Bom dia!
Three weeks already passed by here in Portugal! Let me tell you something about these last few days.
Let’s start with the most important thing: I started Portuguese lessons! On Tuesday I met Herminia for the first time, she’s a retired teacher of German and she helps us to learn some Portuguese while we are here (all for free). It didn’t know anything about the language so we talked about how to say numbers, colors, objects from school etc… I enjoying that morning and I was happy to see her again on Thursday, even though she was a little bit disappointed with me, because I didn’t study what we learned in the first lesson. In fact, during the two days between the lessons I didn’t have free time to read again my notes: I had to go to a school to help Nuno with a presentation.
I have to say that I had the opportunity to do some nice activities this week. Regarding the presentation, it was about the future carrier of high school students. At the beginning Nuno asked them to say what would they like to do as a job once they grow up. This part was important since it was interactive and the kids were happy to be a part of the conversation. After that, he divided them in groups and explained that they should have ordered a list of curriculum from the best one to the lest effective one. The conclusion of the meeting was common reflection on the competences that can be useful if you look for a job. At the end of everything it was our turn. Me and the other volunteer had to talk about the reasons for which we were here, what we were doing at the office and what we were learning from it. All of this was just to convince them to sign up for the ESC too. I have to say that during the first session (we had three of them) I was scared from the prospective of talking in public (especially in front of teenagers), but once I did it for the first time it became easier and, during the last one, I even managed to make them laugh. Public speaking is definitely tricky, but as everything else, with practice you can achieve great results.
Other than that, on Friday me and the other volunteers went for a walk in Almada with Laura and Francisco. I personally really enjoyed that time, it was a nice and funny way to change a little bit routine from the office’s one and explore the area with locals (they both have lived there since they were young). They took us to the view of Lisbon and to see pretty common garden that is open during the day.
On the weekend, the other volunteers and I just chilled in the house and rested after this busy week.
Thanks for reading this and see you next week!
