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A few month ago, when the both of us still lived
in Germany, we didn´t know what was expecting us far away in Vila São
José. Curious, but also a little scared, we left our home and started the
long trip. Neither of us had ever been to Brazil before. All we knew about
it, we had red in several books and travelguides. But how would reality
look like? How would the children react on two young men, not speaking
their language at all? Fortunately, all our concernes weren´t approved.
The children had us welcome with open arms and shining eyes. From the
beginning they gave us the feeling to be part of them and the project.
There was no need to talk – hugs and handsigns substituted the portugese
language. The kids came up with many creative ideas in order to have a
conversation with us. Consequently is was even easier to talk to them,
then talking to most of the adults.
At the beginning, we had some time to look
around in the project and to get used to the new enviroment. Thus we were
able to find out, how we fit into the work. In addition to that, this time
was helpfull to approve our portugese skills. Later we were assigned to
different groups, we join every day. Furthermore we offer classes in
english and german and are planning to do peu-pal relationships with the
kids from the project and kids from our former schools in Germany.At first, dealing with the cultural and social
differences between Germany and Brazil was difficult, but also impressing
the same time. Today, living in São Paulo to us is just everyday life, as
it is to all “regular” Paulistas, too. We live in a small house, about
fifteen minutes away from the project and despite of working, we do
sports, meet friends or take care of the household. It is a new experience
for us to wash the laundry ourselfs – by hand. During the past two month we could collect many
new impressions. We experienced much and saw many things, we probably had
never seen in Germany. Therefore, the both of us are looking forward to
spend the following ten month in Brazil and we are very curious, what is
awaiting us next.
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