Crickets... "what is that, don't you have tumbleweeds?"

Wow… I just experienced one of the most intense rain storms. I sleep in a room on the roof, so it is not closed. With the force of the wind and the rain, sometime during the night it knocked down a bunch of stuff and it scared the living daylights out of me. It sounded as if the house was falling apart. I woke up in the morning and stuff was all scattered in different places. I walked outside and one of the boats was under water, and other stuff around the place was dismantled. I had the most realistic dreams that were all horrible and it was raining in all of them. I was quite pleased to wake up to realize it was all just a dream. Phew! Anyways, today I have spent the day with a volunteer that lost someone really important to him. I can’t imagine hearing the news he did, but I know it will all work out one way or another. All of the volunteers are going to get together tonight for good company. Life is unexpected. Even in the hardest of times people really can make the difference, so I am glad he has good people around him.

Random observations. I have realized that every country has flaws and I have discovered a flaw in Brazil’s working system. America holds a professional standard when it comes to business endeavors, but Brazil has a different mentality. They are more unprofessional and laid back. One of the first things I learned is that Brazilians are always late, so people have become accustomed with doing things at their own time. That is acceptable here, but in America if you are late for work or something it is unacceptable. One of the projects abroad representatives lived in America for many years, so whenever we all have to meet she always sends a second text reminding us that she is not a Brazilian, so she expects us to be on time. It is interesting to compare the work habits because I realize that America is a very hard working country. I see that as a positive and a negative. I decided that you start to be more thankful for things that you didn’t realize you could be thankful for.

I am learning so much! I could never have learned all of the things I am learning without being here. This is truly one of the most amazing experiences!

Haha... all I have to say is boys will be boys! "You Gypsy"...

Flamengo Game:

A video from Hang-gliding: "Is she trying to say more than hi?" haha.

Beach, beach, and more beach

These days I have been busy, the only time I am ever home is when it is time to sleep. The internet is limited for me, so I find other ways to connect. I have spent time at other volunteers’ places for food or company, which has been interesting to see how different everyone is living here. This weekend was all about the beach. On Saturday we all went to Itacoatiara beach for a last goodbye to my fellow American. He lives in St. Cloud Minnesota though, so I told him he has no choice but to support the wildcats this year and come to one of our games. There will be a few more goodbyes this week, but new people are arriving as well, so it is bitter sweet.

As for Saturdays little adventure… I decided that my motto “winging it” has been fully reached. I had absolutely no money left and decided I would just search for an ATM in the morning for bus money. I was already running late to meet the others and realized that there was no ATM around. Nothing was going right that morning, but I decided that something like this was bound to happen sooner or later, so I decided to walk. It was nice to walk instead of take the bus because you see everything from a different perspective. I caught the bus in the next town and when I arrived I had a piece of cake waiting for me from one of the other volunteers… he caught on to my love for desserts, or love for food, it was delicious. What I found from this walk was that it was a nice running spot, so I have committed myself to running this path along the beach. Indi and I decided that Monday is the start of our full commitment to getting into better shape. She is a sprinter on the beach back at home for surf club, so she has a workout that she has to be doing while she is here given to her by her coach. Unfortunately, food has been our first priority, but the guilt has finally kicked in and we have committed to helping each other run more. So… that night we ate as much food as we could at an Italian buffet J, it’s not Monday yet so it’s perfectly ok.

Back to Copacabana beach. I got plenty of sun and I am no longer glowing compared to the Brazilians, I am slowly blending in, yesssahhh. I haven’t had much time to sleep lately, so I used the beach for sleep time. The waves were big, so I spent a good amount of time in the water. What is nice about the beach here is that it is all business. What I mean by that is that people are always walking around with stuff to sell. When you get hungry you can pick seafood, biscuits, sandwiches, and much more. We got this ice cream type of food, in which you pick from different fruit choices, yummm. Every day I learn more about the culture differences between all of our countries and learn more about each other. I have found that we all have a secret motivation for committing ourselves to Brazil. Life had knocked us down in different ways, and we all decided to run here. I have found that a lot of us ran here to challenge ourselves and to run to everything that is out of our comfort zones. Every single one of them is good people and they have impacted me more than they know! I knew nothing about Brazil when I decided to come here, all I knew was that it was soccer country. Everyone was a bit surprised that I did not know anything about this country, but I am glad that I am able to learn about it. I found it was good that I did not know anything though, because I had no expectations coming here.

Family night

I am in love with the food here. We were all hanging out on the beach today and decided that we wanted to make dinner tonight for ourselves. One of the volunteers has an empty house for a night, so we decided to make a dinner. We all went to the market and found some food to cook. I decided to cook the dessert considering that is my expertise. It was only the guys and myself that decided to do this and I felt like one of the guys. It was our own little family dinner and we all enjoyed it. One of the volunteers did the cooking for the main dish, which was meditteranean food full of fresh ingredients and no added spices. It was yummy as well as healthy. The brigadeiro was not healthy, but oh so yummy! The more I get to know them, the closer I get to them. A couple of them are leaving within the next week, and every time someone leaves it reminds me how close my time will come. I don't like when someone leaves because we have become such good friends that it sucks to say goodbye every time. Until then, it was a great dinner.

I have thursday and friday off from work because it is a public holiday here in Brazil, called Corpus Christi.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_Christi_(feast)

The link above explains the holiday with more detail. It felt like any other day, but it is still interesting to learn about.

A Brazilian Legend

Wow... I seriously am so excited to share this news. Gérson de Oliveira Nunes. If you do not know this name then you are about to be educated on an important part of Brazilian soccer history. On tuesday, I met him. My project is called the Gerson Project, but I had no idea the importance of this project or the background information. He was the one who created this project to give kids the chance to play soccer, give them free healthcare, free computer skills, and they will soon teach english. It has been 41 years since Brazil won the World Cup, in which they were the first team to win it 3 times. He is number 8 and he played with Pele. This video will show a little piece of the history... (when they show the final match in the video, you will see Gerson's goal- the second goal):

The other volunteer (Jins) and I felt like we were famous. We had a few cameras on us as they interviewed us. We are going to be in the Fluminense newspaper here, which is such a cool opportunity. They asked me all about soccer at home and if I had dreams to play in the world cup and the olympics. It was a cool experience as well because everyone was so impressed with how I played. All the kids were talking about how good I had played with them, and so everyone was talking about it. It was such an amazing moment, I felt famous. Jins is the coach, and I am the player. It is a great thing what we are doing. He is a great coach because he coaches at home and so he is very knowledgeable on the game. I relate better to the kids when I play, so we both have different things to offer them. The newspaper took pictures of me playing and pictures of Jins coaching. We took pictures with Gerson and conversed with him and everyone else. They also interviewed one of the kids in the placement who tried out for Botafogo. Three of the kids tried out for this team, which is a professional soccer team here. They are all talented soccer players, so I really hope that they can get some good media out of this. There was Brigadeiro cake for everyone after the interview and the celebration was done. It was one of the most amazing things I have been able to experience here in Brazil!! I met a legend and anyone who knows of him was so jealous of us both. It is not something that happens everyday, and to know that they will be putting us in the paper for the help that we are providing for these kids really makes me feel like I am making a difference. Jins is working on trying to get some of these kids out to Australia to get an education as well as an opportunity to play with good equipment. They asked me if I would be interested in doing something in the states, so I am going to look into doing something of that sort. 

Also, they were so impressed with me, they asked if I want to coach a girls team here. I was flattered that they asked me, so soon I will be helping another team. I can't even put into words how amazing this all is and the fact that I am truly making a difference in their lives as well as them making a difference in my life. I know that this is changing me, but I won't fully grasp how much I have changed until I get home. In about two weeks I will be attending a Fluminense training session with this placement (professional soccer team). I never expected any of this, but I am so thankful to be apart of all of this. The rest of the day I could not stop jumping around with excitement and I could not stop smiling. I am still in shock that this is all happening. I play soccer about 4 to 6 hours everyday except weekends and I could not ask for more. I love Brazil.

One of the players getting interviewed who tried out for Botafogo below.

Gerson is in the one in the light blue below:

This is the coach of the placement below:

"Would you like a cup of tea?"

Hang-gliding. It was an adrenaline rush and absolutely amazing!! The view was beautiful. There was the city, forest, and ocean below. They strapped us into the hang gliding outfits and from there we did test runs to get an idea of how to do it correctly. There is a ramp up on the top and you are not suppose to jump off the ramp, it is literally just you running until you hit air. It was an unreal feeling. My instructor did not give me much information on what it was like, I had to experience it all that moment. We were standing there strapped in with the hang glider and I asked him a few questions... he did not answer any of them and said ok let's go. We just started running off the ramp and it was done. It was almost as if I was flying in the air. There is a video, but I don't know how to post it and it is quite hilarious, so I am glad I don't know how to post it (I hit my head on the pole as I was running off the ramp and all the volunteers thought it was funny). There are lots of pictures, so you can see the view! It was an AMAZING experience! The guys had gone first and as they were waiting on the beach they wrote in the sand "welcome", but I did not see it.

As for the title of my blog "would you like a cup of tea?", we all thought it was so funny when one of the volunteers would say this because he is English. The way he says it is exactly how people always say it in the movies and such. We all thought it was so funny to hear it in person. We all compared how to say things in our countries and we all end up making fun of each other. Austin (also from America) and I always get made fun of for some of the things we say. I don't even realize that what I am saying is different until I look at their faces and they are looking at me like what did she just say. On multiple occasions I get made fun of for how bubbly I am. The kids at my projects always make fun of me because I say hello with such enthusiasm or when I say "omg" I always get made fun of. When we all went hang gliding, they all started saying "Hi" in the videos because every time someone was video taping me I said that. It is great to just hang out with all these volunteers, we have shared some great memories together. I am learning so much about everybody's culture and I am realizing how different we all are, but at the same time so much alike.

Here are some videos and pictures from hang-gliding :)

This statue below is used to scare animals away and people put it in front of houses to keep their house safe.

Haha... I thought this picture below was hilarious for some reason.

We jumped off of this for hang-gliding...

Another beginning...

The last few days have been an encounter of unfortunate events. I understand that life is unexpected, but what situation I went through was beyond unexpected and everything wrong. I have no motivation to explain what happened because it is not worth anymore trouble. With that being said, I do have amazing people here in my life. Marita left yesterday and I already miss her so much, but without her I could not be where I am. Also, all the people that I have become friends with here are some amazing people that I know I can always count on whether we are a million miles away or right next to each other. Short story... I am living with a new family now and this is a great new start. This place is located along the water and it is absolutely beautiful. I am no longer living in chaos, which is nice to step out of. This town is mellow with a neighborly feel. I stand out as a gringo (someone not from Brazil) here because everyone knows each other around this place. Walking to the bus stop there are people all around playing soccer, playing cards, hanging out, and more. It gives off a pleasant vibe. If you would like to know more about my new placement feel free to ask.

For my new placement on thursday, it was everything I expected. I am surrounded by a competitive soccer environment and it is just the thing that I have been missing. I have to wear shinguards, blue socks, these club shorts and a white shirt. When I arrived, I decided I would just make it a mellow day and help out with coaching and observe. Man was I wrong. When the guys started running I was just hanging with the other volunteer and the head director yelled across the field, well more gestures, that I needed to get running. He had no pity on me and that is exactly the push that I needed. I had to join them in a bunch of sprints and long runs before we started and on top of that, the heat. Surprisingly, I loved every minute of it. I missed being pushed by a coach to workout. We worked on shooting and then scrimmaged. I surprised these guys considering I am a girl (already been over this), and it was intense and fun. But after playing I realized how much I miss communication. I am use to telling them where to go or something simple such as "man on". I don't know how to communicate to them, so I have quite the challenge on my hands. It shows me how important communication really is. I played for 2 hours with these boys, which I assume were about 16 years old or so. I had a 3 hour break in between, so the other volunteer and I decided to walk to the beach (about 20 minute walk). We met up with the other guys and played some volleyball/soccer. Then, more soccer. Yeah, a whole day of soccer... nothing could make me more happy. I played soccer with the older guys and joined them in sprints and running again at the beginning. They were all really good and I was a little more hesitant until I got a little bit of a feel of how they play. After soccer we got two apples and a chocolate milk. It felt like I had started practices again and I loved it so much that I am going to attend the optional days that I am not required to work. After that we walked back over to Icarai beach and got an Açaì. Yeah I am using a portuguese laptop, so I can actually spell açaì correctly. I headed to beach soccer and just my luck... more running. My legs were exhausted by the end of the day, and running on the beach was a lot more difficult then the surface earlier (all dirt). I had a great conversation with the other volunteer about the differences of soccer between our countries and I will share that all one day, because he was shocked to see that they had to practice on such a bad surface. It's all different.

On saturday we spent the day at Ipanema beach, which is very similar to Copagabana. I did not bring my swimsuit because we arrived later and I had no plan to go into the water. Well, I ended up getting in the water and it was so nice. I spent about an hour and a half juggling with another volunteer alongside the water. It is common to see people juggling alongside the water here. He was a great person to juggle with because he is very skilled at it and he helped me to improve as the time passed. The challenge was when the water came at us and we had to juggle through the water. That night we decided to play cards on the beach and have a more mellow night, it was awesome. Today we spent the day at a market in Rio full of music and carnival activities. I will post pictures soon. I got to get some rest though because early in the morning we are going hang gliding over Copagabana, Ipanema and Rio. I am excited!! :)

Now that things have settled down, I can get back to blogging again and I have lots of cool things planned soon, so I will have great things to share!

Here are some pictures that I got from others. I will post the pictures from my camera soon :)

Day 30- Quarta 15/6/11

I had my induction for my second placement today, and I am excited to start tomorrow! The owner used to be a professional soccer player here in Brazil and he started up this club to give poor people the chance to play with a good program. The program consists of coaching soccer and also training. Projects abroad went and purchased some shin guards, blue socks, and a white shirt for my attire. I am beyond excited to be able to wear soccer socks as crazy as that may seem. The fields consist of mostly dirt with a few small patches of grass. I will be working with one other volunteer and he has enjoyed the placement a lot. The night before he sets up drills and uses Google translate to demonstrate what he is trying to convey. It is an exciting concept of us being coaches and players. Even though the ground is mostly dirt, I could not be more excited to be on a flat surface. I absolutely love the beach, but coming back to a surface where I am comfortable playing at will be most enjoyable. I get the best of both worlds, I could not ask for more. For beach soccer I can honestly say that I feel a huge improvement in my play. I even took a player on down the line today and it shocked me, but I just went for it. I have become pretty comfortable with the sand and I think it helps that I am not being as shy as well as not feeling pity for every time someone gets an injury. I have learned that these boys watch soccer as their main sport, so faking injuries is something that they are accustomed to. I really think that there should be some sort of rule against faking injuries because seeing the impact on how these boys react at my placement just proves that these soccer players are their role models.

Other than that… today was a weird day. I will just leave it at that. Boa noite.

"Nobody says you must laugh, but a sense of humor can help you overlook the unattractive, tolerate the unpleasant, cope with the unexpected, and smile through the day"

Day 29- Terca 14/6/11

It was raining, so no soccer tonight L. Booo (3 days in a row), I get so sad when there is no soccer. I still went today with high hopes, but nope. Cure you ask? ACAI. It works every time and thanks to Acai’s I can never have a bad day. Yumm. Denise and I went together to get an Acai and also chicken hearts (coração de frango). It was delicious, and it is worth trying. I rode a motorcycle tonight and it was exciting! Eek. My host brothers’ friend has a motorcycle, and Denise insisted that he gave me a ride. It was muito legal. Basically, I missed the family, so I am glad to be back! Tomorrow is my induction for my new placement, so I am excited to be working more! More soccer… never any complaints about that J

Here is a yummy chocolate that I had on the bus to Angra dos Reis:

Chicken Hearts: Yummmm