One week in Rio and I am starting to feel settled- I love it!
Looking for an apartment was harder than I expected... I guess I didn't quite take into account that it is the peak of summer and Carnaval is right around the corner so it is almost impossible to find a place. I was searching in newspapers and online rental ads for a place. Doing this forced me to learn many new works in Portuguese that I didn't know... haha I had to learn all the terms for renting, rooms, bathrooms, kitchens, monthly bills, total costs, shared spaces.... everything. Luckily my friend Gustavo helped to call many of the places ahead of time to explain my situation in Portuguese.
It was a challenge- some days I got really down asking myself what I was even doing here... especially after I went and visited one apartment. It was in an area that was hard to get to by public transportation and on the way I got a little lost. When I finally arrived I ended up in this run down part of town at a run down house. The maid opened the door to show me around the house. It was dirty, had broken windows, old pipes, next to no ventilation and the room she showed me was an addition to the house in which you had to climb a rusty staircase to enter. When she showed me the room I asked her if this was a safe place to live. She responded, “ Safe? Ha! I live in a favela and I would not even live here!” So that being said, I walked out of there.
My friend who used to live here gave me a contact of a guy who was opening up a language school for lower-income students in Rio. I contacted him and set up an interview for working together. We met and talked for a few hours- He is a really great guy. He introduced me to his mother who rents rooms in her house as part of a homestay option for foreigners. Because I will be working with her son, she gave me an extremely good deal on the room- it is way less than the crappy apartment I just wrote about and she cooks me breakfast everyday- and even gave me the first month free! The house is on the 15th floor of a secure building 3 blocks from the ocean in one of the richest neighborhoods of Rio. It has large windows that are always open to let in the ocean air- unreal!
I will be helping her son open the language school- I am excited to see what I can bring to the school and the organization of the classes. He told me he would be able to get me a work visa- my current tourist visa only allows me to stay 6 months out of the year but the work visa could change that.... will I stay longer? Time will tell. I came here to feel things out and see what I can make of myself- it great opportunities decide to come my way, I will take them!
All my plans for Rio literally fell into place..... Nothing was for certain and I definitely went out on a limb to make this all work out. There were some really rough moments of doubting my decision to return to Brazil... but now things are starting to work out as I wanted them to play out. Anyone who knew all the details of this process know that I never gave up- I was overly stubborn to make this work and now that it is I am feeling so alive and good about life! Thank you to everyone who encouraged me and kept my spirits high during this process! I am glad things worked out the way they did because through the countless hours of research and headache I put into this, I learned alot about how NGOs function and work and how to set up independent projects outside of the country to hopefully use for myself one day.
Vamos!
