English School Update

Written Tuesday February 24, 2007, 3:15 PM.

Join me as I look at the belly-button of amerInglês.

I would love to just say that the English business is going well, and all that. It is unstable. December was a good month. January was pretty bad, but bearable. And February has been pins and needles. We aren't starving or anything; we have food and are (so far) able to pay the bills.

The problem we ran into (some of this is deduction, and some is information from students) is sort of two pronged: Christmas came, and people had to pay bills in January. And, in late January, or early February is when all the other schools start their year.

While I don't have very many younger students, I have a lot of parents of younger students, who pay for school, books, and other supplies for their children. Some of them also have other things to do in life. One student is also studying for the college entrance exams, and no longer has time to come to class.

Many have complimented me on my teaching ability, so I am not considering that as one of the reasons they are leaving (though one or two may not have liked learning English very well...). The number of students per week has dropped to around 5.

A new class starts next Monday with 12 students (possibly more). That gives me hope, which I need at this point.

Technorati Tags: ameringls, education, english, job, Job, language, languages, Life, Life In Brazil, Living Outside the US, english school, school

This Week's Update

There have been a few questions recently about how the English School (amerInglês) is going. Here is an update:
Its going well.

What... that wasn't enough? Okay.

After tonight's class, I have the next two weeks off. Well, that is sort of a figure of speech, as this project does not really get taken care of without me.

The students seem to be continuing to enjoy the classes, though it seems that December has taken its toll on attendance. We have been consistently adding students, and even though we have lost a couple we have more than we started with.

One of the things I am constantly challenged with is not having a space that is just for the school. We are seeing that it would greatly benefit from having its own building, and that is a dream we may not see the fruition of until a few years down the road.

We have many ideas about what amerInglês will look like in the future. Its not something we really want to just abandon, but at the same time, we know that we cannot live here for an extended time at the moment.

Maybe saying those things will create more questions than they answer. Ask away. Now on to the rest of life.

We are now at nine weeks with the pregnancy, and all that goes with the first trimester. Nádya is counting down to the three-month mark—she has been drinking a lot of coconut milk lately.

I posted the big news of this week yesterday, but did not send out an email about it, as I knew I would be writing again today. Here is the link to that post.

The pastor of my church at home has, as a mutual agreement with the elders resigned. He is leaving at the end of December. This is not as a result of some sort of sin, or anything. Its just a transition due to a huge combination of circumstances that I am not going to go into here. I took this pretty hard at first, but I know that God has good things in store for Evangel.


If you have questions about anything, we would love to hear them. I know people read these things, but I don't always know what you are most interested in knowing about.

Technorati Tags: abandon, evangel, circumstances, elders, fruition, counting down, figure of speech, email, coconut milk, Our Activities, pregnancy, taken care, Our Story, teach english, first trimester, consistently, live here, constantly

amerInglês Update

In case you missed the last couple of posts that mention this, I am starting an English school here in Teresina.
I seem, however, to have failed at explaining a few things about how schools work here; its different than there in the USA. The public education system is not very good here, according to all accounts I have heard. It is far better to go to a private institution to get one's basic education.

There are also a great many schools which only teach languages, the primary language taught being English. I have joined these ranks. You may remember that I have applied at several schools of this type before. The available hours and the pay have not been all that attractive to me, and for some reason none of the schools have followed through with hiring me.

So, I started my own school. We have contacted several churches that are very excited to host the classes in their buildings. Not just “sort of” excited, or “mildly excited,” either. My initial goal was to have three classes every Saturday; there may be four. And, there is interest in having some classes during the week!

It is not just the “churched people” that I am looking to have as students, though, so we hung a banner to advertise to the world that we exist (along with getting some business cards to hand out). We are getting people calling every day interested in signing up.

Classes start the 7th of October. I hope I am ready by then. :-) ;-)

A New Venture

Sorry for the long wait for a post. I have been busy with building a website in Portuguese (!) and its been quite an effort.
The site is very simple, and its purpose is to let people in Teresina know that I am an English teacher. I am no web guru, either, Google made this one pretty easy (and FREE!).

Anyway here is a link to myEnglish school. Let me know what you think.

I will try and get a post together about Hérika's birthday, and some of our other activities tomorrow sometime.

This Works For Now

The interview went well! Nádya started work today. The pay is not “out of this world,” but it is livable. There may be some options for me, as well, but for the moment we are considering what is best. I will let you know when we have more concrete ideas.

In the meantime, a friend wrote yesterday asking a few questions. They were so good that I thought I would reply by creating a new entry, and let you all in on the answers.

You haven't mentioned anything about the World Cup, it must have been a riot when they were winning.

I suppose it was. We moved to Parauapebas in the middle of the “Copa,” so we experienced it in two cities. Here in Teresina the Brazilian flag was everywhere, along with various other forms of decoration. Some of these were (ahem, are): Painting the street with the Brazilian flag, hanging yellow and green streamers from strings, and stretching them across the street, putting the Brazilian flag on the car.... They can get very creative, so this is just a few of them.

Teresina seemed more intense about the decorations (and fireworks) by a long-shot, than Parauapebas, but both towns shut down (including most government facilities) for the games. We were out walking Monday, and saw a flag in the very top of a very tall tree–it was no small flag, either.

[Image: The above image can be found here along with much interesting information about the ball itself.]

The fireworks went off anytime a goal was made. Here in Teresina it was pretty crazy in that way; in Parauapebas after the games (even the final loss) there were a great number of people driving through the streets in a “mom motorcade” honking horns and making a great racket any way they could.

What kind of timeline do you guys have for coming to the states? Or is there one?

Several people have asked this recently. The answer is still “I don't know.” Its kind of lame to keep saying that, but there are so many factors involved, that I can't make any prediction. I don't mind the prospect of staying here for a while, but we need a more stable (robust?) financial situation.

Essentially we are waiting for my Brazilian identification card to come through, which will allow us to apply for Nádya's visa a the US Consulate. Once that comes through (and depending on what obligations we have here when it does come through), we will have a better idea.

I have student loans to pay off, and need to either come up with a way to make enough money to pay them from here, or get back to the US, get a job, and pay them from there.

Most of all, though, I miss friends and family there. Nádya is looking forward to meeting you all, and I am looking forward to introducing you to my wife.

How is your Portuguese coming along? How about Nádya's English?

My Portuguese continues to improve. I have recently hit this patch where I understand almost everything that someone says to me, but may not understand a word or two. This can be very frustrating, but its all a part of learning a new language.

Nádya's family has noticed that I learned a great deal while we were in Parauapebas, and are sometimes surprised at how much I know now. I guess the strangest part for me is that I don't really usually have to think about it that much. I own the vocabulary I know, sometimes I have to think about a word, or two, but in general I am pretty “fluent.”

Nádya's English is doing well. Since we started focusing on my Portuguese, it has kind of taken a back seat, but we do continue to work on it. She helped out a lot with the English classes I taught in Parauapebas, which she said was good review.

Important: If you have questions about what we are up to please comment or email me! I will be happy to answer them the best I can.

Adventures and Blessings

Here we are in Parauapebas. Many things are different than we expected, but we should have expected that!

We apologize for not updating you all sooner, but there have been many things that got in our way of getting to the internet. First, I will let you know that Nádya has a completely clean bill of health (the thing they removed was benign), and has nearly recovered from the surgery.

Our trip here was quite a story in and of itself. The bus left an hour late at 9 PM, then broke down at about 4 AM. We got under way again about 10 or 11 AM, and had to change buses (planned) at a city about 3 hours from Parauapebas. When we were on the bus, and around the corner (we did not have seats at this time, and were standing in the aisle!) from the bus station this bus broke down. I think this was about 10 PM, but times are all pretty fuzzy now. The driver, and mechanics were fiddling around with it for awhile, got it started, drove 20 meters, and it died again. So the went to tinkering again.

About 11:30 we pulled into the bus station again. We were told that they would give us our money back for the trouble, so we got off the bus, and I was waiting for luggage. We were unsure of what we would do for the night. Suddenly a police car pulled up, and I found out that we were getting back on the bus.

The police got on the bus after most everyone had gotten on (some had had enough, and did not wish to go further that night, so we had seats at this time). They walked the aisle fully armed–which is to say one had his hand on his sidearm, and the other had a very mean looking short rifle, which was probably semi-automatic at the least.

They looked in my bag to make sure I was not a criminal (but not many others), and took two guys off to do a full pat-down. They returned shortly, and were seated. The police, not finding anything or anyone that looked suspicious enough, decided to escort the bus just in case.

We were under way about an hour later. The bus had not broken down, it was just a stall tactic to decide what to do, I guess. A tire blew later that night, and that took an hour to change. We finally arrived at something like 3 AM.

It was a long trip.

Both of us are still waiting for jobs. Nádya had an interview early last week, and from all appearances she has a job. First she has to have medical exams, though, which will take place the first week of July. Karl has an interview with an English school the morning of the 27th (tomorrow, as I write this), as well as other opportunities. The English school would just be for 3-4 hours per week, at the most, so I am keeping my eyes open. One of my other opportunities is to work with CVRD the same company Nádya will hopefully work for. I interviewed the day after we arrived, and the man I talked with was very interested in having me work there. He was concerned that we find a good fit for me, though, so we might have to wait a while before I actually start working there (they need to find a position that will work, as well as my possibly needing to take some tests.).

We are living downtown in the second story of a building that overlooks the central square. It is quite noisy from 5 AM to about 10 or 11 PM, with a slight lull between the hours of 12 and 2 PM (the lunch hour).

On our arrival, we found that we had been blessed with a bed-frame and mattress (He felt it was the least he could do, as my in-laws were very hospitable to him and his friend while they were in Teresina for medical reasons.).

It is about 95º F during the day–in the house, anyway, it seems cooler when we go outside. But at night it is very different than Teresina. It cools off! It actually gets down to about 70º F most every night. This makes sleeping much more comfortable and effective.

We do have internet at home, but are limited to how much we can be on it, as we pay the phone company for usage by the minute. Please let us know if you want to send a large file, so we can plan for it.

I suppose I could go on for a few more paragraphs, but I will need something to write about next time, too! All for now.

[Insert Title Here]

I really am confused about how to write this. I guess I will start out with the general outline of what I know:

• The job offer is not full time. It would be a few hours a week.
  
• The job is teaching English via an extension program.
• I would be teaching English teachers in some classes, and in others, I would be teaching advanced students.
• I could supplement the work there with work at other English Schools
• The department head is the wife of one of the directors who interviewed me in December and January. (She said she would see if there was a possibility of my getting work there after all.)

I am pretty exhausted today, as it is quite hot today, compared to the last few days. I think its time for an afternoon nap.

If you have questions, post them here, or email me. I have lost many of your addresses, so if you have not received and update from me recently, and would like to, send me an email.

Another Interview

Had another interview today. This time it was at Skill (see the first comment in previous post). It went well, the guy seemed genuinely interested. He mentioned that I looked like a “white” Brazilian, as well as saying that my pronunciation of Portuguese words was very good (he said this after exploring the limits of my command of the language).

He was not sure if he would have any openings for me because my Portuguese is limited, which leaves me with more advanced students, and there are not as many of those. (For reference, this is the story I have heard all over the place.)

It is sort of funny how this interview got set up, so let me tell you the story:

My friend Phil left a comment on the last entry here mentioning that he had worked at Skill (the name of an English school here) when he was here, and that I should call them, and see if they might be interested.

During the day, my brother-in-law Allan saw the comment, and called to see if I wanted him to put in a good word for me. I said sure, and he called back a few minutes later saying that I needed to be there at 10:30 AM today.

Funny how that bounced around the globe like a hot potato in such a small amount of time.