LTI Brazil, January 26- Michaela

This morning started off early, as we all walked out the door at 7:30 am and took the bus to the other side of town for our meeting with the Fulbright Commission. I was a little nervous about meeting with such a prominent organization, but true to the laid-back Brazilian culture we have all grown so fond of, country coordinators Andreza Martins and Bianca Macena greeted us with smiles, matte tea and a basket of pao de queijo. We were also excited to meet fellow Bostonian Adam Singerman, a Harvard graduate currently working for ILRIO, an NGO here in Brazil.

After introducing the foundation to our organization, we discussed our vision for the future of LTI, particularly our long-term goal of creating a global network of leaders by establishing self-sustaining chapters worldwide. With a mission statement that pledges to “advance international understanding through volunteer service to communities,” the Foundation’s goals were very much in line with ours, so although the tone was casual, the meeting was extremely fruitful. The Fulbright staff connected us with a number of potential supporters and partner organizations, most notably the Youth Ambassadors and Student Leaders. These two organizations, headed by the American embassy in Brazil, are composed of underprivileged students from every Brazilian state. The students are selected for academic excellence, leadership potential and involvement in their communities- thus making alumni of the programs perfect candidates to serve as mentors in our Brazil-based chapters! We have scheduled a Thursday meeting with representatives from both organizations, as well as a meeting tomorrow with public interest group Iko Poran.

The day wasn’t all business, however. We visited the Parque Lage, a beautiful collection of tropical gardens. Amanda, Tina and Susan explored the caves and scenic walkways while Dave and I lunched at a famous café in the heart of the park. We even saw the stars of a local telenovela- a Brazilian soap opera- sipping Guaraná at the table next to us. Resident fashionista Susan also took us shopping for stylish Brazilian clothing so we can dress like the natives.

It’s definitely been an exciting day, but I’d better sign off now and go to bed. There’s so much to get done and so many things to see in Rio… all before Friday!
-Michaela

Weekend 2 - Tina

Saturday morning was finally a time for rest. After some good sleeping in, all the LTI MIT mentors, hosts, and some student friends met up for lunch at a Chinese buffet. We shared some jokes and ate way too much of the delicious food. By far my favorite were the caramelized bananas!! Yuri spent lunch making faces at a two year old child whose shrieks of laughter echoed through the restaurant. Mariana also showed us this hot pink fake furry worm attached to a thin nylon string that appeared to scurry through her fingers on its own. She fooled us for about 5 seconds before we realized the trick. Ricardo was a bit more convincing with the worm; I attribute his skill to the look of pure joy on his face as it crawled over his fingers.

We then made the trek to BH Shopping and browsed through a typical Brazilian mall. Much to our surprise, the little boy Yuri was making laugh in the restaurant was also there! He must have been following us.. We saw some super comfortable pillows in the shape of various animals - the turtle was by far my favorite. Speaking of turtles - Michaela and I discovered Tortuguita!! (white chocolate with cookie pieces in exactly the right ratio) I'm sure we've collectively consumed at least 4 packages by now... The tiny turtle imprinted on each bite is too much to resist.

Movie night came next. Lightening filled the sky most of the night but we hid inside and watched some hilarious American movies with the Brazilian LTI students. I think the Brazilians knew the movies even better than we did! I realized many of the strange English quotes they repeated all week came from movies I had seen before!

Sunday was a sad day of goodbyes - little did I know how attached I had grown to Belo Horizonte and the wonderful friends I made. I spent the morning with Deborah's family. Her 2 year old younger brother called me 'princesa' and we played with his toy horses from Avatar while her twin baby sisters adorably slept on the couch. Deborah and I ate a delicious lunch and then packed up for the bus station.

Although I promised myself I wouldn't cry, I couldn't suppress the tears as we said goodbye. These students amazed me with their determination, optimism, and love. In just two weeks, we started strong foundations for LTI and also made friendships that will last a lifetime.

The bus ride started strangely - my water broke. Well, more like I dropped my bottle of water and the bottom fell off, spilling water everywhere! Thankfully I was able to drink out of the bottom as not to be dehydrated on the 8 hour journey through the hills. That night, we arrived in Rio where Susan's amazing family greeted us and took us into their home. We ate some delicious pizza prepared by her mother and then snuggled up for bed. I cannot thank Susan's family enough for welcoming us into their home!

Now begins the Rio de Janeiro segment of our journey. We have important meetings coming up this week to establish more connections in Brazil and hopefully will get to check out the beach at some point!

Thank you students of Belo Horizonte for everything. I will never forget all of you and am grateful for all you have taught me.

Make sure to keep in touch - we won't be able to rid of each other anytime soon.

Beijos!!

Tina

LTI Brazil, Day 9 - Dave

Hey everyone! Wow, what a big day for the program. LTI Brazil made a lot of big decisions today, but first let's talk about how the session activities went.

Our second mentoring team, composed of Arnobio, Mateus, Alice, Gabriel, Ricardo, and Enrique started the session off with an energizer called “Evolution” and then led the “Bridge Building” activity. In “Bridge Building,” each team has three sheets of newspaper and six inches of masking tape and must create the strongest bridge using only these materials. Students then test each bridge by placing weights onto their bridge.

The Pessoa mentors added an extra twist to the activity. During testing instead of placing weights until bridges broke, a cup of water was placed on each bridge and each team had to elect a team leader to stay under the bridge during the weight placement. If a team placed too many weights and broke their bridge, they would not only be disqualified but they would have a wet and unhappy team leader. Luckily, every team had a bridge that was strong enough and no one needed a change of clothes.

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Bridge Building

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Marcia, taking one for the team

After break we had our first batch of presentations for the activity “Teach a Passion.” Last week we told everyone to prepare a short five minute presentation on a topic of their choice—either something they know a lot about or are passionate about. Presentations ranged from baking instructions to dance lessons to Diablo sticking and there was even a presentation about yours truly complete with my date of birth, hobbies, and a whole slew of pictures (I’m guessing there was a whole lot of Facebook stalking).

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Yuri showing off a Diablo trick.

Finally, during the Exec-Planning portion of the day, the Programming, PR, Finance, and IR committees created action plans and timelines for everything that needed to be done before their first session. The managing directors (Arnobio and Paolo) met with the committee directors (Ricardo, Sacola, Carol, and Mariana) to decide on a starting date. I was very excited to hear their decision: feeling that they should take the momentum that’s been create with these two weeks of training, the directors wanted to start their program before the year was through and so they decided to start in the beginning of the second semester of this Brazilian school year (August 2010). This start date may be tentative, but it’s a huge milestone to have this date to work towards.

Although we ended session on such a good note, our fun together didn’t end there. Today was both Tina and Amanda’s 20^th birthdays, and we had a surprise party waiting at Julia’s house. The PESSOA students all quick ran off to Julia’s to set up while Michaela, Susan, and I stalled the two birthday girls. When we arrived at Julia’s, Amanda and Tina were completely taken by surprise when they saw everyone there. There was much merriment and celebration as we ate cake and Pao de Queijo. Amanda and Tina each got a stuffed animal-- a panda for Amanda and a turtle for Tina (their respective favorite animals)-- decorated with all of our signatures so they could forever remember their experience here in Brazil.

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The birthday girls

LTI Brazil, Day 8 - Tina

Oi! It's Tina back again to fill you in on Day 8! It's hard to believe we are already 8 days in and thinking about leaving all our new friends in Belo Horizonte is quite sad. I have so much faith in these students and can't wait to see all they accomplish.
Today, we switched control over to our newly trained Brazilian mentors. I had a blast being a student as they led the way through the morning activities. I must say these guys are working at 110% and have impressed me beyone expectation. The three groups divided on Monday and Tuesday planned an engerizer and an activity for the morning period before snack.

We began the day with a quickly paced game of Electricty. Mariana led the group and set everyone up in a circle with their hands intertwined. Various forms of tapping signalled different ways to pass the tap around the group. If you didn't pay attention, your hand was quickly removed from the circle.

Students play an intense game of Electricity

Next, the remaining mentors taught us about four forms of leaders. Transactional, Service, Inspirational, and Transformation leaders are present in our communities. Groups then made short skits showcasing the various styles. Dave took on a Yoda persona as he Transformed his group of ordinary students stranded in the forest into superheros in order to survive!! Alice hunted animals to feed the group, Paulo creatively arranged a shelter, and Ricardo improvised a way to create fire! Ina my group, Carolina was an amazing service leader in our skit after she provided food for Michaela, taught me how to speak Português, and gave Amanda a job.

Back to Back

We all made it up!!

Back to Back proved to be especailly challenging for our group. We had a difficult time standing up with our backs touching but eventually all made it up as a group. The new LTI record is now 23 people!! Way to go LTI Brazil.
Our final two directors were elected today as well. Congratulations to Carolina, Director of Finance and Mariana, Director of Internal Relations. We split up into committees after elections and developed action plans and timelines for the develolpment of LTI Brazil.
Finally, we introduced Jigalo to the group and theywent crazy for it! The activity requires you to share a dance move with the group which the group then repeats all at once! I must say there are some pretty talented dancers in this LTI!! Homario even joined in the last game before the end of the day.
I moved hosts this weekend and am having an amazing time living with Deborah and her family. We just finished more pao de queijo and watched some American TV with Português subtitles. I heard that Cruziero (a famous Brazilian soccer team) is playing so I'm off to try to catch the end of the game.

Ps. There is a ton of lightening going on right now! Brazilian thunderstorms totally beat Bostonian lightening!
Boa noite!!

LTI Brazil, Day 6 - Amanda

After a lovely relaxing weekend, it was back to work at LTI-Brazil-land. We started off with a recap of ASA, this time with two calls going at the same time; it was actually pretty interesting seeing how people responded to this extra challenge - especially since a couple of people hadn't gotten the rules quite down yet. Next, the 20 students broke up into 3 groups that would later lead an energizer and activity that none of the students had experienced yet - mentors helped students plan and organize their activities so that the curriculum would stay within the time frame alloted to them. Meanwhile, Tina and I set up for the Maze Activity by winding white yarn around trees and lampposts in the lower courtyard - quite the death trap when you think about it, but at least the students were blindfolded before entering the maze. As there was no actual beginning and end of the maze, the only way to exit was to raise your hand and ask for help - which all of the students came to understand. A very long discussion afterwards brought out some useful conclusions before breaking off for snacks.

After our snack break, Tina gave a thorough presentation on how to Make the Experience - including some very interesting pictures of Disneyland v. KiddieLand and other ways to make LTI look like a legitimate organization. Next, Dave separated the students into groups of guys and girls for the Masculine v. Feminine activity where students arrange adjectives into a "masculine" and "feminine" category to highlight the stereotypes that society places on gender roles. This very swiftly led into a discussion regarding the validity of such stereotypes, and a very heated debate and interesting conclusions made by some students that, let's just say, weren't quite politically correct.

Even though today was full of many discussions with very heavy topics, nothing was to compare with the elections process for the future directors of LTI-Brasil. The mentors from MIT decided to structure the exec board into 2 Managing Directors and 4 Committee Directors who would be ultimately responsible for all of the things that LTI-Brasil was going to accomplish. Congratulations to Arnobio and Paulo (the 2 Managing Directors), Ricardo (Programming Director), and Mateus (Public Relations Director) - we'll definitely be keeping in touch with you, don't you worry.

That's all for now!

Love from Brasil =]

LTI Brazil, Weekend 1 - Dave

With the first week of session successfully completed, it´s time to finally relax. On Saturday, Tasia hosted a get together with everyone in the program. We usually have dinner after sessions with a few of the Pessoa students, but it was great to see and hang out with everyone out of session. We had some delicious Brazilian barbeque and passed that time playing card games, chatting, and we even had a friendly game of soccer.

Turns out, people in Brazil are indeed generally a lot better at soccer than people in the US, but I´m happy to report that I got to play with them and did not get completely trounced. It was mostly the guys who were playing soccer, but Tina, Susan, and Anna all gave a good showing for the gals in our programs. Romario, the director of Pessoa, showed that he was a force to be reckoned with. When he got really intense, it was actually a little scary. Pretty sure if I got hit by one of the balls he kicked, I probably be in a hospital right now. But seriously, he was really good.

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Soccer in Swim Trunks and Speedos...

Oh yeah, we also got to swim…in a pool… outside…in January. For the Brazilians reading this blog, that´s probably not a big deal, but for you guys back in the US who are enduring winter, you can probably understand how exciting that is for me. The water was great. Also, it´s summer here. Did I mention how much I love Brazil?

Arnobio brought his guitar and I got treated to a serenade in Portuguese courtesy of him and Marcia. We even got to join in with a sing-a-long to Jason Mraz’s “I´m Yours.” All and all, a fun and relaxing day to end a successful and busy first week.

Until next time!

~Dave

LTI Brazil, Day 5 - Susan

Ola a todos. Today I am going to talk about the adventures of day 5 in Brazil. I can't stress how much I am enjoying Belo Horizonte and how excited I am about the students. We are working really hard towards establishing a new sustainable LTI chapter in Brazil, but we are also playing hard.

Michaela started the day with ASA, one of my favorites energizers. It was a lot of fun and students came up with different actions associated with a word. Mine was "pao de queijo," a delicious Brazilian treat made of cheese. I got so excited with this activity that later I realized I had hit my legs so hard that I was full of bruises!

Then, we followed with Emergency Simulation. I told students that they were survivors of a plane crash in the northern part of Canada in the middle of the winter, and that they had to survive with a limited set of materials they managed to get. I posted a list of 12 items and they had to individually rank them in order of importance for their survival. Later, they were divided in groups of six people and had to rank again the items. Eventually, they got together in a group of 20 and had to rank the items one more time. It was really hard for them to do so in a large group, but they were able to achieve a consensus and, when compared to the actual answer list, they all did much better in a large group than in the smaller group or individually.

We stopped for break and everyone attacked the food because they were afraid we would deprive them from eating - see Dave's post for hunger lunch. We continued with an interesting discussion about emergency situation and followed with Chocolate River. Because it was drizzling outside, students had a hard time trying to cross the wet floor through stepping and moving wet paper. They failed many times and had to start all over again, but they were persistent and finally one group was able to successfully cross the river. We then reflected about their strategies, persistence, and the relationship between the two groups that were crossing the river. Michaela took the lead with the Internal Relations presentation followed by questions. Amanda gave an overview of the following week and told them that on week two they would be working in committees.

I can't believe that we are half-way done! I have seen so much progress from the students and their commitment and willpower to teach leadership to high school students is exhilarating. I can't wait for the barbecue tomorrow and to be able to spend time with the students outside session hours.

Don't go away, and look forward for the second week of LTI Brazil!

Tchau!

- Susan

LTI Brazil, Day 4 - Dave

Hey everyone. This is Dave, bringing you the highlights of our fourth session with the Brazilian students of Pessoa, and man this was a doozie of a session. The students have really been absorbing the lesson of our activities and taking them to heart. They´ve even express their appreciation of the structure of the curriculum that we prepared often referencing lessons from previous activities during the discussion of new activities.

One of the activities we ran today was “Search and Rescue.” During the discussion lead by Uri, we talked about the communication difficulties inherent to the activity and Enrique actually referenced “Active Listening,” explaining that since we could not exercise a proper active learning posture, we had to make a special effort to communicate clearly and to listen carefully. In “Search and Rescue” students work in teams of three to find and retrieve items scattered in the room. Each member has a role: the Retriever, the Seer, and the Speaker, but the catch is, each member of the team has limited abilities so teams have to work together in order to complete their task. The Retriever is the only member that can enter the area where the items are located, so he is the only one who can retrieve the items, however, he is also blindfolded and is not allowed to talk. The Seer is the only member that is allowed to look at where the items are, however, he is not allowed to enter the area to retrieve the items himself and cannot speak. Instead, he must pantomime to the Speaker, who then instructs the Retriever. The Speaker may look at the Seer, but he cannot look or go into the item area and must keep his back to the area.

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Search and Rescue

Today, we also ran some of our denser activities. To set the mood, we ran the “Brazilian Dream” activity, an adaptation of MIT LTI´s “American Dream” activity. In this activity students stand in a line with their eyes closed and are then asked to step forward or backwards depending a series of questions relating to advantages or disadvantages they have or had in their life.

This was a great lead into our “Hunger Lunch” activity. In this activity, students are separated into two groups: one group representing a privileged minority who receives an extravagant lunch (in this particular case: watermelon, corn bread, chocolate, cheesy bread, and juice) and another group comprised of the remaining students who represent an underprivileged majority who have to make dues with a subpar lunch (a few cups water and uncooked corn). Mentors create a border between the two groups and police it making sure no one crosses the border or tries to share food across the border. If students try to disobey, mentors are to dissuade them verbally, but will not physically stop them from crossing the border or sharing food. Quite upset with the situation, the majority group tried a number of strategies to get the food. Paulo and Mateos even organized a sitting revolt, refusing to move until they were fed properly. On the privileged side, we had five of the twenty Pessoa students. At first, Ricardo was quite enjoying his privileged access to the food, however, eventually all five of the privileged group wanted to share their food. Flavio even brought the basket of cheese bread to the border to give to the majority group, but Michaela and Susan reminded him of the rules and dissuaded him before he could complete his mission.

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The privileged minority enjoying some juice

This was an especially challenging activity for the Pessoa student as they had grown to trust us, and so it was difficult for them to disobey us even if we were being unfair. In the end, we told them about the activity and ran a discussion while we ate the remainder of the privileged group´s food, of which there was still an abundance. What followed was an intense and thought-provoking discussion on social disparity. In the discussion, students talked about how regardless of how far any one of them step forward or backwards, they all had the advantage of being part of Pessoa and of LTI, and that they had a responsibility to share their fortune with other. I could tell that the activity had an impact on the Pessoa group by how quiet and self-reflective everyone was being. Usually during discussions, the Pessoa students have such a good handle on the goals and lessons of the activity and it seems like everyone trying to share their insights and opinions. In contrast, during the “Hunger Lunch” discussion, it seemed like they were out of their comfort zone and really being challenged. This, to me, is what LTI is all about.


After “Hunger Lunch,” we had a nice change of pace with “Wind in the Willows,” a trust fall activity, re-solidifying the trust we have built between all of us in the program.

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Wind in the Willows

We ended the day with Susan´s presentation on the MIT LTI´s Finance committee and a series of discussions on the financial concerns of the Belo Horizonte chapter of LTI Brazil.

Today was a huge day for us as a program. Although it was sometimes painful, I feel we all learned a lot and we´ve become stronger as a program.

LTI Brazil, Day 3 - Tina

Oi! Meu nome é Tina! - and for those of you who do not speak Portuguese, "Hi! My name is Tina!" I'm here to update you on the LTI Brazil adventures from Day 3.

Susan began the day running a favorite activity, Communication Headbands. Everyone had a way to be treated written across their heads such as "treat me like I'm famous" or "pretend I'm a child" that everyone but the person coulc read. The students and mentors then had to interact by treating each other as their headband indicated. It was quite hilarious when the student with "treat me like I'm dumb" started carrying around the Portuguese for Dummies book!

Next the students built a pyramid! Well, not the massive Egyption kind, but a pyramid made out of stacking cups using only strings attached to a rubberband instead of hands. To make it even more difficult, Michaela forbid verbal communication forcing the students to revert to non-verbal signaling. One group found the task easy while the other two were frustrated but persisted. The students learned to keep their cool in stressful situations and communicate effectively.

The students carefully raise a cup

Assumptions came next and forced everyone to think of a secret fact. Then, Amanda had the groups guess who wrote each fact, which showed that first judgements may not always be correct.Who knew some of our students hide chocolate in their closets or that Susan was once picked up by an elephant?! Well, we do now!

Extreme Mentoring shocked the students with the realities of dealing with difficult groups. Each person was assigned a personality trait such as "shy" or "inappropriate" and the students took turns leading a discussion as mentors and dealing with the extreme students. We all learned how important it is to practice leading discussions since it takes more preparation than it appears. Dave helped the students brainstorm a list of good discussion techniques to use during furture LTI sessions.

We finished the day with a presentation on Public Relations - including Recruitment, Marketing, and Technology. A smaller group brainstorming session followed by a large group re-cap generated promising ideas for the Public Relations department of LTI Brazil.

Since the Açai berry ice cream was so good, we tried another place and played some cards with the students before heading home. After a quick run around Liberty Square and some coconut water (so refreshing!), it was time for dinner. My host even wore a chef's hat as he prepared pasta! After nearly a week here, I can certainly say my favorite thing about this country is the wonderful people.

Check out our albums so far - http://picasaweb.google.com/LTI.MIT

Boa noite!

LTI Brazil, Day 2 - Michaela

Today was another beautiful day in Belo Horizonte. All of us Bostonians are enjoying the warm weather (t-shirts in January!) as well as the friendly hospitality of our Brazilian hosts. After a breakfast of bread with requejiao cremoso, a soft Brazilian cheese, the day kicked off with a fun energizer activity called Huggy Bear.

Later, we learned more about each other in a modified version of Walk About, Talk About, an activity in which students engage in a series of conversations on meaningful topics such as “What is you greatest fear?” and “Who inspires you?” In this version, students paid special attention to posture and body language, maintaining an actively engaged appearance as they listened to their partner speak.

We also ran one of my favorite activities, Paper Towers. In this activity, teams of students construct towers using only 40 sheets of ordinary 8.5’’ x 11’’ paper. One trap students often fall into is starting to fold before their team has agreed on a design, thereby wasting many sheets of paper. However, drawing on lessons learned during yesterday’s Helium Hula-hoop activity, all of the teams discussed strategy before building. By the end of the exercise, every team had a tower of greater than waist height- an unprecedented success!

Later in the afternoon, Dave gave a presentation on logistics and programming in LTI, and the Brazilian students brainstormed how these things would be handled in their own chapter. They had LOTS of ideas- what was intended to be a 20 minute presentation ended up lasting over an hour due to the thoughtful questions and discussion that it provoked.

After session, we went out for a dinner of Brazilian pizza with students Mateus and Paolo. This was definitely not the pizza us Americans were used to. Served all-you-can-eat buffet style, the pizza featured toppings that included potato stix, apples, and even a chocolate pizza for dessert!

Overall, it’s been a tiring day, but an exciting one. I can hardly believe it’s only the second day of session. Stay tuned for more adventures to come!

-Michaela

LTI Brazil, Day 1 - Amanda

Hey guys, it's me again. Tired (and a little bit sweaty from all this humidity) after today, but it's been such a good experience so far!

Today was the first day of running LTI with the Brazilian PESSOA students we've met. First off, a little description of where these sessions take place: the organization that is sponsoring us rented a little house/spa/building near a main square for the program that we planned for them. It's a beautiful little room with hardwood floor and three walls of floor-to-ceiling windows that look out onto a little garden. With a little projector and a screen and plenty of chairs to go around, it was basically the perfect room for all of our activities.

The way that the LTI Brazil team planned the curriculum for the next two weeks is as follows: 3 hours of LTI curriculum (similar to the 4-hour long sessions in the spring) and then 2 hours of exec-planning time, during which the LTI staff would work in small groups to discuss how the chapter would exist in Brazil. So today, I started off with a brief (that didn't end up being brief due to translations via Susan) introduction of LTI.

Next, we started doing LTI activities with the members of PESSOA. After a quick run-through of initial introductions, Tina led Big Wind Blows (always a favorite icebreaker). Everybody seemed to really enjoy getting to run around and playing jokes on each other, and it was a great start to our first session with them. Next, we did a quick survey of their ideas of leadership and where they're coming from in terms of experience with leadership. Afterwards, we ran Anatomy of a Leader, where the students drew outlines of bodies and drew on body parts that were also metaphors for the qualities a leader should have. People came up with interesting ideas that I had never seen before, things like an engagement ring to show commitment and a ring of fat around the belly as an energy reserve. Then, a quick break to recoup from everything and back to work! We ran Human Knot, where people get their arms all tangled up and have to find a way to become one continuous loop without letting go of any hands - everybody had fun yelling and calling out directions every which way. That led nicely into Helium Hula Hoop, where a group of people had to lower a hula hoop using only their fingers (but always keeping their fingers on the hula hoop) - reason behind the naming being that the hula hoop always rises due to overcompensation. And since self-reflection is such a big part of the LTI philosophy, we ended the LTI curriculum portion with Letters to Future Selves. A quick break of Splat livened things up (many many exciting Splat-offs) before starting the executive structure portion of the presentation. I did another short powerpoint speech and then we broke up into small groups of 3-4 to talk about the PESSOA students' motivation to create an LTI chapter and promote leadership. Then, a little group brainstorm on their LTI vision ended the day and that was the end of the first session!

A couple of students took us to a fruit smoothie bar where Susan ordered a couple of drinks and the acai berry smoothie that so many of the students had been recommending for us to try. I think everybody loved this berry-icee-concoction (all except Susan, apparently), and it was a nice and relaxing way to end the day. A quick debrief with the team wrapped up our work for the day, and then it was off back to our host families for dinner and nighttime activities.

Pictures are now up on Facebook, and soon coming to a Picasa web album! And even more excitement tomorrow. Keep in touch!

We have arrived! - Amanda

After over 24 hours in transit (including a cancelled flight, a 10+-hour layover in snowy Atlanta, a missed flight and free buffet lunch in Brasilia), we have finally arrived in sunny and warm Belo Horizonte (BH to the locals) in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Today is our third day in the country - but first, an overcap about why we're here.

In the spring of 2009, LTI was contacted by a college student in BH who was interested in starting up a leadership program in his hometown. After months of communication and planning, a plan was finally formulated to create a chapter of LTI to Brazil with the help of the PESSOA organization, a program that aims to bring together the fields of entrepreneurship, social activism, environmentalism, and leadership. For the next two weeks, members of LTI (Amanda, Susan, Tina, Michaela, and David) will be training members of PESSOA in the LTI curriculum and working one-on-one in order to create the organizational infrastructure. In addition, we will also be traveling to Rio de Janeiro to communicate with other interested college students about starting LTI.

And now about what has happened so far. We arrived Friday afternoon at the BH airport and were received by representatives of PESSOA. We moved into the administrator's home in the city, and promptly were introduced to Brazilian culture with a lunch of chicken casserole and rice (absolutely delicious). Next, Arnobio and Yuri took us to a mountaintop to view the sunset over the city, complete with fresh coconut juice and coo-ing of wild birds. We then met Anna, another member of PESSOA, and jetted off to a Japanese restaurant/bar at the top of a tower (also overlooking the city) for after-dinner drinks. Everybody was very friendly, even though not everyone understood each other - at some point, Dave and Yuri started talking in Spanish, their only common language. So much for the first day!

On Saturday, Arnobio and Yuri introduced us to some more members of PESSOA and then we went to Topo do Mundo (a restuarant/bar at the top of a hill). From there, we could watch parachuters and paragliders take off from the hill and float into the distance. A group of us went onto a hike along the top of the mountain range, and from there we could see at least 20 miles into the distance in all directions. When we came back, Arnobio taught us how to play Truco (a Brazilian card game with absolutely confusing rules) and in return, we taught him how to play Set. We then accompanied Arnobio to a samba club with live music, where we enjoyed the dancing atmosphere as we played pool (note: the pool tables have really small pockets).

Today, Susan arrived (she had been in Rio since the end of finals)! We discussed the goals of the next two weeks with members of PESSOA (Romario, Arnobio, Gabriel, and Mateo). We spent FIVE HOURS finalizing all of our materials and curriculum, as our host family taught each other how to play Set in the living room next door. It's about dinnertime right now (we're having pizza tonight!) and we'll soon be off to our other host families!

Tomorrow's the big day - our first session with the 23 members of PESSOA that we will be training. I can personally say that I am definitely excited for this first meeting, and will be looking forward to working with everyone for the next two weeks!

Stay in touch, and you'll be hearing from others of LTI soon!

Live, Laugh, and Lead =)