Classes Begin....sort of

Ive successfully moved into my new house and spent a week with my new family. I have an aunt named Marlene and a grandma named Cesa. It took me a while to learn how to say their names and they’re still learning how to say mine....i even wrote out a breakdown of how it sounds phonetically. This new housing arrangement was set up by the roommate of Cameron, one of the other students on the program. The two women that I am living with are the aunt and grandma of Cameron's roommate named Felipe.

So far the host family experience has been great! The language barrier is relatively large because they do NOT speak any English and my Portuguese is still not very good....though it continues to improve every week. Every morning i wake up, I have coffee and breakfast with family and if i wake up late they leave my cup and plate out on the table. Ive offered to help with dishes or cooking in exchange for their hospitality but I have had no luck with them accepting this offer. The new house is located right next to the center of downtown. The location is great but has put me about a forty five minute walk away from the university. As a result I will likely take the bus to class a few days a week. Three days out of the week, Carolyn (another student from Colorado College) and I are fortunate to have a ride with one of our professors, Carol. She lives right across the street from me and has offered to carpool to class. Carol, was the same person who helped all of us find classes that suited our interests and introduced us to professors in our field. She has been a great resource this first week of class and orientation and I’m sure she will continue to be in the weeks to come.

I will hopefully be able to post some photos on the next post. I have been unable to post photos at this point because my backpack was stolen which had my camera and ipod inside. I had left the backpack inside Felipe's car while we were inside the indepedencia shopping mall and we came outside to find the rear window broken and my backpack gone. First lesson of the trip and a good lesson for any big city anywhere in the world: DONT leave valuables in the car! Luckily there were no important documents inside like my passport or visa. These would have been far more difficult to replace and possibly just as expensive.

The theft of my backpack aside, the majority of the experiences so far have been positive. We began classes this week but apparently the first week is not important and the majority of students do not show up to class until the second week. My first class yesterday, ecology and the preservation of the environment had a total of five students present out of a thirty person class. My classes this semester are as follows:
Ecology and the preservation of the environment
Introduction to environmental science
Portuguese for Foreigners
Water quality and rights
Ecology of populations and communities

We were all signed up for a soccer class as well but we found out that it is soccer theory and not actually playing so we dropped it.


Until next time!