Friday, April 3, 2009

Brazil - Part One

The trip from Peru to Brazil took a long time. To get from Lima to Belo Horizonte you have to cross some desert, climb or fly over the Andes Mountains, and travel through lowlands of the Amazon basin. The first thing the Brazilian immigration officer wanted to see was my vaccination record, but luckily Erasmo had made sure that it was up to date. Then she stamped my passport and I was in Brazil!


Vanda met me at the post office and took me to her apartment. She lives waaaay up on the 15th floor. I spent a lot of time looking out my bedroom window at all that green; I pretended that I was a bird flying over the park. The prettiest little ring-tailed monkeys, called tamarins or saguis, live there. (You can see some of them if you go to the Biodome in Montreal.) Vanda gave me some bananas, and one of them let me feed her!





















I'd really hoped to be there for Carnaval, but I just missed it. Pity - Vanda had a special samba dress already for me. It was beautiful, and I liked to twirl in it, but I haven't worn it much because I wanted to keep it looking nice.




Here's a picture of Vanda, her esthetic doctor, and me. I love the way Vanda is always smiling - she is always happy and making jokes. She's sort of like the aunt everybody wishes they could have, the same way that you'd love to have Elias and Erasmo for uncles.


Vanda teaches English at a couple of colleges here. One of her classes is all teachers. Well, not teachers yet, but they're at teacher school learning how. It's funny - they go to school at night! They asked me about Canadian schools and what we do at home, and I taught them some English expressions like "Dude!" and "Cool!"

It was still light when Vanda and I took the bus out to the college. It's 25 km from her apartment, but I loved looking out the window and seeing more of the city. I shared my seat on the bus with Ana Clara. I tried to talk to her in Spanish, and she just looked at me - then I remembered that in Brazil they speak Portuguese! Boy, did I feel silly!

I have to get off the computer now, but next time I'll tell you about going to the market with Vanda!

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