halfway through week 1...

bom dia!

just wanted to let you know that we started work at the creche this week, monday was the first day and today is dia de ferias--day off! what a crazy week it´s turned out to be!

leo, nick and diego have to commute by taking 2 busses just to get to the creche... fortunately, one of the directors of the creche lives sort of nearby the sabarense family´s house and agreed to pick me up from a local bus stop and drop me off at the federal university in belo (UMFG) so i can take a bus back to my house... so although my commute time is relatively short, i have to be at the bus stop by 7 in the morning, meaning i´m out the door by 6:30 to walk to my stop... we´re at the creche by 8, a full hour before i actually have to be there, so i get an extra hour to help with the kids... makes for a long day, but could be worse! lol

the creche decided to keep all 4 of us together to work at one location all summer, which has had its up´s and down´s... i believe all in all there are a couple hundred kids a day that come through the doors of the creche in two shifts, morning and afternoon sessions...

the creche is a neighborhood arts center with children varied in ages from 4-5 to 18... their needs are all different as we are told that most of the children lack proper attention and physical affection in their homes... i´m guessing that some kids lack many other things in their homes, too, as most of the kids have been wearing the same clothes all week, lack adequate bathing and smell of urine and sweat and probably lack proper nourishment at home, too, as they are much to eager to eat the same bowl of rice with beans every day... i´ve had some serious introspection going on this week because of what i´ve experienced and witnessed, and it´s only been a few days so far...

on monday, i walked to the bus stop where sylvia (creche worker) picked me up and we drove in traffic for a full hour until we got to the outskirts of BH in the mountains... the kids trickled in by 8:15 and began their ´´roda´´ or group circle discussion. in the roda, i got to introduce myself and tell the little kids (meninhos) about myself in portuguese... what a funny speech it must have been for them to hear!!! they giggled a lot and the little girls would take turns walking by me and feeling my hair... they said my hair was the prettiest they´d ever seen! the whole group had about 50-60 meninhos and they all wanted me to say say their name in english... some were easy to say (like caro lynha = carolina or caroline) while others were not so easy (tamires = does it even have an english equivalent???)...

all the kids asked why i looked different from what they thought an american should look like, white with blonde hair... some of them said i was probably not even american... i definitely erased all their doubts when i started speaking in english! i explained as best as i could that i was born in america, but my family is mexican-american, and that we have lots of cultures in america... lol it was so funny to see their faces, they just laugh and say they don´t understand me...

a while later they boys made it to the creche and we all had morning ´cafezinho´... monday was ´dia livre´ so there wasn´t much structure to the day at all, we just did whatever the kids wanted to do, playing outside, drawing, singing, dancing... most of the kids played soccer outside on a makeshift field about half of normal size that had a net covering on the top and side of the field, making sure the ball isn´t sent over the side of the mountain... behind the soccer field is a makeshift volleyball court, but it doesn´t have a protective net, so it looks like it´s rarely used... it is also littered with trash from the apartments that border the creche, i think the tenants just dump their trash out of their windows onto the court. we´ve been talking about making a ´pick-up trash day´as an activity for the kids which would help the area be suitable for them to play a different kind of game in but might also help us teach a lesson on recycling or preserving the environment... not sure about that one, still trying to figure out what would work.

for most of the day we played in the sun in one of two groups, either playing ´quemada´, which turned out to be a cross between dodgeball and nuke-em, and soccer or ´futebol.´ near the end of the morning session, i brought out some face-paints that i brought for the kids... so diego and i did our best to meet their requests and they really got a kick out of the facepaints! we had many requests for ´cruzeiro´or ´galo,´two of the more popular soccer teams in bh... the other requests were for flowers, butterflies, stars & moons, a fox of all animals! haha

soon thereafter, the kids were collected in the main ´sala´for a lunch of rice and beans, and then picked up for school, if they went to school. the kids who don´t go to school were dismissed to go home. we had a short pow-wow with the creche workers (sylvia, nicki, leo, pamela), ate our lunch of rice & beans and then went to one of the small upstairs dark rooms for a nap. we knocked out for a solid 45 minutes and woke up just in time to receive the afternoon kiddos. phew!

basically, the same process was repeated with the second group except they were a bit older, probably from 10 - 17 years old, so we played quemada and futebol until it was almost time to dismiss for the day. instead of face painting, diego made some ´pulseiras´or bracelets out of colored pipe cleaners that the kids went nuts for! we ended the day with more rice & beans and the kids went home. all in all a good first day...

at the creche, the staff gets together to pow-wow after each session and talk about how things went, what to do better next time, which kids had issues, etc. monday was a crazy day for a few of the kids who were acting up, which the staff have been having problems with those particular kids for quite some time, and the staff discussion was laced with tension and brazilian gestures and raised voices. they are certainly more animated than us americans are, that´s for sure. one of the staff got up and left the group because he was so upset or frustrated or something, and that´s how our monday ended. we all kind of walked out in silence and akwardness and left for home. the boys walked down the hill to the bus stop and i went with sylvia.

tuesday was a much different day, though... at some point during the day, i´m guessing while we had the kids outside playing games or while we were teaching different english classes, the regular creche staff got together and aired out all their grievances, cried and hugged it out... tuesday was rather normal.

we did learn, though, that the kids have a family program on saturday... from the looks of the schedule it will be a talent show of sorts as the ´menores´and ´maiores´each have a different dance they´ve been practicing for weeks, choreographed by one of the instructors at the creche, leo... their dances are all set to american pop songs!!! all the little boys can moonwalk and do their best michael jackson impressions for you upon request... lol. the older kids dance to hip-hop and some of their moves are more suggestive than we´d allow in the states, but apparently they are ok here... there will also be some kiddos doing poetry, singing songs and showing some of their artwork. they have a great ´profesor de artes´named levi, who from what i can tell is a graffiti artist and sketch artist. under his instruction, the kids have produced some pretty awesome creations well beyond their capabilities as munchkins, in my opinion...

anyway, there will be a small snack area for the parents and kids that are able to come, and we were asked to bring american snacks to share... a iccp (a past brasilian exhange participant to the u.s.) told me that there is a specialty shop downtown that sells american-style brownies for $8 u.s. dollars each!!! we figured this might be a dessert that most brasilians might not try, so we agreed to bring brownies. i also brought about 20 kool-aid mixes so we will also provide a different kind of ´suco´or juice for them to try. the bip´s are meeting this afternoon downtown to buy our ingredients at an import-grocery store where i am hoping to find what i need for the brownies.

phew. it´s been an interesting week, a tiresome week, but a totally awesome week, too! more updates soon to come...

thanks for your continued prayers and support... :)

~crystal