Each day begins with breakfast and then we're off to our volunteer assignments. We leave at 8 to ensure all of us reach our destinations by 9 AM since we only work half days.
Here's our black car that transports us to each location.
50% of our time will be spent at our work assignments, 25% completing cultural activities and 25% free time.
Here's our schedule this week:
I selected the Child Development, Education and Literacy Project. The charity I'm working at is run by an 80 year old women known as "Vo Flor" (translates to "Grandma Flor") and serves as a free daycare / community shelter for anyone in need. I learned there are 3 classes amongst the poor in Salvador; Very Very Poor, Very Poor and Poor. Most of the parents are panhandlers. None of the staff or children speak English with the exception of a couple of teenagers that have been practicing with volunteers. When we arrived at 9 there were only a handful of children and 3 or 4 teenagers present. By noon there were about 50. There are 3 volunteers at this work assignment and 5 staff members that have extremely limited interaction with the kids. Xiao Feng and I began the morning interacting with the young children. We started with drawing/painting, soccer and hide and seek. Ivelisse speaks Spanish and is able to communicate well with most people here in Brazil. She offered to help the teenagers with English and one (I'll refer to him as J) accepted the invitation. Eventually Ivelisse and J joined Xiao Feng and I at the table with the children. Two sisters G (22 yrs old) and Jos (19 yrs old) joined us shortly after. The younger children were bored and off to something else in about 30 secs. They wanted to know where we're from, age, profession, about our families, if we're rich, etc. Ivelisse had a massive map so we all had a English/Portuguese geography lesson. Xiao Feng and I finished the day with the older group and I began to ask similar questions to the ones posed to us. J wants to visit the US, Australia, Egypt, UK and China. He's 17, attends school from 1 to 6 (Brazil has half day morning or evening sessions) is a geography ninja and aspires to be an interior designer. G has four kids Wemdreo (7), Migel (6), Anna Luiz (4), Kalita (2) and is fascinated with American Pop Culture. Her sister Jos has 3 kids Kauan Bruno (6), Bianca (4), Izbely (2). All of the children live in a city north of Salvador. G later expressed she thinks I'm educated.
I learned these things using Google Translator "Vo Flor" edition.
After lunch we had our first "official" Portuguese lesson where I learned how to say/interpret all of the basic phrases I struggled thru this morning. I'm thankful for my Salvadorian translator and geographer, J. We also had our first Capoeira lesson this afternoon. It was a ton of fun. I'll gently borrow photos/vidoes from my fellow volunteers facebook pages and post them later.
I spent my free time today joining and working out at a local gym with Luis, Marc and Tony. I didn't arrive early enough to make it into the spin class, so I worked on my rehab assignments for my knee. I stood outside the spin class to observe and heard Rihanna so I'm sure it will feel similar to home when I have a chance to take it. I met Maggie who saw us struggling to communicate and helped out since she speaks English. She asked what we're doing here...what was the mission (I'm honestly not sure yet). After describing "Vo Flor" her face lit up and she mentioned she has 3 large bags of clothes, toys and crib she didn't have a place to donate. I'll end this post with a quote from Maggie...
"Everything happens for a reason."
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