January 12, 2014

It’s Sunday afternoon and we are heading back to Piracicaba after rafting. Let me bring you up to date with our activities since the last post. I will also post all my pictures to my Facebook if you want to see the complete set. Friday we had class all day with Pedro. I have included his picture.

As with other years, having class from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm is tough to do. U.S students are not use to sitting for that long of a period of time listening to a lecture. We go 8:00-10:00 am, then a 10 minute coffee and cookie break, 10:00-12:00 noon with a two hour lunch (which is also very different) and then 2:00-4:00 pm, 10 minute break and 4:10-6:00 pm. We tried a new restaurant in town for lunch which was a great buffet with professional chefs. One of the chefs welcomed us, talked to us while we were there and then asked us to return. Friday evening we went to an acai restaurant which has soufles, sandwiches, shakes, juices and these bowls of acai, which is a berry with syrup, with all sorts of other things like granola, chocolate, strawberries, peaches, sweet and condensed milk, nuts etc. The students had a variety of foods and it was a nice and relaxing evening. Oh, before I forget, in Cristina’s Portuguese class the students learned how to greet each other, the customs of greeting, and a friendly getting to know you conversations. You can see some of the students having fun with it.

We had class on Saturday all day. We saw some of the tree monkeys that are on campus walking into campus in the morning. They are really cute. You can attract them by feeding bananas and oranges. The security guard had them at the gate when we arrived which was quite a surprise to the students. There were 4 playing in one tree and three in another.

Lunch was at a community buffet very similar to the first lunch we had Wednesday. Cristina worked with the students on their introductions for their host family. On the Thursday before the weekend stay the students will meet all the host families at a dinner. The students will prepare an introduction which includes their name, hometown, major, and something they like about Brazil. Each student will say their introduction, be introduced to their family and then sit with their family for the dinner. Saturday evening I took a group of the students to my favorite place to eat which is right by the hotel and is a frozen yogurt and gelato shop. They have all kinds of fruit toppings including kiwi, strawberries, chocolate, blueberry sauce, strawberry sauce, amorito, mango, watermelon, pineapple, mixed fruit, cherries, fruit loops??!!, nuts, etc. The yogurt choices were acai and vanilla. There are all kinds of flavors of gelato. Then I took another group of students to the grocery which is within walking distance of the hotel so they would know where it is and just look around. It’s neat to look at the items in a grocery when you are in a foreign country. A few things were purchased and you can see a picture looking down on Piracicaba from the grocery parking lot.

A group went out about 10:00 pm to enjoy the Brazilian culture. Now for rafting….. it has been very dry here which impacts the depth of the rivers. We went to Brotas which is a well known rafting community in Brazil. We started at a park with a pool, lake, water slide, high ropes and zip line over the lake, waterball, and small beach . It was a very nice day. From there we broke into two groups of six and two groups of five, were equipped with life jacket and helmets and boarded a bus to take us to our starting point. By the time we got to the starting point a thunderstorm had rolled in and the temperature dropped. We avoided the rain but it was overcast and windy. We learned the commands our guides would use as we rafted: frente (forward), parar (stop), avessas, (grab rope and lean in) and penas (sit down on floor of boat). Several of the students had never rafted before. We practiced our commands in the beginning, decided on a cheer for each boat and then enjoyed our time on the river. We had just one student fall off the raft and it wasn’t her fault. One of the other rafts banged into hers and it caught her off balance. We ate lunch after at the park, did a little swimming and It appears most students are sleeping now on the way back to Piracicaba. You will have to ask the students, but I think they enjoyed themselves.