Back to Rio de Janeiro

Before travelling home, Miss Bevan and I returned to Rio de Janeiro. It was very sad to know that this would be our last few days in Brazil.

Do you remember when we visited Ipanema beach? This time we visited the other very famous beach in Rio: Copacabana. It is a very long beach with whitish sand. Like at Ipanema, people play volleyball and Futvolley on the beach here.




We also took an old train up into the hilly district of Santa Teresa. From the top of the hill there were views all over the city. We could see the "favelas" on the hillsides. Favelas are areas where people have built their own small houses on the hillsides because they do not have money to buy houses in the city.

Salvador

Miss Bevan and I recently visited Salvador, the capital of the state of Bahia (ba- eee -a). This was a really interesting and beautiful place. In the past slaves were brought to Bahia
from the west of Africa to work in sugar cane plantations. Some of the slaves were not treated very well by the people in charge of them and they were forced to work without being paid. Have you heard of slavery before? Do you know of any other places where slaves from Africa were taken?

Lots of people in Bahia did not want the slaves to be forced to work, so they tried to help them. The asked the government and slave owners to stop bringing slaves to Brazil. After many years the slaves were freed, and many continued to live in Bahia. Nowadays there are lots of things we can see in Bahia which originally come from West Africa.




Acaraje (aka-ra-jay)

Acaraje is made from peeled Black eyed peas, which are rolled into a ball and fried in Dende oil (a very thick oil from West Africa). It is cut open (like a jacket potato) and filled with several different sauces (some spicy ones!). Then it is covered in prawns. Miss Bevan and I tried lots of these and they were delicious!


For more information about African culture in Bahia see Regions of Brazil



The Pelourinho (a large square) is a very famous place in Salvador. The African slaves were bought and sold here.





It is also famous more recently because it was the setting for Michael Jackson's video for the song "They don't care about us". Miss Bevan and I visited the blue house (below) which Michael stands outside in the video. The owner of the house was very proud that his house was now famous. He showed us a door handle that Michael Jackson had used!



Watch the video here:

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/sy-13406409/michael_jackson_they_dont_care_about_us_official_music_video/



The drum group from the video is called Oludum and are very famous in Brazil. I have bought thier CD and will play it for you when I come back!

Leaving Maceio

Miss Bevan and I have been very sad this week because we left Starfish School and Maceio. The school held a special assembly for us where we received presents and cards from the children. They were beatiful and we were very grateful.

Santa Teresa School

This week Miss Bevan and I were invited to visit another school. The school has pupils from Primary school age, up to 18. We visited some of the older children in their English classes.

We showed them the Two Mile Hill book and they were very interested to find out all about you. They tried to answer some of the questions in the book, written by year 4.

We asked them:

What is life like in Brazil?
Brazil is hot and there are lots of beaches and music. They also told us that there are lots of problems in Brazil. Are there problems in Britain too?

What clothes do you wear outside of school?
Lots of the children said that they wear shorts, t-shirts, skirts and flip flops.

What is your favourite subject at school?
There were lots of different answers to this question, lots of children said they liked learning English. They also liked Maths, English, geography, Science, Art and PE.

A little Brazilian history....

In the year 1500 a Portuguese man called Pedro Álvares Cabral sailed across the Atlantic ocean and discovered Brazil. From then on Brazil was controlled by Portugal and lots of Portuguese people came to Brazil to live.



Now, Brazil is no longer controlled by Portugal, it is independant and has its own government. Most people still speak Portuguese in Brazil and there are lots of other things left behind by the Portuguese people.

Miss Bevan and I visited Penedo recently, a small town where there are lots of original Portuguese buildings from many years ago. It was very interesting.

Where do the children at Starfish school live?

This week we visited the Bebedouro area of Maceio. This is where lots of the children at Starfish School live. We saw one of the children from the first year class playing football in front of his house.

A School Trip to the Farm!

To find out more about food and healthy eating, today we went on a school trip to a farm.

Five children were chosen from each class to come on the trip. They were chosen because they have behaved very well this term. There are school trips at Starfish School every few weeks so everyone will get to go on a trip in the end.


The children were very excited and hurried onto the school mini bus.




Their teacher, Sheylla, helped them to find their seats. It was very full and noisy!


When we arrived at the school a man called Alinson, who works at the farm, showed us around.

First we went to see the plants which grow there. He told us how to plant a seed and to make sure that it grows well.



The children made notes and asked lots of questions.


Then we visited the chicken coop. There were lots of chicks there, we watched them eating corn from the trough.


Pigs:

The pigs are born in these pens and stay with their mothers to feed. The mothers are given nutritious corn to eat so that their piglets are healthy.


We all enjoyed the trip very much!