new ´school´ one later, I still have lots to say but this is getting a little too long.

Tchau

April

I had begun to talk about social issues.  Obviously here there is massive inequality, and this is never far from the Brazilian´s mind.  Incomes here are mostly either massive or tiny; lots of the population survive on less than one dollar a day, whilst others have the money to go on holiday every weekend.  I am still unsure of the tax system, but one thing that is immediately obvious is the high import tax.  Anything from outside of Brazil is generally ridiculously pricey.  When Bruna took me around a mall I found a Disney Singstar playstation game for the equivalent of 100 pounds; and that´s relative to us.  Things produced inside Brazil are reasonable prices, and most shops are open to bargaining, but the protectionism here is massive.  In Economics and Business we were taught that protectionism can be really bad for consumers and businesses in the long term; I am unsure how well Brazil will cope as markets become globally integrated - perhaps some barriers must be removed before it can be seen as particularly competitive.  With prices like this India and China may easily outstrip Brazil in terms of growth.

There is racism in this multi-racial country; here perhaps it is best to be white as there is more opportunity in terms of jobs and they generally have a better image.  The worst, according to statistics, is ´yellow´ which is not what the British might think; it is the name given to people from the North East of Brazil.  There is some homophobia - more than in Britain. 

There is also a culture of Jeitinho.  This is like doing a favour for someone, but usually involving money.  Corruption is widespread here, and there are always stories of police taking bribes, but other bodies are coloquially linked to these practices though there are no formal inquiries into this.  This is undergoing some change and people are working really hard to improve the country; 5% of the country participate in volunteer work but they need legislative support as well.  

Bruna is really open about everything which goes on here, and it makes me so thankful for all we have in Britain.  We are so lucky but love to complain about it all; from the NHS to animal shelters to crime rates we have so much more than these people.  Our welfare state is brilliant and although we´re worried about the nanny state perhaps we´re making too big a deal.  When you see everything here - it´s indescribable how easy we have it.

April

I thought I´d better write about my host while I´m here. 

I arrived in Sao Paulo on Saturday.  I lost my voice two days prior to the flight, and I had been very ill during the night - I haven´t told the others how bad because I didn´t want to worry them.  So I was in a pretty bad state.  Losing your voice sucks, man.  You can´t do much for yourself and people have to guess what you mean - yes/no questions only.  I know sign language but the Fellows don´t so I did some writing for them.  Otherwise they found it difficult to speak to me because I couldn´t keep up any kind of conversation, but some were very good at monologuing so it could have been a lot more lonely than it was.  I hated feeling so helpless and was way frustrated the whole time; of all the bad experiences here, I did not see this one coming.  It was gone five days total.

So when I arrived I was still ill, looked like rubbish and couldn´t speak; it didn´t really coincide with the impression I wanted to give to this Brazilian family that would be hosting me for the next two weeks. 

When we flew into Sao Paulo, half of us were asleep but I was staring out the window.  Basically, all you can see in any direction is the city.  From hundreds of feet up, it looks very flat, but stretching to the horizon are buildings upon buildings, with no break; loads of blocks of flats and skyscrapers, but also normal houses.  From near the airport we didn´t really see the favella communities but they are here somewhere.  Here everyone moves at a very fast pace, and there are no beaches and few parks.  This is a very polluted city, and hosts 11 million of the 200 million people here; now they build vertically all the time because they are running out of room.

The British Council building here is way slick; it´s all steel and glass, a smooth pond thing around the outside and in.  We attended the welcome session - we seem to get these a lot here - and awaited our families.  Mine arrived and said hi, and Carlos explained about my voicelessness.  The family were obviously unsure of what to say.  I promptly burst into tears.  I´d been on the brink all day - but I think the sheer social humiliation and knowledge of how difficult it would be, for me and for them, was the tipping point.  So I got over that a bit and wrote what I wanted to say.  I´m not convinced that they could read it because they have a different script here and the Fellows can´t even read my writing, but they nodded and smiled.  So that was cool.

After some ´meet the hosts´session which involved trying to speak again, we had to leave with our families.  I suddenly realised how weird it was that I was saying goodbye to the Fellows - that I wouldn´t see any until the following Monday.  Sure it was less than 36 hours but I had never been out of their company for the last two weeks.  I´d grown so used to it, they are like my second family. 

I went home in the host´s car.  My ´host sister´as Bintu is calling them - which I think is adorable - is called Bruna da Silva.  She is sixteen, small, with pale skin and dark hair.  Perhaps the best way to describe her clothes is like ´gothic´ but it´s not in an intimidating way, and it really suits her.  She´s absolutely lovely and was good at talking about her life without prompts - as I couldn´t give any.  She´s quite shy as I used to be, and is interested in IT.  She speaks amazing English, it puts my Italian A level to shame.  She had learnt outside of school for several years though, at Cultura Inglesa.

When I got into the car I immediately noticed that I had no seatbelt.  I´d seen it in the taxis in Rio but had thought that was just a taxi thing.  I asked later, and apparently it´s illegal to not wear your seatbelt in any part of the car, but people only bother in the front seats.  The driver finds it minorly offensive if you put your belt on.  I don´t want to risk my life for this though so I insist on putting it on, in cars which have them. 

It seems there are a few laws on driving here, but the people take them or leave them as they choose - more than in the UK.  Like indicating, for instance.  They may, they may not.  And if they do, they may not actually turn, they may drive for a few blocks with the indicator on, and then switch it off.  Switching lanes is not a big deal here; there seem to be no rules and you never indicate to switch, even in heavy traffic.  And big roll-backs are basically their style of driving. 

It makes being a pedestrian particularly hazardous; they all agree that Brazilian drivers are ´crazy´.  Their words, not mine.  As a man in Rio told me once, ´When crossing a street, even a one-way street, you look to the left, you look to the right, you look to the left, you look up to the sky, and then - maybe, you go!´  So we´ve all had some pretty near misses, even with how cautious we are as Britons.

So this is what I was observing on the car journey.  Also, because it was night I couldn´t see much, but there were like five-lane freeways throughout the city centre, and Bruna was telling me about the richest roads in Brazil where everyone is a millionaire.

We arrived in the south on the outskirts of the city centre.  Bruna lives in an orange block of flats, where you park downstairs in this multi-coloured car park and then take the lift up.  It´s about 20 storeys high, and she lives on the 15th.  There are always people manning the security system and the double gate.  In Brazil, because of the high crime and abject poverty, everyone with anything worth protecting has high gates - about 8 feet is the norm.  Even outside pretty little houses and things.  They have lights which flash when a car is coming out of the garage, but I rarely notice them so I´m always in the way.

Bruna´s flat is really light and airy, a little petite but you wouldn´t really need any more space I think, it really suits them.  Brazilians are apparently really neat and my family is no exception.  I know I´m going to struggle with this as I´m ridiculously messy, and after one day they already had to ask me to tidy my room.  Not in a horrible way, they were just worried I wouldn´t find anything!  The worst thing was, I was surprised as I thought I was being really neat!

The family were totally cool about my vegetarianism, and even though I have all these silly allergies to random foods I´ve only reacted once in the last four days so that´s cool.  The food here is really salty, but always full of vegetables unless you go to a burger bar of course.  The first night I didn´t notice what I ate since I was so tired and ill, and for the third night in a row I slept for fourteen hours.  Otherwise the food they give me is really varied; there is of course lots of salted rice but also pancakes and other things, fruit and stuff which is cool because the fruit here is so different; there´s loads of weird stuff from the Amazon which we insisted on trying whenever we had the chance.  Half the fun with food here is eating stuff you don´t even recognise - the other half is trying to read the menu when you have a limited Portuguese vocabulary...

I have Bruna´s room whilst she shares the double bed with her mother.  In the other bedroom is Bruna´s cousin Marcus.  Marcus also speaks good English which he learned off TV shows and music in English; I was impressed at his eloquency given the way he learned it; I´m not sure I´d have the willpower to learn a language from these kinds of sources.

Here the families have very close relationships.  They are always touching and hugging and kissing, calling eachother ´daughter´ and ´cousin´ etc.  They have the same relationship between teacher and student - and whilst that would be way weird and may scream of paedophaellia in the UK, here it´s not blinked at.  It´s really nice and the Fellows have developed this kind of a culture, it´s kind of cute.

The Fellows also have a set of vocab which we use all the time.  Because we´re all from across the UK we´ve brought different things to the metaphorical table.  Like, Prab, Muj and Raadia have got us saying ´man´all the time - which sounds ridiculous in my posh Southern accent.  Also ´Mate´is always used, as well as ´love´- from Joe.  Some of us use ´Dave´as a nickname for anyone; it came from Lauren Davies´s name but has transferred to the rest of us.  ´Awkward turtle´ is used when a situation is - awkward - and if you want you can run away after your metaphorical awkward turtle - there´s a handshape to go with it and all.´ ´Tension peg´ is quite interesting, because it´s solely ours.  When two people are tense with eachother and you could cut the atmosphere with your metaphorical knife, you say there´s a tension peg, or someone has tension pegs.  It came from Joe and Charlie mishearing my explanation of ´tension cake´- another thing - but now it´s spread through the whole group and has its own hammer-and-peg hand gesture and all.  Which is quite cool.

Way off topic, I´m not sure if the reader cares about this but it´s part of my daily life here so I thought I´d put it in.

Anyway, the family are lovely to me.  When I revealed that I could understand and speak some Portuguese they were thrilled, but I only told them yesterday when I started being able to make a little noise.  The mother treats me as her daughter, and the cousin is mad but really cool and so friendly.  I think we´re going to get on really well, I´ll probably really miss them when we leave.

I´m terribly sorry but my time just ran out; I go to their night school with Bruna, it is 10:45 so the end bell just went.  I will finish this later!

April

EDIT - Continutation of this post, current date Wed 4 August.

I´d like to post a bit more about food.  In my host family you eat when you´re hungry; my host mother cooks meals but keeps them until you want to eat.  I was introduced to Feijoada - rice and beans - in Rio, and it is not as bad as it sounds, it´s full of flavour.  Here they gave me ´Romeo and Juliet´which is cheese with guava jam, so named because they are inseparable.  This tasted okay but is definitely not my favourite food.  They spread caramel or cheese paste on biscuits, which they may have for breakfast, along with brioche.  They looked at me like I was crazy when I asked for milk on my cereal; they´d loaded it with honey so thought it was strange that I also wanted milk. 

They really like fast food and sweets here, but fast food is slow and expensive compared to in the UK.  And if you ask for a veggie burger in MacDonald´s you get a roll with cheese and lettuce.  And if you ask for something vegetarian you have to explain what vegetarianism means or you get a ham sandwich.  It´s not even my Portuguese accent; many Brazilians don´t know what it means.

There are lots of food stalls everywhere here.  In Rio they were on the streets, but here they´re dotted around the malls, selling things from chocolate kebabs to cheese bread puffs to sweetened nuts.  I can´t remember the last time I was hungry - I just like to try everything so probably have a ridiculous calorie intake.

Also they have the best bananas here; they´re about as long as my palm and are really sweet.  The fruit is not as visually appealing as in the UK; not as regular and bright; but it tastes fine.

I will write more on social issues in another post.  I think I´ve covered the host here though, but obviously I´ll put more down later as it develops.

April

So we´ve had quite limited internet access for the past two weeks - we always seemed to be out when the internet cafe was open, and when I was in the site lost my blogs.  Now, fingers crossed, things should change.

Over the past two weeks we have had íntensive language and culture training´.  So we went to one of the private Enlglish schools here - Cultura Inglesa - and were taught Portuguese language and Brazillian culture.  They had interesting teaching techniques, making full use of the interactive whiteboards and we were always looking up Brazilian music, movie trailers and documentaries on Youtube.  Our teachers, Giselle and Leo, were lovely and spoke good English so we got along fine.

We stayed in Hotel Vermont, Ipanema, which was two blocks from the beach.  The other famous beach, Copacabana, was usually more noisy and more touristy so we really liked staying there, especially since Ipanema was comparitively safe.  Still, the girls would never go out alone because of all the crime in Rio, and the boys would rarely go solo as well.

Rio is a very different city to London.  It sort of goes without saying.  Rio is massive - you think you´ve seen it all and then you turn a corner and there´s even more.  It´s all built around a series of mountains, bays and a lagoon, with the favellas stretching up onto the hills. 

We went to the favellas a few times.  Here they prefer to call them ´communities´ because ´favellas´ have a bad reputation and the inhabitants are trying to change that.  The first community we went to hosted AfroReggae, a music and arts project for the kids and adults from the community.  It´s actually amazing; it has a few sponsors and so there is a new building with different studios in - DJ, dance, music, drama.  You can tell at a glance how proud everyone is of this - I´d be thrilled if it was in my town, even for Britain it´s stunning.  It gives people something to focus on, goals to work towards, and alternative to getting into crime and drug trafficking.

That community was controlled by a druglord or a gang.  We had a brilliant time there but we were always watched, and when the sun started to set some motorbikes turned up so we were shepherded out really quickly.  This is really common in communities - each gang will have its turf and any newcomers will generally have all their stuff taken or whatever.  We were okay because we´d prearranged the visit, but usually no-one can go in. 

From speaking to the police, this is something they are trying to break.  Some of the communities are ´pacified´.  This basically means that the police launch a major operation where they wipe out the druglords.  Then they continue to occupy the area - and they´d like to leave one day but right now it´s too risky. We went through a pacified community - Santa Marta.  This was where Michael Jackson´s music video - They Don´t Really Care About Us - was filmed.  The bits with him in the favellas and on the stairs?  Man, we spent ages going down those stairs, it was proper steep around there.  The government provides a shuttle car thing to get people up the mountain, which must be really useful.  The community itself was very much like you´ve heard - open sewers, stray animals, strong smells.  But the people are friendly and there is such a feeling of interdependence, it´s really sociable there and they have little shops and things like there are in the cities.

The beach was a really big deal in Rio.  You´d go there during your free time, to meet people or whatever.  There are different sections - one block was like the gay area, one was for flirting, one for richer people etc.  But mostly people just mix really well there - everyone´s equal.  It´s the place to be.  We had a lesson in footvolley there - like volleyball but you have to use knees, feet, head to get the ball over.  We swam a bit but were wary of the rip tide.  We went there during lunch or at three in the morning.

At the moment I´m in Sao Paulo staying with a host family.  I´m in a school at the moment and have to leave for class now, so I´ll blog some more later.

Tchau tchau

April

The title is a little melodramatic, yes, but I feel like things are going to be changing very quickly very soon so I've decided that it's appropriate -  if a little extravagant.

A couple of weeks ago we had the Pre-Departure Briefing session in London.  I met so many brilliant people who are all very different in interests and backgrounds, but are all just as excited as I am about the next few months.  We were taught about our host country's culture and language,  about how to handle the media and about how to publicise the programme.  The first evening included a meal for all 100 fellows in a Turkish restaurant, which was great because it gave us an opportunity to get to know each other and try foods which many of us had never seen before.  For the second evening we were left to our own devices, and I ended up helping to teach some of the others how to use chopsticks in a Chinese restaurant, and then we went to a salsa bar and danced until late.

It was a struggle getting up early to go to Cambridge the next day!  Myself and a few other fellows were placed with Cambridge University Press with whom we would be working in host countries, so we went to their UK offices to find out about their operations here.  We met the CEO and some of the other directors, who were all welcoming and supportive of our project.  They gave us information and advice about our activities abroad and talked to us about the importance of Corporate Social Responsibility in their work.  We also went on a tour of their factory, which was fascinating as I had had no idea of the processes involved in book printing.

When we arrived back at the Council offices, there were a few presentations on what to expect and the technical points of the trip.  The event culminated in an afternoon tea organised for the Fellows and members of the corporate partners, giving us an opportunity to swap contact details and ask any other questions we had.

That, in a nutshell, was the Pre-Departure Briefing.  Since then have been in Greece with my school friends, and decided that instead of reading novels by the pool I would learn some Brazilian Portuguese.  I have a strong background in languages and enjoy learning at my own pace so it really isn't a chore.  I've found it easy to understand but difficult to learn - it's so similar to some of the other languages I've done  I often end up speaking one of them instead!

It's the night before I leave now.  I'm still not packed; I've been shopping today so I have everything I need but it's just not all in the same place...

I'm very excited about the next few months and I hope to keep this blog regularly updated, so check back soon.

April.