We’re two weeks into this nine(ish)-month adventure! I arrived in São Paulo a bit early, visiting friends from previous recklessly inspirational months past. This time, though, I knew where I was. I knew where I was going, and I knew how I was getting there. After a couple of short days visiting, wandering, and shooting what little breeze wandered through the summertime air, I said goodbye and made my way to the Landmark Residence hotel.
There, I met the 29 other ETAs from my part of the program, from all over the states, soon to be dispersed throughout all of Brazil (sort of). We sat in solidarity through three days of admittedly helpful and relevant presentations on everything we’d need to know (and some things we wouldn’t) about being ETAs, most of which were followed by Q and A sessions. There were often several Qs, to which most of the As were, “That really depends on your placement situation.” Lots of informative talk and free breakfast and morning coffee break and afternoon coffee break and yada, yada, yada…
Then I arrived in Belém. Being a child of the desert, I was not at all intimidated by the heat (also, the numbers are less intimidating in Celsius). But when I felt the wetness of the air on my hands before the plane landed at the gate, I knew that the humidity was going to be a force to be reckoned with. But instead of a slap in the face, I received a giant, warm hug from the afternoon air. It hasn’t let go yet, and that’s actually turning out to be quite alright.
The rain helps. There are two seasons in Belém, they say: the season where it rains every day, and the one where it rains all day. This is the “all day” season—the past week has beaten any year of rain I’ve seen in LA. But the sun doth shine! And when the two harmonize, they really help to balance one another.
I work at Universidade Federal do Pará (UFPA), a university that sits on the banks of the Guamá River, which slips beside the campus, bends around southern Belém, and empties into the Amazon Delta. From what I’ve seen in the first week, our department is pretty incredibly bilingual, often switching mid-sentence to accommodate people, ideas, and those words that just can’t be translated. My partner Sarah and I have been assigned to assist undergrad students who are getting their degrees in teaching English, which, for several reasons, is going to be a tension-filled (and likely extremely rewarding) area of work.
More to come; this hopefully lays some basic groundwork for the good stuff to follow. The skill of writing, like any muscle or skill, tends to atrophy when not used. But if the past two weeks of Portuguese rehab are any indication, I’m hopeful about some serious improvement in quality as we progress through the blogosphere.
I just used blogosphere in a sentence. This may take awhile…
There, I met the 29 other ETAs from my part of the program, from all over the states, soon to be dispersed throughout all of Brazil (sort of). We sat in solidarity through three days of admittedly helpful and relevant presentations on everything we’d need to know (and some things we wouldn’t) about being ETAs, most of which were followed by Q and A sessions. There were often several Qs, to which most of the As were, “That really depends on your placement situation.” Lots of informative talk and free breakfast and morning coffee break and afternoon coffee break and yada, yada, yada…
Then I arrived in Belém. Being a child of the desert, I was not at all intimidated by the heat (also, the numbers are less intimidating in Celsius). But when I felt the wetness of the air on my hands before the plane landed at the gate, I knew that the humidity was going to be a force to be reckoned with. But instead of a slap in the face, I received a giant, warm hug from the afternoon air. It hasn’t let go yet, and that’s actually turning out to be quite alright.
The rain helps. There are two seasons in Belém, they say: the season where it rains every day, and the one where it rains all day. This is the “all day” season—the past week has beaten any year of rain I’ve seen in LA. But the sun doth shine! And when the two harmonize, they really help to balance one another.
I work at Universidade Federal do Pará (UFPA), a university that sits on the banks of the Guamá River, which slips beside the campus, bends around southern Belém, and empties into the Amazon Delta. From what I’ve seen in the first week, our department is pretty incredibly bilingual, often switching mid-sentence to accommodate people, ideas, and those words that just can’t be translated. My partner Sarah and I have been assigned to assist undergrad students who are getting their degrees in teaching English, which, for several reasons, is going to be a tension-filled (and likely extremely rewarding) area of work.
More to come; this hopefully lays some basic groundwork for the good stuff to follow. The skill of writing, like any muscle or skill, tends to atrophy when not used. But if the past two weeks of Portuguese rehab are any indication, I’m hopeful about some serious improvement in quality as we progress through the blogosphere.
I just used blogosphere in a sentence. This may take awhile…