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Tomorrow is Volunteers Day in Brazil. As some of you may know I volunteer one hour every Wednesday at a fantastic project called EnglishWorks. The project offers free English classes to anyone aged15-80 in 7 community centers in favelas around Rio de Janeiro. The vocabulary the learn is mainly targeted towards hotel and tourism in the hope that they'll be able to find work in these branches. In total we are 28 volunteers and the projects counts some 800 students so it's quite an impressive setup.
I enjoy it so much and my cheeks always hurt after each class from smiling so much. The way it works is that they get 1,5 hours of teaching and then the call me on Skype and we practice the dialogue of the day. But this morning I received a message if I could call them instead. Claro que si! And there they were all of them about 30 students in all sizes, shapes and colors waving flags and cheering at me. Thanking me for volunteering and I was touched to tears. These people are so wonderful and fun to work with and so grateful for this very small opportunity to learn English and my heart swelled with pride - I feel so privileged to be allowed to work with them.
But alas a woman cannot live of volunteer work alone. So yesterday I went for my first meeting with a very industrious woman Angelina who is just starting her language center. She seems to have the whole thing set-up, ready to push the button and so we just need to sell the concept. And she wants me doing the marketing for a start. I like the concept so we'll be discussing it further on Friday. It could become very interesting.
On my way in the taxi to the first meeting I received message from Berlitz that I was very welcome to do their test the same afternoon leaving me practically no time to catch up on my grammar or anything else. But I passed the test - of course I did - filled in a looong form and signed a job offer 3 pages long so now I'm just waiting for the actual interview and a contract. Friday morning they need to scan all the pages of my passport for whatever reason. I have no idea.
And then as things go here people are so open and friendly. Having met one of my students from Seville in the streets of Cartagena we shared a beer last night watching the sun set and resolving the problems of World. Mind you problems seem few when watching the sun set over the Caribbean with a cold beer in your hand. However he introduced me today to one of his lawyer friends who needs an English teacher. Fantastic! Although nothing's been agreed upon it's another great contact and a great opportunity. Private classes are well paid and often just conversation so relatively good money with considerable less preparation compared to ordinary classes. Can't wait to get started.
So a long but wonderful day and it was time to go home…..
Oh, I forgot to mention yet another type of transportation: the motorbikes! They are all official and work like the taxis collectives - stick two fingers in the air and Wupti! you've got yourself a ride. Needless to say that I have no problems getting their attention as we all know how well motorbikes and short skirts go together ;-)
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