First few days in Curitiba

Olá! We are finishing up our first week in Curitiba!

Lauren, my co, and I were able to meet our host professor and finally see UTFPR and learn a little more about what we’ll be doing. We will each be teaching 2-3 hour long conversation clubs a week, plus five or so “courses” that we design ourselves/choose the topic of. These are all extension classes; students who attend a certain number of hours will receive a certificate. They are very realistic about the fact that only a very small number of students will achieve this, and that many more students will come at the beginning before their lives get crazy throughout the semester. We can also get pulled into more traditional language classes to lend a hand as professors need. Lauren and I are also allowed to audit any classes we want (with the same expectations that ETA’s always start the classes and never make it to the end) so we’ll be taking Portuguese for speakers of foreign languages and possibly a Brazilian culture class.

The school itself is beautiful, it’s on a very busy street but gated and still has a campus which is largely open-air and partly outside. On Thursday, we were introduced to all of the professors we would be working with. We are really excited!! Our only task for the next two weeks is to start thinking about topics we might like to teach, and enjoy Carnaval.

Aside from that, we are exploring Curitiba. It’s beautiful and also massive – so I feel like I haven’t seen much yet aside from exploring our current neighborhood, Batel, and the area around my university in Centro. Yesterday we tried the public transportation for the first time, which so far seems much better than that of Boston, and were able to see the Jardim Botanico and a neighborhood called Cristo Rei. Curitiba is known for it’s urban planning. The current mayor of Curitiba is the one who designed the public transportation, and they keep re-electing him – every few years he has to sit out an election though so he doesn’t break any rules about how often he is mayor.

Everyone we have met here has been extremely warm in Brazilian fashion, which has been wonderful as we settle in and struggle to find housing for the rest of these nine months. The Curitiba accent is taking some getting used to, though – native Curitibanos don’t pronounce the t’s and d’s that I love so much about Portuguese (i.e., boa tarde would be pronounced boa tard). It’s faster and a lot harder to understand, so I went from feeling confident in São Paolo to not so much here. It’ll take some time, and with most people it’s been fine!

Curitiba is different than what most people think of as “Brazil” – which is taking some getting used to for one of my co’s who has been to Brazil before and some of the other ETA’s placed in the south. The Afro-Brazilian experience and culture is what is widely known as Brazilian, but the south, which was colonized by the Dutch and Germans, is still Brazil. Tomorrow I am heading to Rio for 5 days for Carnaval (!!!!) and am very excited to see a different way of living/some of the most famous and beautiful parts of Brazil.

See you after Carnaval! 😉 Tchau tchau!