Research Rio: Goiânia Adventures Continue....

I am finally starting to have a steady routine and am becoming more and more active in the city. This week was full of many activities and I wanted to share a few of the highlights. I have started to go to a class at one of the other universities in the city for a weekly class that is open to the public. The students are much older than me but it nice to be surrounded by people who are interested in art and making. The women are learning art techniques such as silk screening and book making. I was invited to participate in their upcoming exhibition which will open in two weeks. Right now I hope to help the Professora Edith prepare for the exhibition. She is the design professor for the department and has been very help in introducing me to projects going on at PUC. (the university)

Here is a picture of Edith showing some of the work the students will show in the exhibition...

and here are some of the students...

Also this week, my roommate Felizardo was followed home by a puppy...the puppy was found on the corner of a street not too far from where I live. It was a little girl and I took care of her for about two days before we found an owner for her. Here they have a lot of stray dogs so wouldn´t be surprised if she didn´t have an owner...either way it was fun for a few days and I considered trying to bring her home with me to the US...ha ha

Yesterday I was invited to participate in a festival to celebrate African culture with students at a public school outside the city of Goiania. My roommate, Benvinda was invited to braid the students hair. She is very talented at it and braided my hair about 3 weeks ago for one of our soccer matches! She asked if I wanted to come along and do some kind of art project for the students. I bought some paper last week for my project at Centro Cultural and the owner gave me a bunch of colored scraps for free and this was the perfect opportunity to use the material.

Here is Benvinda working on Mariangelica´s hair

The festival began with a presentation by the students with music and dance. The students then acted out a performance talking about the history of Africa. It concluded with one of the directors talking about the influence of African culture in Brazil and he also spoke about the US and President Obama. Here are some of the pics from the event!

For my project, I decided to make paper jewelry and flowers with the students. Next time perhaps something more related to the subject..anyway, they loved it! and I was amazed at how quickly they picked up the techniques. The students were very welcoming and helpful with my Portuguese! It is possible I will return there to do another activity with the students, something more planned before I leave next month. This was a last minute invite but well worth the trip. Here are some of the students with their work!

and the classroom! The art teacher uses a lot of recycled materials. I loved this poster the students made and the Brazilian flags.

This is a picture taken inside one of the classrooms that had posters and iamges all about the history of Africa and current facts that the students had been learning.

My night concluded with an invite by my friend Adriana to go to a balada (dance club) to see her cousin perform. I had met him about a month ago during a lunch I was invited to at his house and was given his cd to listen to. It is sertanejo music and I lived it a lot. Here is a picture of Paulina, Adriana, and I at the show.