Speaking Next
9/26 Club members Craft Talks
10/3 Frank Schuler…Art Trails Sculptor
Forrest leads the flag pledge.
Thought for the Day from Debra Matteri:
“May your walls know joy, may every room hold laughter; And every window open to great possibility.”
- Mary Anne Radmacher.
PVR guests:
Jim Becker, Edward Jones, Petaluma Rotary
Matt Carter, Veterinarian, Central Animal Hospital
Ed Fullerton, Rotary District Governor
Paul Behringer, Forrest’s son-in-law
Christine Leonard, Farrollon Insurance
Grazziano Prozzi, restauranteur
Pedro Morais, Brazil exchange student
Grant Livinston, exchange student
Tina Ridgeway, Grant’s mom
Sherry Burwen, Petaluma Club, education
Announcements:
9/24 Oktoberfest meeting 5:30p, Jim Furuli's house.
9/27 SCARC, Thursday nite, 6pm, we are hosting.
10/9 With Marin club, meeting on joint Community Rotaract Club formation.
Date? SSU Rotaract club meeting, this Monday, gym wing, staff room PE 15 or PE 16.
Ed
Fullerton announces that Sebastopol club member John Blount was
selected for 2009-20011 RI Director! Congrats! This the
first successful RID candidate from District 5130.
Fines
Sue Hussey celebrates her 5-0, Happy BD Sue!
Connie gives thanks and $50 to Sue and Walt’s grandson Ray, celebrating Connie’s birthday. Thanks Connie!
Connie celebrates her anniversary club of 13 years!
Russell
shows postcards he received from Sally’s traveling gavel which has been
recently in Rome and Venice. $5 fine for losing it, Sally.
Moe returns from Italy and Switzerland and gives a beautiful scarf to Sally.
Russell,
our resident grape harvester, had his wine served at a Google
vice-president’s wedding recently. Do a search under “Rice Wine”
and you will see him at the top of the list.
Sheila’s Gardner went to Philadelphia to buy another airplane and came up empty handed. Sheila quietly celebrates.
Tricia
thanks us for selling Oktoberfest tickets as well as an upcoming trip
to Austin, Texas to see granddaughter. She plans to go to a
Rotary meeting there. Let us know if things Rotary are bigger in
Texas, Pat.
Lane asks- were do we give money for Oktoberfest ticket sales. Giv
e to Julie Restad please.
Jim
Furuli gives Sally a can of moose droppings, celebrating his recent
camping trip to Colorado. You didn’t actually buy that did you
Jim?
Raffle:
Today: $117 pot, Pedro draws and Jim Becker picks, alas no luck.
Speaker:
Grant Livingston
Youth Rotary Exchange Student to Brazil
My Year in Nataal, Brazi
l
Grant,
who is going to UC Santa Cruz next year, Grant describes his year in
the Brazilian city of Nataal (which means Christmas). Grant found
out in November that he was going to Nataal, a city in northeastern
Brazil when he was a junior in Petaluma High. His preparations
for the trip was chaotic because he was also president of the
environment club, on the swim team, and was attending classes at
SRJC. He took summer school and almost finished his high
school credits at the end of that year, taking a course in Portuguese
as well.
He started the exchange in August, meeting his host
family who unfortunately spoke northern Portuguese which was not like
the southern Portuguese he was studying. Perservering, Grant
became fluent in southern language after six months. He boarded
with four host families which were part of a whole related family
group. Grant then showed slides of his year.
Slides
were of one of his bedrooms, the third host family’s house on beach
(his room was thirteen steps from the beach allowing him easy access to
morning surfing), two of host dad’s were part-time alcoholics (he was
offered beer on way to first house). The extended family had three
houses: a beach, a city, and a summer house. Houses were made of
wood frame only with no insulation or no screens on windows allowing
access to really big toads, bats, and cockroaches. The beaches
were very crowded on holidays. The family unit is really
important in Brazil and they treated him like family.He had slides of
cashew nuts and a coconut farm with red colored dirt.
There is a forest park within the city which he hiked- to hike there
you needed permits and a police escort! Other fun things he did:
Brazilians have jump concerts, with bands playing on semi-trucks
flatbeds, and he rode on dune buggies on the beach.
He and seventy other Rotary exchange students got together for a ten
day trip to Amazon rain forrest, seeing the main capital city, fish,
and papaya plants. They stayed at a five star hotel and in
cottages (which were very noisy at night due to nocturnal
animals). Parts of the Amazon water was orange looking because of
acidic due to plant breakdown. They ventured in small boats while
sleeping on a main larger boat. Grant got to pet an anaconda and
see happy looking sloths, water lilies, tribal houses on stilts,
traditional tapioca breakfast pancakes, and pink dolphins. On a
motorcycle tour, he visited Indian tribes, a Indian medicine woman, and
see crocodiles.
One family he lived with was an
older couple. In their barren center courtyard, Grant started a
vegetable garden with tomatoes, dell peppers, cilantro. In
gratitude, this host couple thanked him and wished to maintain that
garden after his departure. At another host family apartment
tower in the city, Grant got a dozen similar aged kids to hang out in
the lobby together playing cards and other games.
Grant also had a chance to eat rubbery raw oysters, visit a nature
preserve and see huge ants with fangs and white crabs, go horse riding,
drink milk from a cow udder, go to Carnival, go in a political
car caravan, and visit a salt pile made from ocean water as well
as a very tall lighthouse.
There
were nine Rotary exchange students in Nataal including a few other
Californians. Overall, Grant thought that Nataal was a very dirty
city by western standards, made so by the lack of sanitary customs of
its inhabitants. For example, he picked up a foot fungus
infection in the dirty water along the beach (treated by a host family
member who was a doctor). There was lots of litter
everywhere. He enjoyed going to Rotary clubs meetings every week
since they were at five star hotels and great meals. He went to Mass a
lot with family, practicing his Portuguese reading skills on that
session’s program. In Brazil, the students stay in the same class
and the teachers change rooms so in the intermission the kids go
crazy!
The classroom themselves have no decorations and were a bland environment compared to schools here.
Grant thanked us again for exchange opportunity from all of us
Rotarians. Hearing about his visit and comparing him to visit to
us prior to his trip, he has matured and been enriched in very many
ways from his Rotary exchange experience.
Grant’s
efforts especially with the garden for the older couple as well
as bringing together friends in the apartment tower shows a true
Rotarian spirit. He thanks us but I think we should thank him for
letting us help him develop that spirit. Good luck at UC Santa Cruz,
Grant!
