Ubá mango

Sebastian and I went to the Sacolão today (which, by the way, he corrected my pronunciation! "It's sac-oh-lão, mommy. Not sack-ah-lão!") and we found a good price on Ubá Mangoes.



Aren't they cute?! They are little baby mangoes...They come from Ubá, a city at the very south of Minas Gerais (thanks Wikipedia).

On another mango note, Matt noticed that the two big trees that we see out our bedroom window are mango trees. HUGE mango trees. I'm hoping that mangoes are like citrus was in Arizona, or apples/pears/my dads tomatoes in Washington state. Or zucchini.

And on yet another mango note, I found this website that has lots of pictures of different kinds of mangoes.

Yum!

Happy Dia da Criança

Today is Dia da Criança, or Children's Day here. From what I've gathered, it's essentially just an excuse to buy presents for kids (and I think that the link says something Johnson & Johnson promoting the holiday, so it makes sense). It corresponds with Nossa Senhora Aparecida,
but neither of these holidays seem like a reason to set off fireworks at 7 am. But don't worry, our kids were up by 6:15 am, because after all, it is Dia da Criança. We are going to head out soon to a small party at some friends house, and just spend the day playing and eating and lounging. Sounds marvelous.


I haven't been posting much recently because I've been going through a new stage in expat transition. We've been here seven months now, and we've gotten out of the "crisis" mode and pretty much figured out how to live day to day here. Thank goodness! So now, I have enough space to think about what I want, what would make our home more like a home, and even to think about what we've left behind. I love living here, and I love what I'm learning and what my children are learning. And recently I've been missing "home" a lot. I miss my family. I miss knowing how things work. I miss getting in the car to go to Target to buy sunscreen/tortilla chips/cheap plastic goods. I miss sending the kids out to play. I think these feelings are going to intensify as the holidays approach. I don't want to use the blog as a place to vent (well, not too much), so hence, not many posts.

But now, I have to finish up, because the crianças are getting restless and I have to go eat a whole mango...

Something to think about

I was looking for some material for my students last night, when I came across this article:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2010/09/29/130221453/how-to-live-forever-or-why-habits-are-a-curse

I'm still not sure if the author is 100% serious, but I love what he says about putting oneself in a new situation, and I feel like it helps me understand the past 7 months:

"It would be a beginner’s life. But the beginner is confined to the little things, to the meaningless exercises and pointless mechanics. The expert, in contrast, sees the big picture; the world opens up before the sweep of the expert’s skills. To give up one’s habits, to break free of the arcs, is to trade in one’s expertise.

You gain time, but you lose sense."

What do you think?

Kids and Portuguese

Dora has a friend from school over right now for a play date. They are playing this clapping, rhythm game in Portuguese and Dora knows all the words. This is exactly the kind of thing I hoped for--maybe I can catch it on camera...

Beatrice has a Barbie computer (in English) and I was trying to work with her today because she's been a little slow learning her letters. I was asking her to find the "Q" and she was having a hard time. I finally showed her and she said "key", which I realized is "Q" pronounced in Portuguese. Then I asked her to identify some other letters, and she was doing it in Portuguese. Go figure.

It's been over six months now, so I think that our kids are still doing remarkably well with the language acquisition. We felt like our biggest goal was for them to learn the language, and it's happening! We're still trying to find a tutor for Dora. For some reason, it's hard to find a qualified Portuguese teachers that don't overcharge and are available to come to our house in the mornings. But I'm still looking!

Off to hang out with some American friends and eat eggplant sandwiches...

Nothing too exciting...

Matt's back from tour, and we're starting to get back to a semblance of normality. He has a week off from work, so we're enjoying extra time with daddy. Plus he's offered to walk the kids to school more frequently--whoo hoo!

The kids have had about 5 birthday parties the past week. What I'm finding is that birthday parties are either huge affairs (catering, blow up bouncy toys, lots of candy, and hours of socializing) or smaller "lunch time" parties at school. I'm a fan of the school parties: the kids get an invitation in their agenda (school calendar that is used to communicate information back and for the between parents and teachers) and the day of, our kids don't have to bring their "lonche" because they get to enjoy cake, juice and goodies. I still haven't figured out if your supposed to give gifts for these (sometimes we do, sometimes we don't). But I like the celebration at school, and the smaller event. Don't get me wrong: I like the brigaderios and meeting new people and fun of the big birthday parties, but sometimes they seem a bit much. Sebastian did get an invite to a "fantasia" party last weekend, where the kids dressed up Halloween style and played games like "carry the egg on the spoon" and only ate cake (I just dropped Sebastian off, so I didn't get to see all this). But I like the low key celebrations.

I've had a bit busier week than normal because I'm preparing for a workshop tomorrow at the Canadian school, but I'm all done! So I'm planning on spending a mellow evening with my hubby and going to bed early so I can wake up early (the workshop starts at 8 am and it take me about an hour to get there with bus schedules and all).

All for now!

Suco de manga

I don't usually buy juice here, because it has SO much sugar in it. But Matt is still gone, and sometimes the little things can make kids happy. And I learned something from the juice box! It's in Portuguese, but I'll translate (I'm getting pretty good at translating written Portuguese).

"Mango is originally from India, and was brought to Europe by the Portuguese, who learned of the fruit from their maritime expeditions. Mango is the most consumed fresh fruit in the world. In Brazil, several types are marketed: Palmer, Tommy and Haden, having less fiber and more flavor, and the classics, Carlotinha, Rosa, Espada and Bourbon."

I bought a Haden at the sacalão the other day, and I have a new student that said that he will bring me mangoes from his hometown next time he goes. Yum!

walking to school

Yes, we are still hiking, I mean walking to school most days. I have been much more liberal with our taxi usage, but we still try to get there on foot. On Tuesday, it got suddenly hot, and Sebastian was in a terribly grumpy mood. His legs hurt. He was thirsty. He was hungry. His backpack was irritating his shoulders. He was tired of listening to Beatrice whine. And so on and so on. This culminated in the following statement:

I want to move back to Arizona.

Now, my kids have said this on a few occasions, and I've never really taken it seriously. It usually comes at a moment when they just don't like what they are doing (homework, walking to school, chores). I usually don't respond, even though everything in me wants to say something like, "Do you remember how much you complained about walking to school? Do you remember how much you hated homework in Arizona? DO YOU REMEMBER HOW FREAKING HOT IT WAS IN ARIZONA????" But I just bite my tongue, and try to think of something to distract them.

But on Tuesday, Dora quickly responded to Sebastian by saying, "but if we lived in Arizona, we wouldn't get brigadeiros! And pão de quiejo! And you wouldn't play soccer everyday!"

This coming from the girl who the day before hated Portuguese, and hated homework and wished that life could just be easier.

I love my kids.