Weekend Adventures

As first weekends in Brazil go, ours was pretty eventful. It was nice to not get up with an alarm on Saturday and spend the morning in the sun with the others. As we had the barter in the afternoon the group had to work together to create something to show. The barter was going to be our first chance to meet some local people who were interested in the project, we would share a small performance and the catch for those watching would be that they would also have to share something. It could be anything from a poem to a song, nothing to long so it was very informal. We spent the morning in the back garden by the pool discussing ideas and creating our piece. A lot of us used some small pieces that we had created throughout the week, it was nice to revisit these ideas and see ways to change them or incorporate them with each others. I liked the piece I had created and know that I could develop it much further if I was going to use it.
The group that showed up was only small, and quite shy to begin with but after a few group songs with Gwen's squeezebox we had won them over. We spent the afternoon dancing to songs and learning some traditional folk dances whilst Gwen taught some scottish dances in return. We performed our piece which went well considering we had only just finished putting it together when it had been time to leave. One of the students was brave enough to play some songs on his recorder for us. The afternoon passed by quickly and it was nice to relax and enjoy everyones company. 

After the barter our plan had been to walk into town as a Candombe group (which is a Uruguayan carnival music group) were parading from a square in Uruguay into the centre of the city. But unfortunately, we got distracted by a really cheap bakery and a beer stall so we didn't make it down. 

In the evening Tanise had invited all of us to her house for a party. A lot of the kids that are part of her theatre group were there and after all the delicious food had been devoured the evening turned into a barter itself with the kids performing dance routines and us learning some of the moves. Andy, our film making expert, had prepared a surprise performance which we were all really interested to see. Turns out he's pretty bendy and can do some weird tricks with his arms! But he was very entertaining, so much so that as soon as he had completed his final trick of escaping from a straight jacket, all the kids were trying to copy what he had done. The evening was great fun and everyone enjoyed themselves.

On Sunday I spent most of the day sitting in the sun reading my book before we all set off for the lake. It was about a 15min drive and when we got there it was so busy with people enjoying the sun and drinking mate (a drink which is only found in the south of brazil and Uruguay,it's like a strong tea) i'm going to learn how to make it properly and let you all try it when I get home! The lake was beautiful, man made, but beautiful. It was so nice to enjoy the sun and wander along the edge of the lake, Jesse found a tarantula in the grass which was huge! The edge of the lake had loads of lily pads with little white flowers on them which were cute, here is some photos of where we spent the afternoon.

In the evening we went to a huge duty free shop in Uruguay as there was a Brazilian pipe band from Rio playing who have played at the Edinburgh Tattoo before! It was pretty surreal standing listening to scottish music being played on bagpipes in a Uruguayan store by a Brazilian pipe band! We had a quick coffee while we waited for the main performance to start which was in the car park and afterwards walked home to have dinner. The sky was beautiful and we could see the Southern Cross, which is a star constellation which can only be seen in this part of the world. 

After a busy weekend we were still very keen to get started with this weeks adventures! 

Looking forward to what else is in store!


L