Finally one of the most exciting parts of my exchange arrived : the Northeast trip!! On our trip, we started off in the mainland and worked our way up all the way to Natal and now we are coming back down on the coast of Brazil. We are unfortunately almost done our trip, but we have visited so many amazing places! Some of them are : Brasilia, Praia do Forte, Reciffe, Natal, Maceio, Salvador. Tomorrow we are going to go to Porto Seguro and then the famous Rio de Janeiro. The weather is very hot here and the beaches are beautiful. We are 48 exchange students all together and everyone is very nice and we all get along very well. We have become like a big family!
The culture here is quite different from the mainland of Brazil. They have different music, more with drums and hand made instruments because earlier, instruments were expensive and a lot of people couldn't afford them and they made their own. The food is a little different as well. They eat more of a variety of foods, rather then rice and beans every day like they do in Minas Gerais. Also, Northeast is actually a lot poorer then any of the other parts of Brazil that I have seen. It really opens your eyes to how lucky we are in Canada to have what we have; even the poorest of people in Canada have more then some of the people here. One of the saddest stories I have heard here, is the children you see begging on the streets for money have an opportunity to go to school and learn and to have a future because the government gives money to the mothers to make sure that they can go. But what the mothers still do is take their children out of school and make them beg for money on the street so they can get more, while they are still receiving the money from the government. It's like a big circle, because these really poor people don't get an education so they can't make any money so they can never get out of their situation. Fortunately it's slowly getting better, but will still need some time.
I am having a blast and this is definitely one of the best times of my life. Thank you to everyone who made this whole exchange possible.
