Our hotel room - no mosquito net!

The rooms at the Radisson were enormous and really nice - it was so fun!

We had been planning for a couple of months to spend a weekend at a nice hotel for our third anniversary.  Our goal was to enjoy time with each other and a few days away from the intense heat and humidity and the hungry bugs.  We had also been wanting to try the famous five star Amazon restaurant in the city called Remanso do Bosque.  We just got back today and had a great time even though we were just a few blocks away at the local Radisson.  It was really fun to have a few special days of luxury away from it all, swimming in the pool, trying crazy new foods and going up for seconds and thirds at the awesome breakfast spread.   Now it's back to reality and I'm sitting in front of the fans and slapping mosquitoes, but I can still smell wafts of the trendy upscale shampoo and conditioner from my hair left over from our multiple hot showers.  It's the little things.

Awesome breakfast buffet

I spent most of my time at the rooftop pool - love at first sight

For our first night we walked to Domino's Pizza and got a pepperoni and mushroom pie - something that we have been wanting to do for awhile but is normally a little out of our price range.  The taste of home was awesome!  On Saturday night we took a taxi to Remanso do Bosque to try out the tasting menu.  We were there right at 7pm when it opened because we had heard the tasting took about 3 hours and we were hungry!  Brazilians eat dinner much later than the normal American supper hour and other dinner guests didn't start rolling in until about 8:30.  We ordered fancy drinks and then started the twelve course culinary delight.  The two chefs who created the restaurant and the menu are brothers from Belém.  They only use local ingredients from indigenous communities or from the surrounding Amazon.  Sean and I had never done something like this before and it was a very entertaining and delicious experience.  By the end, however, I was so full that after just a bite or two I would pass my plate to Sean.  We both agreed that the best dish was the homemade chocolate mousse with handmade chocolate from a nearby island.  Somehow there was magically more room in my stomach to finish all of mine on my own.  Bonus points that we got to eat it out of a fun clay pot with a mouth shovel.

Twelve Course Tasting Menu (of course I took pictures!):

"Tacacachaça" Artesenal alcohol with Jambú leaves and Passion Fruit juice (Drink: Mango and Ginger Caipirinha)

"Beiju cica, Beiju de tapioca, Manteiga de leite de Búfalo" Manioc biscuits with buffalo butter

"Manga com farinha" Mango and manioc flour ceviche

"Ariá in Caldo de Tucupi" Amazon potato in a type of indigenous broth

Fresh raw oyster

"Pupunha, Pele de arroz, Amendoim, Pipoca" Pupunha fruit, rice skin, peanuts and shaved popcorn

"Filhote na brasa, Leite de castanha" Grilled Filhote fish in nut milk

"Tucunaré na folha, Tucupi, Farinha d'agua, Rapadura" Tucunaré fish cooked in banana leaf, broth, homemade flour and brown sugar

"Pirarucu defumado, Banana da terra, Urucum" Smoked Pirarucu fish, banana gnocchi in a Urucum sauce

"Arroz de Pato" Duck rice with egg

"Bacuri, Hibisco, Tapioca" Bacuri fruit, Hibiscus and Manioc flour

"Cacau do Combú" Chocolate mousse from Combú Island

Happy 3rd Anniversary babe!  Cheers to many more.

It's an odd, in between time at the university right now.  After vacation finished in July, we had two weeks of work with an intensive class for English Without Borders because the semester hasn't officially started yet.  Next week all ETAs in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay head to São Paulo for our mid-year seminar and then classes begin the week after that.  So until then, we have been trying to get back into the swing of things, preparing presentations for the upcoming seminar and reflecting on our vacation.




One of the biggest perks, without a doubt, of teaching abroad is the amount of vacation time.  This year we had the month of July off and took three small trips to nearby places.  Our first adventure was to visit some of my mentees in the capital city of São Luis in the neighboring state of Maranhão.  We spent three days in the city and spent two of them at the university UFMA (Federal University of Maranhão) and a third day exploring a nearby historic island.  After school we spent time walking around the city which is beautiful and famous for its cobbled streets and restored colonial buildings and mansions. 



We stayed right in the historic city center which was quirky and charming.  The iconic image of São Luis is of colorful ceramic tiles which can be seen everywhere.  Many of the tiles are from the 19th century and are often blue or blue and white from Portugal, France, Belgium and Germany.  The tiles provided a durable means of protecting walls from the omnipresent humidity and heat that comes with being a northern city on the coast of Brazil.



It was also fun to try some of the regional foods and drinks such as stuffed crab, shrimp stew and the city's specialty arroz de cuxá, rice with shrimp, toasted sesame mixed with a bitter herb called vinagreira.  The drink that everyone said we had to try was a neon pink pop called Jesus (named after the guy who came up with the recipe) that tastes like bubblegum.  It was way too sweet for me but interesting to try nonetheless.  While we were there we say everyone drinking Jesus and it became obvious that it was the beverage of choice.  The locals that we talked to said that it has always outsold Coke there so Coca-Cola finally just bought it.  The marketing slogan used to promote the soda calls it the "Pink Dream." 



Sean was more interested in the unusual-looking bottles of purple alcohol hanging in the central market.  The most common alcoholic drink in Brazil is called cachaça which is normally made from sugar cane.  The type of cachaça in São Luis, however, is made from manioc root and is called Tiquira and Sean said it didn't taste half bad. At least this lilac-colored liquor will be more tasty to try and share at home than the vile bottle of snake wine brought back from Vietnam.  Gross.

Line at the bank waiting to use an ATM

I spend a lot of my time in Brazil waiting in line.  It's incredible, really, when I think about how many minutes a day I spend standing or sitting until it's my turn to buy food, copy papers, send mail, take out cash etc.  Yesterday I waited over an hour to send some postcards and today I am at the university teaching and running errands.  Let me share an average day with you so you can get idea of how often (and how long) Brazilians have to wait in line.

The line of students waiting to get food at lunch at the university

7:30am Wait in line to get on the bus.  Bus is full.  Wait in line for the next bus.
7:45am Manage to get on next bus and wait in line standing inside the bus to pay my fare.
8:30-11:30 English class at UFPA
12:00 Wait in line for 1 hour to get lunch ticket for university cafeteria
1:00 With ticket in hand, get in another line for 30 minutes to pick up food
2:00 After lunch, wait in line to use a computer to print a copy of the bill I have to pay
2:10 After printing bill, wait in line to pay for the paper that I printed
2:30 Head to the bank and wait in line for 30 minutes to use an ATM to take out cash to pay the bill
3:00 Wait in line for 5 minutes to get a paper number to give money to an agent to pay the bill
3:05 Wait in a chair for 30 minutes until my number is called to pay the bill.
3:45 Work in the computer lab for awhile until it's time to wait for a bus to go home, wait to pay the bus fare and then wait in traffic if it's anywhere in between 5-7pm.
5:50 Arrive early for my doctor's appointment and wait 1 hour and 20 minutes to see the doctor.
7:20 Home - no more lines!

A great idea when there are no numbers to keep track of where you are in line

There are a few things that keep me from going insane while waiting in line.  Sometimes I try and talk to people around me to practice Portuguese and meet new students.  But most of the time I read books on my Nook.  I have gotten through an astonishing number of books this year because of this and it has helped a lot with my mental and emotional state when at times I feel like I am just a tiny part in a system of never-ending inefficiency. If you are looking for a few good end-of-summer reads, here are my suggestions:

*The Good House - Ann Leary

(* my favorites)

Happy reading and I hope you can enjoy it without waiting in line!

Sean and I found ourselves at the local supermarket the other day buying diapers for the first time.  Nope, it's not what you think; I didn't run away to Brazil to have a secret baby but rather I was desperate for an effective hot compress option (not surprisingly, it's rather impossible to find a decent hot water bottle selection in the Amazon). 

We just finished a month of vacation (which also explains the lack of blog posts in July - I didn't have cell phone service most of the places we visited, much less an internet connection) and during our last mini vacation we visited some remote regions of the Amazon basin.  Unfortunately, I came back with a little more than just photos and tacky souvenirs and headed right to the emergency room upon return because of a very suspicious looking and painful mystery bug bite (?).

Cezanne, one of the resident house cats, keeping me company during recovery

Hospital service, conditions, paperwork and quality in Brazil could be an entirely separate blog post and although I really wanted to avoid the experience, I was desperate.  After waiting for hours the doctor told me that it was just an infected ingrown hair but after crying and lots of emotional and muddled Portuguese (on my end) she finally prescribed me some ointment and antibiotics but cautioned me to not use any of it saying that it "would go away on it's own."  It did not.  Also, trust me, readers, this is not an ingrown hair.

At this point my entire leg was red, swollen and so painful that I could barely walk.  Being over dramatic and prone to anxiety, I started imagining life as an amputee.  I started taking antibiotics and applying the cream obediently while also downing ibuprofen for the pain and swelling.  When a fellow ETA suggested diaper hot compresses I had to hold myself back from hugging her with relief.  Of course! Genius! What a great idea and why didn't I think of that?!  Things started to get better for my leg, but the "bite" just got worse.



After hearing stories from one of my roommates here who had a similar problem but then "the skin turned black and had to be surgically removed" I decided it was time for a second opinion.  I went to a different doctor last night who took a look at the gorged knob on my leg and proclaimed that there were a couple of options.  It could be a cut that got very infected, an infected insect bite or it could contain an egg or larva of some kind of insect (ew).  She gave me more meds, a different kind of cream, prescribed elevation and bed rest and told me to come back on Friday to see if they will have to cut into it or not.

So this week, instead of going back to work, I've been driving myself crazy at home with worry while trying to do work and sweating in front of the fan with a diaper on my leg.  The only happy parties with this arrangement are the cats who are over the moon with the fact that I'm on the floor with them all day.  There are days when traveling is glamorous, fun and exciting and then there are the days of swatting mosquitoes and sweaty Pampers.  Today is going down in the books as the latter. 

A lot of planning went into the EIP program and I just wanted to share some of the highlights.  Here's what the outline of the week looked like:

Sunday: 
Students arrive and check-in to the hotel



Monday:
Orientation
Baseball English class
Extreme Sports English class
Urban dance / hip hop class
Pizza party




Tuesday:
Soccer English class
Belém city tour
Education U.S.A. Advising presentation
Watch U.S.A. soccer game 
Boat trip on the river



Wednesday:
Basketball English class
American Football English class
Volunteer at Ronald McDonald house
Sports demonstrations (Baseball game, football game, parade with cheerleaders and marching band - it was amazing!)



Thursday:
Group presentations
Afternoon American BBQ (hamburgers, beans, potato salad, Coke, chips and s'mores)
Evening 4th of July musical celebration and closing ceremony



Friday:
Students depart



The coolest part of the week was getting to know all of the students.  For many of them, this was their first time to travel away from home and to fly in a plane.  The team leaders, who were previous participants, said that this program changed their lives completely and that the week would probably affect our students much more than we could understand.  I was impressed at the students' maturity and gratitude - many of them thanked me after my classes and showed an incredible amount of emotion when the week was over. 



The moments I remember were when students relayed their excitement about being able to talk with native speakers of English for the first time, about how they had never seen such technology like using keycards to open hotel doors before, that they wanted to be the kind of couple that Sean and I are and about how this was the coolest week they had ever had.  At UFPA, one of my biggest problems is attendance and enthusiasm for optional English activities and classes.  For me, it was incredible to have such an engaged, active, grateful and excited group of students to teach English to for an entire week.

My work at UFPA finished for the semester during the last week of June so for the past week Sean and I have been working with the U.S. Embassy in their English Immersion Program (EIP) which was held in our city this year.  We are very lucky to have one of the embassy's bi-national language and culture centers here which provides English classes, academic and study abroad advising for students interested in going to the States and American cultural events.  When I went to the bi-national center to ask if they needed volunteers at the beginning of the year, they asked me if Sean and I could help with the EIP in July.

Day one - orientation

The English Immersion Program is designed to encourage and support Brazilian youth, international relations and cultural diplomacy.  This year, we hosted 60 students from all over Brazil aged 15-18 for a week full of complete language and cultural immersion.  The students only spoke in English with us and with each other and we created a schedule jam packed with classes and cultural events - it was awesome!

Students showing off their nail art in preparation for the program

The program is very competitive and popular with students.  To be eligible, the students have to have a high level of English, get good grades, be involved with volunteer work in their community, attend a public school, be under a certain level of family income and show leadership skills.  My role during the week was one of three English teachers and Sean was the cultural coordinator.  This meant that I planned and taught five 2 hour long classes over the course of the week and Sean was a kind of jack of all trades (which included cooking the food for the 4th of July BBQ on the last day).  We were both also mentors to small groups to help them prepare for their presentations at the end of the week.

Waiting in the hotel for the students' arrival

The theme this year was American sports and the sports that the embassy wanted us to cover were: basketball, American football, soccer, baseball and extreme sports.  To be honest, the whole experience felt a bit like summer camp as we stayed in the hotel with the students and were with them 24/7.  It was a lot of fun but very tiring.  It's pretty cool how much we packed into one week and how close everyone became in such a short time.   I already wish I could help out with it next year!

Group photo for the 4th of July celebration

Sean and I just finished a very fun but also a very tiring week working with the U.S. embassy's "English Language and Culture Immersion Program" and arrived home to find a heavy care package from my college roommate and family.  What an awesome surprise and perfect timing!


The care package was stuffed completely full of candy, granola bars, baking mixes and other luxurious snack foods impossible to find here.  Honestly, I can't believe how much they managed to stuff in one of the international postal boxes.  It is going to make a lot of people happy as we are going to share some of the American goodies with our students and friends.  It came at just the right time too as we leave again tomorrow to help with an English Without Borders program in a neighboring state and have a lot of long and empty hours of travel before us.

Mary and Jay have consistently and generously spoiled us while abroad and we always appreciate it!  This past year, her brother in law started a program called "I Like Giving" and wrote a book with the same name.  The whole family encourages living generously and giving in new, unexpected and joyful ways.  It's true that being given something makes us want to give too and now we're thinking of ways to pass the giving on.  Thanks for thinking of us and going through all the paperwork to send some treats internationally!