Teleférico e Chocolate Chip Cookies in Complexo

This week, Rocinha was still under renovation and so classes were cancelled for the week.

With our kids in Complexo do Alemão, we scheduled a mini-class field trip to ride the cable cars, teleférico. Since most people are on break, the teleférico only operate till mid-day. We arrived in Complexo around 9:30 and headed up with our kids. It was so nice of them—most of our class showed up! Ana Carolina, Adriano, Mateus, Simone, Taimara, Raiana, and Sara came to show us around. I was very touched by their eagerness and appreciated the time they took out to hang out with us. Another plus was that for the first month, the teleférico is free for everyone. Afterwards, it will cost residents in Complexo R$1 (registered riders) and tourists R$10.

We started in Estação Baiana and went all the way to Estação Bom Sucesso. The cable cars are very nice and well designed. When riding in it, you don’t even feel like you are descending. The only setback is the lack of air circulation in the cable cars. In the summer time it is going to be very hot in the closed cable car environment. The cable car stations were beautifully decorated: each station had its own mural of the station name. Overall, I was impressed by the efficiency and aesthetics of the cable car system. I really hope that this helps the residents in their day to day lives and that this will be maintained even after the two international sporting events.

In Complexo, we were finishing up our story book project. Brenna and I typed up the story the class wrote in the previous class. With the help of some of the older students, we clarified the storyline, words we didn’t understand and added more details to the story. While some students were working on editing the story, others started drawing the pictures for our book, “O gato e a menina”. Each student was tasked with drawing at least 1 page of the book. With younger kids; we had to facilitate their drawing process. We reminded them of the weather at that point in the story and coached them how to draw or color certain objects. By the end of class, we almost finished the whole story book! With only two more pages to go, Brenna and I decided to draw the last two pages ourselves.

After each student finished their drawing, they received their developed photos. It was very interesting to finally see the students’ photography. They took photos of pets (a lot of cats!), family members, friends, the interior of their houses, and objects.

The cultural item for this week is: Chocolate chip cookies!!! We baked them using Brenna’s chocolate chip recipe. The students seem to really like this traditional American cookie!