My love affair with Manaus

I somehow knew, even before I received notification that I'd be teaching in Manaus, that that is where I was going to spend one year of my life while teaching EFL in Brazil.

I first went to Manaus in 2004 after being accepted into a program that allowed me to work as an intern teaching English at a language school. I was "hired" by a Brazilian NGO called IICA  (Instituto de Intercậmbios e Cultura Americana) that placed me in a very well known Brazilian school called Fisk. The school teaches English and Spanish; there are schools ALL over the country - and even in the movie that I love, "Bossa Nova". The particular school that I worked at is a franchise and the owner (my boss) frequently requests native English speakers to work at his schools in Manaus and in the nearby town Itacoitiara. In fact, there had been Americans working at his schools in the past, there were two while I was there, and there were more after my time. It's a great opportunity for both the American teachers and Brazilian students. It is truly an exchange program.

I worked in Manaus for a year. It was one of the best years of my short life. I had been to Brazil before, and I had volunteered in ESL classes in the United States, but this was a unique chance for me to really experience Brazil, learn the language (one of my goals for going to Brazil in the first place), learn more about teaching English, and spend more time in South America, the continent that I love.

There is not enough space here for me to describe why my year in Manaus was so unforgettable and just down right amazing (for lack of a better word) and I'm afraid to start and leave anything out. I'm sure that one of the best reasons was that that is where I met my husband, my love, E. (There is a post about him on this blog somewhere). But it's more than that. Manaus has so much to offer - a wide array of tastes and smells, of welcoming and wonderful people, culture, nature, contrasts, heat....

I fell in love in Manaus and at the same time with Manaus. I miss everything about the city and so much about the life I lived there. I miss what I did while in Manaus, I miss my job, my students, my friends, my trips, the Amazon River and forest, the neighborhoods I lived in, the places I frequented, the parties..... The city, and all that it encompasses, will always have a special, sweet place in my heart.

There will be another time when I will be able to find the words to describe in more detail my love affair with Manaus.