Christmas Time

A couple of days ago I changed host family's and we traveled to Uberlandia, a big city in Minas Gerais, to spend Christmas with the family. This year is not only my first Christmas without my real family but also without cold and snow. The truth is that it doesn't feel at all like Christmas. Although I am loving my new family and they make me feel like I am part of theirs, I am still missing some of the regular Canadian traditions. Also with some of the cultural differences it's hard to relate what Christmas is for me in Canada with any of the traditions here. One of them is everyone does a Secret Santa with each other. Families are very large here and always come together at big holidays. So what they do is put everyone's name in a big bucket and everyone picks a name. Afterwards you\re supposed to buy a present for the person that you picked out of the bucket. Then on the night of the 24th/morning of the 25th everyone trades presents. There isn't really any difference in the seasonal food and the everyday food and they don't use real Christmas trees because not very many grow here. The one in my current house is a small pine tree which you can buy at the grocery store during December. But my family before used a small regular tree (the kind with leafs) and decorated that with the decorations you would usually find in Canada. Santa Claus does exist here for small children but he's not as popular here as he is in Canada.
Hoping everyone has a wonderful Christmas and happy New Year :)

Month 4

Everything here is still well, nothing too exciting to report on. The language is going good and my friends are well. My friends and I are still trying to find some things to do around the town and our creativity is lacking a little :P Today was our last day of school and the summer holidays are starting :) I'm definitely enjoying the nice hot weather here.

A couple of weeks ago I finally got to go one of the famous 15's party here. It's part of the brazilian culture to have a big party to celebrate a girls 15th birthday. Turning 15 is like the age that you are considered to be entering womanhood. It kinda reminded me of the parties on the TV show 'My Super Sweet 16 Party' but for a 15 year old. They rented a huge room with a dance floor and a DJ and had tons of food. Everyone dressed up really fancy and had a good time. So much that we ended up leaving at 4 AM and the party wasn't even over yet.

Our handball team

Some of my friends after we got our hands on some cake :)

3rd Month

So I've been here for a little over 3 months and things have definitely wound down a lot. Everything that seemed so new when I first got here seems so ordinary, like the very friendly people, or all the dogs on the street, and even the language! I can't say that I am fluent but I can definitely understand and hold up a conversation with people :P But right now I am feeling the slump. I try and think of new things to do, but since this town is very small it has pushed my imagination to it's limits and I have run out of ideas. I am awaiting the famous Northeast Trip that happens in January, which will take us intercambistas (a little bit of portguese for you guys) to all the important sites in Brazil like Brazilia, Rio, and most importantly some of the most beautiful beaches here ;)
But before this all happens I will be switching families. The exact date has not be giving to me yet, but I was told some time at the end of the month. I think this will be one of the most challenging parts of the exchange, cause I have grown to like my family very much.  Since I  wasn't really able to communicate with them very well in the begining, I wasn't really able to become comfortable with them, but now that I know the language a little bit better I am actualy able to communicate with them, which has made me like them even more.
On another hand I do have a funny story to share, well for you guys reading this anyways. In Brazil they don't have rapsberries, and somehow me and some people from my Rotary club got on the subject of Canadian fruits and such. So I wanted to describe to them what rapsberries were. So I started to talk about them and say 'they are red and about this big' and using my thumb and index fingure to make a circle in my right hand to demonstrate the size of a rapsberry. Kind of like a a-okay sign that we give in Canada. Once I finish my description, a few of the Rotarians are giving me some not so nice looks but I can't figure out why. It wasn't until afterwards that someone comes up to me and tells me that that a-okay sign that I was using to describe the size of the rapsberries doesn't mean what it does in Canada, and of course I had forgotten completely about what it meant to people here Brazil. So long story short, I basically gave a bunch of my fellow Rotarians the middle fingure by accident...

A New Sport

Every year, my city, Bom Despacho, host several schools from the chain of schools of Promove to compete in a tournament of soccer and handball. I had never really played handball but decided that it would be a good idea to try out and see what it was like and maybe find a new skill I never knew I had. To my surprise I did make the team and would be competing for my school. The tournament was last Friday and Saturday. Our team came in 3rd out of 5 teams. It's not the best but I was so happy that I was able to play and get this experience. Even though I didn't have an amazing talent for handball I was happy that I got  a good memory out of it and I even managed to score a point. :D

Sorry for the wait on a new post, my host family and I moved houses, and with a new house comes no internet connection. So I have been sort of out of the loop for about 2 weeks now. Anyways everything is still amazing :D the weather is getting hotter which can sometimes be great but it's not so much fun to play sports in. The first very important message that I have learned about Brazil is that I should never leave the house without sunscreen. Let's just say that now I'm a lot less white then before. Also this weekend we had our inbound orientation which was amazing. I met so many people from all around the world. One thing I realized from Rotary exchanges is that the world seems a million times smaller now. There were 49 of us and most came from the United States and Mexico. Everyone got along because we were all in the same situation. The most amazing part was that almost everyone there spoke English, their native language and a 3rd language fluently. And it really made me wonder why the school in Canada didn't make it mandatory to learn a second language that we could later be able to converse in.
Also, I have realized that the most universal language is music. No matter where you are from or what you like everyone likes to listen to music. And it also tells a lot about a culture. And it's definitely one if my favorite parts here. And of course the people are amazing as well.
To all the Rotarians who read this I would just like to thank you for the opportunity that I have been given and I wish that everyone could share this experience with me.

One month

A little over a month has gone by and I still can't believe how fast it went by. I've made so many new friends here and I'm having an amazing time. One of the things I am most proud of this month is that I was able to keep up a conversation in Portuguese with someone for more then 5 minutes. I have also succesfully made pancakes for my host family, which I think they enjoyed, but unfortunetly I didn't bring enough maple syrup to make them again for them.

My house

The neighboorhood

Our visit to Belo Horizonte

First Week

After 3 long plane rides, I finally made it here. Everything is very different from Canada, and I'm so happy to be able to experience it all! Some things may take a little longer to get used too; like there aren't any cross walks for pedestrians so you basically have to avoid the cars to cross the street, also people are soooo friendly! Every time you meet someone new you give them a hug and a kiss on the cheek, but sometimes you don't. I haven't quite figured it all out yet :P The language is sort of an issue sometimes, but I'm starting to understand most of what people try to tell me if they speak slowly and clearly I can understand most of what they are saying.

 Two days ago I started school. I met so many nice people! Some of them spoke a little bit of english which made it so much easier to communicate but I'm also able to practice my portuguese with them. Another difference is schools here start at 7... But they also end at 12 so it's good and bad all at the same time.

Last hour in Canada

So this is officially my last hour in Canada before returning in about 305 days. It's rather exciting but weird to leave something so familiar behnd and going off to the unknown. To everyone i didn't officially say good bye to this is my farewell to you and I will see you next year if every thing goes well :)