COUNTRY: Brazil
PROGRAM: GapBreak
PROJECT: Wildlife Conservation & Youth Work
WRITTEN BY: Alice Clarke
Our first week here in Florianopolis/São Jose has been a delicate mixture of familiarity, excitement, relaxation, stress and a lot of confusion. Floripa (the city centre) is a lot like Melbourne or Sydney: multicultural, busy, with similiar buildings and streets. The tropical trees and plants and the odd brightly coloured, colonial building are the only things that give the city away. That, and that everyone is speaking Portuguese. Coming here made me realise how much we (or at least I) take English for granted. We just expect everyone to speak English and when they don't we have no choice (for the moment at least) but to say when someone addresses us in Portuguese "Não falo/falamos portugues".
Not even the weather gives Florianopolis away as being a city in Brazil as opposed to Australia. It may not be exactly Four Seasons In One Day but I'd say a bright and sunny 35 degree Sunday and next minute a cold, wet and windy Monday onwards is a bit Melbourne-esque (plus it randomly decides to become sunny the day I decide to be pessimistic and not bring my sunglasses).
A major challenge for some of us has been our host family environment. Apart from being scattered across Island and mainland in different neighbourhoods; our host families and houses are very different.
I am one of the furthest away from the project at the Children's City. Located in São Jose my Brazilian middle-class (not to be confused with Australian middle class who are amazingly richer than the people of my neighbourhood) family consists of my host mother and step-father and four sisters, three of which live at home. Usually all three sisters share one room but now I am sharing with the two younger (11 and 14) while the oldest sleeps on the couch. The house is more than half the size of mine in Australia and because they are undergoing renovations it is leaking in the rain we've had this week. They also speak very little English and don't understand much of what I say if I speak it. I am understanding more and more Portuguese though and for the rest we use google translate. The language barrier is very challenging but they are an overwhelmingly welcoming family.
Each family has a different level of wealth, English ability and protectiveness over us. Maddy & Belinda's host family for example live in a gated community. They almost have an infinity pool (omg) and their host sister who lives at home, Dani, speaks relatively fluent English. Like me, they have to cross the bridge from São Jose to Florianopoils to get to the central bus terminal (from which all other buses depart) which ends up as about an hour's trip (and some early mornings).
All of us agree that Felix seems to have had the most chill and easy transition into host family life; with the exception of the hottest setting of his shower being "lukewarm at best". His favourite phrases say it all - "tudo faz" (whatever) and "sereno" (peace and serene). His host parents and sisters were lovely and welcoming and on the first day gave him a tour of the island and sat on the beach drinking beers. They have the laidback mentality that Brazilians are famous for; similar to Australians except the sisters have a particular zeal for going out every night of the week and bringing Felix along (and then they drive him to the placement the next day - so jelly).
Jed and Tom, in separate houses are both near the beach. Jed's front door opens onto the beach and his host sister, Fernanda speaks fluent English so he finds it easy to communicate with his family. He enjoys playing with his brother Pedro and spending time with the family because they are so warm and welcoming.
Tom lives in Campeche; five minutes from the beach. His host brothers Pietro and Ian speak fluent English and have been to Australia before. This is fairly lucky because Tom hadn't learnt Portuguese before he arrived. The Portuguese classes have helped with numbers and basic phrases but as the teachers speak Portuguese the whole time it is hard to understand unless you have already done a bit of language study. He knows the important words though - beer and cheers.
All of us have such welcoming and beautiful families that have made Florianopolis feel like home even if they do think it's totally normal to put their toilet paper in the bin instead of the toilet.
Follow Jed and Felix's blog at http://jedandfelix.tumblr.com/
I hope that's alright and not too long!!
Thanks,
Alice Clark
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