Day 16- Quarta 1/6/11

I had an early day for my induction day at my second job placement. The bus ride to this place was beautiful. We passed Icarai beach and went further into the town. This placement was pretty much a day care for children ranging in ages 2 to 6 years old. It was chaotic with kids running around, screaming, and crying. If any of you know me, I am not a kid person, so this was quite the challenge for my first day. I would be working sports with them for an hour, which means I get to play games with them. The other three hours would consist of hanging out with the kids and acting as a care helper. The kids were absolutely adorable and there was one little girl that wanted to sit on my lap or be held by me just about every second. A big downfall of this is that I don’t speak Portuguese, so I can’t communicate with them. It’s hard enough for me to communicate with children who speak English. The other two volunteers I work with both speak Portuguese, so it comes naturally for them. I don’t know if I am going to stay at this placement because it was all very overwhelming for me and there are other placements that focus more on soccer, in which is the main reason I picked Brazil. I am going to finish out this week to give it a try and go from there.

When I got back in Fonseca, I decided to go on my own little adventure through the town. I walked around the super market and I felt like a little kid in a candy store. There are so many different fruits, chocolates, and food that caught my eye. I ended up buying a bag full of chocolate… surprise, I know. I have found a favorite chocolate here and it is sold all over the streets. It is called ‘Serenata de Amor’. It is muito bom! Also, they had my favorite chocolate called ‘Milka’, which I discovered in Europe. Of course, I had to buy that too since it is the best. When I got home I just practiced my Portuguese and hung out with my roommate.

Now for the best part of my day… soccer! When I got to the beach, the coach and I just did a bunch of free kicks and penalty kicks on some of the kids. I am getting closer with these kids, so it is becoming more and more fun as the time passes. I scored my first beach soccer goal today and I even cheered I was so excited. But the boy who gave me the assist gave me the perfect pass; I was more impressed with how well he got the ball to me. I have formed a brother like relationship with some of them, in which they will jokingly push me and I will just push them back. I was even doing hand stands with one of them on the sidelines (well he was flipping, and I was falling, good attempt though). I was getting ready to leave and the coach asked me if I wanted to stay and play soccer with him and his friends, so I did. It was the most impressive soccer I have seen yet. It is a completely different style of soccer revolving mostly around skill. They would be juggling the ball and pass it through juggling and speed. For beach soccer, they would put there foot under the ball and flip it upwards to direct their pass. My coach is really good! I did not do that bad, but I mostly was watching and only played if the ball came towards me. I was a tad intimidated, not going to lie. I scored the ball also, but it was all luck because the sand directed the ball around the keeper, so I will give myself the assist for the sand. It was a lot of fun for sure and playing with a bunch of good looking guys, well I won’t complain. I was supposed to meet up with my roommate at home, but since I played soccer she just brought me a change of clothes and we met up with all the other volunteers at the square. I always enjoy hanging out with everyone because everyone is so nice and we all have so much to talk about with all of our cultures being so different. For the first time in my life, I think America is the only culture that seems to be the most different. There is an American guy here too and people always seem to make fun of some of the things we say or do. Actually… we all make fun of each other for some of the things we do because it is all different. We have named each other cities from our countries instead of our names… and I insisted that they call me Denver. But for some reason they keep calling me Chicago. Who knows why? Tonight was awesome.

Pictures from the birthday party:

My host mom, Denise, is next to me and my host dad, Beto, is above her :)