Welcome to The Childrens City! Gappers arrive in Brazil

Beaches of Florianopolis!

COUNTRY: Brazil
PROGRAM: GapBreak
PROJECT: Wildlife Conservation & Youth Work
WRITTEN B Y: Simeran Bahia

Ola Amigos! After a much sleep deprived flight to Santiago, followed by a very confusing terminal check in fiasco at Sao Paulo the Brazil group finally made it to the beautiful land of Florianopolis! Last week we spent getting to know our own local areas, the many buses- by sometimes catching the wrong ones- and of course the week long intense Portuguese classes that have somewhat helped us in our own ways; especially when we started work at Cidade de Crianças (The Childrens City). So far our two weeks at the Kids Centre have been absolutely amazing, the children are so energetic and are keen to be with you at all times. We started work painting their greenhouse, playing many tiring games of soccer, jump rope, capeirera, art classes and general exhausting activities (mostly giving piggy backs).

On the weekends we have all visited different areas of this amazing island, to the beautiful Lagoa, its beaches and markets to hanging out at the biggest shopping centre here, Iguatmi. Being on different sides of the Island to Maddie.B and I (we being at the top), the rest of the gang, Maddie.T, Bella, Josie, Jordie, Marie and Nick have made several trips up to us, for Brazilian BBQ made by our host dad Mario, and to see one of the most famous beaches here- Jurere. Most of us have also all been to each others houses and areas too, each of our areas are so different to one another, its quite surprising. Other than that, we have all had nights out together/with our own host families, danced and seen the amazing Brazilian night life, our first week we even had a party organised for us by Maddie.T´s host brother Leandro at a local club!

Brazil itself is fantastic, the people are very nice, allowing us all to make many friends even though there is still that awkward language barrier. The weather so far has been good, except in the past few days the sun has disappeared and we´ve seen an appearance of rain and wind. The food here is also quite delicious we would all agree, we have all been blessed with having amazing host families who make amazing food...although Nick, Bella, Maddie.B and I are guilty of taking many trips down to the local McDonalds for lunch and some of us have also become pretty addicted to this delightful soft drink called Guarana...we already have plans of bringing suitcases of it back to Australia.

Feeling a little homesick last Friday we headed on to check out the ´Didge Steakhouse´ - an Australian restaurant serving ´traditional´Australian food...we now have a hangout where we can go for future homesick times. Having only one week left all together before Nick, Bella, Maddie.B and I travel to Curitiba for the animal sanctuary, we have a jam packed week of plans from Karaoke, Go Karting, Samba dancing, celebrating Maddie.T´s 18th(!!) to hosting an Austrlaian themed party for the Kids at Cidade de Crianças! Being out all together at lunch today it hit us that in one week we would be a third through our placement here in Brasil, although we all miss our family and friends back home, our time here has already gone so quickly and so far it has been absolutly incredible.

But for now we say Boa Noite e ateh logo! (good bye and see you later)
Love Simeran and the Bonita Brasil Group!
xxxx