Wednesday, 25, 23:59 hours

“Never in history has violence been initiated by the oppressed” (Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 55).

This evening I started my first reading assignment for my Sociology 335 course. It’s interesting reading. I admit, my vocabulary is struggling and I felt like I needed a dictionary at my side as I read, but it’s all about the learning. Tonight at about 6:30 Dave and I went to the office to study. I have never had good luck studying in the same room I sleep, so I knew we needed to find an alternative place to study. The office was nice. Pierre, one of the supervisors was still there doing work in his office, so we each took a different room and studied for a few hours. At 8:30 we broke out our dinner – frozen chicken-burgers and Guaraná. Since we’ve been living in a hotel for the past week, we’ve been spending a lot of money eating out for each meal. Jo, the cleaning lady at the office, told us we could use their microwave and fridge if we ever wanted to. So tonight we did. They were interesting burgers. The store-made rolls were probably the best part. We then studied for a few more hours and were out of the office by 10. I was pleased, it was a productive evening. The history book about Brazil is so boring, but the other readings aren’t that bad.

The rest of the day was pretty normal. Today during the course I got to teach about setting Goals and how to make a Network list of people to contact. To be honest, it was like pulling teeth. Some of the people here just don’t understand why we need to set goals or work through contacts. On the positive side, I learned a lot from teaching today and hopefully will be able to avoid the same problems in the future. That’s what it’s all about, right?

For lunch we went to the Post Office (that’s what Elder Burrup calls it) again. Man! That food is so good!

In the afternoon I took about an hour and a half nap. Whew, that was nice! J Then I went to the market to buy our dinner and some other snacks.

The sun was out for a few hours. Here are some pictures I took from the 14th floor of our hotel.