Ilha Do Mel (Honey Island)
This past weekend was a lot of fun because we went on our mentor group retreat to an island. It was absolutely beautiful and I wish I could go back as it has gotten cold in Apucarana seemingly overnight.
To start the retreat, most of us met in Curitiba to celebrate Emily's birthday, one of the girls in my mentor group who lives in Curitiba. It took Alexa and I a six hour bus ride, but once we made it, we stopped by my hostel to drop some things off and then went to Emily's house to hang out. We went shopping for a bit, grabbed some food, and then headed to a cocktail bar for a few hours and had a lot of fun.
On Friday, we all met at the bus station and headed to the island together. There are 12 people in my mentor group, so we took up a good portion of the bus. It was a lot of fun and was only a two hour bus ride. Once we got to Pontal do Sul, we had to take a ferry the rest of the way to the island. We made it to the pousada (kind of like a hostel) and all grabbed our rooms before heading to the beach. I roomed with one of the girls named Kayla and we ended up sharing a room that was meant for four people. It was nice because we also had a bathroom attached to our room and no one else did. Everyone had frantically chosen roommates when we got to the pousada and Kayla and I were the only two left who didn't have a roommate, but we ended up in the best room and also got along really well, so it worked out in the end. We had a lot of time to enjoy the beach until it was time to do presentations. In order for Fulbright to approve our retreats, we had to include a professional/personal development portion, so we all had to do a presentation on something. The first day of presentations were about a Brazilian movie, the World Cup, oral story traditions, and Japanese immigration in Brazil. Afterwards, we all went out for dinner and had a great time bonding and drinking too many caipirinhas.
Saturday was a full day of activities. We ate breakfast and then headed out to go hiking. I wasn't super excited about hiking as I realize I'm completely out of shape, but was promised it would be more of a walk. As always, it turned out to be more of a hike, but it was a lot of fun. We stayed at a beach for a while and then took the ferry back to the other side of the island to go back to the pousada for more presentations. This night of presentations included one about Brazilian Jujitsu, one about lesson planning with being culturally inclusive in mind, one was about yoga and meditation, and mine was about using games in the classroom. I went second to last. I was very nervous because I didn't know if anyone would find my presentations useful, but several of the people in my mentor group said that they loved it and wanted me to share it with them so they could use my ideas in the future. We went out for dinner again after and had a good time eating some really good seafood.
The next morning, a lot of people woke up to go to the beach and watch the sunrise. I wasn't planning on going, but my bug bites had a different plan in mind. I woke up at 5:30am with extremely itchy bug bites and ended up deciding to leave with everyone at 6am. We hiked up to a lighthouse close to our pousada and waited for the sun to rise. It was absolutely beautiful and a good bonding experience, though I was half asleep the whole time. When we got back to the pousada, we had breakfast, said our goodbyes, and then some of us waited around until 1 when it was time to take the ferry back to the mainland. Three people joined Alexa and I on the way back to Curitiba, but once we got there, they had planned on spending the night, but Alexa and I were heading back to Apucarana. We got some dinner and then hopped on our bus at 5:45. By the way, over the weekend, temperatures in Curitiba and Apucarana had gone from being in the 70s and 80s to being in the 40s and 50s. The bus ride home was freezing as the air conditioning was still turned on and it was about 55 degrees outside. Getting home at midnight was terrible because it was absolutely freezing to me as I wasn't ready for the huge change in temperature. I got home and took a wonderful hot shower before hopping into bed.
On Monday, I moved into my own room. One of the other girls in our house moved out and our landlord offered it to me as I had asked him earlier to let me know if a single room opened up. Alexa and I get along really well, but I just felt like I needed to have my own personal space in our house. I spent a lot of time on Monday moving into my room and doing laundry from the weekend. Everyone got mysterious bug bites on the island, so I'm hoping it's just mosquito bites and not bed bugs, but I still washed everything I brought along just to be sure. I also had my conversation club. Only two people came, so I combined with Alexa as the game I brought to play involves more than two people and Alexa's basic convo club people would not have been able to play it. So I helped Alexa with her club and just had my students join in with hers. After conversation club, we went to a friend's house to eat dinner. His dad had made feijoada and a very good corn dessert. We hung out with the family for a while until I went home to call Frankie. It was a busy but good day.
Today has been a day to relax as I have nothing planned. I need to run some errands, but I may just do them tomorrow as I've spent today finishing moving into my room and enjoying some alone time for once. It's nice to have a day of relaxation after all of that traveling.
Thanks for reading!!