Experience: Jacob Jansen, Florianopolis, Brazil

After first travelling around South America for 1.5 month with two friends I finally reached my destination for the next 3.5 months, Florianopolis in Brazil. After meeting with my buddy I went to meet some of his friends with whom I stayed for a couple of days. Next to that I was placed in my Brazilian host family who were lovely along the whole way. Very welcoming, we went out for dinners, they spoke decent English and I had a room with a view on the ocean. I stayed there for the whole period that I was doing my internship. After first taking one week of Portuguese classes, very important to feel at home in a country, I had my first day of work. Unfortunately I would not work in HR with the director, which was agreed upon, but in the field. I worked in a favela with children that were offered activities to stay out of the hands of drug traffickers. Basically I helped out with different kinds of activities, I could do whatever I wanted as Brazilians were very relaxed and just loved the fact that I was present at all, but most of the time I played soccer with young children who terribly good at this sport. At the same time I started to get to know more and more people and actually met my girlfriend in Brazil. I was also hanging out with other people from AIESEC that I met during one of the first dinners there, of which there were plenty in Florianopolis. Again, if you’re going on an internship, get out and get going rather than waiting and expecting that people will be interested to meet up with you. With them and with many others, Brazilians love to show you their country, I experienced many things for the first time. I went hang-gliding, sand boarding, swimming with penguins, surfing, and many things more. Aside to doing things for the first time I really tried to integrate with Brazilians. As a result I joined dancing classes (samba), was the only foreigner during the Saturday morning soccer game, became an English teacher through which I met many Brazilians, and of course repeatedly met the family of my Brazilian girlfriend. This gave me lots of insight into how Brazilians stand in life, and basically I would like to see that they see (almost) everything with short-term goggles on. Friendships, meeting on time, risks in life and traffic, and lots more. At first I loved it but then I started to see that this can also have downsides and could see how nice and organized our lives in the Western world are. Eventually I prolonged my stay up to 5 months because I liked it so much over there, and now I am bound to Brazil of course. This stay has really learned me how to have a healthier work-life balance, different views on cultures, that I can trust on myself, and that good preparation with explicitly conscious decisions (why do I want to go to Brazil? Why would it suit me? What can I learn here? Questions of that sort) are extremely important. Rather than making it an experience, make it your best experience.
Please feel free to contact me, I would love to make you enthusiastic about such a stay in Brazil, it has given me a lot and hopefully it can do the same to you!