ONE: Flávia Bunn

Flávia Bunn

A challenge I overcame: I lost the fear of being honest with others and with myself.

A dream for my future: To travel with my family.

A hope for the global community: To rethink priorities.

What a beautiful person and fantastic Portuguese teacher Flávia is! As well as teaching Flávia proofreads and enjoys researching language, so she was able to share with us some really fascinating observations about where Portuguese words originate from, including one particularly interesting discussion about how ‘natureza’ (nature) is the opposite ‘cultura’ (culture) reflecting perhaps the very Occidental view of  ‘development’ as always being lineal and moving further and further towards technology and away from nature.  A view that sets up the prejudice that any communities living in direct contact and in tune with nature are somehow ‘backwards’. 

This Nature-Culture chat was triggered by an article in Scientific America written about the origins of human creativity, which new evidence suggests was much earlier than previously thought.  The article was interesting but definitely written in the tone of development always being forwards, away from a life connected with the natural, leading us to talk about the nature-technology writings of Carl Jung in his book Earth Has a Soul and reminding me of this article about deconstructionism in relation to writing that spoke of Plato’s theories that the act of writing damaged the human ability to recall and recount stories orally. Flávia spoke of a writer she was also reading, Slavoj Zizek, whose book "Sujeito Incomodo' (Uncomfortable Subject) discussed how our increasing use of devices is also dramatically changing human mental function, ability and memory, giving the example of using cameras to take photos as placing our visual memory and enjoyment in an external object (we folk who take photos all the time then, I wonder what does that mean/ say about our way of being in contact with the world?!)

Other interesting language observations that point to the character of Brazilians is that the words ‘sim’ and ‘não’ would very rarely be used by a Brazilian in reply to a question, because to say simply ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in reply would apparently seem far too curt and abrupt, the more common way to reply is repeating the verb used either affirmitavely or not, so:

“Isso é o sua caneta?” “É” 

(Is this your pen? / It is)

Would be far more commonly heard than if the answer were ‘sim’.  This is still something I’m trying to get used to – I’m used to hearing it now, but never seem to remember to use it – I wonder do I sound like I’m being very abrupt or if I just sound very European?!

With the girls... 

Flávia, Brook and I studying Portuguese in the Nature Park!!

Flávia is also Mum to a 7-year old daughter, so I am hugely impressed at her calm handling of her busy schedule and her never-ending patience with we students throughout our three weeks of intensive morning grammar sessions– the first week one-to-one and the second with the lovely Brook!  This was our final day of classes when we had a variation on the classroom setting and enjoyed muffins on our break and went creature-spotting in the local nature park.

Flávia, muito muito obrigada para todo, essas aulas foram fantásticos, te agradeço muito para todo me ensinou.  Espero que você e o seu marido tenham umas ferias relaxantes e estimulantes no Europa, e particularmente em Londres! 

Um abraço

:-)