From Wednesday August 4th through Sunday August 8th, there was a huge party in my city called the Exposerra. It's a lot like the Minnesota State Fair, just smaller, but with a rodeo and a huge concert every night. The rodeo starts around 10 and goes to about midnight, then at midnight the concert starts and goes to about two, after that there is a dance party in a different part of the park. I was really surprised because everyone was at the Exposerra, teachers, elderly, little kids, everyone. They also all stayed really late, I saw whole families at the concert at one in the morning. The music that was played for all but one of the nights was music that is liked by both young and older Brazilians, so everyone enjoyed the concerts. It was really good that the students weren't the only one's who went to the expo, because then at school we weren't the only one's exhausted. The teachers were too, and so even though we still had classes as normal, it wasn't as rigorous. I got to go every night except Sunday, and it was a ton of fun! I went with different groups of friends every night and met a lot of new people. They taught me how to dance many different Brazilian dances, and they laughed at me a lot because they thought it was funny how a "gringa" was learning to dance like a Brazilian. The dancing here is so much fun, and everyone knows how. My friends were all really excited to teach me, and I can't wait until there is another event to dance at.
Another thing that we did every night was go on this crazy ride called the samba. It's a circular platform with a seat running around the outside, and the whole things spins and goes up and down really fast.The guy who runs the ride stands in the middle and turns around to try to not fall down, and every once in awhile he will grab someone off the bench and pull them in the middle and try to teach them how to do it. The person usually just stumbles around and when the guy lets go of them and they try to turn on their own, they stumble around and fall onto the people sitting. It was so funny to watch, everyone was laughing and cheering for whoever was in the middle, and when one of my friends got in the middle and was able to do it, there was a huge crowd cheering on the sidelines.
On Sunday I didn't go because it was my friend from school, Andressa's, 15th birthday party. Here when a girl turns 15 it is a really big deal, and they have a big party. For hers, they had rented a patio, and everyone crowded around and ate cake, sang to her, and danced. There were a lot of people from school there, and we had a ton of fun!
The next friday I went to a motorcycle party with Leah, one of the other two exchange students living in Tangara Da Serra. We played soccer and then went to go lay in the grass. A group of little girls figured out that we were exchange students, came and sat down around us and asked us a bunch of questions. Then we played tag and danced and they had us sing songs with them, it was really fun. They would just grab out hands and pull us around the party and they tried to teach us to dance, it was really cute, and all of the parents were smiling and laughing because we were so confused and they were helping us.
The next morning my dad took me, Leah, and Julia to Cuiaba to go to the Federal Police station. It is a crazy four hour drive on this two lane highway. There are a lot of semi-trucks that drive back and forth on those roads, and they go really slow because the roads are really bumpy and the trucks are always over full. Everyone else wants to go really fast, and so it's this crazy leap frog train of cars. We'd be going almost 180 kph and then slow down to 40, and we would pass a line of 5 cars, and then have to quickly pull back in the lane because a car was coming. I am finally starting to get used to the driving in Brasil, but the drive to Cuiaba is still pretty scary :) We spent the whole day in Cuiaba, first stopping to see my host sister Juliana's new house and to see her little son Heitor. My host dad then dropped us off at the big shopping mall so we could look around before going to the Police station. Shopping is different in Brasil, the shops are mostly really small, and the people who are working there help you pick out clothes and one person helps you the whole time you are in the store. Since we weren't really looking to buy anything, and our Portuguese wasn't the best, we decided that going into the shops wasn't the best idea, but we had a ton of fun looking around.
We hurried back to Tangara after our appointments at the Federal Police station because Interact, the rotary group for teenagers, had a pizza party. There were about a hundred people packed into the meeting room and the patio, and the teenagers from Interact were running around and serving everyone the most delicious pizza that I've ever had. They have all different kinds here with different toppings and cheeses. My favorite is Brigadero pizza. Brigadero is really hard to explain, but it kinda tastes like chocolate carmel. It's made out of condensed milk and chocolate powder, and then is cooked until it thickens. It is so good, I could eat it everyday! A lot of my friends from school were there, and so I introduced Leah and Julia to them, and we sat around and talked about the differences between the United States, Germany, Canada, and Brazil. After the pizza party, I went to one of my friends houses where we all sat outside and drank Terrere, a kind of brazilian tea made with lime juice. You put a bunch of the grass in a cup with this special straw, and pour lime juice water into the cup and everyone passes the cup around. It is surprising, but after awhile, I started to really like it.
The next week was really busy with school and studying because the next week was the week where you have tests in every class. Since I am in the third year here, everyone is studying really hard because they have to pass their tests to graduate in November. I am going to write out my school schedule so you can see how many classes they have to study for. Everyday school starts at 7:00 and goes until 12:00.
On Monday I have History, English, Math, and then a 15 minute break for snack at 9:00. After snack we have Math, Organic Chemistry, and Spanish.
On Tuesday we have Physics, Literature, Non-Organic Chemistry, Art, Biology, and Geography. Then we all go home for lunch and come back at 2:40 for Math and History.
On Wednesday we have Organic Chemistry, Geography, Philosophy, Writing, English, and Spanish.
On Thursday we have Physics, Portuguese, History, Non-Organic Chemistry, History, and Math. We go home for lunch and come back for Organic Chemistry, Physics, and two class periods of Biology.
Then Friday we have Physics, Sociology, Portuguese, Physics, Literature, and Religion.
Finally on Saturday we have Writing, Biology, Biology, Physics, Literature, and Geography.
It's a crazy school schedule, and even though it is still hard to understand what the teachers are talking about, I am really enjoying school and am actually learning a lot. The teachers are all really nice to me and tease me when I am completely lost, and when I understand are really excited. I love the relationships that the teachers have with the students here, it reminds me a lot of Artech-Arcadia. The kids tease the teachers, and the teachers tease them right back. A lot of the time, the teacher is sitting in the middle of a group of students that have pulled their chairs around them. One of my teachers, Elaine, walks around the room and will sit on the kids desks and braid our hair as she talks about History, her classes are a ton of fun because she is always teasing us and telling us stories. Another teacher is called Batata (potato) because he is really short and round, he gets so excited that he paces from side to side in front of the blackboard, and tells so many stories that the students often have to remind him to finish the math problem on the board. I also really love school because I get to see all of my friends. The kids in my school are so wonderful, they treat each other with so much respect and love it amazes me that they are only in high school. Everyone is so nice to me, and they are all working really hard to include me and to help me learn Portuguese and more about Brasil and the culture.
These are some of my friends from my school:
The next weekend my whole family went to Cuiaba to visit my host sister, we left right after finishing lunch on Friday and didn't get back until sunday night. When we got there, my host parents and I went to a concert at a local church. It was a really intamite setting because he was just sitting on a chair with his guitar and a mic. We were in a really small church, and his voice just filled the whole room. He sang one of my favorite songs, Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkel, but in Portuguese. When it started my host dad who knows it's one of my favorites, got really excited and grabbed my hand and my host moms hand, and then the whole room held hands and sang along. It was one of those moments where I really realized that I am in Brasil, and not just as a tourist, that I am living here and learning the language and the culture. It was a really cool feeling.
That night one of my other host sisters, Raquel, flew in to Cuiaba and the next morning my host mom and two host sisters took me to buy a swimsuit. We had a ton of fun trying to find a swimsuit that was modest enough for me, it took us a long time, a lot of trying on, and a lot of laughing, but we finally found one. Then my host brother and little host nephew joined us and we went out for lunch at a fancy restaurant. That night we went back to the Mall to find some school clothes for my brother, it was a ton of fun. My host nephew was with us, me and my host dad played with him a lot while my host mom helped Henrique. We played hide and seek in the clothes racks, and my host dad tossed him around and carried him in the cloth shopping bags. It was also fun because me and my host brother walked around and tried clothes on and made fun of each other. Me and my host brother get along really well. We have a ton of inside jokes, and when one of us is frustrated for some reason, the other can tell just by looking and then starts to crack up, and then we're both laughing. In the mornings, we both roll out of bed and take showers and go to eat in the kitchen. It's pretty early and so we're both tired and usually not to happy to be awake, but we take one look at the crabby face on the other and we're both laughing.
On Sunday, I cooked lunch for my host family, my two host sisters, and Juliana's husband and son. I made pancakes with bacon inside them, scrambled eggs, syrup, and my host mom made rice and beans. The first time that I made pancakes I was really confused when my family cut them up and mixed it together with rice and beans. I couldn't imagine that it tasted good, but my host dad loves it, and has me make it every week. I realized that whatever I make is going to be eaten with rice and beans, I just hope that it all tastes good :) After lunch, we all took a nap, and then drove back around 3. On the way home, Leah the exchange student from Canada called and invited me to sleep over. The next day at my school was a test day, so I didn't have to go so my host parents dropped me at her house on the way into town. Her dad took us to the market where we bought the ingredients to make spaghetti and tomato sauce for lunch the next day. We were trying to find corn chips, but we couldn't find them so we tried to ask a guy for help. He didn't understand our question, and eventually we just said thank you and walked away. We started laughing because of how embarrassing it was, and we laughed so hard that we were crying. Her host dad found us and cracked up because we looked so ridiculous. The next day we woke up and made spaghetti with homemade sauce. It actually turned out pretty good, and everyone liked it. Then the two of us went for a really long bike ride around the city, stopped for ice cream, and just explored. It was a really good day, and when I got home that night I was so tired that I fell asleep right away.
The next weekend was amazing! The Interact club in my city had a camp. Interact is like Rotary, but run by, and for teenagers. The people in the club are really wonderful, and it was a ton of fun. We drove out to this beautiful campsite about 15 minutes outside of my city. There were about 25 kids there, and we all slept in tents. There was a big field, on one side there was a lowered soccer field, and on the other side a big pavilion with a ping-pong table, a Foosball table, and a pool-table. There was also a swimming pool and a river that ran along side it. When we first got there after school on Friday, we all set up our tents, and then everyone just hung out playing games, singing, dancing, swimming, and playing soccer. Then we ate spaghetti and everyone went out on the soccer fields for the interact meeting. The meeting was really moving, it is really amazing to see what teenagers can do to help their community, and how much they mean to each other. After the meeting we all stayed out on the field and played games all night. It was a ton of fun, after playing games, the boys all pulled their blowup mattresses up into the middle of the field, and we all piled on them and played music and sang together. After we were done singing, about 15 of us stayed out there, and they asked me Leah and Julia all about our lives back home, and it was really relaxing to lay outside and to just talk. The next morning we all got up really early and ate breakfast, then we went out to the field and played a bunch of games. After lunch the boys all dragged out a big tarp and got garbage cans full of water from the pool and dragged them out to the field. Me, Leah, and Julia were really confused because then the started putting soap on the tarp. Everyone crowded around and we spread the soap and water all over the tarp and then everyone started running and diving across the tarp. It was so much fun! Everyone was running into each other and falling down and sliding everywhere. Then we did sumo wrestling, and then the girls played soccer. That was a ton of fun because you couldn't really run without falling, and everyone was running into each other or slipping and tripping each other. We were all covered in soap and soaked, and everyone was laughing and having a great time.
On sunday my host dad picked me, Leah, and Julia up in the morning and we went with my whole host family to a waterfall near my town called Salto das Nuvens. It's so beautiful. We ate lunch at the buffet and then went down to the beach. After looking around and taking some pictures me, Leah, and Julia took a nap in hammocks and then went swimming with my host dad and brother. It was a great day.
Last weekend was a little bit of an adventure. On Friday I went to my friend Leah's house to make pancakes for her friends from school and her host cousin. It was a ton of fun, and everyone liked them. After we made pancakes Later that night I had an asthma attack, and I ended up going to the hospital. My host family handled it really really well though, and are now helping me to make sure that it doesn't happen again. The rest of the week went really well, my friend from school had a birthday party which was a lot of fun, we ate more good food and cake (they really love fancy cakes). This past week we had our graduation pictures taken. We all went out to this beautiful farm, and first they took pictures of our whole class, and then we individually went out onto this dock in the middle of the lake and they took more. The boys went first, and when they were done they all jumped into the lake and swam around. Two of my friends from school took me out in the paddle boat which was a ton of fun, and we spent the afternoon running around and talking. I forgot my camera, but when my friends from school post the pictures from that day, I can upload them here. I have one of the pictures of my class.
I'm sorry that it has taken me so long to write a blog post! I'll try to write more often, and to write shorter ones, hopefully every week or two. I am also going to upload pictures onto my other blog posts now that I know how, so re-check those out if you want to see them.
Até mais tarde!
Tchau,
Olivia
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