06/12/24
My second week here started with a rest day at home (I overslept).
On Tuesday I had Portuguese lessons with Herminia and the new volunteer, we pretty much went over the same things we did last week, witch is not a bad thing at all, as they say Repetita Iuvant, and after a quick lunch I headed to the office to work on a proposal for the video tutorials they asked me to do.
On Wednesday….
For some reason I can’t remember much of what I did on Wednesday, maybe because it was a pretty uneventful day at the organization. At home, in the evening, I helped Martins with Portuguese and offered him potatoes (not a sexual innuendo I swear).
On another note, I definitely didn’t miss having to plan everyday what to eat and what to cook, mainly because I don’t have a lot of creativity for these kinds of things.
Thursday was a bit more exciting, especially the part where we made a joke of ourselves by trying to figure out Portuguese spelling in front of a bunch of teens. After our regular language lesson and another very fast lunch at home, we headed to RATO and from there we went with Nuno to assist with a lesson on (Os outros: sessão na esa) in a local high school (Escola Secundária de Amora). The high schools here (at least the ones I’ve been to) are so modern that mine in Italy pales in comparison, unfortunately (please read this with as much sarcasm as you can) I don’t have any picture to delight you with.
This is only the second activity I’ve assisted Nuno with, the first was Aprender mais numa tarde, a lesson on the use of google docs on tablets on Saturday. To be honest I don’t think I have a good grasp on Nuno’s personality, but when he’s teaching he’s a completely different person, you can really feel how much he cares about his work and you can see how much preparation and passion there’s behind. His way of explaining is so clear that even with my limited Portuguese understanding skills I could follow what he was saying. I’m not sure how to put into words how I felt in the moment, but these were definitely the moments I’ve liked the most since I landed in Portugal. I’m still deadly afraid of the idea of speaking in public, especially in my second language, but I have the feeling that I’m going to ask to be brought along for all of these kinds of jobs.
