During our stay in São Paulo, the weather was actually cold. I had been to the city of Rio de Janeiro and the climate there was tropical: humid, hot and rainy. Here in São Paulo our summer is their winter, which means it has been actually cold, cloudy and rainy. I underestimated the weather in São Paulo, and had mostly packed for warmer weather, as is the assumption about Brazil (that it is all about warm beaches and having fun in the sun).
Will and Amanda had a churrasco planned since before we knew we would be visiting, so they were kind enough to bring us along to visit their family (a churrasco is the Brazilian version of a BBQ/carne asada).
Unfortunately, I do not remember the name of the place we visited (but I will ask Will and edit later!), but it was in an enclosed community with an amazing view of a forest. Amanda's family showered us with love and knowledge of how upper class Brazilians live. Both Will and Amanda are second and third generation Italian, so many of the foods they make are not only Brazilian, but Italian as well. This churrasco was full of traditional Brazilian foods.
During our stay, we had opportunities to talk with Amanda's family about life in the U.S. and how similar and different our cultures are. They were certainly privileged in their experiences, considering Amanda's uncle is a civil engineer. They had more opportunities to see the world, but they were also a family of teachers and we humble about what it has taken to be successful in Brazil. They expressed a feeling of the perceptions foreigners have of Brazilians; they knew people have assumptions about Brazil always being hot, being about soccer and about having fun. Although in some parts of Brazil there are folks who are about that life, There are so many other places where people are more worried about what the government is doing to it's people rather than what soccer match comes up yet. They also have lots of educators in their family; people who have been teaching for 40+ years and their views on education were similar to my own thoughts of education. We both believe teachers should have more say in the decision making that affects teachers and students; we need to create more teacher leaders to facilitate professional development; we need more time to exchange best practices; we need more resources to help our students not only become literate but to also become creative problem solvers; and we need smaller class sizes in order to help more students one-on-one.
We spent much of the afternoon talking education, culture and learning Portuguese. One of the important Portuguese words I learned was borogodó (a word used to describe a characteristic in which a person possess when they know how to cook so well that they don't even have to measure ingredients to know how much to put in). Amanda's famil definitely had borogodó! We had such a wonderful time, we even got a samba lesson!
Then we wake up the next morning and are welcomed with another inspiring day of Brazilian life! Road trip to Ibirapuera Park!
After the park, we got an amazing opportunity to attend Will's family party: a birthday party for his niece.
It's only Sunday and we hadn't even prepared our lesson for Monday with the students yet! Luckily, I am paired with a wonderful teacher who not only knows how to have fun, but also knows how to buckle down!