Culture Differences

I can't recall everything that has happened to me in the last few days with perfect memory, but I have saved side notes to remind me. I have been busy with lots of work, and the time spent in between work is playing soccer at the beach or hanging with the volunteers. We played soccer against a few Brazilians the other day. It was good, but they were skilled on the sand and they knew that we were used to a different surface, so they enjoyed beating the gringos. Our friend Fernando met up with us afterwards; he lives here in Brazil and attends school here, as well as helps teach English with a few of the other volunteers. He is probably one of the most genuine Brazilians taht I have met. Since I have been learning portuguese on my own, I don't really know if I say things correctly or not. No one corrects be because they all think it's cute when an American is learning the language. Fernando helped teach me how to say things properly and he became a teacher for me that day. He has offered to help me more in the future, which would be beneficial to both of us considering it is nice to have a teacher and he enjoys teaching the language. Fernando has been working with volunteers for a long time now and he explains how much he enjoys working with them because he said he has friends from so many different places. What I found interesting is that he lives in a favela. He explained what it was like living in a favela and he does not like it. It is crowded and noisy constantly. Another thing he was saying was that he is majoring in International business. For those of you that don't know, I am also majoring in International business. He explained that the requirement for that major was that you need to learn 3 languages. He knows Portuguese, English, learning Spanish, and learning Greek. He might consider taking French instead of Greek though because he said it's difficult to learn. Portuguese is influenced by Spanish, English, and French. I could hear all 3 of these languages when people talk to me, it is very interesting. As he was explaining all of this, all I could think of was the fact that I am not required to know any other language. How is this possible? I can't speak for every college in America, but it made me wonder how many colleges in America make it a requirement to learn languages to graduate. I think it is extremely beneficial in business to be fluent in more than one language. If I have gained anything from this talk, it is that I am determined to learn more than one language as well.

Also, after talking with the volunteers about college life in their countries, we all have completely different ideas of what college is. We all get an education, but we all experience college differently. Some other countries don't experience the dorm environment or the parties or the sports. People have asked me what college parties are like in America because they all want to experience them. Then again, everybody is influenced by what the movies are conveying America to be. Movies make everything so glamorous, but I think many foreigners would be surprised that our lives are not as glamorous as the movies. I think Americans are naive to the world, but I also think that people are misled about America. I have found that it is common in America for girls to love sports. People are always surprised that I play soccer, or surprised that I love sports so much. Not many other countries can say the same thing, not saying that girls everywhere don't like sports, but not to the extent that I do. The most intriguing thing to me is the language differences. The other day I was sharing a story and I used the line 'I am walking on egg shells'. One of the volunteers literally though I meant that I was walking on egg shells and his face looked very concerned. It ended up being funny to laugh at and I had to explain what it meant. Ther are many different instances when this happens, but that was the example that came to my mind.

The English have their phrases, the Aussies have their lingo, and the Americans have their slang. It's awesome.

Some pictures of my beach soccer, Praiano:

This is Fernando below.

This is my coach below... Yeah, do you get why I missed my penalty kick now? haha, and Dennis, the other volunteer I work with and play soccer with a lot.