My School

Today we didn't have class or our normal volunteering, but instead Nicole and I went to the Banco Terra to help them move to their new location. Banco Terra is a small community microfinance organization in Terra Velmelha that gives small loans to entrepreneurs in District 5 of Vila Velha. I am not sure what is giving up for capital for these loans, but perhaps embarrassment in the community from defaulting is the only capital they require. What if US banks ran like this? Everyone would take advantage and default on their loans!

We moved Banco Terra from one location close to CADEC to another location that they had bought. The "Cidade Limpa" crew from Vila Velha (Banco Terra works with the city) helped us and lent us the truck. The move only required two truckloads but the manual labor in the hot sun was enough to wear me out. One employee from Daniel's Carmen Lucia Clinic named Tiago accompanied us. He and I made a pretty good team for the heavy things, and it was really nice to work with my hands again. Tiago is shown in the picture with my lunch in the foreground.

One thing I noticed about this move with Banco Terra and with many Brazilian events, it was not planned ahead of time. I find it very strange that certain things are not done in preparation, but of course my language handicap inhibits me from knowing the full story.

After getting really dirty at Banco Terra, I returned home, took a shower, and watched a half episode of House which I have been downloading for the last 5 hours. I really miss some American entertainment and I wish I would have brought DVDs with me.

I left extra early for UFES and read my book while waiting at the bus stop. I really like the reading that Daniel assigns and I speed through it quickly. Currently, I am reading The Brazilians by Joseph Page and The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs (I had to read it already for my Africa Amizade course but I am reading it again and getting much more out of it this time- Sachs is still crazy though).

The following pictures are of my college UFES (University of Federal Espirto Santo). The campus is pretty nice and well spaced out, but most of the buildings look like some Communist Soviet-Bloc apartment complex (so do a few actual apartment complexes here, including the one that Nicole lives in, probably a result of Brazil's semi-communistic government under Vargas in the 50's). There are a lot of monkeys running around UFES, but I never got a chance to take a picture of one (I don't want to look like the crazy foreign exchange student overjoyed to be taking pictures of their equilvalent of squirrels, I've personally seen this happen at WVU). When I first arrived today, there was a large crowd of people in front of one of the buildings and several young men painted from head to toe. I'm not sure what was going on here but I relate it to something similar as frats' freshman pledges going through hazing.

This is the cafe outside my classroom. This is where I am becoming addicted to Guarana... so good.

The following picture is of the language center. My classroom is inside. Pretty much the only languages taught here are Portuguese for foreigners and a lot of English, but please notice that there is no American flag out front. Someone probably already stole it and either covets it or has destroyed it in some horrible way. At least these are the two sentiments that I think Brazilians have towards USA.

The following picture is of my professora, Glauciane. She is a German descendant, but only speaks Portuguese. She is only 23 years old, but she seems to have been teaching for a while and her teaching style is pretty effective. I have her for two classes in a row. The first is "intensive" and is only with me, her, and Nicole. The second is "basic" and includes people from around the world. The first one is very helpful, but the second one is so slow and basic. I know I need the basics, but sometimes I wish I could hit FF.