At this time last week I was sitting on a plane in Texas about to take off and head to an unknown country to meet unknown people for two months. Needless to say I was petrified and really questioning what I was doing. Here I am now sitting on a couch next to a fish tank in 80 degree weather feeling like I have been here for weeks. My project started on Tuesday and we head to Vila Kennedy which is about an hour north east of the city. The poorer communities are called favelas and some are monitored by the police and some are not so I have heard some interesting stories. Three other volunteers and I are assigned to help this nice little lady increase the attendance of this community center that she has started all by herself. It is called CCI and when children are not at school she offers classes to them to learn things like english, art, music, and computers. They have defiantly improved this space a lot and the volunteers before us started to paint rooms so that may have some potential. The trouble I am having is feeling busy and really needed. The only thing that I really think I could do to be beneficial to these kids would be the classes but I do not speak the language yet so I am having a hard time trying to figure out what I should do and where I am needed. I have never gone to a volunteer project where there is no structure or direction and you all know how I like structure. Many people have also said here, well if the project doesn’t work out at least you can see Brazil. Yes, that will be awesome to travel around but that is not why I came down here so I want to find my purpose soon. If you guys have any advice let me know. My Portuguese lessons started on Monday and one of the coordinators Vivi is teaching it. She is originally from Chile and is very nice. From 5-7 every day we meet in this little room in a house to learn the basics. It is a much different experience learning it here than in a classroom. The sun is going down during class and the street below is bustling with people going home for the night and there is always one dog barking about something. A very enjoyable experience that I wish was longer than two weeks. After next Friday I will be on my own to pick up the language so wish me luck. Today we had the day off so we headed off to the beach in Impanina. All around us there are huge rock formations so a couple of us wanted to go explore one. It was such a breath taking view I don’t know if I could explain it. I wish I had more pictures already but taking your camera out around here apparently makes you a target. Once I get more comfortable and street smart you guys will see a lot more. Anyway we walk up to this rock and get to see three different views that were breath taking. Now only being here and week there is so much to see I don’t know if I will fit it all in in 10 weeks. Tomorrow I am looking forward to visiting sugar loaf, which is the highest point in elevation in Rio and hopefully my camera will be safe! I feel like I am really bad a writing on here so please ask questions so I can give more detail Tchao
