Temporary Abode, Life Stories

Two things: One: I moved, and this situation is a much better fit. Jacque was generous, and I appreciate her, but Cinthia is more of a roommate than a host mom, and overall that's better for me. I live in a neighborhood called Petropolis. It looks like this. I'll be here for 3 weeks, and then I'll move in with another host family. I don't know where, and I don't know how the hosts will be.

Cinthia, my host, is sweet. She watches romantic comedies and offers me chocolate when I'm sitting nearby. She chats about boys and her friends. She majored in tourism and works for a hotel. She spends her evenings chatting with her neighbors who welcomed me on my first night here by taking me out dancing with them for to celebrate a birthday.

Two: The ladies of Namaskar finished the first phase of the book. They've written responses to prompts like these (initially I wrote them in Portuguese, but that wouldn't make sense for you so here they are in English):

In the space below, please write or design a letter to your body. Tell how you feel about your body. Include why you love your body and what you remember about your past. Include, also, a promise for the future.

Please write or design about a time when you knew that your life was important. Who loves you? How do you know?

In general, I'm not a fan of prompts, but these ladies barely read, and writing is more difficult for them than reading. They don't think in methaphors. They think literally and mostly about work. It can't be called a writing workshop, but it did start some interesting conversations and a lively show and tell. I count that as a success. So far, I've read about a husband who is the father is wife never had, and I've seen a 5 part panoramic drawing of a woman's life over 50 years; I've read testaments to the joys of cleaning laundry and snippets of stories about the adoration of grandchildren.

Now, I could let the project end with the women taking their books home and putting them on some shelf. That might be fine for them, but for me, this project needs to go a little farther. I'm not sure what I can do with it though. I could write a paper about the process and my observations, but what would any conclusions I draw be relevant to? What I am doing with these women can't be called teaching. It's more like I’m facilitating.

Tomorrow we'll paint cardboard book covers and take pictures of each artist. The whole thing is akin to the 826CHI style, but it is for literacy level adults. Any ideas? Anybody wanna talk it out with me?

I'll try to write about the awesome amazing 55 Feira do Livros, and I'll take pictures of the turnsiles at the bank.