The fellowship that spoons together...

The Climb                                                              July 30^th-31^st 2011

Mom, before you read this let me clearly state that I am safe and no one got injured.  I know reading this you will be like “Anya, you did what?” and yes I do realize that it was a stupid and dangerous idea but regardless it’s done and I have certainly learned from it.

So, last Saturday we were staying in Pico, one of the central islands, known for the tallest mountain in Portugal.  (Pico means peak in Portuguese).  We were determined not to leave the island without climbing the mountain because it was such a once in a lifetime kink of opportunity.  A friend of a friend (Tomé, 18 year old local) had hiked the mountain twice before and volunteered to be our unofficial guide.  Our goal was to start hiking at 5 pm, get to the top around sunset, set up camp, sleep, watch the sunrise and hike down.  Well, things don’t always work out how you plan them.  Because of several hold ups including that there are only 4 taxis total on the entire island we didn’t actually start the hike until 9:30 pm. 

We were completely unprepared: 5 girls, 1 unofficial guide, 1 flashlight, 4 cell phones (for light), 1 sleeping bag, 0 tents, 0 blankets, 0 long pants for Anya….I think you are beginning to get it. The man at the mountain house looked at us like we were crazy when we said we only had one flashlight and no extra batteries.  But neither his glares of warning nor the mandatory safety video could deter us from climbing.

The hike should take between three and four hours in daylight so we figured we would get to the top around 1:30 AM…WRONG!  We started the hike going as fast as possible while we still had some sunlight.  It was a lot rockier than any of us had anticipated.  I think we were imagining a real trail but quickly realized climbing Mt. Pico is no walk in the park.  White wooden poles numbered 1 through 42 mark the trail.  Once the light faded it became difficult to see where the next checkpoint was so we inadvertently left the trail.  I held my hiking stick in my right hand and my cell phone for light in my left while trying to basically rock climb up the mountain.  Honestly, it was a miracle that no one was hurt.  Towards the end the flashlight was dimming and I began to think that we were never going to reach the summit.  Everyone was exhausted and felt like quitting but as Madeline pointed out “Where are you going to go?”

The entire time we were hiking we tried to keep as positive an attitude as possible, we pretended we were Lord of the Rings characters taking the ring to Mordoor haha and we focused on the goal.  When we were taking breaks we would lie on the soft moss and look to the sky for shooting stars and identify the different constellations.  The sky was so clear that we could see the Milky Way band and countless shooting stars.

We finally made it to the crater around 3:30 AM.  We were not cold climbing the mountain but once we stopped moving and without a tent to block the wind our temperatures quickly dropped. No one could sleep except for Advaita (who rubbed it in by snoring extra loud).  We made a five-person spoon to conserve body heat and tried our best to fall asleep. After the longest 2 hours of my life we decided that it was late enough to get up.

We walked to the edge of the crater and sat on the side of the mountain to watch the sunrise.  The view was spectacular.  It looked like the typical representation of heaven with the sunlight shining down onto the bed of clouds below us.  We saw a plane flying past and laughed because we were sitting higher than the plane was flying.  It was amazing.  Once the sun had come up and everyone ate breakfast we began our descent. We took it slow and actually followed the marked trail this time.  Going down, it was important to be extra careful of your footing…we all fell at least once. We got to the bottom by noon and took a taxi back to the campgrounds.  Showering has never felt so good.

If you are ever on Pico I recommend you also climb to the highest point in Portugal.  Even though it was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done it was also one of the most unforgettable and amazing experiences of my life.

To the fellowship: ROLLCALL!

Madeline: ONE

Advaita: TWO

Anya: THREE

Katrina: FOUR

Adriana: CINCO

Tomé: SEIS

Love always,

Anya Sophia Keithley

When the student becomes the teacher...

So let me tell you about the amazing Saturday I had J.  As I told you some of our students are adults.  I think it is really cool because adults don’t usually have easy access to learning like kids do. The kids here learn English in school, but it is a recent development and a lot of the adults here now want to improve their English skills but don’t have the opportunity. 

Anyways, Hugo is an environmental engineer and he is dating Ana who is a math professor.  They told us that because we were being so kind to them that they wanted to pay us back by taking us on a tour around the island.  IT WAS SO FUN! Hugo, Ana and Henrique showed up at 9:15 to pick us up for a full day tour of Terceira.  He had a big van from work that fit 9 people so off we went.  He started by driving along the coast; showing us picturesque views of Goat Island, and some of his favorite unexplored caves.  We went to Praia, Serra do Cume, Algar do Carvão, Furnas, Lagoa das Patas, the Biscoitos Beaches and the Wine Museum.  I can’t rightly explain these places with words so I will just post pictures of them below.  What I want to try to explain is how kind they were to us.  Hugo knows a lot about the different types of plants, animals and land formations so he was constantly explaining all of it to us as scientifically as he could in English.  Ana is so sweet.  She let us borrow rain jackets for Algar do Carvão, let us use her nice camera all day to take pictures, offered us water all the time and was just great company for the trip.  Henrique is cool too.  He enjoyed being the DJ for the car ride and played us tons of cool Portuguese music; it definitely livened up the van. 

I will tell you about three of my favorite moments from the day:

1) we were walking on the trail around the Furnas, admiring the steam that was billowing out of the holes in the fenced area.  It was clearly forbidden to go into that area and all of the sudden Hugo jumps the fence and starts walking toward the steam.  We were laughing because we were literally standing right next to a sign that said do not climb over the fence and sort of worried that some sort of park ranger would come out and yell at him.  We turn to Ana and she goes “The funny thing is, he put up that sign.” We figured well if he was the one to put up the “don’t jump over the fence” sign and he says it’s okay to jump the fence well then, it’s okay to jump the fence.

2) I jumped from a rock platform into 20 feet of cold, Atlantic water.  Another favorite part of the day was when I jumped for the first time; there is that thrilling feeling, a moment of uncertainty before you drop into ocean and it is absolutely exhilarating.

3) As we were driving away from the caves toward the wine museum we ran into a herd of cows crossing the road.  The roads are rather narrow so it is rather difficult for cows and a giant van to fit on the road at the same time.  The cows start walking toward the van and passing us in a semi-single file line.  Unfortunately they weren’t as thin as they thought they were and one of them ran right into the side of Hugo’s van.  We waited for the herd to finish passing then he got out to check the damage.  The farmer was coming up in a tractor behind the cows so Hugo said something to him as we passed, trying to explain to him how the cow bumped his van.  The farmer started to explain but before he could Hugo goes “ehh it’s no problem.” And that was that. We were joking that in America it would be “I’m going to sue your cow.” In England it would be “I’m sorry” “No, I’m sorry.” “No, I’m sorry”… but in the Azores it’s just “No problem.” LOL

After our day of tourism they dropped us back at our dorm so we could change and we met them and a group of 12 other students in the town square then walked to dinner. It was really great, Hugo organized the whole dinner and everyone chipped in to cover our meal.  We eat pretty cheap here most of the time so this was really a treat.  Not only was the food amazing but the people were too.  It was fun to hang out with everyone outside of the classroom and it was really touching to know that they all liked us enough and appreciated what we were doing enough to pay for our dinner.  Most amazing feeling ever J!  After dinner we went down to the beach with them and listened to a Brazilian band while drinking caipirinhas.

Love always,

Anya Sophia Keithley

 

Stir fry and Harry Potter-ahhh the comforts of home!

Last weekend we went to Sao Miguel.  It is the biggest of all the islands, a whopping 293 square miles!  We stayed at the University Dorms there for free…however the dorms there were not nearly as nice as ours here. We got there pretty late at night and honestly the horrible 1970’s architecture combined with the heavy metal doors that functioned to block all sunlight out of the room made the entire Residencia feel like an insane asylum.  But, then again it was free and it was only a few days so overall no regrets. Anyway, we saw Harry Potter 3-D at the only movie theater on the island, located in the only mall in the Azores.  We also went shopping and ate Asian food in the food court…I have never been so thankful for stir-fry rice in my whole life (it was a nice change).  There was also a Burger King and a McDonalds on the island.  It was interesting to see the Azorean additions to the McDonalds menu such as Caldo Verde (a popular vegetarian soup) and a seafood salad.

            There were 14 of us in the group that went and so we decided that the best way to explore the island would be to rent a car and half the group would get it the first day, then half the second day.  Saturday we did not have the car so we decided to try out the public bus to check out some of the island.  We hopped on a bus to Mosteiros and off we went.  We were on the bus, speeding up the windy roads, for maybe 10 minutes when everyone started to feel carsick.  No one really had any idea how long the ride would last but I was not going to be able to stomach the ride so rather than being miserable I chose to fall asleep (at the time it sounded like a wise decision.)  I woke up not knowing how much time had passed and as I lay there trying to get my bearings I realized that I could no longer see Katrina, who had been sleeping a couple rows up from me.  I also quickly realized that the bus was stationary and that no one was left on the bus except for the bus driver who was about to go on break and who was clearly unaware of my presence on his bus.  I quickly gathered my things and marched to the front of the bus, feeling 44% confused, 25% why the hell did my friends leave me on a bus in a foreign country and 31% survival mode.  I think the bus driver was a bit surprised to see me haha, from his point of view a small, confused American girl in a blue rain jacket had just popped out of nowhere and was asking for his assistance in broken Portuguese/English.  I managed to explain to him that I had fallen asleep and asked what stop my friends had gotten off at.  He sort of chuckled, in a “well this is a first” kind of way then pointed me in the direction of my friends and said 2 minutes…I said walking and he smiled and waved.  I said “obrigada,” hopped off the bus and began to run in the direction that he had pointed.  Things were looking up, but I still had no idea if they would still be near the stop or if they would just move on without me.  As I ran toward the town, I remembered that even though I hadn’t used my phone at all for the entire trip I could make international phone calls in the case of emergencies.  Fortunately, I had taken a picture of the Portuguese phone numbers of the people on the trip and quickly called my friend Meredith to find out where they were and where I was.  “Hello? ANYA OMG…guys I found her!”  She told me the name of the stop and that they were near a church with a wedding.  I told her to wait there and I would find them.  With the assistance of a few more helpful residents of Mosteiros and Rick Steve’s Portuguese phrase book, which I fortunately had in my purse, I was able to rejoin my friends.  So, that is the story of how I managed to get left on a bus in the Azores…don’t worry it was not an intentional thing and my friends apologized a lot.

            Anyway the next day we took the car and saw some really cool places.  My favorite was Furnas, where they cook food in the ground.  Because of the volcanic activity in the area there are literally BOILING pools of water.  I can’t even explain how cool it was to see natural boiling water and steam coming out of the ground.  Below you can see a picture of us crammed into a car, one of us in front of Lagoa do Fogo and another by Furnas.  It was a great weekend but I was also really glad to be back in Terceira.

Love always,

Anya Sophia Keithley

Smile, Breath and Go slowly. You are in the Azores

Hello Readers,
Sorry, it’s been a while. I hope you all enjoyed the video from last post (if you haven’t seen it yet…catch up!)

Weekend in Faial:

So last weekend I went to Faial, which is one of the other 8 islands.  It was a 7 hour ferry ride ONE WAY! Which is a little bid ridiculous considering on a clear day the island can be seen from here.  Anyway, we arrived close to midnight, walked to the three-bedroom apartment that we were renting and went to sleep haha (yeah exciting first day in Faial right?) Anyway the next day was really good: First, we went to the Caldeira, which was a giant crater in the center of the island from the extinct volcano that originally formed Faial.  The idea is to hike around the perimeter of the crater and it takes 3ish hours.  So we started to climb. We were literally in a cloud; you could feel the dense, cold mist that surrounded us and it was difficult to see more than thirty feet in front of us.  We got on the trail and climbed for say 35 minutes, then some people started getting cold…we hadn’t really seen too much of the crater at this point because the cloud was so dense, there was no cell reception, we were underdressed and the marked trail had vanished several minutes ago. It felt like we were in an episode of LOST.  We ran into some Germans who were hiking in the opposite direction and decided that the people who seriously wanted to hike the whole thing would go on but the more practical group would just go back with the Germans lol I turned back J On our walk back the clouds cleared up and we were able to see into the crater (please see the video below but don’t tell my friends aka the narrators that I posted it because they’d probably be embarrassed).  The crater was vast and mystical, like nothing I’d ever seen before.  But the adventure had only just begun; next Advaita, Katrina and I called a taxi to take us back to the port…the driver-Jose Manuel quickly became our favorite driver thus far.  Not only did he give us a discounted price on a ride back to the city but he also became our tour guide and photographer.  He drove us all around the island and when people called him to ask for rides he said, “Sorry I am giving three young ladies a tour of Faial” in Portuguese of course.  Other highlights of the trip were Peter’s Café, which is apparently “famous.”  I had broccoli and a tuna steak….it was AMAZING!  Also, on Sunday we went to Capelhino, a dormant volcano that erupted in 1957 and rather than ruining the island it actually made the island bigger.  Again see the pictures below…they could have filmed Star Wars here, it felt very odd.  And yes I was slightly worried that the volcano may erupt, as irrational as it sounds.  So that was Faial.  It felt a lot more modern and touristy than Terceira.

Other things:

Teaching is going really well.  We have two new students this week, which brings our total for beginners to 14 students, and the total for the program to 37 students!!! We have been drilling a lot of grammar but they keep working really hard and I can definitely see improvement with many of them  (YAY). Today I had them read a fable called The Ant and the Dove…moral of the fable is one good turn deserves another. 

This weekend we are going to Sao Miguel to see harry potter and the natural wonders.  It is a three and a half hour ferry ride but that is a small price to pay for Harry Potter 7 (part 2).  Ok that’s all I really have time to say, we have to be at an academic discussion at 9 and I need to brush up on my knowledge of the European union/ economic state of Portugal before we go.
Harry Potter- A look back
One more thing, I just read one of the advanced students essays on beauty and I want to include something from it: "It's like my mother says: 'We are all beautiful, because we all have amazing qualities and I know that there's always a person in the world who will love those qualities, we just need to wait...' So, I will wait :)" ~Alice  Ok yeah I just thought that was really wonderful haha.

Love always,

Anya Sophia Keithley

I am, You are, She is, He is, It is, We are, You are, They are...

Hello readers :)

So, today was our second day of real teaching.  Matt and I are in charge of the beginning group ages 13 to 44. There are three levels: beginner, intermediate and advanced.  Our students have had some exposure to English in their schools but many of them still don't have the basics down.  Yesterday we taught simple present (regular and irregular verbs) and family vocabulary. Today it was job vocabulary, days of the week, using the verb to be in simple present and deciding between a/an.  We play some games but most of the games are pretty simple right now like charades or Pictionary; we are constantly teaching them new vocab words today they ranged from “Mosquito” to “Musician.” We teach from 11-2 doing mostly grammar and speaking exercises, and then if they want to stay from 2-4 we play games, watch movies, listen to music and just talk at cafes so that they have a less formal place to practice conversation.  Teaching is a lot of work! Outside of the actual class we spend about three hours preparing for each day haha I’m really tired. BUT…OUR STUDENTS ARE AMAZING! In our section there are 11: Madalena, Joao, Joao, Mariana, Mariana, Raquel, Dolce, Carolina, Teresa, Clara, Miguel and Leonor.  The older Joao (17) is a spear-fisherman and scuba diver; he likes to collect shells and made each of us a decorated shell…it was adorable (see the picture).  It is interesting to be teaching some adults who you know are so much smarter than you in almost every other area.  We have a university professor who is 33 in our class and several students who are currently working on their masters or doctorate.  So far everyone has had a really great attitude and seem to really like us and appreciate what we are doing for them :) YAY!

Other than teaching, we went over to the Portuguese/American Airbase for the fourth but it really wasn’t that exciting and we ended up just going to a restaurant for drinks and burgers.  I am eating more meat than ever before mostly because there aren’t really vegetarian options.  When in Rome right? They have a lot of cows here so beef is on every menu…I kind of miss vegetables but it’s not a big deal.  We found this super cheap place for dinner and the lady is really nice. She gives you like twice as much food if you order it to-go aka “para levar” and she gives each person a bag of bread all for 2.50 €.  OK well that’s all for now. Watch the video below if you want to see some traditional Azorean culture…send me an email if you want to chat, it’s been working better recently :)

Love always,

Anya Sophia Keithley

More pictures

View from the top of Monte Brasil

Left to right: Me, Carissa, Katrina, Meredith....we are all teachers

This is our classroom!!

Well you probably can't read it but the small article in the top right hand corner is about us :)

Have folders, will teach!

Gosh I am sorry this blog post is going to be so long (if you stop reading somewhere in the middle I don’t really blame you lol). 

Ok the first thing I want to tell you about is the school!!!  My co-founder (Meredith) and I have been working since March to set up this Free English Course in the Azores.  They don’t have anything like it here and we were worried that there wouldn’t really be enough interested students for it to work.  We set up the registration process with a google doc, made promotional materials, worked with the local government to secure a free space and even had the local paper run two articles about the program.  In addition to creating the infrastructure we also created lesson plans, which will probably need to be modified now that we met the students.  But the idea that I am trying to communicate to you is that I have been waiting and planning for the first day of this course for a long time.  My roommate here even told me she heard me sleep talking about planning the syllabus the night before the first day of the course lol (apparently I plan in my sleep). 

The government here was generous enough to let us use a room at the Pavlihao Multiusos (which is sort of a gym, bowling alley, café and conference center all in one…. and I guess now also a school).  Anyway Friday was our first day, I was so excited to get there and see that the students had actually shown up.  I know that sounds weird but it’s just that feeling of something I created is actually going to work (it’s a great feeling.)  We wanted to use the first day to test everyone’s current ability so that we could divide them into smaller groups based on skill level.  The diagnostic test consisted of a reading, writing and speaking session.  I was in charge of doing one-on-one interviews with each student to get an idea of their fluency, vocabulary…it was great because in doing so I also go to know each of them.  After all the testing we gave them a lunch break and told them to come back at 2:00.  It was 1:56 and still no students had returned to the room AHHH I was so worried that no one was going to come back LOL.  Fortunately, by 2:05 all 30 students did in fact come back to the classroom YAY! No quitters yet haha we were excited! After Friday I felt a lot more at ease and excited about our whole project here.  The students seem really nice, interesting and motivated.  A lot of them have really big dreams: one wants to be an artist, many want to be doctors, another wants to be a journalist.  I honestly am so excited for everyday I get to teach!

I will at least mention the other stuff I’ve been doing here:  We saw an old castle called Forte de Sao Sebastiao, then this afternoon we went on a three hour hike to the top of Monte Brasil (panoramic shots will be uploaded by tomorrow.) It was incredible! If anyone needs a good location for a yoga studio or some sort of zen meditation place I highly recommend the summit of Monte Brasil…then again I could probably make a killing off of a vending machine too because we were exhausted.  Now we are going to get some dinner and have a night in, tomorrow we are going to the only Southern Baptist church in probably all of the azores, planning lessons and visiting the other two “major” cities.  I will try to blog more frequently and with fewer words haha.  

Some other great things to be mentioned: 

*  Ice cream shots - they taste just like strawberry ice cream and they were free

*  It finally rained once so I got to wear my new rain jacket!

*  "Eu gostaria um meia de leite"that is how I order my coffee, it is delicious!

Congratulations, if you read the entire blog (if you leave me a comment then you get a souvenir as your prize!)

Love always,

Anya Sophia Keithley