Sugar Loaf again

I realized as I was drifting off to sleep last night that I never said who "we" were on the jaunt up Sugar Loaf. I had planned to go listen to music with the head librarian at the British School, Mimi Liang, in the evening. In the afternoon, Patricia and I stopped back at the British School in Botofogo and ran into Chris Priestley, a visiting author at the school this week. He suggested I come back in a short while to go up Sugar Loaf with him and with Mimi. Excellent plan. I met Chris after lunch and we took a cab to the Urca site of the school, where Mimi was that afternoon. From there we went on our expedition. Very pleasant, with wide-ranging conversation about books and writing, about Rio and the view, about marmosets and exotic (to us) plants, and about a hundred other topics.

We were all tired from a nicely busy week, so we didn't go listen to music after all.

I don't think I mentioned how extremely kind and welcoming Mimi, Raquel, Juliana and all the other librarians have been, as was Marcia and the teachers at the German School.

More in Rio

SugarLoaf
Originally uploaded by PriscillaHowe

This picture was taken on Monday, at the cafe with the view of Sugar Loaf. Today I went to the top of Sugar Loaf on the cable car. It's a two-stage trip. At the first landing, there were marmosets all over the place. I ran out of batteries for my camera, so no pics yet. They're interested in the tourists and are probably hoping for treats.

At the top we could see all over Rio and the bay. Stunning view! 

This all happened after my last two shows of the week, at the German school, where I told stories to kids learning English. I had about forty teenagers in each group, in a science lecture hall. They were, umm, high-spirited as they arrived at the hall and I wondered if they'd be willing to listen. I used my usual ploy with adolescents: I began with a creepy story. They were with me from then on. 

I've learned over the years that when I tell stories to non-native speakers, it's useful to allow them to talk to each other for a couple of minutes in between stories. They're not being rude, they're just explaining to each other the words they didn't quite get. These kids were wonderful listeners, attentive and interested. 

It turned out that the English teacher in charge had lived in Garden City, KS as an AFS student years ago. Small world! 

Storytelling in Rio

Whew! Sixteen shows this week so far, two more to go. For the past four days, I've been performing at the British School in Rio de Janiero. For most of the time, I was at the school in Botafogo, though today I did four shows at the Barra site. I know I've written about how fun it is to be famous at a school--I love it when the students say hello to me in the hallways and in the cafeteria, after they've heard me tell stories.

Tomorrow I go to a German school, though I'll be telling to the kids learning English. Then I get the weekend off--sort of. On Sunday, I'll catch a cab to the bus station and will take the 6 hour ride to Sao Paulo for the next leg of the tour.

Here are a few pictures of the kids at the British School:




There are more on Flickr. I'll try to organize those soon.

What's that noise?!

I woke up early this morning to the sound of...what? Construction? Was somebody putting up bleachers? Trucks moving in and out, men shouting, maybe it was a road rally? Nope, today is market day in the little park outside the hotel.