The past few days have been quite frustrating. We have a week to finish up our projects and prepare materials for the Press Conference, which takes place next Friday. Yet we sit in class from 9-5, and I feel that most of that time is spent unwisely. Our trainers spend hours explaining concepts that could be understood in a few minutes; I understand that they're trying to be creative in their long-winded examples, but I think that since we have such limited time to implement a good project, that time would be better spent either working in small groups or going out to do action research. A couple of days ago the Professor noted that a lot of the groups were experiencing frustrations, and so we spent the last two hours of class time that day in a Circle of Truth, where everybody express their aggravations, as well as what they like about either their group members or the program. Most American students voiced that class time was being used unwisely, that a lot of the Brazilian students do not show up every day, and that the program is not as organized as it should be. Many Brazilians complained that the incentives for the Brazilian students to participate are different from the incentives the Americans have. It seems to them that we are there only to get a grade.
This part really bothers me. The program is set up in such a way that the Americans have assignments to complete and presentations to make during the course of the three weeks. Many of the assignments are discussed during class time, and the presentations must include the Brazilians. Yet the Brazilians are not graded for making or participating in the presentations, and they are not obligated to hand in the assignments, so time spent discussing assignments is a waste of their time. I did not come to Brazil for a grade; if I were simply interested in receiving credit, I could have taken summer classes and it would have been much less expensive. So I was doubly disappointed that the Brazilians thought all we care about is grades (especially considering how much commitment I know the Americans in many of the groups are putting into these projects) as well as how uninvolved many of them are being considering its their communities we're working to improve.
A few days ago our group lost an essential group member, Ingrid. Ingrid is in her 30's and has already established an NGO with her husband, which aims to involve street kids in sports as a means for getting them less involved with drugs. She's had tons of experience networking with NGO's and collecting contacts, so she was a very crucial member of our group and contributed a lot of great ideas for NGO's we can contact. She also spoke pretty decent English and helped translate the other Portuguese-speakers. She suddenly told us a couple of days ago that she only has six more days to complete her Ph.D discertation and that she can no longer work with us or with the program. I encouraged my group not to dwell on her absence too much because we can still get a lot done. After the Circle of Truth I think we were all feeling a lot better about the situation, and talked it out the next day. We have a meeting with Antonio, the Saramandia radio man, on Tuesday.
Last night the trainers had a party at their "apartment" and invited us for pizza and drinks. We took a cab over, and I fought with the cab driver because he was trying to heinously rip us off. We walked into their green house and realized that their "apartment" is a gigantic town house with three floors, four hammocks, and an enormous balcony overlooking the ENTIRE city and river. We spent the entire night drinking and dancing on the enormous balcony (large enough to accommodate 40 people) to 70's and 80's music, The Beatles, and Girl Talk. I thought it was a great bonding night for our group. We couldn't stay too late, though, because this morning we took an excursion to Saramandia and had the locals show us around. It was kind of bizarre because they had pretty much rolled out the red carpet for us. They were very proud of the progress they were making in their community, and after our tour they took us to the church where my group and I usually go for meetings and fed us with all sorts of baked goods. As we were leaving the church we were greeted by a small drum troupe which performed for us, and then accompanied us, drummig, all the way to our vans. When we arrived at our vans we were greeted by a very young Capoiera dance troupe. They, too, performed for us before we left to go home. Capoiera is a very popular style dance here. It's a bit difficult to describe, but I think the most accurate way would be to imagine how martial arts would look if it were a dance. Two people enter the circle and shake hands, then they kick over one another's heads and perform all sorts of acrabatic tricks to avoid the other's strike. Then they leave the circle and two others enter. All of this is played out to drumming and singing at the edges of the circle. It's really quite impressive.
Tonight I'm just going to stay in and maybe practice some drawing. James has been trying to teach me to draw cross-country via e-mail. He drew an amazing sketch of Nick from a photograph I sent him, and sent me an instructional e-mail about how to draw Nick. So I attempted it and actually didn't do too bad of a job (for my first time). I've included his version and my version below.
I've also uploaded the first set of Brazil pictures onto my Picasa Website. Check them out: http://picasaweb.google.com/yoolka.d/FirstWeekInBrazil
Oh yes, and in other news, Brazilian Chinese food is superb.
My drawing is on the left, and James's is on the right. I laugh as I look at them side by side; I'm such an amature :P
This part really bothers me. The program is set up in such a way that the Americans have assignments to complete and presentations to make during the course of the three weeks. Many of the assignments are discussed during class time, and the presentations must include the Brazilians. Yet the Brazilians are not graded for making or participating in the presentations, and they are not obligated to hand in the assignments, so time spent discussing assignments is a waste of their time. I did not come to Brazil for a grade; if I were simply interested in receiving credit, I could have taken summer classes and it would have been much less expensive. So I was doubly disappointed that the Brazilians thought all we care about is grades (especially considering how much commitment I know the Americans in many of the groups are putting into these projects) as well as how uninvolved many of them are being considering its their communities we're working to improve.
A few days ago our group lost an essential group member, Ingrid. Ingrid is in her 30's and has already established an NGO with her husband, which aims to involve street kids in sports as a means for getting them less involved with drugs. She's had tons of experience networking with NGO's and collecting contacts, so she was a very crucial member of our group and contributed a lot of great ideas for NGO's we can contact. She also spoke pretty decent English and helped translate the other Portuguese-speakers. She suddenly told us a couple of days ago that she only has six more days to complete her Ph.D discertation and that she can no longer work with us or with the program. I encouraged my group not to dwell on her absence too much because we can still get a lot done. After the Circle of Truth I think we were all feeling a lot better about the situation, and talked it out the next day. We have a meeting with Antonio, the Saramandia radio man, on Tuesday.
Last night the trainers had a party at their "apartment" and invited us for pizza and drinks. We took a cab over, and I fought with the cab driver because he was trying to heinously rip us off. We walked into their green house and realized that their "apartment" is a gigantic town house with three floors, four hammocks, and an enormous balcony overlooking the ENTIRE city and river. We spent the entire night drinking and dancing on the enormous balcony (large enough to accommodate 40 people) to 70's and 80's music, The Beatles, and Girl Talk. I thought it was a great bonding night for our group. We couldn't stay too late, though, because this morning we took an excursion to Saramandia and had the locals show us around. It was kind of bizarre because they had pretty much rolled out the red carpet for us. They were very proud of the progress they were making in their community, and after our tour they took us to the church where my group and I usually go for meetings and fed us with all sorts of baked goods. As we were leaving the church we were greeted by a small drum troupe which performed for us, and then accompanied us, drummig, all the way to our vans. When we arrived at our vans we were greeted by a very young Capoiera dance troupe. They, too, performed for us before we left to go home. Capoiera is a very popular style dance here. It's a bit difficult to describe, but I think the most accurate way would be to imagine how martial arts would look if it were a dance. Two people enter the circle and shake hands, then they kick over one another's heads and perform all sorts of acrabatic tricks to avoid the other's strike. Then they leave the circle and two others enter. All of this is played out to drumming and singing at the edges of the circle. It's really quite impressive.
Tonight I'm just going to stay in and maybe practice some drawing. James has been trying to teach me to draw cross-country via e-mail. He drew an amazing sketch of Nick from a photograph I sent him, and sent me an instructional e-mail about how to draw Nick. So I attempted it and actually didn't do too bad of a job (for my first time). I've included his version and my version below.
I've also uploaded the first set of Brazil pictures onto my Picasa Website. Check them out: http://picasaweb.google.com/yoolka.d/FirstWeekInBrazil
Oh yes, and in other news, Brazilian Chinese food is superb.
My drawing is on the left, and James's is on the right. I laugh as I look at them side by side; I'm such an amature :P
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4 comments:
(a)mature or amateur? just kidding... not bad, actually. you have to teach me, too.
Sure! I think that would be a lot of fun actually. We could improve our artistic skills :)
You made a correct description of the dance! Once I was in a Brazilian restaurant (dinner and performance) where the DJ explained the roots of their dance: The Portuguese invaders/rulers forbid the locals to hone their military skills. So, they hid their fighting move in the dance practice.
A big time-gap in write-up. Unexplained/unjustified.
Don't stop, don't drop, stay on the top.
well, one has to possess artistic skills to start with, in order to improve it... that's a snide remark in my direction. But it's never late to learn! Maybe, even those strange dancing moves!?
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