Friday, August 10, 2012

A Basic Understanding

The past week has been full of new sights, places and people that I never could have imagined!

My Portuguese has gotten much better. When I landed in Sinop, I knew very little. Now, I have had countless dreams in Portuguese and can converse with my host family and others using basic vocabulary and sentences, etc. I am able to make conversation with kids at school, even though they laugh as I mispronounce word after word. It is still very overwhelming when a bunch of adults are spitting question after question at me in Portuguese at the dinners I attend. My family and friends have been very patient with me since the second I landed. They repeat things for me all the time and have to tell me multiple times how to say certain things.

Let me tell me about my family. My mother Milanea is fantastic and very understanding and helpful. I have yet to meet my host father, Adimir, as he is currently working in the state of Para. I have two host brothers. Graciano, my older brother, is 26 and works at a bank in town. He is very helpful and is always driving me places and helping me with my Portuguese. My younger brother Gabriel is seventeen and is the only one that lives at home with me and my host parents, the rest live elsewhere in Sinop. Gabriel has taken quite a liking to Ultimate frisbee, which is not a popular sport down here. I doubt there are any for sale in Sinop. I have three host sisters. I had dinner last night with my oldest sister, Gisele, who has the cutest little daughter named Mariana. My other older sister, Grasiele, has three children. The oldest, Helluan (above) is 12 and is the featured in many of my flickr pictures. She then has one younger boy and another cute little girl named Isabella. My youngest host sister is named Giane and is currently on exchange to Mexico through Rotary. --- I couldn't have asked for a better host family. They are above and beyond what I expected. 


Futebol-Graciano learned a while ago that I enjoy playing soccer and brings me to play with his friends from work multiple times during the week. It gets dark here around 17:30 so when we play at 18:00, we have to play under the lights. We play on a smaller 6v6 field that is covered with synthetic turf. Playing soccer with these Brazilians has been one of my favorite parts of my exchange so far. If you know anything about Brazilian soccer, you will know that the coined phase is "Joga Bonito" or "Play Beautiful". They definitely play beautifully. Their passes, their tricks, and their laughs all contribute to the understanding I now have of Brazilian soccer.

Escola-I had my first day of school today, and it didn't go without judgement from some of the students. Apparently they had two students at their school last year from the United States who acted like they were "all that" and really didn't gain the respect of anyone at the school. I go to an expensive private school in Sinop, so most of the kids that go there are fairly wealthy. What I learned from current situation is that not only do I represent myself and my family, but also my rotary club and the USA. People from Sinop and greater Brazil will use me as an example for all the the people in the USA, and I need to conduct my self accordingly. 

Travel Plans-This weekend I am traveling to the state of Para with my family to visit my host father. We are planning to stop at some beautiful waterfalls on the way up there. That is all the information I know about this weekend but I will blog about it after!
My mother is taking a trip to Sao Paulo is the middle of September and has just informed me that I will be accompanying her! I am very excited to go to Sao Paulo! It is supposed to be HUGEEE. 

I have had a little taste of Brazilian night life, but not enough to blog about. Not much goes on at night during the week. After soccer tonight (Friday) I am going downtown with Gabriel and will hopefully experience a little more. 

Food-I will wait to tell you about the food until I know a little bit more about what I have been eating :)

Thanks for reading! 

Until next time!.... Until next post?!






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