COUNTRY: Brazil
PROGRAM: GapBreak
PROJECT: Wildlife Conservation & Youth Work
WRITTEN BY: Hannah McHardy
I apologise for my late blogging and thank Sarah for filling in for me! I am going to give my run down of the first week of Floripa anyway to see if she missed out on anything!
Saying goodbye to my parents and brother at the airport was not what I thought it would be, I did end up tearing up and walked through customs with a blotchy red face! I sat next to Cat on the other side of the aisle on the big trip to Chile, and next to to a Chilean couple that were closest to the window. They got up and sat down within the 13 hr plane ride exactly 32 times. It was NOT okay (this is a term Camille has been saying that has spread to Cat, Emily and I in our time at the animal sanctuary) as most of you will realize this meant I also had to get up 32 times. We then got off the plane and had our transfer to Sao Paolo. When hanging out at the gate we all happened to look at our seats and check our flight number for Cat to realise she had been put on a different flight to the rest of us… it was all figured out after a while and she had to catch her flight alone to Sao Paolo! Brave little Kitty Cat Meow Face (another nick name that has been started by Camille at Curitiba).
I also had not been given a ticket for my transfer flight by the woman who gave me my tickets in Sydney (smart) so I was slightly panicky as well! We had a veeeery delayed flight at Chile and ended up at Sao Paolo with 10 minutes to get off one plane and on another. But we all arrived safely and met our host families.
My host family is wonderful! I have a host mother named Lici, a host sister named Louisi (Lo for short) who is 16 and a host brother named Joao who is 8. I live in a small suburb at the tip of the island called Ingleses and I am loving it here! I live just down the road from Camille and our mothers are sisters so we spent a lot of time together in the first week.
The first week consisted of our Portuguese lessons, wandering blindly about the bus stations and getting lost (mostly Camille and I on our enormous trip home – Ellen and Sarah even further!). I had my first migraine of the trip (surely to be followed by many more) while the other girls were shown to the main bus station and the children’s centre. We went back again during the week and had an English teaching lesson at Babel where we had been having our Portuguese lessons.
We had lunch every day at a buffet styled restaurant we all loved that was remarkably cheap! Half way through her chicken and salad Camille realised her slice was nice and pink and squishy, closer to uncooked than anything else. We looked at the clock and set a ticking time bomb for when the food poisoning should kick in, however the 8 hours ended in surprise when there was no sickness at all! Stomach of steel.
On the weekend we went on a Floripa by Bus tour that took us on an enjoyable drive down the coast to a secluded beach where we took photos, ate ice cream and visited the markets. A few of us bought some necklaces and trinkets which are awesome!
Camille’s host brother named Gus took us on our first Brasilian clubbing adventure that Saturday night. Sarah, Ellen and Steph met us at the club and we all had an awesome first night out together! The clubbing scene has proven to be very different from the Australian! Starts much later into the night and ends closer to midday than not! Although, we went home at a reasonable hour of course. The next day Camille and I had to get grudgingly out of bed to allow ourselves enough time to get to the bus station to get our transfer to Curitiba.
The past month that Camille, Cat, Emily and I have spent in Curitiba has been one of the most incredibly rare experiences of a lifetime. I feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to live and work at the wildlife sanctuary as it is not only a beautiful place but the owners Cris and Luciano, and all the other workers we met and have grown to love are the most generous, welcoming and wonderful people I have ever met. As I think the other girls would agree. The animals were a challenge at times but I think in those four weeks we have all grown stronger and definitely learnt a few things!
The workers speak very little English so we were forced to start learning to speak the basics a lot more regularly and saw it our responsibility to learn and make use of important words. Our vocab for the last four weeks has consisted of:
Lavar – Wash
Aqui – Here
Agora – Now
Oi – Hi
Tchau – Bye
Obrigada – Thankyou
Por Favor – Please
Stringing sentences together has become easier and the staff have been very patient and comforting to us. Cris and Luciano have been incredibly hospitable, the house we have lived in is beautiful! It is two bed roomed, one room with two beds and another with three that both have adjoining bathrooms.
The main room has a big couch and a flat screen TV with which we used to become unhealthily addicted to House, ER, X-Men, Lord of the Rings Trilogy and the Incredibles (along with many more). They have provided us with so much food (our sizeable and eve- growing appetites meant we were low on bread, tuna, cheese and spreads within one or two days) and given us free reign on their 5 star swimming pool! We were so grateful!
On our arrival we met Andrea, the Swedish girl who had already been working there for three weeks and was on her final week of stay. She was very nice, and I shared the double room with her for the first week before Camille moved in on her departure. She had very good English and helped us a lot in our first week for understanding Portuguese and guiding us in what we should be doing while we are here.
Our first day was hard! We were all thrown into many different tasks and things I certainly wasn’t prepared for. I was assigned with Rosie for my first day and she cleans a row of 16 bird cages near the kitchens. After chopping fruit for the first hour (the length of time you spent chopping fruit each morning varied on who you followed for the morning and the animals they feed) she led me to where I was to clean and I grasped a vague idea of what I was supposed to be doing and I was on my way.
Hosing the ground to clean them and taking out the food trays and washing them down was pretty much all you had to do, however being locked in an enclosure with birds you’ve never seen or heard of before was sort of scary! During this week we had many new experiences such as the “tractor incident” on the way to feeding the wild pigs – this included the tractor losing control as we were descending a hill and it flipping, the 6 of us (including a staff member Gabriel) flying from the trailer. To everyone’s surprise and amazement no one had even minor injuries (although from much Cabin Fever that has been questioned from time to time…) and didn’t go to feed the pigs again. Other than washing enclosures, chopping fruit and feeding the animals, hanging around with the staff when there was nothing to do and taking photos, we resorted in the hot weather to hanging by the pool, and cold weather to rugged up watching TV.
We spent two of four weekends in the city of Curitiba. We stayed at a hostel that Rafaela booked for us that was near a shopping mall and an unusual amount of cemeteries and funeral planning stores. We went to a BBQ with Rafaela and her Fiancé on our first weekend there after a lunch at an all you can eat buffet with some Brazilian Experience friends. It was very fun and we got to meet Brazilians our age that could speak English. It was fun to speak to them and we now have some of them on Facebook! Will be good to keep in touch, one of them will be doing Machu Picchu later this year late December after I finish the Brasil placement, hopefully I run into her! The Saturday afterward we went into town and went clubbing with the Brazilian Experience guys we met. We went to “Woods” which had live Brazilian style music. It was a lot of fun and again we met lots more people our age.
After hanging out at the pool the Sunday afternoon we came back from the city, Cris and Luciano invited us to come and feed the baby jaguars with them! It was an awesome experience I will probably never have again. I’m sure you’ve all checked out the photos of us all with the bottles in our hands. However we were all a bit nervous once the bottles were finished as there was no longer anything to distract them from starting to get a little playful. As they have enormous nails and aren’t aware of their own strength, a few of us attained some minor injuries. Charlie jumped onto my back and left a nice long open cut through Emily’s shirt she lent me which bruised nice and purple. Emily got some cat scratches on her side that look like she’s been in a cat fight! This was a wonderful thing to have done on our trip and was a good start to our last week. After this, Emily, Cat and I went and got our things to go to Iguacu.
Iguacu was a very amazing two days. Besides the 10 hour over night bus rides, it’s safe to say it is the most incredible natural wonder any of us have ever seen. The first day we did the Brasilian side of the falls, and the next the Argentinean side. They both offered a very different perspective of the falls and I’m very glad we got the opportunity to do both. On the Brasil side we did a tour of the Bird park (most of the birds we worked with in the animal sanctuary anyway) and the Macuco Safari.
With this we did a small trailer tour through the bush and listened to information about the native plantation and animal life within the forest. Then a 600m walk and saw a very rare flower, which blooms once a year for 24 hours. Extremely lucky, it was beautiful! Then embarked on our speed boat tour that took us through rapids and under the falls. This was exhilarating and beautiful, being so close to the falls and viewing the falls from below. Afterward, Emily and I did a 55m abseil. It was a very active day with lots of walking and buses from lookout to lookout. We’ve got lots of photos that are on Facebook!
The weeks working at the sanctuary went so fast and we all wish we could have stayed longer. We became so close to all the workers and of course, the animals and were all very sad to leave. On our last day we all shed a tear or two but it was so nice to see the other girls again! We had lunch together in a big kitchen area in the garden near Cris and Luciano’s house. We were given our certificates and had to say goodbye to everyone for the last time. We ended up missing our bus because we didn’t want to leave so much and had to wait another hour and half for the next one.
Being back in Floripa has been great! Civilisation (internet, access to speak to friends and family more easily, a greater variety of meal options per day) has its benefits and I think we are all enjoying ourselves. Our first week working at the children's centre has been great! The first day was the day of my birthday. Camille and I spent the morning with Kitty (Steph’s homestay sister from Germany) painting the basketball court green. It went all over our shoes and feet.
The rest of the week was a lot of fun getting to know the kids and learning how to communicate more easily with them. This is hard as they are young and speak to you like they would anyone else – in fluent Portuguese. Our relationships have been easily built anyway as they love to sit on our laps, play with our hair and lead us around to play many games and do activities. Just recently, our donation money for the centre was spent on a new flat screen TV and Xbox with games for the children. They are all very much enjoying it and we can see they are very grateful for our help.
Looking forward to the coming weekend!
Hannah xxx
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