Weekend Number TWO

The Canadians in district 4470

All of the Uniter Statians in district 4470

Ellen (from Canada) petting a lamb on the farm

Three Exchange students eager and exhausted

the symbol

I am climbing in the bamboo... you got a problem with that??

August 20 to August 23, 2009

On thursday August 20th, I got on a bus, and had a three hour ride to Campo Grande. Arriving at 9:15pm in a strange city by myself. To my knowledge a Rotarian was to meet me as a got off the bus... but he was told the wrong time to pick me up. I was in a strange city, no cell phone, and not knowing how to use their pay phones. That was a good time. after about an hourof being scared half to death of the homeless wanting money from me... Luiz arrived. It was amazing he was like my savior. Apparently miscommunication happened along the way and he was told that the bus arrived at 10:15pm. Yeah it was totally fine i wasn't worried or terrified at all. But all in all it was okay.

Friday morning we got up and I met a Canadian, another American, a Mexican, a F renchman, and a German and we all boarded the bus for an eight hour ride to Araçatuba. It was however awesome to meet more exchange students. I found out that I have a personality twin living in Canada. We are totally the coolest Rotary Chicks in BRAZIL. When we arrived in Araçatuba the eight of us parted ways and went with the people who we were staying with. I was with the kid from France, we stayed with a really nice family of three. However their house smelt of dog when wet.

There are about forty some exchange students in our district. There is a guy from India who is really funny. He loves himself and he won't change schools to be with the other Rotery students in his town because he is famous at his school, everyone knows him. There are kids from Finland, Canada, United States, Sweden, Mexico, France, India, Germany, Hungary, Denmark, and Iceland. On Saturday, all exchange students from distict 4470 met at the chairman's farm... to have a meeting. But after the meeting was over we all had a great time trading pins and cards and SWIMMING. It got really hot that day. When dinner time came along we went to a local, hip, retaurant type place ... and then we went to the club. You know kind of a low key evening!

Sunday rolled around and the long eleven hour drive began again. I didn't back to Dourados until around 1:30am on Monday and so my host parents let me sleep in and I didn't get up in time to make it to class. OH DARN IT!!

All in all... I am ready for a low key weekend!!

First Weekend!

(left tic-tac toe in the sand)

(above soap soccer)

Weekend of the 14th of August, 2009


To start my first weekend in Brazil off I went to school on Friday. CONFUSING. It was like they were speaking a different laguage.... oh wait they were. That night it was Maria's (my host mom) moms birthday. I got to taste my first Churrasco, or Brazillian barbeque. It is not like our BBQ, no BBQ sauce but it was very salty. Everything is either salty or sweet here. And all meat. You have for every meal of the day here, meat for breakfast, meat for lunch, meat for dinner, meat for snack and then sorvete (ice cream) for desert.

Saturday was AWESOME. Though I had to get up early it didn't matter. My host sisters' school went to this farm type place. It didn't look like a farm but that is what they called it. There was a beautiful lake and a Volleyball Court (sand), a trampoline, and a soap soccer field. By Far the best game in the world SOAP SOCCER. You play on a large open form of the bouncy thing you have at little kids parties. Then soap and water are put on the court and you play soccer or try to. You fall every two steps. It was so much fun. We went swimming and played Volleyball, and a game of tic-tac toe but you ran and placed bottles in the places to get a row. Sand got everywhere after that though because well, we played in the sand!

Saturday night we went to the mall here in Dourados. They kept complaing about how small it is and how there is nothing there. This mall was HUGE, easily twice as big as the one in Morgantown. There was a little kids place in the mall but it had the big swing that you are lifted in the air and swing that way and a bungie jump type thing that harnested you in and you jumped on a trampoline and you went really high. I wanted to try it but it was just for little kids I asked Flavia if she could shrink me so i would fit the hieght requirements but that didn't go over as planed!

On Sunday we all went to Flavio's (my host father) parents farm. It's not that far so it was a nice drive seeing the country. The entire family on Flavio's side goes to the farm for lunch every Sunday and all the meat that we ate came from the farm. They have Chickens of all kinds, cows everywhere, sheep and lambs, five dogs, two horses, and all these trye of fruit trees none of which i have ever heard of or can say. I did get to try a star fruit. It was sweet and sour and a little tart, it was good just try it. Flavio's mother madethe best sweet bread. It tasted like Hawaiian sweet rolls but warm and without the chemical taste. SOOOOO GOOD.