My Typical Day

Now that I have a regular weekly schedule, my life is beginning to have a little more order to it. My weekly schedule is as follows:

Monday: I eat breakfast at 9, go to my International Organizations course from 10-12, volunteer at CADEC from 12:30-4, return home and the rest of the day is free.

Tuesday: I eat breakfast at about 7, go to CADEC to volunteer from 8-1, go to my Global Service Learning course from 1:30-2:30, return home, go to UFES for Portuguese lesson from 4:50-7:50, return home, and the rest of the day is free

Wednesday: I eat breakfast at 9, go to my Professional Placement/Internship course from 10-12, volunteer at CADEC from 12:30-4, return home and the rest of the day is free.

Thursday: I eat breakfast at about 7, go to CADEC to volunteer from 8-1, return home, go to UFES for Portuguese lesson from 4:50-7:50, return home, and the rest of the day is free

Friday: Usually I will have some kind of field trip to different development organizations or maybe just an extended weekend to catch up on work.

Even though this sounds like an easy, open schedule it actually keeps me quite busy. Riding the buses requires quite a bit of time for transport. Also, a lot of my time is consumed with talking
(or rather acting things out) with my family. My Portuguese is improving, but slowly thus far. Tomorrow is my first official Portuguese lesson at UFES and I think this will help me greatly. The little bit of Spanish knowledge I have and the little time spent on Rosetta Stone did not prepare me at all for the pronunciation. Even the few words that I know now are usually mispronounced but my family is beginning to understand me more. I spend a lot of time conversing with my family and this takes extra time since the language barrier is so large.

Today (Tuesday) was a pretty fun day. It was my second day at CADEC and I spent most of my time cleaning and getting the rooms ready for the children to return after Carnival. CADEC is an organization in conjunction with the Adventist church that takes care of children who are not doing well in school. A lot of the children have problems at home, discipline problems, learning disabilities, etc. Also CADEC feeds the children at lunchtime, which may be their only good meal of the day. Today, there were only a few children because we were decorating and cleaning. After Carnival there will be two shifts of over 40 children each. This is gonna be interesting.

After CADEC I went to meet Daniel (my professor) at the Clinic that he runs. We had a short class and then I returned home. On a side note, the bus drivers here are crazy! They fly down curvy, dirt roads at 50 mph! Also, they don't stop for anyone and will swerve just to scare you off the road.

I did some homework once I got home and then talked with my sister Amanda (age 16) and her cousin. We talked about a lot of things, and I know what to get them for a present now. They love anything Victoria Secrets. It is very expensive here. At one point there were 10 family members in my room and it was so loud. They are just so happy and express it in the volume of their voice.

After the extended family left, I went for a run with my mother on the beach. The beach here is perfect and has a wide running trail along the road. Also, I only have to cross two road to get to the beach!

After running, we ate a large dinner of fish at 9. Then when my father returned home from work I helped him clean more fish that he got for free by helping his friend haul in a net. We drank some cerveza outside and stayed up talking till 2:30. They are going to take me to their family's small farm for Carnival and it sounds like it will be perfect for me.