At CADEC I knew there was something wrong. Usually the people there are very jovial and always in a hurry, but today they were just limping around. Eventually Nicole and I figured out that CADEC is out of money and does not have enough help because they can't pay for any professors. One lady, Gesane, cannot afford to work without pay any longer and so she is very sad that she may have to quit. She and the director, Sirley, started crying about the condition that CADEC is in. This came to such a surprise to me because before Carnaval everything was great at CADEC and we were eating great food and drinking a lot of juice, etc. A lot of people who were working before Carnaval have moved on to other jobs such as teaching in the real school and the cook, Delva, is not returning. I really liked Delva because she was like the mother hen that ruled the kitchen. She kinda understood my dilemma and I felt more connected to her than anyone else. She is sick now with something serious. The language barrier really inhibits Nicole from understanding everything and most of the time I am just lost.
Since all of this drama was going on, the limited staff was in meetings all day. This of course meant that Nicole and I were in charge of all the students. Thank God there were only 16 today, but it was still very difficult. We worked out a system were Nicole had the kids and then I would take the problem kids into another room. There were about 6 problem kids and whenever you put then all in a room together, it gets crazy. I tried to teach them numbers in English but the two girls were the only ones interested. They picked it up pretty quickly but the boys were more entertained by teaching me bad words and putting things down their pants. Did I mention that I now want to have only girls for children. Josh and Heather, you saved yourselves a lot of work by having Adeline instead of having Charles Xavier (or whatever Josh's new favorite name is).
The music and art teachers finally showed up and I was relieved of my babysitting duties. They practiced the equivalent of "God is so good" for the grand opening of Banco Terra next week. They literally practiced this same song for two hours and I probably heard the four verses repeated about 50 times. During this time, I washed dishes and got the dinner ready.
We left CADEC around 5 (we're only supposed to be there till 4 but we have been staying later due to the short staff). All day Nicole and I have been thinking about how we can help CADEC. After thinking about this extensively (one good part about the language barrier, I can get into deep thought because I have very little distractions when I am not trying to understand the conversation), I don't know if CADEC is the most efficient organization for me to financially support. In the US, I support my church which supports humanitarian and missionary efforts around the world, however, the difference is accountability and sustainability. If my understand is correct, my church investigates and audits the finances of missionary efforts so that the money is being used efficiently. Also, my church back home does not make one-time donations unless that is what is needed for a building, books, etc. My church donates annuities so that the organization can be sustainable and continue their work. I don't find either of these characteristics at CADEC. For example, last week we were drinking a lot of juice and eating pretty good food with a lot of meat. This was before the school was actually in session and many random people who didn't work there were coming in to eat. This is really great that they are so liberal with their resources, but I feel that it is inefficient. The lack of sustainable is clearly seen in their small staff. There is not really many benefits to volunteering here and most people use it only as a stepping stone for teaching in
the public schools. I don't think that even a non-profit can function with these business plan. There is also a lot of waste at CADEC, especially in the area of food. I have asked why we give large portions, but of course I can't relay this question in Portuguese. We throw out a lot of beans and rice everyday, but they do have quite a lot lying around.
I think that the director would really like it if we tried to raise some money, but I don't want others to support an organization that I don't fully support. I guess this could be said about any organization that you get to know the inner-workings of, and I suppose that no organization can ever be completely efficient.
The picture is from a window at Banco Terra. It means, "I'm with Christ, and you?" Brazilians are very open about their religion and don't really seperate it from their business life.
After I returned, I took my longest run ever. I ran straight for about 1 hour 20 minutes and this was the first time I ran with my ipod. Its crazy how much faster you run when you have music to run to. The whole time I was running to Praia da Costa, I was following Geli on her bicycle. She would always stay just out of reach and I finally caught up to her at Praia da Costa when she turned around.
I studied some Portuguese when I got back and somehow got to bed very late. I gotta start getting more sleep.
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