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Brazil A-Term - #9: Final Day

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 Today is the last day of our A-Term. As this is the second week of the A-Term, we will participate in the same activity as we did the last Thursday. The schedule for today was first Art Therapy, then Digitalization for Adults. I was very excited to participate in the Art Therapy activity since this would be the first time I would be participating in it (last week I spent a day with the Worldpackers instead of doing Artherapy, you can find this on day #4 blog). Since this was our last day we wanted to do something special, for the kids that were showing up, so we decided to make another breakfast. This is always tricky because we never know how many kids are going to show up to each activity, it can be anywhere from 5 - to 20 kids. After serving breakfast, we started the Art Therapy activity. For today, we planned on playing many games of telephone with the objective of teaching the kids how gossip can affect the truth, and how people alter the truth when telling someone else gossip. S
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Brazil A-Term - Day #8: Surfing With the Trashboards

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     Surprisingly, this morning we woke up to the fresh, cool breeze of a bright sunny morning, in spite of the weather forecast that was of a cold and rainy day. Since the weather and the waves were so perfect, we decided to go for a change of plans. Instead of doing our usual activities, we would have a surf day, using the Trashboards. We drove up to the Unbotelling Minds HQ and borrowed a Trashboard. As soon as we started paddling out with the Trashboard, the first person we saw was my friend Erik, then Thiago! This was a huge coincidence as Thiago was the guy who made the Trashboards and Erik was going up to the Unbottling Minds headquarters to volunteer for the first time. So it was the four of us, Fabby, Thiago, Erik and me. We all took turns catching waves and having lots of fun. Then Thiago had the idea for us to share the Trashboard, so that all of us could experience what it was like to surf on it. Thiago told me that this was also how Unbottling Minds started. He would go ou
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Brazil A-Term - Day #5: A Special Visit by Fabricio Guerra

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      Houston is hot, sure, but the major difference between Houston heat and Maresias heat is grand yet hard to define. I remember the 2011 drought like it was yesterday. Nostalgic memories of playing kickball on an unbearably hot field makes me sweat even now, but in Houston there's always an escape. Perhaps a nearby building with air conditioning or a nice pool to cool yourself down. At the Desengarrafando Mentes HQ, there isn't any of that. The heat isn't as intense, but it's inescapable, and on the 25th of March it was almost torturous. I knew that it was going to be the last day of sun that we were going to have before it rained for the next week and a half, so I decided that I was going to stay in the sun a little more than usual. Little did I know this was going to be slightly more difficult than usual. Today was going to be a late start, but there were going to be some guests that we were going to give a tour to. Think of it as a kind-of open house, except our
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Brazil A-Term - Day #7:

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     Today is the start of the second week of our A-Term. The way we organized the schedule was that all of the activities from the first week would then repeat in the second week. So today we did the same thing that we did last week, Working in the Unbottling Minds vegetable garden and Spanish classes. But before the activities started, today, Fabby and I decided to provide breakfast for all the kids. Breakfast at Unbottoling Minds is always a great experience. Lots of laughs, conversations, and eating. Anytime there is breakfast being served, the kids always show up early and are very eager to start their day with friends.      Since this was the second time I was doing this activity, I felt a lot more comfortable working with my hands, interacting with the kids, and participating in the activity. Although today we weren't just planting, but painting. We used the beets, carrots, and leaves that we collected from the vegetable garden to make different paints. I thought that this w
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Brazil A-Term - Day #6: A Hike Across the Beach

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     Overall, today was a calm day in terms of work. The plan was to hike around and explore the town and nearby areas. As I had already gone on a little adventure by foot beforehand, I chose some interesting places to stop by while exploring the area. The first thing that I wanted to check out was a waterfall, in the middle of the forest, far up the hill. As we wanted to explore various different places and this waterfall was so far away, we decided to leave it as our last stop of the day. While exploring one of the trails with the Worldpackers, I had found a very thin part of the trail that led to this very small, rocky beach. Since the trail was all the way across town, we thought that we would get to know the town very well as we would walk past various points of interest. We began our exploration at around 12:00, after a good breakfast and some blog writing. On our walk to the trail, we found many different hotels, churches, restaurants, small shops. \      Experiencing both the p
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Brazil A-Term - Day 4: Bracelets, Whatsapp, and Bernie's Wacky Adventure By Fabricio Guerra and Bernardo Guerra

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      When Thiago had given us his version of the two week agenda, I was curious by what "Art Therapy" entitled. My assumption was that we have the kids some paper and some coloring pencils and let them draw what they wanted to, but I had completely forgotten that "Art" is a lot more than just drawings. Coming into this fourth day I didn't know the details of our activity, but I was excited to share some of my art skills with the little ones. Before Art Therapy however, there was breakfast. Since most of the kids don't get breakfast, Desengarrafando Mentes offers free breakfast for those who are going to participate in the activities. Usually it was just bananas, bread, and milk, and we didn't think of that as a very fulfilling breakfast, so we decided that today we were going to be providing the breakfast. So, before going to the HQ, we went to the brand new supermarket called the Bom Gosto (Good Taste) and bought some more diverse foods. There was alre
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Brazil A-Term - Day #3: A Special English Lesson Followed by Machetes followed by a Change of Plans by Fabricio P Guerra

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      I bet that someone reading this blog right now has experienced the situation when you set a couple alarms in anticipation of waking up at an earlier time but then they just snooze through all of them and end up waking up much later than normal? That's exactly how my day started. What we had planned for this day was to translate a fundraising presentation in the morning, have an English class at 3:00pm, and then a literacy class for adults at 7:00pm. Since the translation of the presentation was going to be done on our own time, I knew I had to own up to my normal habits and wake up early and start the day right. I set alarms for 6:55am and 7:00am, and went to bed. The following morning, I woke up and look at my phone to see that I've awoken at a very disappointing 8:15am with absolutely no sign of my alarms. They were turned on, so I must've been so tired that I turned them off whilst sleeping. This was... pretty frustrating to say the least, but I wasn't going to
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