CHI English Conversational Volunteer Abroad participant Nuria Villalobos Ulate is having an amazing time tutoring English in Brazil. Nuria is from Costa Rica but studied in the U.S. and works as a professional English teacher in Costa Rica.
Nuria recently shared with us the letter below as well as some great photos. Take a moment to read her firsthand experience of living and tutoring in Brazil.
“I’m doing great here in Brazil! My family’s very nice and the place where I live is so beautiful, quiet, with many mountains around and birds. The city downtown is full of Brazilian history, it’s very interesting!I’m learning a lot and my [host] mom and I have been having a lot of fun speaking in three languages with her: English, Spanish and Portuguese. We sometimes make an incredible mix of languages, it’s hilarious!Sometimes it’s cold up here, and I basically brought summer clothes 🙁 jaja At night it’s really cold, but it’s good I came in the summer; otherwise, I’ll be freezing all the time lol Today, for instance, it’s warm and nice 🙂 The weather changes a lot!I already visited the Imperial Museum (where the Emperor used to live with his family during the summer) and the Santos Dumont House (the first person who flew an airplane with its own engine). There are many other places to visit, but I still haven’t gone to all of them. Last week I went to Búzios beach with my host mom and her sister, who is building a house there, so we went to varnish the windows. It’s a really beautiful place, I loved it! 🙂 I want to go back by myself in January so I can get to know it better, hope I can make it!Also, my host brother’s girlfriend majored in Medicine, so last week we went to the party, it was great! It was very expensive (around $80), but it was worth it because there was a lot of food and music. Everybody was so dressed up, it was a cool experience since we don’t have such parties for college students in Costa Rica.My host mom is a “housewife”, so I have been spending all day long these weeks with her. However, I do want to do something else like volunteering somewhere here in Petrópolis, you know. I haven’t had time to look for info, though….my host mom takes all my time jajaja I’ll start looking for info online on what I can do, I want to meet people apart from the family, you know…and it’s a little difficult if I stay all day long at home lol Also, where the daughter works there’s only the owner, a guy and her…it’s a small office. Actually, I was told I’m the first person to come to Petrópolis on exchange 😉 The owner was surprised to know I actually wanted to come to Brazil, he says nobody’s interested in learning Portuguese, but I explained to him that in Costa Rica everybody wants to learn :)”
