Verao, Trabalho e Bossa Nova

After arriving in Brazil a week ago today, I've properly adjusted to the 6 hour time shift and the longer days of the Southern hemisphere's Summer. I think my sensetive Scandi' skin has taken more sunlight in the past 30 hours than in the previous 2 months in Seattle. As I write this, the high 9.30am sun is toasting up my rightside and I remember how a 10minute sunbreak seemed a gift while waiting outside at my old job.

When I first arrived in Sao Paulo, every new collegue from Brits, the school I'm teaching for, asked if I knew about 'the Callan Method' in a severe or reverential tone. I had no idea what the Callan Method was, I said. And each colleague, I could tell, was suprised and maybe a bit dissappointed. This method was apparently a big deal to each member of whatever organization I'd got myself into...and as I realized devotion to the Callan Method was universal, I wasn't unconvinced I was joining a cult. And so, there we have the title of this blog. Plus, this title may just as easily apply to my figuring out my method to live and learn the things desired and unexpected to really do well in my life here.

Luckily, the school isn't on a remote compound, we don't wear robes, chant or have numbers or have power animals. The Callan Method is the specific language teaching method used at Brits: 50 minute classes with small groups, fast pace, rigid structure with pre-set lesson material. This means the students and teachers know what to expect every hour, the students get a lot out of each hour, and the teacher needs just a couple minutes to prepare. So, that's the work I'll be doing for the next year.

Aruja seems small, but is hilly so I still don't yet have a complete sense of the size or layout. Many people living here commute to Sao Paulo for work, but Aruja strikes me more a self-sufficient little town than a suburb; the town has parks, schools, a farmers market and is not really connected to Sao Paulo by continuos sprawl...maybe I'm comparing the town to the suburbs I know of West coast US, which were built with the arrival of the freeways, but seems old and to not be created because of its proximity to SP.

Aruja is very green, and there is always plenty of people out chatting in the street in the middle of the day. A couple of weeks ago I went for a walk witha friend in Seattle during the middle of a weekday. The sidewalks were empty besides us. I had this sensation before while living in Romania, and again the samehere, that I relish being around and seeing different people in the place I live throughout the day with somewhat regularity as opposed to somehow feeling alone in place where many people live...although they may not be as important a part of my life as family and co-workers, I want to know and see and talk to the people that live or work around me. This gives me a stronger sensation of belonging to a place. Too bad I've so far only found it hemispheres away from Seattle.

Yesterday I made my first trip into Sao Paulo a huge, HUGE! city with a couple of the teachers from Brits. First impressions: Sao Paulo is clean, cleaner than many European cities I've seen. the city is so international, with people of Native Indian, African, Southern and Northern European and Japanese ancestery all (seemingly equally) mixed together. Parque Ibirapuera is the city's equivalent of Central Park, with its several fish stocked lakes, lush fauna, huge running and bike loop, plenty of Paulistas (the term Brazilians use for folks living in Sao Paulo). My new friends and I walked a couple kilometers through Ibirapuera, had lunch at a sandwhich stand and loafed on a shaded bank of one of the lakes, watching turtles and swans swim past. Even after the time spent and distance covered Luis, one of my fellow teachers estimated I'd seen just a quarter of the park.

A samba drum group was rehearsing for Carnival just outside the park in a cluster of trees. The group numbered about twenty all young, equally half men and women banging on everything from huge, deeply hollowed drums to tambourines. They all danced as they played, and we listened to them play through a 4 or 5 part suite...their transitions weren't seamless, but sounded nice because of the lived in roughness of the changes; I got the impression they enjoyed/wanted to clunk a bit at the time shifts, otherwise the music would have been flawless and uninteresting.

The real Brazilian music that has grabbed me though, which I mention in the title of this particular blog, is Bossa Nova. One of my colleagues, Felipe, is the equivalent of the guy in the states who only listens to the Beatles and other 60s rock, like I was and sometimes am. Every morning at 6.30 when Felipe picks us up to head to the engineering offices where we teach our morning classes, he has some of the oldschool Bossa nova playing in his car...and the music is exactly what I want to hear: catchy melodies in major keys, centered on acoustic guitars, plucky rythms and pretty, understated vocals, usually several singers singing together on each song. It is as pleasant and mood lifting as the Beatles. Good music is universal.

For those of you who use skype, I've had to make a new skype account. my new skype id/address is kristopher.lee.medlang. I'll begin working a full schedule this week...the director of the school here, Jaquelina, said she was confident I'd be fine after 3 days of training as opossed to the required/scheduled 2 weeks. And, after the several classes I already taught last week, it's clear she was right. As time goes on, and I learn more I look forward to talking about the people I'm working with here, but I feel it's too early, and I won't be able to give them a fair blog shake. I will say that they are incredibly kind and helpful and have made my quick transition a pleasure here.