Oh my what a week! I am sorry to all of our fans and followers about not having posted anything personally. I have had some time to myself, but much of it has been used to sleep or figure out which clothes are cleaner, and sometimes I am without access to a computer. I will also apologize if my English comes across as poor here. I have been either speaking in abhorent Portuguese or broken English and that make me not feel so smarts when I explains things in my writings.
Here is an overly verbose rundown of Thursday:
Oh boy! what we have all been waiting for. The District Conference. We have been promised by many people that this will be just buckets of fun, and we´d all hate to be disappointed. The conference is being held at the Federal University of Acre here in Rio Branco, near where Jenny is staying. It opened with a typical type of opening with some people talking and some stragglers showing up late, and lots of people saying how excited they are to be here and how great Rotary is etc etc etc. In short, it is rather dry and dull at this point, and since we are not responsible for any part of the conference other than just being there sometimes, and doing a quick 15-20 minute presentation on Saturday, most of us grab our mental baggage and check out while people are giving speeches. This district is geographically massive spreading across 6 states; Acre, Amapa, Amazonas, Para, and Rondonia, Roraima. We will be visiting the Capitals of each state, except for Amapa, and Roraima.
We learn quickly that cafeteria food in Brazil is very similar to cafeteria food in the US (read: mediocre to just okay on a good day). Following lunch, we get a tour of the Campus, which is very spread out, from Brazil team member Allan Jones who graduated from this University with a degree in Civil Engineering. After the tour and some waiting around we left and went to Cafe do Theatre where we enjoyed some interesting food that I can only equate to small quiches or appetizers. Allen Jones took Alison and Alton to eat something local, that in English sounds like Tah-cah-cah, and apparently has an effect on the body similar to the way the name comes across. I asked some Brazillians and it seems like they either really enjoy it, or think it tastes just dreadful. i.e. Allen Jones seems to love it, and Carlos thinks it is disgusting. We stayed here awhile and then headed back to our respective homes to get ready for the event we have all been waiting for, the official opening ceremonies! ! ! . . .
My host mother, Izabel, had about 16 of her close friends over for a party because Friday is a national holiday (basically Brazillian Labor Day) and I was as intimidated by a party full of women here as I am anywhere, but they had some pretty tasty wine, so I partook and loosened my proverbial collar while getting dressed for the ceremony. To simplify the opening ceremony in a mathematical equation I will simply say this from my perspective: formal opening ceremony + a language I barely understand + seemingly endless speeches (one speaker went on for nearly 2 hours) + 5 or 6 glasses of wine + half the room of Brazillians sleeping = X. I will let you all use your algebra skills and imaginations to figure out X. Following the ceremony I went home and slept even better than Alton did during the ceremony.
-Everett
Here is an overly verbose rundown of Thursday:
Oh boy! what we have all been waiting for. The District Conference. We have been promised by many people that this will be just buckets of fun, and we´d all hate to be disappointed. The conference is being held at the Federal University of Acre here in Rio Branco, near where Jenny is staying. It opened with a typical type of opening with some people talking and some stragglers showing up late, and lots of people saying how excited they are to be here and how great Rotary is etc etc etc. In short, it is rather dry and dull at this point, and since we are not responsible for any part of the conference other than just being there sometimes, and doing a quick 15-20 minute presentation on Saturday, most of us grab our mental baggage and check out while people are giving speeches. This district is geographically massive spreading across 6 states; Acre, Amapa, Amazonas, Para, and Rondonia, Roraima. We will be visiting the Capitals of each state, except for Amapa, and Roraima.
We learn quickly that cafeteria food in Brazil is very similar to cafeteria food in the US (read: mediocre to just okay on a good day). Following lunch, we get a tour of the Campus, which is very spread out, from Brazil team member Allan Jones who graduated from this University with a degree in Civil Engineering. After the tour and some waiting around we left and went to Cafe do Theatre where we enjoyed some interesting food that I can only equate to small quiches or appetizers. Allen Jones took Alison and Alton to eat something local, that in English sounds like Tah-cah-cah, and apparently has an effect on the body similar to the way the name comes across. I asked some Brazillians and it seems like they either really enjoy it, or think it tastes just dreadful. i.e. Allen Jones seems to love it, and Carlos thinks it is disgusting. We stayed here awhile and then headed back to our respective homes to get ready for the event we have all been waiting for, the official opening ceremonies! ! ! . . .
My host mother, Izabel, had about 16 of her close friends over for a party because Friday is a national holiday (basically Brazillian Labor Day) and I was as intimidated by a party full of women here as I am anywhere, but they had some pretty tasty wine, so I partook and loosened my proverbial collar while getting dressed for the ceremony. To simplify the opening ceremony in a mathematical equation I will simply say this from my perspective: formal opening ceremony + a language I barely understand + seemingly endless speeches (one speaker went on for nearly 2 hours) + 5 or 6 glasses of wine + half the room of Brazillians sleeping = X. I will let you all use your algebra skills and imaginations to figure out X. Following the ceremony I went home and slept even better than Alton did during the ceremony.
-Everett
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