My first visit the very opposite side of the globe: Brazil

I participated in the 5th Urban Sketching Symposium in Paraty, Brazil. Without this event, I wouldn’t have visited this county as first South American nation to visit, especially concerning the distance and the language matter… But I’m so glad I did! Brazilians are friendly, kind, down to earth and a bit shay people (as far as I experienced during my stay there). I often heard them saying “I’m sorry, my English isn’t good.” This sentiment is often seen among we Japanese as well. We want to communicate, and help foreign visitors, but our linguistic skill is limited since we Japanese hardly use English in our everyday life. In this point, I felt sense of closeness. One day I enjoyed communicating with the hotel manager in Paraty. The story is, I was going to check out early in the morning the next day and will have no time to have breakfast, so I asked him if I could bring some bread as packed lunch instead of having breakfast there. I wrote message in English and he read it then he wrote back his message in Portuguese in his computer, then translated the sentences into English using google translation. He and the hotel staff were very kind that they prepared for me some sandwiches, yogurt, cheese, some oranges, and something more full of plastic bags! I was able to do with these food for the morning, the afternoon and the evening meal of that day. That’s the way how we communicated. One of my fun memories. How much I loved and enjoyed my stay in that hotel! Talking about symposium, there were so many people came from around the world, and many of them ( including me)are not native English speakers but we strived to communicate, tried to understand and helped each other. I felt that’s wonderful part of this unique gathering. We learned each other like small children do from seeing/showing, hearing/talking through firsthand experience.

I appreciated a Brazilian girl, Bi, helped me by interpreting Portuguese into English and English into Portuguese while I’m attending Brazilian artist Carlos Avelino’s demo as well as while I was doing my demo. Muito obrigada! I think I should have studied more expressions in Portuguese. Well till next time. I had so much fun time from this trip. I thank all the people who put their effort to made this wonderful event happen, those who I met, and helped me in many ways, and all the luck I had. I feel blessed.

Casa da Cultura de Paraty

My first demo：D2 Sketching straight to watercolor result

My second demo：D2 Sketching straight to watercolor result

My demo scene captured by Béliza Mendes. I really love this! Thanks!!