Imagine arriving at a hostel in the middle of a massive, foreign city and you see 6 smiling strangers in front of you: Dona, Rumbi, Nirvana, Jeannine, Ian and Tshepiso. For the next 10 days these strangers will be your companions, your teammates, your roommates, your teachers, your family. We all met at the Local Hostel at 2 o'clock to officially start our Immersive Learning Journey.

 

Shima and Laura, our educators on the trip, welcomed us with introductions. We learned two things about people in Brazil very quickly: Brazilian people hug and Brazilian people share. We shared all of the new fruits and nuts that we tried at the market nearby, we shared beer and we shared our meals. Everything was still very comfortable; we ate local foods at a restaurant (pirarucu moqueqa and caipirinhas!), we had wifi and aircon and the hostel staff spoke English. But because of the pressing, humid heat and being tired from our journeys we went to bed early despite the enticing restaurants where tables of people spilled onto the streets and listened to bands playing Afro-Brazilian Jazz.