Work and Portuguese Progress

Joel has been back to work/flight school at Asas for about a week and a half now. He went back on the 13th. Things are going well for him and he is off to a great start. He's flown a good bit this past week. There are lots of changes around the school...all really good it seems. We're excited to see what the rest of this semester/year holds.

The kids and I are doing well with our Portuguese class. Grady's teacher told me the other day that he is understanding many things now. Not bad for 2 weeks. I, too, am seeing MUCH progress. It's amazing what immersion can do. Of course, for me, I HAD to have other study (on my own) too so that I would know what in the world they were saying in that immersion...I had to at least be familiar and be able to recognize the words and forms of the words that were coming out of their mouths. It's going great. I'm actually able to hold a good conversation now with complete sentences (verbs and all). I'm slow, but still the ability is there. Again, amazing what 2 weeks (minus 1 day that we all missed because of my doctor's appointment...so that's 40.5 hours total) can do...esp. around a lot of talkative women. What a great environment to be in for exponential learning. :-)

Hadley is doing well too. Even before we started going to classes, we were all sitting in the TV room one night. Eissa started playing with one of Hadley's toys and Hadley didn't want her to play with it. All of a sudden, she walked demandingly across the room saying, "Eissa, nao pode!!" I don't have a Portuguese keyboard, so I'm not able to put all the accents in, but the literal translation is "Eissa, no, you can't do that!!" So, she's doing fine and saying the things that she feels she needs to say, esp. that little phrase to her little sister. ;-)

I got to watch the kids in the classroom environment a little last Thursday. They both have Art class on Thursdays (every class has Art once a week). For Hadley's age group the teacher goes to their classroom. She told me I could go with her so I could watch. I was just so curious to know what the kids were like in their classrooms and I wanted to see if I could tell if they were able to comprehend. Hadley did great. She sat quietly (was more attentive than most the other kids who actually understand Portuguese) and listened to the story and participated really well. She was great, despite being slapped in the face while just sitting still in her chair by some boy next to her. I just sat quietly to see how it would be handled. Tears just silently rolled down Hadley's cheeks and the teachers intervened and handled the situation appropriately. Hadley, of course, recovered in lightening speed.

Grady was also really great in class. His class came to the Art room. The teacher went around the room asking the kids' names. I was busy working on covering a box (see picture below) while he was in there, but really paid attention too. Grady didn't hesitate at all when it was his turn to say his name. He participated as much as the other kids. When the teacher told them to go back to their classroom to get their colored pencils, Grady went and brought back colored pencils. All the other kids have little bags that they have their own personal pencils in. Grady didn't have one yet, but despite that fact, he was still able to communicate to the teacher somehow that he needed some pencils and he came back with a little can of them. He sat and listened to the story attentively, looked at a comic book that he was supposed to look at, and colored a picture. So, he's doing really well.

I know that I've talked about verbs before, but let me just give you an example of the magnitude of the verbage issue here, using "falar" which means "to speak":
I speak - Eu falo
You speak - Voce fala
We speak - Nos falamos
They speak - Eles falam
I spoke - Eu falei
You spoke - Voce falou
We spoke - Nos falamos
They spoke - Eles falaram
I had spoken - Eu falara
You had spoken - Voce falara
We had spoken - Nos falaramos
They had spoken - Eles falaram
I will speak - Eu falarei
You will speak - Voce falara
We will speak - Nos falaremos
They will speak - Eles falarao
Again, I don't have abilities to put accents with my keyboard, so there are accents missing, but you get the idea. And then there are several more that I didn't write out like "was speaking," "would speak," "have spoken," etc.

Basically it's purely just a matter of memorization. But, the point is that there is a lot to memorize in the area of verbs. It's a little over the top. They need to simplify their language in my opinion. :-) They didn't ask me though. Ha ha ha. Is spanish the same as far as verbs? I'm sure it is, but I just can't remember. Anyway, that's the bulk of what I'm working on now, along with just general vocabulary of course. It's nice to be able to talk in complete sentences. I'm still limited in that I don't always know the exact word I want to use, but I always manage to get my basic idea across.

Anyhoo, now for some pictures, of course.

Before Joel went back to work, he finished up this toy box for the kids. We love it. It matches the activity table and has a boy toys side and a girl toys side. He was going to build a book display to match too, but ran out of wood.
Eissa playing nearby while we were taking shots of the toy box.
Again, a play-by-play of the toy box pictures.
Notice the boxes on top of the toy box that Joel had made earlier. They now hold the mini-Tupperware set they got from Granny and the mini-pots and pans set they got from Grandma.


Eissa on to another toy.
Look at those curls.
Joel and Eissa picking us up at school the day before he had to go back to work. We walked to the corner to get some sugar cane juice from the vendor there, but he was out (bummer).
Notice the cute pigtails Eliane had put in her hair. We think Eliane has a lot of fun playing with Eissa.
These are the kinds of things I do. Yes, exciting things like wrap tomato sauce cans with string. It's weird, but I do kind of enjoy these mindless activities. It's good, too, since I'm trying to concentrate on really listening and understanding the conversation all around me while I'm doing it.
I do lots of tedious stuff, but thankfully it hasn't been anything that I could really mess up yet. I'm not all that crafty in case you didn't know. In fact, as far as giftings go, creativity is at the bottom of my list. Thankfully, though...so far I've been O.K. in the arts and crafts room.
The cans in the first picture...the arts teacher spray paints them and then puts things in them...pens, pencils, popsicle sticks, etc. She spray painted the box too and used it for a container on display.