Passed my exam... and saw another musical

I got my grade today and I can breath a sigh of relief. I only need 20% on the final exam to pass the class which means I can study a little less (and sightsee a little more).

Yesterday, we started off by going to see another musical called "We will rock you" devoted to Queen and their music. Although the story line was a little thin and the text quite corny, the music was great (and so were the singers). Also amazing was the special effect, the costumes and the ambiance. The theatre was full of Queen's fans and they sang along to all of the songs. It felt like we were at a concert. Great fun!

Today is the second last day of school although tomorrow will only have a 3-hour class session in the morning. The exam is on Friday but I am quite confident it will go well (knock on wood).

I'll keep you posted on the latest developments.

Here is a message my sister sent yesterday. For thoses who are unaware, she is working for Canada World Youth as a coordinator and is in Brazil with her group. Although it hasn't gone as seemlessly as she would have liked, she has learnt alot about soft pressure, international diplomacy, and keeping her family informed of her whereabouts :)

"Oi a familia e os amigos do Brazil!

It's been quite busy here (as always), but here are some hot Brazilian updates from this week... (hot from the press). For those who don't know- I'm here in Brazil right now taking care of 18 participants, 9 host families, 9 volunteer workplacements and for some weird reason having interviews with the media every week (cause my Portuguese is so great!) here in the south of Brazil in the small town of Santo Antonio de Patrulha. Santo Antonio is know for two things; cachasa (a strong alcool similar to rum used for a traditional drink called caiperinha) and rapadura (a desert made of sugar canes and nuts). Other claims to faim: alot of statues of Santo Antonio. If you're desperate and want to get married, all you have to do is pray to him and hope for the best. In August there will a folk music festival and a cachasa festival (what a great mix- music and booze!) The group will more than likely volunteer at this event.

Some more detailed updated...

1) It's winter here! Yes- cold... 8 degrees today (I'm wearing my newly knit scarf and need it!) But overall so far winter hasn't been too painful although I was told it was going to stay and get colder... yucky, yck!

2) Julia arrived! (my last Canadian participant) I went to pick her up at the airport and she told me she didn't have too many problems, expect in Sao Paulo where she thought she missed her next flight as she was two hours late. The group organized a little welcome party that evening at her host family's house. She seems pretty excited to be here. So far all is well with her; except the language barrier might be a little challenge for her as she can't speak English or Portuguese. But we have francophones in the group that have told me they would help her out. We gave her yesterday a personal orientation camp and a tour of the city. Today she will be starting her volunteer work placements in a kindergarden with Miquail.

3) We found all our remaining host families! Youpi! A great host family finally came up for Samoel and Julia after a call-out on a radio that I did for host families last week. We were also successful in finding a host family for Patrick and Miquail and as well the two girls staying at the church with the nuns (Lysanne and Miriam).

4) This week we are doing a work project update and I am pushing them a lot to start taking initiatives on their personal projects. Some people have a lot more to do than others at their work placement, so I am really trying to push them to start up personal projects in the community.

5) So far with Liceo, my Brazilian coworker, we have a good working relationship. I had a longer conversation with him and voiced again my concern regarding him leaving the community so much and made it clear one of us has to stay in the community at all times (and that it can't be me all the time!) So this last weekend I did go a day earlier to Porto Alegre to relax a bit and meet Julia at the airport on Sunday. It was a well deserved break! But I think this will be a subject with Liceo that will likely come up again. There's a lot of beauracracy and international diplomacy that I have to keep in mind while dealing with this issue. CWY contacted the Projeto Rondon director directly to deal wit the situation but this only caused than a lot of tension between me and the director and Liceo. But in retrospect I'm glad they did. I don't think Tides (the director) is much of a support for me or is very pro-active on issues like this and I know Canada calling him does force him to react (because otherwise I don't think he would have reacted much to my preoccupations).

And personally what have I been up to? Well not much as my time is pretty much this job 24/7 (specially since I've been working alone some of the time and doing program development work which should have been completed before our arrival). But meeting a lot of people in the process. I do have a personal project in mind- to look into a local theatre group to get involved in... I've also been doing capoeira and a lot of knitting! I'm learning all these new techniques here as a lot of the women knit (all very exciting). That's my second job on the side...

I accept gracefully any news from your end! I apologize for my gap in emails but I didn't have email access for awhile as the system went down at the secretary of education.

Hope you have a great day!

Tchau!

Beijos,

Isabelle"