14/07/2012 - Traveling to João Pessoa

So today we basically just travelled to João Pessoa.  It is in a different state, Paraíba, so it was quite a drive. This time it was only two hours to get there and we were in a big bus, so it was nice.  We got to João Pessoa and found a little hotel that would accommodate us.  Then we went to the beach to eat and have fun. While at the beach we built a sand castle, burried Mitch and made him into a mermaid, and then we played football on the beach, and that was super fun.  After that we were all very tired so we just went to bed.

13/07/2012 - Spiderman

Yesterday was a day off so that we could get some things organized before having to go to class.  So I did some homework that I needed to and talked with Joe and Josh at the bishop's house.
Today we had class in the morning and a lot of presentations were done.  Michele Rivera gave a great presentation on Pedro Américo the artist.  Doug Porter gave a good one about Ariano Suassuna, the amazing writer of O Auto da Compadecida, a hilarious play or movie.  Shawndeen Stahly presented on Nelson Rodrigues a playwriter.  Glauber Rocha was the last presentation that we saw, and it was given by Tawnya Howard.  Glauber Rocha was a movie director that made movies extremely realistic, so much so that no one really enjoyed them.
At night I went to see the new Spiderman movie with my friends and the family that I am staying with.  It was super fun.

11/07/2012 - Cave Paintings

Today we went to see a school where the youths made hand made craft items such as necklaces and bracelets.  They were really nice and many people from our group bought things from them, because they were very pretty and made from seeds that they gathered.  After that we went to a place nearby that has some ancient, prehistoric cave painting that are super awesome.  so we had to hike up a little bit before seeing the paintings, but they were awesome.  Then we had another extremely long ride back home to Recife.

10/07/2012 - The Sertão

Today we visited some of the people that DIACONIA helps in the sertão.  They are mostly farmers who try to grow things organically, but not charge for the organic procedure, which is very nice of them.  The first family we visited they gave us a tour of their farm and showed us what they did with the fruit they get from their orchard.  They make fruit juice concentrate from all the fruit they collect and sell it to many different people and companies.
The second family has a farm where they make raw sugar from the sugarcane they grow.  They also showed us how they plant the different vegetables so that the insects that enjoy one crop do not find all of the same vegetable at once.  He also planted trees so that the birds will be around to eat some of the bugs, even though they do eat some of the plants as well.
After that we went back to the hotel and rested.

09/07/2012 - Afogados da Ingazeira

On Saturday I was in Maceió and I went to one of the most amazing places in the morning.  We went to the Natural Pools of Pajuçara where we swam with the fishes and saw the reefs that are over a mile out from shore.  It is a truly amazing place to visit.  Later that night I went to visit one of the places I was in during my mission.  It was nice to visit some of the people I knew and it was cool to have some of them still remember me.
On Sunday I went to church in the place I visited on Saturday and saw one of my recent converts give a talk in church as he prepares to serve a mission.  It was a wonderful experience.  Then we travelled back to Recife and got ready for the trip on Monday.
Today we did traveled to a small town in the interior of the state of Pernambuco.  It is roughly a six hour drive from here to there so we had to wake up extremely early just to get out there.  After a long and uneventful drive, we made it to the pousada (hotel) we would be staying at for the duration of the trip.  It was a nice, sunny day and a leader from the non-governmental organization called DIACONIA.  He explained how the organization is helping out the people in the area to learn about how to survive and flourish in the arid terrain of the sertão.  They help the people to collect the rainwater and store it for use throughout the dry season.  They also help out a youth group to create and sell necklaces, bracelets and earrings to make some money to help out their families.  Later that night we went swimming in the pool and tried to play waterpolo, but none of us were really that good.

06/07/2012 - Maceió

Today Sara, Berkeley, Tawnya, Natalia and I went to Maceió.  We lest on the bus at 5:30 am.  It was not a wonderful bus ride, because I was super tired, but unable to sleep for longer than about 10 minutes at a time.  But when I made it to Maceió, my old mission, it was totally worth it.  I stayed at a family that I had met on my mission and went and visited with some others.  I walked on some of the beaches a little, and made sure to eat a tapióca with apple cinnimon filling.  Delicious!
Well aside from that I just made sure to have a great rest of the day.

05/07/2012 - School

This morning we actually went to school to learn more about the history of the people here in Brazil.  We had a wonderful day listening to the presentations about 4 influential Brazilians that have helped change Brazil and the world.
The first was a presentation by Joe Burwasser on Celso Furtado who was a Brazilian economist and helped form the ideas that came up with the Plano Real, which brought about the new currency the Real, and helped form the economy for Brazil into the 5th best in the world.
The next presentation was done by Michael Andraszczyk on Joaquim Nambocu who was a lot of different things, but most importantly he was an abolitionist for Brazilian slaves.
Then Josh Barton talked about Gilberto Freyre who among other things was a historian of the Brazilian people.  Aparently not all of his historical conclusions were correct, but Gilberto Freyre may just have been writing to offset the general beliefs of his foreign contemperaries.
Last was Michelle McMurray's presentation on Paulo Freire who updated the way that people think of education, especially education of the underpriviledged.
Afterwards we had a free day.  Huzzah!

04/07/2012 - 4th of July

Today is Wednesday the 4th of July, and since it is Independance Day in the US our school had a little patriotic party with the kids from yesterday at the American School.  We had a blast and sang the national anthem with them as well as talked about what our families usually do for the 4th of July.  Then we ate hamburgers and hotdogs and played games and talked.  At the insistance of Mitch, from our study abroad group, we danced the Chacha slide.  I had a lot of fun and the kids from the program looked like they did as well.
After the party we went to a really big bookstore and looked around.  I was looking for the movie o Auto da  Compadecida, but I was unable to find it.  It is a hilarious movie about the Northeast of Brazil, and the way that they try to do things here.
After the bookstore we took a ride on a boat around the central island here in Recife.  We found out a lot about the city and the older buildings here, and I always enjoy learning about history when there is no pressure to write anything about it.  The entire class had a blast and we are extremely glad that we decided to come and learn here in Brazil.

03/07/2012 - American School and Sports

This morning we went out to an American school here that teaches all of its classes in English.  While there we met a group of Brazilian students that speak English very well and helped them understand a little about American culture and specifically sports.  We taught them about Football, Baseball, Basketball, Cheerleading and Soccer.  After the brief explanations of how the sports worked we had a demonstration of Football, Baseball, and Basketball.  I was on the team that helped demonstrate Football.  I do not have very good hand eye coordination, but I was able to catch the ball and throw it with varying degrees of accuracy. It was a lot of fun teaching and watching the Brazilians play Football.
In the afternoon we went to CCJ to continue painting the school while it was on break.  Only a few of us went, but we were able to work continually and got a big piece of the school painted.  I went to mix some paint for the last little bit, but I added too much coloring so it turned out darker than the rest of the paint, but we were able to save face by just painting the Entrance to the school the darker color, and the inside was lighter green.  The school is looking very nice and I hope that the people at CCJ like the way their school was painted.
Well i cant find my pictures now, but I'll add them later.

02/07/2012 - Painting

Saturday was a special day, it was the day that we went out and painted/graffitied some of the houses in a poorer neighborhood.  It was a lot of fun, but I am not an artist, so I mostly painted the background color onto the walls.  The people were very greatful for their houses to be painted and they were really nice to allow us to cover their walls with our artwork.  Sara had the idea of making the front wall an undersea picture and it turned out really well, but you can judge for yourself as it is in this picture to the right.  Sunday was just normal church.

Today was a good day, it was a little difficult, but good.  Instead of going to class in the morning to ABA, we went straight to peixinhos to work with them by painting the inside of the school where CCJ is centered at.  I usually stayed on the ladder painting up high, until Doug, who is a lot taller than I am, took it to do up near the ceiling.  The school looks very nice with a light green paint color.  Today we painted two rooms and two hallways.  The truth is that I thought that what the school really needed was a new roof.  The reason that the paint on the walls seemed so bad was the fact that the water had seeped into the walls and caused them to peel off.  I believed that those problems should have been taken care of first before we repainted because it didn't actually fix the problem.  I know that for the internship we didn't have the money to fix the roof for them, but i feel as though it would have been better that way.



Today was also Vanessa's birthday so we had cake to celebrate.

29/06/2012 - Caruaru

Today we had nothing to do in the morning so we just stayed with our families, and got a call from our teacher that we would be going to a smaller town in the interior called Caruaru.  This town is a famous center for São João.  It has all of the biggest parties in the state and has the best forro bands from the country play for a day.  While we were there we also saw a big quadrilha presentation.  A quadrilha is similar to a line dance with a partner and so you follow what the man with the mic tells you to do.  It was a good quadrilha and the people had practiced a lot to put it on.  We then went to the forro show and listened to the music.  We got home very late and have to get up very early in the morning.

28/06/2012 - Party at the Internship

This morning, Thursday, in class we finished the movie I talked about yesterday.  Today we had a party at the Internship, it was a festa junina that the CCJ put on for the kids of the surrounding neighborhood and for us.  It was a lot of fun, because of all of the little kids form the neighborhood.  The class also brought some American food to share with the kids and Berkeley sang some songs in English, and some in Portuguese for them.
After that we just went home with nothing else to do.

27/06/2012 - Bus Strike

Today, Wednesday, Recife bus drivers decided that they weren't being paid enough money to do their job so they showed what would happen if the buses stopped working so they had a 24 hour strike.  For class we talked more about the sertão and the sertanejos, who are the people who live in the sertão.  After a brief talk we started watching a movie called Behind the Sun.  The movie talks about the circular nature of foolish traditions and how people should modernize their beliefs instead of following blindly until you are destroyed.
We didn't go to our Internship today because of the bus strike, and it would have taken us a long time to get there and back, so we had a half-day.  After class I went to watch the Spain-Portugal soccer game for the Eurocup.  It was not a very eventful game, but I had fun because I was with my sister, who also likes to watch soccer.

26/06/2012 - Graffiti!

Today is Tuesday, and in the morning in class we talked about the Sertão, which is a desert area in the Brazilian Northeast.  It is a harsh place to live and is one of the most difficult terrains to flourish in.  The Brazilian were able to create a life there raising cattle and growing sugarcane.

When we went to the internship we painted the picture we drew yesterday and then practiced creating graffiti  on command.  We split up into 3 groups of roughly seven, and painted a piece of the wall.  My goup painted a hammock between two palm trees.  It was not a very meaningful graffiti, but i thought it looked nice.

25/06/2012- The Internship

Well for a quick recap of Saturday I was finally able to go to the beach and have some fun.  In the morning Brady and I ran from where we live to where Sara lives, which is like 7 or 8 kilometers.  Then we went to the beach and played in the ocean and I built a better sand castle than the one I had done last week.
On Sunday, I went to church and then to Sara's family's house and ate a fejoada, which is a typical Brazilian meal with black beans and pork meat on rice.

On Monday the Internship started for reals this time.  In class we talked about our readings about the Jews in Brazil and then for the internship we planned to give an English course to the people of CCJ who wanted it, but when we got there, they said that we could do something that would help than more English courses, which was to help them paint, and graffiti the walls of a poor neighborhood nearby the school, on Saturday, and paint the school on Monday.  So to practice we all had to draw a picture on a white piece of paper.  I was never very good at art so my picture is nothing to brag about, but it was a good day.