Murder Mystery

This semester, I taught a 12-week beginner English course. The idea for the class was that it was a conversational based course for student who had little to no English knowledge. When planning the course, I was not sure how I could encourage conversations if the students didn’t have the vocabulary or grammar knowledge in English. So, I decided that the final exam would be a Murder Mystery game, and worked back from there. In addition, I made it an activity based course to encourage conversations. For example, we did a photo scavenger hunt throughout campus one day (which was hilarious and the students loved it), in two teams the class created an imaginary town, etc. This class made me realize I thoroughly enjoy teaching at the university level, but not younger than that.  

Last week Wednesday was their final exam. It had been a three-week series. We had a professor, who had done his Master’s thesis on Sherlock Holmes, come in and talk about Sherlock Holmes, mystery literature, and common character personalities. Then, I told the students the premise of who died in relation to the final exam game, and they chose their characters from a list (the list consisted of relationships to the deceased, such as wife, child, co-worker, friend, etc). Afterwards, their homework was to create their character. Here is the worksheet they had to fill out:

Then, they needed to create a routine for their characters. Over the following few days, I tied all the characters, motives, etc. together into one complete story, with a few twists and turns. On the day of the exam, I gave each student a clue sheet divided into three parts: 1) what they can say to begin with, 2) after new evidence was found, what they could add to the story, and 3) an alibi.

My students also earned cupcakes if they dressed up for their part. (I have realized that baking in Brazil is extremely difficult because the oven is in Celsius, has a different range, is not always correct, ingredients are sometimes different, etc.) Anyway, here is what my students looked like:

Although there were a few kinks, the story was more or less:

Franklin P. Dolittle owned Dolittle’s Funeral Home. Tuesday night, his wife found him in a coffin, partially embalmed (thank outside help for that part…Catherine and Jake…). What had happened was Franklin’s brother-in-law happened to be head of the Italian Mafia, and when Franklin’s brother and brother-in-law wanted Franklin in on their new drug ring, money from the mafia went missing. The brother-in-law thought Franklin stole it, so he went to beat the info out of him. Franklin’s mother saw this happening and wanted to know what was going on, out of rage that all of her children were part of the mafia, she killed him and tried to frame the wife. The wife being a nurse would know how to embalm, kind of, so the mom did just that. But she heard a noise and fled. Franklin’s employee, came in and found him that way and moved him to the coffin.

Obviously, there was more than that to the story, but overall, it was amazing! Only the priest was able to guess that the mother did it. I am so excited to see how it goes next semester!

—Two weeks later—

By the way, I am doing other things as well, but this class always made my day. They were a great group of students, and most are continuing in a second level next semester with me. I did teach an American Culture and Academic Life course for those going abroad in August. After the class ended, we did an American BBQ. 

Riviera & Alegrete

The week after we hosted brunch happened to be a long weekend. Thursday was a holiday, so most of the university was shut down on Friday, and then Monday was a Brazilian World Cup game. Jake’s new Gaúcho friend, Antonio, and his fiancé, Tchana, invited us to see their hometown, Alegrete.

Of course, at 5:30am, as we piled into the car, the first thing Antonio did was hand Jake chimarrão. After stopping at a farm to feed Antonio’s horses, and being surrounded by cows, we figured out we were on our way to Riviera, Uruguay for a chá de bebe. (It took me awhile to realize they were not talking about tea, it means baby shower.) And, I laughed as Jake and Antonio conversed the entire trip. (Remember that this was about a month after he arrived, and Antonio does not speak that much English.)

“Riviera is so much bigger than Chui,” was the first thought that went through my head when we arrived. I was surprised. It had just started getting winter coat cold in Rio Grande, and Jake had not brought a jacket. So, we spent a large part of the time looking for a coat for him. Of course, it couldn’t be a winter coat, like a North Face or Columbia jacket, it needed to be a Gaúcho jacket. These thermal jackets are wool button-ups look like lumberjack shirts, but are warmer. The biggest problem was Jake was too tall for the jackets. They didn’t have long enough sleeves, were too wide and still didn’t cover his torso, etc. I think we must have looked at 20+ stores. He did happen to find one that fit, and decided not to buy it at that time. Later, while the women went to the baby shower, Jake and the guys went back to buy the jacket and look for other Gaúcho items, specifically a mateira (the thing in which to carry all the chimarrão stuff).

Jake, in his new jacket, and me in Alegrete

I happened to find a 16G memory card for $12 (USD). I might have taken 300+ pictures over the 3 days…Here is the weekend through pictures:

 

The baby shower was an interesting experience. Let’s just say for the friend hosting the party, cost was not an issue. We walked into a pool house that was completely heated, with food on the table and workers bringing out drinks and more options. The best game that we played was strange, to say the least. Someone came out with a bucket of ice cubes. Within each ice cube was a plastic 1-inch baby and the water had been flavored with strawberries. The first one to suck the ice cube and free the baby won.

Lunch Line at Tchana's House. By the way, her dad is an amazing cook.

Antonio's brother-in-law invited us to see his horses. Although this isn't where is horses are, the landscape and experience was great. They kept saying it was the real gaúcho experience. 

Pecan Tree: I had no idea that pecans are covered by two different shells, the green one you see here, which is soft, and then the hard one below.

We picked up fallen pecans for the apple pie I made later that night. We also found out that you can open pecans by crushing two together. 

This is what a "real" gaúcho looks like. He works on the farm we were at. He is currently heating up water for chimarrão in the little can/pot over the fire.

This statue is in Alegrete. Can you guess who/what that is supposed to be?

We taught them how to play poker. We didn't have money or anything to use to show betting, so we improvised with pinhão, a type of pine nut. I was dealer for 5-card draw.

On the way home, we stopped in Bagé. We were looking for a mateira for Jake, and picked up one of Antonio's friends. On the way back from the 3 store border town next to Bagé, we stopped at this farm. While talking, we were invited to pick a type of orange off of the tree by the house and eat them. It was the first time I have ever done that. 

Work Hard, Play Hard

After a week of classes, working, and little time for a social life, we finally were going to have time to relax and hang out with friends. Friday was one of our friend’s birthday, so after some chimarrão and work, we headed over to our old living accommodations, the hotel, to say happy birthday and celebrate. It turned into amazing pizza (the second day in a row, because I made homemade pizza the night before), and Happy Birthday being sung in three languages, five different ways. After, we headed to the store to buy ingredients for sobremesas (desserts).

Catherine and I had been craving desserts all week, so I decided that chocolate fondue with fruit was in order. However, this is not exactly what came out. Instead, as some friends met us at our house, I made chocolate and coconut covered bananas to eat with our vihno tinto. Chocolate and wine, the best combination ever. In addition, we played some music and ended up dancing bachata, which I had been missing a lot.

Chocolate and coconut covered bananas.

The next day was spent relaxing before heading out to celebrate our friend’s birthday again. We went to watch several bands play forro, and had a blast! However, as Catherine and I were tired we decided to head home. About an hour later, Catherine received a phone call and life got crazy.

Catherine comes to my room and explains we had 7 guests on their way over. We frantically starting counting beds and figuring out where everyone was going to sleep. By the time everyone arrived, we were all set to go, only to find out half decided to head home and there were only 4 guests.

Sunday was relaxing once again, and I decided I needed to read. We felt bad that we were unable to see our friend that had just returned from break (a week into the semester), but due to timing, we hung out at home, and I stayed up till 7am Monday morning reading. Obviously, that hadn’t been the plan. So, Monday was a little more difficult to work than I had anticipated. But, I started and finished two books. So, maybe it was worth it…

By the time we made it to campus, it was lunch time. We ran into our friend and ended up following him to the mechanical engineering office. (Yes, most of our friends are studying mechanical engineering.) Surprisingly, the office was fun. We hung out and I ended up seeing Wesley’s project, a go-kart that he is building. Also, he made sure that I received one of the best gifts from his mom! After being made fun of for putting hot sauce on everything in Maceió (and apparently more in one sitting than anyone they know), she made me my own bottle of hot sauce! We have to wait to try it, but I cannot wait!

See all the peppers? So excited!

At the end of the day, I was exhausted, and passed out for a while before having the strength to go home. When we arrived home at 10:30ish, we decided it was a good time for bauru. Earlier in the week, we found an amazing bauru place at the beginning of our road. Let’s just say, if we don’t watch it, we are going to get fat quickly. 

Bauru Number Two!

Maceió

 Meu Deus! Everyone here wakes up so early! I guess the sun comes up at 5am or something, so everyone gets up at that time. One day I went to sleep at like 1am and didn’t wake up until 7:30/8am. Apparently, this is super late, so I must have been drinking the night before and recovering (this was not true, by the way)…

So, my inability to wake up early means that seeing the piscina natural was impossible. The first morning I wasn’t up early enough, and the second, we didn’t arrive until 9am. (The traffic here is so bad that we left at 7:30 and arrived over an hour later, but returning it took like 30 minutes.) By this time it was already high tide, and we would have had to wait until 5 or 6 at night. Instead, we hung out pass all the algae and went to lunch by some island somewhere.

However, while at the beach we saw a police helicopter flying in circles overhead. After traveling thousands of miles to visit my friend and the two ETAs placed here in Maceió, I found out Maceió is the fifth most dangerous city in the world. Hence, the helicopter.

Police Helicopter that kept circling the beach

Additionally, we headed to UFAL to attend the English conversation course taught by the ETA’s here. We ended up discussing the US, majors and minors, and how different Rio Grande is from Maceió. Everybody was shocked that it was so cold in the south already. Whereas here you have to wait for the showers to cool down, in Rio Grande, you have to wait for them to warm up.

Lastly, when we arrived back from our excursions yesterday, Wesley’s mom had painted me a shirt. She paints towels, etc. in her free time and wanted to make me one. She is so sweet!

Wesley's Mom painted this for me!

So, to thank her and everyone else, I made dinner and dessert: chicken pasta and chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwiches with toffee ice cream.

Ice Cream Sandwiches...which were VERY difficult to make in Maceió.