August 7, 2006

Oi!

Hello from Brazil. As of tomorrow I will have been here a week, so I thought it was about time to get a message out to you all. I have posted some photo albums online of my summer, and, now, of Brazil. If you want to check them out click here. The last two albums are from Brazil and I will continue to update it as I take more pictures.

The trip down here turned out to be a bit of an adventure. The boy from my Rotary District and I showed up at the Chicago airport only to find that our flight to Sao Paulo had been delayed over 12 hours. Luckily we met up with some other Rotary kids traveling to Brazil and managed to get complimentary hotel rooms for the night. Unfortunately, however, the delay also meant that all of us missed our connecting flights to our various cities in Brazil , so we also had to spend the night in Sao Paulo, with Rotarians. I did make it to Londrina by Mon. morning though, so it wasn’t too bad. I came here for the adventure, so I won’t complain that I got a little more than I had planned on.

My host family here is wonderful. My host father and host brother, who is 14, speak some descent English. My host mother is very nice and we are managing to communicate through dictionaries, sign language, and some mutilated Portuguese on my part. She is a very good cook, and upon learning that I could eat sugar, has provided me with a constant stream of new fruits and juices, the likes of which I have never tried before. I also have a little sister who is four and just adorable. From our apartment you can see the whole city, particularly gorgeous at sunrise (yes I get up here at 6:00am as well for school).

Though I am with younger kids at school (here you are in high school only until you are 17) everyone is nice and many people speak English. I have gone out to the mall, a movie, and a restaurant the past few nights, and even went to a girl’s home in a neighboring city. Londrina is different from most American cities. It is large enough with 500,000 people, but there is no true center yet to be found, just a more claustrophobic cluster of shops and apartment buildings. I have seen no true neighborhoods. The entire city is just a mess of random houses, commercial buildings, and abandoned lots. The houses are all surrounded by large walls, with the houses built directly into them. Also I have yet to find someone who actually uses the public transportation system, as everyone deems it too slow. Beyond the city the surrounding rolling hills and farmlands are very much reminiscent of rural Ohio. This is odd, but mildly comforting.

It is good to stay busy and I hope to meet many more people in the days to come. It is hard to be so alone in a place where everything is so different and the language is so confusing at times. Right now a year feels like forever. I know that, with time, things will get easier, but now it is good to hear from my family and friends. Let me know what everyone is up to so I can remain connected to you all and I will try to respond with individual emails in time. I love and miss you all.

xoxo
-Erin