To get to know our city better, a group of my friends decided to take advantage of a free walking tour of São Paulo.
Since my arrival in Brazil, a traveling circus complete with star-speckled tents and flashing lights has been stationed on the represa, not far from where I live. And, two months later, I finally got to visit Circo Spacial! The show was a mixture of your basic circus acrobatics interspersed with the work of mischievous clowns.
And then, one of the clowns walked out and picked Felipe to go down to the front to be in an air band...
One thing that I love at PACA is the way in which a sense of community is consistently fostered. From classroom instruction to school-wide activities, everyone is encouraged to know and care for one another. This is evidenced in the buddy program in which each kindy kid gets assigned one or two seniors to interact with during the year. It was precious to watch the interactions and see if the senior or the kindergartner was more nervous. For their first meeting, the partners exchanged information in a basic get-to-know-you activity. In the end, I think it was safe to say that all parties enjoyed the gathering and I have been asked every day since if it is senior buddy day.
Graffiti : São Paulo :: Mexican food : Texas. It's vibrant, it's everywhere, and you can't get enough of it. Though it may not be everyone's taste, I personally love the variety of styles and forms that graffiti takes all over this city. Located in Vila Madalena, Beco do Batman is essentially an open-air gallery of graffiti and definitely worth a visit if you're in the area!
In honor of Brazilian independence, we all got to sport our country's colors (I don't have any Brazilian apparel yet but luckily my Merapi shirt was the right shade of green). The whole school gathered for a special flag ceremony. I wasn't entirely sure what was going on because the entire thing was in Portuguese but my little guys did great being the innermost ring of a student circle! I heard the Brazilian national anthem for the first time and for those of you in Indonesia, it was twice as long as "Indonesia Raya". I was impressed that a lot of the younger kids seemed to know all of the words! We're still working on learning how to take a group picture so for now, this was the most faces we could get looking in one direction.