FRIDAY: The last day of classes for this week. Cristina stretched the students today with their Portuguese. Next Thursday evening the students will be meeting their host families for a group dinner before their weekend family visit. Each student will need to introduce themselves, say where they are from, what they are studying, where they work, a little bit about their real family and what they like and don’t like ……and all in Portuguese. I can see the anxiety and excitement levels rise as the students think about the weekend with their host family. Cristina is giving them the vocabulary to make it a great experience.

We had a new professor for the rest of the day, Professor Caron, who focused on the History of Brazil. If you don’t already know, when we are in class we go from 8:00 am – noon and 2:00-6:00 pm. Much different than what we are used to in the U.S. It makes for a long day. I have included a couple of pictures of Dr. Caron. He showed a movie on the War of the Canudos. The War of Canudos (1893–1897) was a conflict between the state of Brazil and a group of some 30,000 settlers who had founded their own community in the northeastern state of Bahia, named Canudos. After a number of unsuccessful attempts at military suppression, it came to a brutal end in October 1897, when a large Brazilian army force overran the village and killed most of the inhabitants. This was the deadliest civil war in Brazilian history.

Tonight we ate dinner at what would be similar to a fraternity house. We had an Arabic dish similar to a small personal pizza with a crust and then I would guess lamb, onions, peppers. The students then headed out to go dancing. I am sure they had a blast. The girls got all dressed up and looked nice.