Festa Junina

(The sign says - roughly translated in Ma and Pa Kettle terms: Open barnyard for women kinfolk. Cumadre like campadre for women)

Festa Juninas are super popular parties all over Brazil in honor of St. John, St. Peter and St. Anthony. The Feast of St. John is June 24th, but these parties go on all through the month of June here. People dress like country folk and have bonfires and eat food mostly made of corn or peanuts. It looks very much like our old square dance parties in the barns from Disney's Pollyanna or Summer Magic, or like people from the 1950s would dress up when they imagined country hick folk - something out of I Love Lucy. The girls where freckles on their faces and pig tails or braids and old fashioned dresses looking a lot like our Sadie Hawkins dances. Because I was in the city in the courtyard of my student's house, we didn't have a bonfire:) But they had "canjica" (corn with condensed milk), a type of peanut brittle, and corn bread among other things. Then there were hot dogs (Brazilian style) and a variety of sandwiches. Everything was very good. They even had hot wine with ginger which so reminded me of Christmas!

In France they also have this festival in honor of St. Jean with bonfires, and I think many Scandinavian areas of the U.S. still celebrate this as well (Saints mixed with summer harvest). I think it's a very fun tradition, and in some parts of Brazil, it's almost as big as the Carnival celebrations (see link on Festa Junina on the side for more info)



Adriana, prof. at UEL, and our students


Me with the students



Corn bread with a kind of cream in the middle, peanut brittle, and feuillete

Hot dogs:)

The white dish is canjica - creamy corn with condensed milk (tastes similar to oatmeal) and next to that are carrot muffins with chocolate frosting

Visiting the public schools in Londrina

6th grade class at Escola Estadual Ana Molina Garcia(June 23)


I never thought I would be doing science projects in the schools - anything using your hands and dirt is definitely not my forte:) So, these pictures really crack me up. But I went to the school to give the students practice in following directions in English and hands-on practice in planting seeds in honor of their environmental unit. We played Bingo to review vocabulary and then took plastic bottles and made our own pots to add dirt and seeds to grow vegetables. Actually, they listened really well and followed the directions perfectly without complaining too much about my only speaking English- I was impressed. Now we just have to wait and see how the end result comes out. Hopefully, something will grow!:)








Clean-up at Escola Estadual São José (June 9)



The University has several projects where professors and students work inside the pubic schools of the city. I coloborated with Prof. Kilda Gimenez and her student Bruna Munhoz on UEL's project "Aprendizagem sem fronteiras" to do another clean-up of trash in the schools in honor of World Environment Day. This was a 7th grade class with only about 12 students who go to school regularly, so it was a small group. The school is only one block away from the favela (slum) and there were many young children walking by the school with nothing to do. One little boy, maybe 5 or 6years old said he knew why we were cleaning up the streets, it was to unclog the steets' sewer drains. Then he asked if he could help - so cute. We gave him a prize for filling one full trash bag (see below). I was once again amazed at how much the students really tried to pick up the trash and got energized by being outside and doing something active - even the ones that weren't very excited about the lessons inside the classroom. This proved very successful, and hopefully we will do another clean-up again soon.














Semana da Humanidade na Escola Maria do Rosario Castaldi(June 4)


Several high schools in Londrina host a "Humanities Week" where students are excused from regular classes to attend a series of talks on anything related to humanities - human rights to health issues to politics. Prof. Telma Gimenez from UEL went to talk to two groups of 9th grade students about Citizenship in the schools, and I went along to participate. It was very interesting to hear what the students thought about problems in their school and how they felt they didn't have much of a voice in changing the situation. Telma had them speak in a forum style like the UN and I thought they participated quite well compared to other classes I have seen so far. Citizenship has so many different definitions and aspects to it. I could have taken this talk one step further to discuss students' participation and respect for the environment, which hopefully I will have a chance to do before the year is over. I'm attaching some photos here so you can see what the inside of the schools look like here - pretty sparse. It makes me wonder if what they say is true - people perform up to the standards of their surroundings. If they are surrounded by beauty they will want to keep the area beautiful and will take pride in their school and their work. I don't know, but I think it would certainly hold true for me.

Podcast sobre projetos do meio-ambiente nas escolas publicas em Londrina

World Environment Day

For World Environment Day, I went to Lago Igapo with the Portuguese class from a local high school to hand out brochures they made themselves about how to econmoize water (see below) to passers-by and to go kayaking on the lake. It was a beautiful day and a great chance to make a second attempt at kayaking:) (the first being on Lake Union in Seattle). It was excellent, but there was lots of trash in the lake that I kept wanting to scoop out of the water. The city pipes drain into the lake, which makes it quite dirty, especially after a heavy rain. But all in all it was a great way to encourage the students to get out and celebrate nature for World Environment Day 2008!

A little bit of heaven...as our grandmother would say

On the last full day in Goiania, Sunday, May 25, I had planned to go to Rio Quente Resort, one of the hot springs about 3 hours by bus from Goiania. Jackeline, had never been there before and so she decided to come with me too. A full day is sufficient here, but, two days would be better. Unfortunately, because of the bus times, we didn't have quite a full day even. We arrived at 10:00am and had to leave by 5:00pm to get back. Still, though, I think it was definitely worth the trip.

Basically, this place exceeded my expecations. It was amazing! When you arrive, they give you a card to wear around your neck and anything you buy you purchase with this card instead of money. That way you only pay on your way out, and probably many people lose track of how many drinks they have had during the day:) If you stay overnight, you are allowed access to a more restricted area that has a spa and more hot water pools; it's just beautiful. If you are there for the day, you are supposed to stay in the water park only. However, I had already seen some photos from this place and although the water park was very pretty, I knew the best pictures came from somewhere other than there. So, we decided to saunter up to the main lodge area and just walk through like we knew where we were going. It worked! On the other side of the grounds was the Poussada (hotel) area. We figured we would look around and take lots of pictures and then swim, so that if they asked us to leave, at least we would have some photos:) Everything was fine until we got hungry and decided to try to order something. The cords of our cards were a different color than the people staying on the grounds. The woman taking our order didn't say anything, so I figured maybe it didn't matter. But then security came and noticed the color and told us we weren't supposed to be there. I tried to say in my worst broken Portuguese that I was American and just visiting for a few days, so could we please stay. He said, okay, take your time eating but then you have to leave. Four hours later we finally left:)

I definitely hope to get back here before I leave Brazil - it is truly a heavenly place. The pools are open all night long and are lit from within - beautiful.

I highly recommend it to anyone going through central Brazil!!

The water couldn't have been much clearer - you can see all the fish!

Looking down on the water park

In the "hotel guests only" part:)

Drinking coconut water at the bar

Film in my favorite pool with a bar and waterfall you could sit under




Water "showers" at Rio Quente

Maravilhoso!!