The months of April and May have gone by really fast. It has been very eventful for me and a little scary at some points too. During this month, my state of Rio Grande do Sul experienced major storms which resulted in floods. Luckily for me, my city is a little higher up and so I ended up being safe from the floods. However, some of the cities around me suffered flooding and people had to be evacuated by helicopter. Due to the floods, I didn’t have school for a week. In my free time, I volunteered my time to sort through clothes, food, and other necessities for those who lost everything in the floods.
Another thing that happened was that my neighborhood along with 2-3 others experienced a tremor during the night. I woke up in the middle of the night and felt it but I thought it was a dream and went back to sleep. When I woke up my host parents were talking about it and that is when I realized it wasn’t a dream. Luckily nothing in my house and neighborhood was affected by the tremor.
Besides the natural disasters of April and May, I got to experience “Brazilian Pizza”. Brazilian pizza restaurants work as an all-you-can-eat. You pay a certain amount and they come out with so many different types and then ask you if you want a piece. They have savory pizzas along with pizzas that have chocolate and strawberries on them. It was a cool experience and I ate so much pizza that night.
In my culinary class, we made biscuits and bread for people affected by the floods. In my most recent classes, we’ve made different kinds of bread and fish. My favorite lessons have been the lessons when we get to make bread. I love eating fresh warm bread! Now that I know how to make many different kinds of food, I plan on making some recipes when I come back and I also want to learn other skills in the kitchen. Another thing that I made was with my host mom, we roasted peanuts, made bread, and some cinnamon sugar donuts too!
I have continued to play volleyball with my team and recently we had a tournament. While we didn’t place in the top three I still had a great time. We won two games and lost two games. I even got awarded an MVP of the game medal!
Overall I have had an amazing time the past few weeks. Right now the weather is getting colder. For the past few weeks, it has been around 40 degrees which doesn’t sound so bad until I learned that there is no heating in the buildings, so I have been bundling up lately. I recently changed host families and so far I like them. I have 3 host siblings. My host sister is my age and my host brothers are a few years older than me. This host family has two cats and they are both super sweet. I will stay with this family for about 4 ½ months until mid-October. While I was a little sad to leave my first host family, I was excited to experience something new and meet new people. Overall my transition so far has been really easy.
I sorted clothes to send to people who were affected by the floods.
This is me making bread and biscuits/cookies for the people who were affected by the floods.
Some pictures from my culinary class where we made bread and fish.
Making donuts with my host mom!
Me and my medal and my Volleyball team!
