Thursday, May 31, 2007
wednesday was bright and sunny all day, although cold, especially out of the sun!
we toured all the houses and the vila today, and met up with all the children again, who are all very well - it was a normal school day here so we spent some time with them, and some time with the house parents, and everybody is quite relaxed at the moment. both houses look great, casa dourada has been redecorated inside by luiz claudio, and is much brighter and fresher, and all the children´s rooms look great.
the garden at casa branca looks like a show garden! it was lovely to play a bit of football and catchball with the children there before school. two children go to school all day, to help them with some of their learning difficulties, and they all work hard at their homework before going to school.
jhonathan has changed his allegiance from batman to spiderman now that the new film has come out, so we were making webs and masks for him!!
the vila has changed, since adilson has put in a new ceiling, and plastered the walls of the paul hunter room, which is our larger classroom - and the children there were very busy preparing for a special event - the ´festa de mascaras´next thursday, a bank holiday here (another one!!).
this festival of masks will be very special, i think, and i will post a photo on the blog as soon as possible of the preparations... the classrooms are very cold and we urgently need to put glass in the windows which will help a lot there!
darla and priscila are in good form, and working very creatively with the kids in all kinds of ways.
the city now supplies juice, filled rolls, and fruit every day for us to feed the children, and we usually have enough to send some food home with them at the end of the day, so this is really positive for these children.
we have also made various appointments for meetings over the next few days, at banks, schools and the city hall, as well as training and review meetings with the staff here. it promises to be quite busy, and we have just heard that the weather forecast this morning is for brasil to get even colder over the next few days!
at least we have the heart-warming victory in the football match at wembley on friday to look forward to!!!!
mark is on his way now, and hopefully he will arrive at 11pm tonight!
thanks for reading the blog - we appreciate this!!
keith
we toured all the houses and the vila today, and met up with all the children again, who are all very well - it was a normal school day here so we spent some time with them, and some time with the house parents, and everybody is quite relaxed at the moment. both houses look great, casa dourada has been redecorated inside by luiz claudio, and is much brighter and fresher, and all the children´s rooms look great.
the garden at casa branca looks like a show garden! it was lovely to play a bit of football and catchball with the children there before school. two children go to school all day, to help them with some of their learning difficulties, and they all work hard at their homework before going to school.
jhonathan has changed his allegiance from batman to spiderman now that the new film has come out, so we were making webs and masks for him!!
the vila has changed, since adilson has put in a new ceiling, and plastered the walls of the paul hunter room, which is our larger classroom - and the children there were very busy preparing for a special event - the ´festa de mascaras´next thursday, a bank holiday here (another one!!).
this festival of masks will be very special, i think, and i will post a photo on the blog as soon as possible of the preparations... the classrooms are very cold and we urgently need to put glass in the windows which will help a lot there!
darla and priscila are in good form, and working very creatively with the kids in all kinds of ways.
the city now supplies juice, filled rolls, and fruit every day for us to feed the children, and we usually have enough to send some food home with them at the end of the day, so this is really positive for these children.
we have also made various appointments for meetings over the next few days, at banks, schools and the city hall, as well as training and review meetings with the staff here. it promises to be quite busy, and we have just heard that the weather forecast this morning is for brasil to get even colder over the next few days!
at least we have the heart-warming victory in the football match at wembley on friday to look forward to!!!!
mark is on his way now, and hopefully he will arrive at 11pm tonight!
thanks for reading the blog - we appreciate this!!
keith
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
well, after 24 hours of tortouous travel, we are in brazil!!
our flight from amsterdam was going fine, on time as we boarded, only to sit there for 2 hours while they tried to sort out á problem with our electricity´ - something we felt was better done on the ground than in the air a few hours later!
eventually we had to have a whole new external power unit, whatever that is, so we were finally under way and it all went fine, except that we had 1 hour 40 minutes to make our connection in s paolo, and we were 2 hours late!
so we tried out the painful on-board emailing system to try to resolve the flights with val and klm and tam, at US$2.50 per go, which worked!! the stewardess said she had never seen it work before, but we got 8 emails back and forth! only problem is, each letter has to be typed using a remote controller, and it is the slowest and most laborious thing ever!! still, we made communication, and in this emergency, it was what we needed.
in the event, the plane made up half-an-hour, so we arrived 10 minutes before our plane was due to leave. then we sat waiting for 15 minutes to get off the plane, as they were not ready for us due to being late!
all this conspired to ensure that we missed the connection, and then had a frustrating 3 hours while we stood in a queue to get the next flight, at 22.15, for which we were given the last two seats! when we boarded this plane, it then sat on the runway for 50 minutes waiting for some late passengers!! if only the previous plane had done that for us!!
so we arrived to a damp and cold curitiba at 12 midnight, and finally crashed into bed at 1.15 am.(5.15 uk time!)
this morning is bright and sunny, but cool, as it is winter here - but we slept well and are ready for action!!
our flight from amsterdam was going fine, on time as we boarded, only to sit there for 2 hours while they tried to sort out á problem with our electricity´ - something we felt was better done on the ground than in the air a few hours later!
eventually we had to have a whole new external power unit, whatever that is, so we were finally under way and it all went fine, except that we had 1 hour 40 minutes to make our connection in s paolo, and we were 2 hours late!
so we tried out the painful on-board emailing system to try to resolve the flights with val and klm and tam, at US$2.50 per go, which worked!! the stewardess said she had never seen it work before, but we got 8 emails back and forth! only problem is, each letter has to be typed using a remote controller, and it is the slowest and most laborious thing ever!! still, we made communication, and in this emergency, it was what we needed.
in the event, the plane made up half-an-hour, so we arrived 10 minutes before our plane was due to leave. then we sat waiting for 15 minutes to get off the plane, as they were not ready for us due to being late!
all this conspired to ensure that we missed the connection, and then had a frustrating 3 hours while we stood in a queue to get the next flight, at 22.15, for which we were given the last two seats! when we boarded this plane, it then sat on the runway for 50 minutes waiting for some late passengers!! if only the previous plane had done that for us!!
so we arrived to a damp and cold curitiba at 12 midnight, and finally crashed into bed at 1.15 am.(5.15 uk time!)
this morning is bright and sunny, but cool, as it is winter here - but we slept well and are ready for action!!
Sunday, May 27, 2007
hello again from the vfc blog! after endless trouble working out how to get the new-style access to the blog via my google account (whatever that is - didn't know i had one!!) i have finally made it - just in time for our next visit to brazil, leaving cold and wet england on tuesday morning at 6.30 from norwich (mark follows at 6.15 am on thursday morning) for our 18 hour journey to curitiba via amsterdam and sao paolo with klm and tam.
brazil is currently cold and wet too, so this weekend is our acclimatisation period ..
we will be 4 hours behind the uk when we arrive on tuesday night.
we are so looking forward to seeing everyone in brazil again!!
we will update this as often as possible!!
keith and denise
brazil is currently cold and wet too, so this weekend is our acclimatisation period ..
we will be 4 hours behind the uk when we arrive on tuesday night.
we are so looking forward to seeing everyone in brazil again!!
we will update this as often as possible!!
keith and denise
