Sunday, September 1, 2019

EducAmar Orientation and Second Volunteer Session Teaching Refugees

I was very nervous walking to the church for the EducAmar orientation. I walked right past the street and church twice, but I eventually found it. I got there and saw people in EducAmar t-shirts and they welcomed me with hugs and greeted me. Of course, right away, they asked if I was German and one of the leaders mentioned that my last name was very difficult to say and different. I grabbed some snacks and sat down to watch the slideshows and youtube videos they had playing on the screen. It was powerful to see the community that they go into and how many people that they impact. Unlike the orphanage group I volunteer with, this group has a very structured schedule of going in several days a week to offer classes in Portuguese, Math, practical skills for men and women, capoeira, jiu jitsu, ballet, violin, and miscellaneous projects. It was also very relieving to hear that although the project is based from one religion, they want anyone to participate no matter their religion. A tricky part I soon learned was that the week day events people normally arrive separately and don’t carpool, since they go after work, and it would be very tricky to get there. It was a three hour information meeting all in Portuguese, but I understood about 80 percent of it, although the leader was speaking pretty quickly and with slang. I was tired, but pretty satisfied with my understanding level. From no Porutguese at all in February 2018 to understanding long orientation meetings in Portuguese in August 2019. We took a pause after the meeting to all have lunch together-  delicious chicken stroganoff. I went to pay for the lunch and buy a t-shirt, and I was so nervous about being alone and have to stand there or sit there waiting, or try to awkwardly join a group… but this group of really nice people my age started talking to me after I bought my shirt, and they were asking me questions in English and Portuguese. I think that people with some English skills always have more confidence to start a conversation with me. Normally, I’ll switch the conversation to Portuguese and they realize that I’m partially somewhat ok with Portuguese and get relieved, but they make moves to initiate it instead of fearing me because I’m the Gringa and may know no Portuguese. I found out that some of them had been to the USA before on short exchange programs or traveling. We swapped back and forth in English and Portuguese and talked about food habits they noticed in the US and restaurants in our city. Some were from Aguas Claras as well! They were so incredibly kind and I thanked them for talking to me and accepting me so easily. I can’t wait to go to the Bazaar events and Feira do Denario event with them. So, those are the two events I signed up for. We get donations, and also provide donations of food once a month to host a food bazaar and the community members pay one real for each packet of food. They can then get their whole month worth of shopping done with 15 reais. It feels like a great way to empower the community, because they still need to buy food and it’s not a free handout, but it’s also very accessible and within a budget. It looks like I’ll probably only be volunteering with them about three times before I leave, since most of their events are on Saturdays and I already work with Refugees to teach Portuguese, but I was proud of myself for not overextending myself. I left the meeting and took the public transportation to Riacho Fundo for the Refugee class. The classes aren’t always consistent, so you never know who will come. It’s free and open to all community members. The first class I worked with two Pakistani men who also spoke English. This second class I worked again with Professora Wanessa, and we helped two people from Haiti who spoke French. I worked with the man who had more experience with Portuguese, and we skipped ahead to talking about Past Perfect and Present Continuous. I was getting frustrated trying to explain present continuous to him and he kept telling me the present indicative. I was showing him the difference of present indicative being more general and doesn’t need to be occurring in the moment, whereas present continuous is an action occurring presently. I googled the French equivalent and discovered… THEY DON’T HAVE ONE! Whhhatttt! The french language simply uses the present indicative for both. I was flabbergasted! It’s amazing learning new concepts and facts about other languages. It was definitely an interesting class, and it opened my eyes.

EducAmar orientation

Learning through Spanish with the Cubans

Working with the Haitians 

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