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| Breakfast sweets |
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| Breakfast fruit |
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| Supper at the restaurant down the street |
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| Red roofs are the norm |
Saturday evening my flight left Toronto
about 1:00 AM in the morning. We arrived in Sao Paulo about 2 the next
afternoon. It’s about a 10 hour flight. Luckily the middle seat in my row was
empty and that gave me more leg room. AC
flight between Brazil and Canada have a generous baggage allowance, we can take
the usual carry one and personal item as well as two 32 kg bags. I loaded my
bags to the 32 kg mark and a friend bought the cost of another 32 kg bag. I
loaded them with Value Village children’s books and dollar store items to help
me with sample lessons.
I’m a big girl now, so I get my own taxi
from the airport to the hotel. After arriving at my Pinheiros area L’Opera
Hotel, I unpacked my friend and her family took me to the El Dorado Mall which
is close by and she helped me get a SIM card for my unlocked iPhone. They also
took me for supper. I now can call, but most important I can access the
internet. With my ‘Say Hi’ translator app I can converse and make myself
understood much easily than before. I can also know where I am and not get
lost. This morning when I was on the way to school in a taxi, the driver must
have forgotten the number and was going slow looking for the school. I was able
to tell him with my phone, “It’s at the top of the hill”.
Sunday I met another friend and we went to
her house and then went out for supper at Empanadas Caminito, an Argentinian
restaurant. It was a great birthday weekend.
Monday, work started again, but with
familiar people. I was at Alto de Pinheiros last year and was glad to see them
again. Mainly what I do is observe classes and then talk about the good things
I see and what can be improved. I also read Robert Munch stories to the every
place I go.
The weather here is very nice, get this, I
don’t need a sweater. It poured rain (torrentially as usual) and the thunder
banged and shook the place. The kids and teachers didn’t bat an eye. No running
around with Holy Water.
The children eat at the cafeteria, we could
take a lesson from it. The food is very good made from scratch, with no refined
junk….and the kids eat it and like it. Every day there is rice and beans or
lentils, a salad, 2 vegetables and meat or fish. Yesterday was a delicious
curry chicken and today a baked fish. To drink they had water and juice without
sugar.
The school is a former beauty salon and is
quite nice. It sure has more electrical outlets than usual.
As I write the Pentecostals across the
street are praying and singing up a storm.
I’ll be here till Saturday then I move on to my next hotel- Comfort Nova
Paulista and school - Chácara Klabin.
