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Oi
from Londrina!
Tomorrow ends the third week I’ve spent in Londrina. Things have finally
started to settle down. I received my lost piece of luggage last Sunday.
We had a meeting on the Saturday after I arrived for all the exchange
students in our district to tell us about the trips we can choose to go
on. It was a lot of fun to get to meet everyone, and turns out there are
six other exchange students in my school that I didn’t even know about.
A bunch of us exchange students are taking a Portuguese for foreigners
course at the Londrina University, but we haven’t figured out if it is
helping us yet. We spent the first couple classes learning how to say “I
am Bahamian,” (or Canadian, German… you get the picture) but it has
started to get better, and we learn a lot everyday on our own, just from
being here. I have learnt how to take the bus to and from class, which
isn’t very hard, only one bus. But of course the first day that two other
exchange students and I attempted it we got off at the wrong spot and
spent half an hour walking around a very large campus looking for our
class, but since then we have master it! Haha. Us exchange students
usually either go jogging around the lake or play a game of soccer after
our Portuguese classes on Mondays and Wednesdays, since we all are
terrified of gaining all that wait that rotary warned us we would. Haha.
School has become more routine, and less exciting as it was the first week
that I was there, but that’s expected I suppose. Also, last Tuesday I went
to my first Rotary meeting. The rotary clubs here are very small, there
was only about 10 people there, including me and the other exchange
student, Sophia from Germany. Thankfully I didn’t have to say much, just
introduced myself, and gave them the Club Banner, a Bahamian Flag, and the
District pin. They were really friendly and nice, and even helped me with
my pronunciation. I also brought a sample of Bahamian coins to pass
around, which they really enjoyed.
Today is Brazil’s Independence Day, so I don’t have school. It’s been a
week of celebrations. On Monday we had a raising the flag ceremony at my
school. On Tuesday we had another celebration, and yesterday everyone in
the school got ice cream in class and the teachers put on a fashion show
for us students during the break which was really funny. This morning my
host-mother and I went to watch the Independence Day parade, which my
host-grand mother marched in, wearing her kimono, representing the very
large Japanese Brazilian population.
Well time goes by really fast down here; it doesn’t feel like it has
already been three weeks. Muito Obrigado Rotary! The city is so beautiful,
I really love it. I’ll stay in touch.
Lindsay
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