SENAC, UFBA and Departure

Wow -- it's hard to believe this month has simply flown right by! I leave next Wed., so by all accounts I have only four days left.

This past Monday, I had a chance to visit SENAC, and institution that trains students to be cooks and waiters. The vasy majority of students come from extreme poverty, and are making choices to improve their lives through technincal education, much as the students I met from Miller-Motte College back in North Carolina. Since I "cut my teeth" running restaurant kitchens before I entered academia, we had a lot in common, and the visit was high on emotion; they expressed a sense of gratitude that someone from another community recognized their efforts to make a better life for their families, when many of their friends and relatives did not, and I expressed to them how grateful I was to be able to see and meet them, and talk about their dreams for the future. It was perhaps my favorite visit here in Salvador, and I'll surely never forget those folks. That's me in the hairnet in the kitchen, and then later talking with some of the waiters and waitresses.

Today I presented at UFBA, the federal university, and talked about academic, professional and personal writing strategies with both students and instructors. The presentation went about 30 min. over, and everyone stayed, so I believe it came off quite nicely. We had a great discussion about art, and artists, and what it means to be possessed by the desire to create. Lots of fun.

On Tuesday, at 5PM, I'll be reading fiction and poetry at the Casa Jorge Amado, and from what I've been told, I should expect A LOT of people, as the event is being advertised all over town, and Salvadorians like foreign art. No pressure...

Other pics: The family shot is of Ester's (the wonderful mother of Carol Ouimet, and my host here in Salvador) son's (Marcelo) family, wife Tereza and daughter Bia, along with Ester's sister and Vice-President of the Bahian chapter of Partners of the Americas, Miriam de Souza (also the Consul to Greece for Brazil), all joining us at Boi Preto, amazing churrascaria; also, here's Ester enjoying the delivery of yet more meat!

Cheers!

Orchestra Rumpilezz Pics

Here're the pics from last night -- enjoy!

Cachoeira, Orchestra Rumpilezz II, and UFBA

Oi! Greetings yet again from beautiful Salvador. Hard to believe I've got only one week left... this amazing adventure has truly flown by, and has me planning for a Fulbright so I can come back for much longer.

This weekend, I had the great opportunity to travel with the ACBEU portuguese students to San Mateo, San Feliz and Cachoeira, all historical areas directly linked to Brazil's past, present and future. The pictures here are a mix of shots from all three areas -- most of the distanced views are from Cachoeira; the bridge here is the oldest bridge in South America, made of iron, and nicknamed "Emotion." Which you surely feel when you cross over it. The bull-like animal is a Zebu, a cross-breed of Agentinian, Brazilian and American livestock, which thrive here in the Brazilian lanscapes. They're always white, and their profiles dot the lanscapes of the hills and mountains as you pass. The open market shots are from San Mateo -- HUGE eggs, and funny fruit I never got the name of.

As sugar cane was once the Brazilian cash crop, Cachoeira was the economic powerhouse of the country. Then, as petroleum become a primary source of revenue, and sugar cane production leveled off, many people left Cachoeria for larger cities. The town has a dynamic variety of elevations, and the landscape and architechture are gorgeous and old, most buildings dating the 17th and 18th centuries. A lovely place.

On the following post -- with no text -- we have some shots of Leiteres Leite and the amazing Orchestra Rumpilezz, who, last night, again rocked the Teatro Jorge Amado to its foundation. I encourage you all to Google this amazing collection of musicians and, when they finally release it, scoop up their album/disc.

Tonight is the graduation ceremony for the ACBEU academic season. Should be a nice event, as we'll celebrate the achievements of the 300 or so graduating students.

Off to lunch... maybe an acaraje, heavy pimente!

ACBEU presentations, Orchestra Rumpilezz and More Pics

This past week was a week of presentations for ACBEU-Vitoria: In-class composition and creative writing strategies, and strategies for completing a dynamic and sophisticated teacher development plan, all three created for instructors of both the English and Portuguese programs. Each last roughly three hours, and included a workshop component of either examining writing examples useful for in-class exercises, or sample essays I felt would benefit the instructors linguistic approach to teaching writing and reading simultaneously. I believe there were successes and failures for all three, but that overall, the material was well-received, and may influence some to include a greater sense of dynamic writing and reading skill sets in certain classes.
Last night, though, was something very special. Marcelo, Ester’s son (Ester is Carol Ouimet’s mother), took me to the Jorge Amado Theater (Teatro Jorge Amado) to see the Orchestra Rumpilezz, directed by musician Letieres Leite. I believe it may have been the most amazing musical performance I’ve ever seen! The orchestra plays a wonderful mix of musics that combine samba, clave, big-band and Afro-Brazilian themes. The show started with only Letieres and one percussionist, with Letieres (who play a variety of wind instruments) on alto sax. As their tune rose in volume and complexity, the theater suddenly filled with trumpets, saxophones, flutes and more drums, as the entire orchestra then entered through the crowd, dressed in white tuxedos and havianas, the traditional Brazilian flip-flops – a perfect match! They play again next Monday – I’ll try to return and snap some pics I can post here.
Tomorrow I present the composition presentation for Colegio Militar teachers (Colegio is a federal high-school here in Salvador). I hope it’s well-received.

Here are a few more pics from our sailing trip to Ilha Neves and Ilha Mare. Included are Horacio telling a few sailing stories, Lagosta Grelhada (grilled lobster), the menu from Bar Nova, basically a shack right on the water with amazing food and cold, cold beer; an incredible Wahoo Moqueca (fish and vegetables sautéed in palm oil and served bubbling hot in an iron bowl), and a beautiful sunset.

Tchau – more later!

Salvador in Photos

Here're some pictures Karen shot during her stay here. They're numbered from bottom to top. I'll post more pics in the next posts, as the blog server will only allow about five pics per post. PIC ONE: This is Joachim. He sells great necklaces and earrings on the beach, and is a great guy. He was kind as is possible, and helped us feel at home on our first walk to this beach, Praia Fado (beach at the lighthouse).

PIC TWO: The dessert attendant at our first churrascaria just loved Karen, and even brought her out some homemade dessert made of brown sugar.

PIC THREE: Here's Horacio, Itana's husband (good friends who've made the stay here a fluid, seamless experience all around -- Horacio and I get along great though he speaks about as much English as I do Portuguese), anxiously awaiting the next round of filet from a churrascaria cutter.

PIC FOUR: This is me at the ACBEU welcome breakfast explaining what I plan to present. Notice the interlaced hands -- I tried to express how much I hoped to learn from Salvador, as much as the professors here might gain from my presence. Also notice the look of the woman in the foreground who seems to be saying, "Who IS this guy?!?"

PIC FIVE: This is the wonderful view from one of Horacio's skippers (Horacio runs a sailing school in Salvador, VERY successful, and extremely cool), Fernando's, sail boat as we make our way from Bahia Bay to Ilha Neves, where one can find possibly the bext moqueco in the world.

OTHER NEWS: This week I delivered two presentations, one concerning composition strategies, and one concerning technical writing class and curricula strategies, and I believe the composition presentation was much more appreciated. The techincal writing concerns may have been a bit left of center from what many of these teacher's do, and I think they may have wondered why I was even presenting the information. Still, some seemed to believe it was beneficial to what they might do in class, so it wasn't a total wash.

For Thursday, Friday and next Monday, I'll be presenting composition strategies, creative writing, and writing from the academic world for the ACBEU in-service. Should be a busy few days!

Cheers!

Happy Fourth to America, from Salvador!

Well, we´re three days in, and have been totally blown away by this wonderful country. Brazil is truly an amazing physical and social adventure, and every minute we´ve been here, from driving from the airport to sailing to Ilha dos Neves and Ilha Mare to visiting the Pelorinho to walking through Bahia has been incredible. A bit of specifics:

First of all, Salvador has a collection of daredevils who perform stunts all over every street in the city. They´re called motorcyclists, and they are more talented than any and every Hollywood stuntman in existance. And while drivers in Brazil, well... drive true to the stereotypes of Brazilian drivers, there seem to be almost no accidents, and literally zero road rage. Pretty amazing in a city where folks seem more dedicated to the middle of the road than any certain lane, and right of way can be as complex as the IRS tax code.

The food is stellar, and the churrascarias -- bar-be-cue places where you´re served all sorts of grilled and bar-be-cued meats until you can barely stand -- have amazingly fresh and tasty foods of all kinds and flavors. On Ilha Mare, at a fantastic little shack right on the shore, we had the best -- the BEST -- crab salad in the world, chock full of cilantro, fresh onion, tomatoes....Muito Bom!! Karen and I have fallen in love with two culinary aspects of Salvador: The little cafe vendors who sell thimble-sized cups of blazing hot and sweet coffee from tiny carts they pedal around like bicycles, and Bolivianos, pastry-like pockets covered with sugar and filled with pork, raisins, olives and hot peppers... AMAZING.

On Tuesday, I met the wonderful staff and Board members of ACBEU (Associacao Cultural Brasil Estados Unidos) including Miriam Souza, Vice President of Partners of the Americas (POA -- the NGO group which brought me here to Salvador, and an amazingly energetic woman who´s both a lawyer and the Salvador Consul to Greece); Celina Basto, POA member and Board Member at ACBEU; Savio Sigueira, former ACBEU Coordinator and current professor at UFBA, a university here in Salvador; Clara Ramos, Portuguese Program Coordinator at ACBEU, a wonderful woman with a blazing sense of humor and an unyielding passion for language studies; Andrea Alves, Coordinator at ACBEU-Vitoria (ACBEU, a bilingual institution with a world-renowned reputation as the best language institute in Brazil has three locations in Salvador; I´ll be stationed at the Vitoria location, about 1 mile from my apartment in Graca); Athina Leite, Academic Superintendant of ACBEU, and one of the warmest, kindest people I´ve met here; Antonio Franca, Executive Superintendant at ACBEU; and Arthur Sampaio, President of both ACBEU and the Casa de Jorge Amado, the Brazil novelist whose work I fell in love with many years ago. They and all the other teachers and administrators I met that morning are passionate, wonderful people who´ve truly made me feel as if these next four weeks will be a dynamic shared exeperience for all involved. I briefly explained the nature of my visit, the core of my presentations, and how I hoped anyone and everyone would let me know if there is/was anything more I could do to contribute to ACBEU´s fine mission.

No matter what you here about Brazil being a potentially dangerous place to visit, believe this: It´s all silly rumor. Sure, just like any other major city with 3,000,000 people, there´s in Salvador the presence of folks who might be inclined to be a little spurious, but they´re rare and few, and the general public is incredibly kind and helpful. With a simple Poco Portuguese (a little Portuguese) and a kind smile, the town of Salvador will open its arms to you.

This Monday at 4PM I´ll be presenting my first seminar,¨Oils and Waters...¨ at the ACBEU ESL/EFL Conference -- then again on Wednesday at 2:30. Tonight Karen and I will have dinner with Miriam Souza, and tomorrow we leave for Praia do Fortre with Clara Ramos and a group of ACBEU students. If you look up Praia do Fortre on the web, you´ll see exactly why we´re soooo excited.