A Busy Week

This week was a busy one at Two Brothers.

Sunset at our building in Valão

We decided to build a garden on the roof-top terrace of our building. Even though the task of ordering, carrying and putting the bricks together with cement and mortar seems like a trivial task, it turned out to be slightly more challenging than we expected. Carrying the bricks and the 30-kg bags of soil up the three sets of narrow stairs to the roof was pretty tiring, but that was only the first bit of the challenge.

The volunteers perfecting their building skills:

Because we had zero experience with any building related activities, the work that we thought would take us an hour, lasted from noon until late at night. We were pretty sceptical about whether our garden structure was going to hold, but when we checked up on it after a few days, all the bricks were still holding together!

After a few days, however, we realised that the heavy structure might be a bit too much for our roof-top terrace to hold, especially when the soil gets wet, so we decided to change our plans a bit and create a hanging garden instead.

While one part of the volunteers was busy building the garden, Giselle was teaching on the floor bellow

On Monday we did a field trip to the cinema with our adult students 

We took them to the cinema to watch "the Maleficent". Even though some of the students were a bit sceptical about going to see a Disney movie, most of them enjoyed it in the end.

The volunteers with their adult students at the cinema

Our school will be open during the period of the World Cup and our English lessons will continue.

The World Cup Fever

There is less than a month to the World Cup, everyone here in Rio is talking about it, so I decided to have a short debate with my intermediate class about the issues surrounding the event. The purpose of the lesson was for the students to practice pronunciation and to enrich their vocabulary. 

I showed my students two videos that I found on the BBC webpage. One of them was about a football fan from São Paulo supporting the World Cup by wearing clothes and eating food only of Brazil's national colours. The other video showed the mass street protests that occurred last August and are at somewhat smaller scale happening now.

A very colourful football fan. For the video click here

Protests in São Paulo in August 2013. For the video click here

Everyone in my class was against the World Cup in Brazil and a lot of students pointed out that the money invested in the stadiums could have been spent much more wisely, which also is the opinion of general public in Brazil. 

The class solving the exercises on the board

Learning to Give Directions in English or How NOT to Get Lost in the Becos of Rocinha

Becos are something typical for Rocinha. They are small narrow streets usually full of stairs, which make it rather complicated to navigate your way around.  Because of this, I decided to teach my adults intermediate class how to give directions to a tourist lost in Rocinha. 

We started with a few simple phrases and then gradually added vocabulary until the students were able to direct the foreigner from the very bottom of Rocinha all the way to their favourite bar or restaurant.

Some of the basic phrases we learnt:

Cross the pasarela

   Go up the Via Apia

Take the third street on your right

When you get to the market turn left and go up the street past the banks

Take the beco on your right

Continue going up the stairs

 Go up the Estrada da Gavea

Turn right to a beco, go to the end...

 ... and the snack bar will be on your right

Breaking Down Misconceptions Through Art

"I truly believe that art can be a catalyst for change, altering the way people see themselves and the world around them, which is why I am so enthusiastic about community/participatory art and activism." - Beccy McCray

A few months ago I had been contacted by artist and creative producer, Beccy McCray. She expressed great interest in having a workshop at our organization and proposed an art/craft workshop. Her desired objective? To facilitate a positive difference by linking people together through creative means and also to have a good time! She was well-aware that many people have negative preconceived notions about favelas and favela residents (being violent and hubs for drug trafficking), and because of those misconceptions her other target was to use art to to tell truths about favela life and favela residents to dismantle those misconceptions.

On November 11th, we surprised our students (from both Will's class and Harriet's class) with Beccy's workshop. To begin, she had each student select a hand-made bracelet, from a bag that she had brought with her, for each student to keep.

After each student selected their bracelet, she explained that their bracelets had been made by participants in England. She gave out instructions for making the bracelets and then told the kids that they will make bracelets for other people in England.

Photos and a bit of information will be included with the bracelets, so that the recipient will know who made their bracelet and where they come from. More specifically, they will all be distributed around Hackney Wick, where the pre-made bracelets she gave to our kids originated from, thus connecting it to Rocinha.
I'm American and  I've  never traveled to London, let alone England so I don't know much about London burroughs. Beccy described Hackney Wick being similar to Rocinha. She states that, "Rocinha actually has a lot in common with Hackney - it too is a deprived area which borders the Olympic Park, but is also a crucible of culture."

Overall, the workshop was a hit. Not only did the kids thoroughly enjoy it, but us resident volunteers also enjoyed it very much as well. A huge thank you, Beccy, for coming out here to spend some time with us and sharing your creativity with us. We couldn't be more grateful! 

Monster Mash.

Halloween isn't very popular in Brazil, although its fanbase is currently growing in some of Brazil's bigger cities. I imagine that this can be attributed to two things: The number of English-language schools that throw Halloween parties and also because of American pop culture. It is entirely possible to find Halloween parties around Rio, but they aren't that numerous and you generally wouldn't see swarms of people dressed up in costumes everywhere!

We try not to limit our curriculum to strictly English lessons, so whenever we can, we incorporate cultural lessons and activities. Additionally, Halloween is my absolute favorite Holiday, so it was only necessary to celebrate Halloween with our kids and teens by throwing a party at the Escola Moranguinhos. Vivi (Our Field Coordinator) and I planned and organized the party in adavance, but she couldn't stay for the party because she was ill. Will (a resident volunteer), Maria (one of our board members) and I were at the school before the party started to set up and decorate everything.

Maria & Will decorating

Vanessa & I

Around 7PM, Will had to leave the party to teach his English class for adults and shortly after, Maria also had to go home. I would also like to note that I was very impressed by how helpful some of the teen girls were. A couple of them did a wonderful job of helping me watch the younger children.To keep the momentum going and everyone entertained, we played some typical Halloween games such as bobbing for apples and the mummy wrap game. Since children do not go out trick or treating in Brazil, we did the opposite and went door to door on our little street to hand out candy to our neighbors. 

Here is a clip of our reverse trick or treating:

I hope all of you had an equally delightful Halloween!

Also, if you are interested in learning a bit more about me and getting more insight on my life as a resident volunteer/assistant field coordinator here, you can click over to my blog:
 www.riohapa.com
or e-mail me directly at Jennifer@2bros.org

English Role Play - Voluntourist Post

We went with Ben to his advanced adult class to help out and learn the ropes as we will be leading his sessions next week while he is away. This class is not held at the usual school but further up the winding hill into the favela. They use a classroom here which belongs to another NGO company that teaches residents about computer programs and has loads of old computers, monitors and keyboards and runs classes in how they are put together. The session today started with a writing exercise to demonstrate when to use the verb ‘do’ or when to use ‘make’ as in Portuguese the same word is used for both. Ben is very eager for the group to have a good mix of writing, reading, speaking and listening but is most keen to be able to relate these things to real life experiences so that they can have proper conversations consequently, the rest of the session was based in drama and role plays which suited us fine. There was a scenario with 3 parts – a celebrity couple (the husband was a footballer and his wife a pop star) and a journalist trying to find out more about the husbands alleged affair. 

The class was split into groups and we were able to join in taking the role of the journalist which was fun because it meant that we could ask questions and tailor them to the level of each student. It also meant that we could get into role and encourage the drama to follow. Setting the English lesson up as a fake, gossip television show was really fun and the students came up with wildly funny and clever answers punctuated with the ‘girl was photo shopped’ throughout. Everyone got into their roles which seemed to help the conversation flow as they were putting themselves into a different situation, for example two of the participants pretending to be husband and wife even started to have little arguments with each other, this helped to bring the words and grammar to life and give them a meaning off the page. It was great class all round and I look forward to coming back again and exploring other role play scenarios. 

Rocinha Favela = Misunderstood

Waiting anxiously at the end of our street for any bus with the illuminated words 'Rocinha' branded on the top, we felt a sense of both apprehensive and excitement at the same time. Finally a bus approached with our desired destination and we boarded, squashed, close and hot we were whirled down a long concrete tunnel 'Zuzu Angel' which for us felt like the very clear marker of where the affluent Gavea neighbourhood ended and the Rocinha favela began.

 At nighttime all we could see of the vast favela was the sea of lights cascading down the mountain above. Police presence was very apparent as the red and blue lights of about 3 police cars flashed on the street. We walked from the bus stop to the 'Super Sucos' juice bar, where we had been told to wait for two volunteers who would take us to the school. As we sat down and ordered a Manga juice (admittedly that was one of the few fruits we understood) we didn’t feel nervous or unsafe at all, instead we were interested by the constant growl of motor taxis, the chatter and bustle of people, the combination of smells from petrol to fried onions.  It seemed like a place constantly on the go and while we sat, waited and watched the time go by, no one paid any attention to us, and that was something we were not expecting, being that we do seem to give off that tourist English vibe no matter how hard we try. It was a pleasant surprise and an eye opening first insight. 

As Ben and Jess took us on a short tour  (they are both Resident Volunteers who have both been working with 2Bros and living in Rocinha for 6 months) one word came to our minds: Community.  Granted this is a buzz work in the applied theatre world but at times it seems it is misrepresented, as what we witnessed was: a community just simply of people living, working, laughing, playing, talking - going about their lives. It wasn't the shocking, scary, unsafe place depicted in news reports or travel guides. This was something very different.

Walking up a little sloped alley, just a few minutes from the entrance of the favela, we arrived at Escola Moranguinhos 'The school of little strawberries'.

Jess explained that she takes beginners English classes for 8 year olds twice a week, and that evening we would be able to sit in on and help in one of her classes. At around 6.30pm, 12 highly energetic children came bursting through the door, interested to know who we are, why we are there and trying to converse as best they could with us. While the fact that we don’t speak Portuguese seemed a slight issue and at times was a barrier, once we met the kids and started to play some simple English exercises and games which focused on predominantly on numbers, letters and short sentences we seemed to cope well, and anything we didn't understand would be translated for us by one of the Resident Volunteers.

After a whirlwind hour or so, the class was over. We then met Jennifer, who is co-ordinator of the company and has been working with them for around a year.  She was very friendly and welcoming, and she told us exactly what the schedule for our time with 2bros would look like. Aside from our classes we will have the opportunity to help in Erin's class (which is teenagers learning intermediate English) as well as Jess's class. Also there is a field trip which the students are attending in a couple of weeks and Jen asked if we could cover the classes while some of the students go on the trip! After the class, the other volunteers asked if we wanted to grab some sushi before we left (an offer we happily accepted as we have heard that sushi in Rio is the best outside of Japan) and as we sat in a small restaurant, lost somewhere in the streets of the favela, we found the opportunity to get to know the people working with 2bros. Over some delicious sushi what came across most was their sense of happiness and passion living in Rocinha, as well as their admiration for the sense of community spirit generated by the people who live there!

Olivia Jackman
Masters Student from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, London
2bros Voluntourist 
http://volunteeringwith2bros.blogspot.co.uk