Today was the first official day of Phase 2 of the program. It was also our first day of meeting all the students at a school event. The first thing in the morning was meeting the students...it was a little scary, because there were 100 people in a entry-way of the auditorium, which was packed full. It is across the street from the school but still part of the school or something? My students screamed when they saw me. it was actually not as overwhelming as I expected it to be, at least for me. They are so nice and beautiful and were so happy to see me! They kept touching my hair and saying how beautiful it was. I certainly will not be missing out on affection here! We had breakfast as the auditorium foyer. It was little bite-sized traditional breads, both sweet and salty. I had a little cup of corn meal and something that tasted like creamed-corn. I had brigadieros, like a chocolate truffle, and many little breads filled with things I could not identify but were still good. There was juice too-grapefruit, passionfruit, apple.
They had a fancy reception with important people giving speeches. The president of USBC, the program I'm working for, gave a really nice speech. Her passion really showed through. There was also the leader of the main partner for the program in Brazil and some other school official type people. Not like a principal, but like a superintendent I guess. It was sort of boring, but at least the speeches were translated for us.
After all the speeches, we saw videos of previous years in the program. It only started at this site in 2013, so that didn't take too long. We have 2 groups of students who go to a rural school, so we saw the videos they made that gave a tour of their school. The school where we are working had 6 teams as regular students, so there was a little competition to see whose video would be shown. IT WAS MY GROUP. Their video was SO cute, they played "capture the flag" and had hints hidden around the school that said "status: cold" and then "status, warming up" like that, with clues about where to go. It was so good, I was very proud!
Then this old man with long white hair came in and played us traditional songs on guitar accompanied by a guy with an accordion who was really good.
Then we went to a mall to eat lunch before going to the Festa no Sao Joao.
In the Northeast region, where I am staying, it is a time of year called festa do junia,or the June Festivals. Three saints have days in June, and Brazil is a majority-Catholic country. This week was festa do Sao Joao, the Festival for St. John (the Baptist). The tradition is to dress like "country people" and do traditional dances. There were many plaid shirts and short shorts and boots, similar to American "country dress". The students of the school, not just our program, were the dancers. They were all really good! It was a fun time, and we had to dance too, which the students enjoyed watching!
We had been sweating basically all day except for in the mall, so it was amazing to come home and take a shower and go to bed...it will be hard to not just do that every day, it is so sweaty! But our other days won't be as full, so that's good!
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