My Volunteer Experience

For three weeks, I lived in a volunteer house in Santa Teresa, taught English in a favela, and took Portuguese classes.  My days were longer than my days at CCP.  They were very similar to my Grad School experience.  Work in the day, class in the evening, prep for the next day at night.  It was a great experience, but it also showed me the difficulties many of these programs have with limited funding and a reliance on volunteers.  I know you all understand.

This is the community center in Vila Kennedy where I taught.  You can see the entrance at the top of the ramp.

This is my afternoon class, Monday - Thursday, 1:00 - 2:30.  They were great (Muito Bom!!!)!  My teaching focused on building vocabulary, while gaining an introduction to verbs and beginning sentence construction.  Lots of repetition.  Tons of mosquitos.  And Bingo, in English, with candy prizes every afternoon.

I really enjoyed the classes.  The students varied on motivation levels, but I was able to keep them engaged and entertained, even (or maybe because of) my limited English.  I had an ongoing debate with the guys in the class on who is the best futebol team in Rio.  I said Botofogo (because they were in the championship).  They all said Flamengo (because it is their team).  Fun!

This is a bad picture of the outside of the Volunteer House.  It is Ivy covered and could be a nice dorm on any College campus.

                              This is my room.  How much space does one need?

                                Easter Dinner at the Volunteer House!  Feliz Pascoa!!!

The kitchen was an outdoor disaster area most days.  But, everybody chipped in to take care of the mess.

                                                    Breakfast with the volunteers.

Yes, that is Santa Claus.  Papa Noel the children here call him.  He and his wife are volunteers who travel the world in their retirement doing this kind of work.  If there is a Santa, I think it's him.

                                    The joke here is that I'm Santa in training.

This was an incredible experience.  The entire process of being somewhere else, doing something else without the safety net of my own culture was thrilling and difficult.  I enjoyed it immensely.