Greetings and kisses to all! I can't believe it's the middle of September all ready! The time is flying past us. I looked at a friend's blog this past week and she had several pictures posted. It was really fun to read and view, so I decided to add a few more shots for you all to eliminate the boredom of my words. The first above is taken from our balcony overlooking the pool area. Sierra is on the left and a "friend" from the apartments is on the right. The way that children are able to communicate absent of language continues to amaze me. Two weekends ago at the beach she spent an hour and a half playing with a young girl in the waves, using what little Portuguese and English the other knew and laughing a playing the whole time.
Likewise, my Portuguese is coming along. This past week I had several drs. appointments (all routine, trying to have a dr. before any type of sickness appears and I'm in a pickle to find an English speaking dr.) and I was able to communicate with the office staff IN PORTUGUESE with relative success. There have been a couple of other times that I found myself in a conversation with a vendor or a waiter and I'm understanding what's being said, MORESO, I'm responding--correctly! It's a really cool feeling. I still have difficulty comprehending given the Carioca accent. For example, Joe and I got into a taxi yesterday afternoon to pick up Sierra from a play date. I said the name of the street, Pacheca Leao. The taxi driver responded, blah blah Chocolate. I said, Que? He repeated, Pacheca Leao....The whole time he was saying the same name I was saying and I thought he was saying Chocolate! UGH! It was funny once my translation device clicked in my brain. I laughed, padded the cabbies shoulder and said, Sim, ta, obrigada. Every day is still an adventure and a learning experience.
The second picture above was taken tonight as Sierra laid on my bed and wrote in her Journal! YEah!! She's writing almost every day. Either journaling or letters to friends/teachers at school. You all must know that the writer/English teacher in me is quite proud of this new found pattern. Not to mention the fabulous archive of her experiences here that she is creating for a lifetime.
The third picture above was actually taken the first week we were here. This is the infamous day that Sierra fell into the water fully clothed because the waves were stronger than she thought and she didn't outrun them. I love the shot of her and Joe with niether of them knowing I was taking the picture and the ocean in the background is of course just the perfect landscape for such a shot.
Sierra has a running count of the animals she's seen. It started with the Toucan at school. I had seen two chirping to each other outside my classroom and then feeding each other, and she saw one the following day near her classroom. Then she was able to see this other four legged creature that is the mix of an anteater and a raccoon. I'm not sure the name (Lontra?), but they are very common and pretty cute. I remember seeing many of them at Iguacu Falls in 1995 while traveling. They are perfectly harmless and fun to see. One of Sierra's friends' mom's fed it a donut so the kids could see it before it shyed away. But the BEST animal spotting to date happened yesterday afternoon on the walk to Sierra's friend's house RIGT OUTSIDE our apartment building, crawling on the powerline was a MONKEY!!! Sierra had been waiting since our arrival to see a monkey. We were walking, something caught my attention, I looked up, thought it was a squirral and at closer look...IT's a MONKEY! Very cute, striped tail, little white face and just running along the electrical wire trying to get to a spot close enough to jump onto a tree! It made our day.
School is going great, for both of us. I had the ultimate teacher trial today I must say. The past week I have been planning with the middle school technology teacher for a week in the computer lab to teach the kids how to create imovies and podcasts. The collaboration and working out details was time consuming but exciting. We arrive at school this morning to find no power! The ultimate teaching using technology fear. In the storm we had last night/this morning a tree landed on two of the main power lines leading into school and we were without power for most of the day, the kids never did have computer access today. We are still not sure if the problem will be corrected tomorrow or not. We modified today and have a modified plan for tomorrow should we need it, but we are keeping our fingers crossed that the electricity will be fully restored by the morning. You have to laugh to keep from going crazy.