Back in the USA

I haven't finished the part about Chapada Diamantina and I also have to regale you with tales of my last week in Brasil, but for now you can see some of my thoughts on returning to the US.


Well, now I’m back in Santa Cruz, where it’s cold and everyone speaks English. I’m glad to be home, but at the same time I’m devastated to not be in Brasil - I loved it, and I was not at all ready to leave. I don’t like feeling so ambivalent, because I’m not used to it - I usually like something or I don’t, and when I’m home for the holidays or summer I’m usually ready to be here because I was getting tired of being in school. However, this year school was in Brasil, which is way better than San Francisco, or at least way newer and way less accessible on a regular basis. That was one of the hardest parts about leaving - I want to go back someday, but I don’t know when and going to Brasil is a lot more work (and more expensive) than going to San Francisco, so I don’t have the guarantee that I’ll be able to return when I want to. I also made a lot of new friends my last weeks there, and the friends I’d made earlier were just starting to get closer, and now that I’ve left the country and I’m bad at keeping in touch, I doubt I’ll stay in contact with many of them for long, which is really sad because I liked them. These last couple of days I’ve been trying to think of all the great things about Santa Cruz to make being out of Brasil easier, and here’s the list I’ve come up with:

Santa Cruz is way more environmentally friendly than Brasil (people don’t use 25 plastic grocery bags for their 25 bottles of water, they use two reusable cloth bags for their organic veggies and drink tap water);
Santa Cruz has New Leaf and Food Bin and other organic/natural/hippie stores, which I definitely missed in Brasil;
Santa Cruz has Mexican food and cheese that has a flavor;
Santa Cruz has the daycare kids and my mom and the rest of my family, all of whom missed me and who I didn’t realize I missed as much as I did until I got back here;
the toilet paper is softer, as are my clothes after they spend some time in the dryer with dryer sheets, and both of these things are unarguably better soft;
I never have any trouble understanding what people are saying here, and they understand me;
and when I’m in Santa Cruz I never have to go to class.

However, there are a lot of things I liked better in Belo Horizonte, for example:

the fruit, like açai, maracujá, and jabuticaba;
the music and night life;
the weather (it’s freezing here, my toes still haven’t thawed completely);
kissing people when I greeted them, even when meeting for the first time;
the price of food, clothing, and capoeira class;
the language;
and the cultural norm of friendliness and openness to new people.

I know I’ll go back to Brasil someday, but that it will realistically be at least a year and a half before I get there, and maybe even more, and that’s a long time to wait. I went to a capoeira class today, which was really different from class in Brasil, but it was still capoeira and I loved it and it was a little piece of Brasil. I miss Belo Horizonte a lot, but I think having capoeira here will help fill the void a little. I was thinking about why capoeira class is different here, and I’ve come up with a couple of big things. First of all, the class has more people here, which means less attention from the teacher, which is fine but it’s different. Also, here everyone does the same thing - in Brasil, Cris would have a couple of students practice one thing, some people just learning, and the rest of the class doing something else. Here it’s odd because there are people like me who are very new to capoeira and people who have been at it for 10 years, all learning the same stuff, most of which I think is more at their level than mine. Another big difference, which I think is really interesting from a cultural perspective, is the focus of the classes. In Brasil, the focus was learning and polishing the basic golpes and esquivas (kicks and dodges), and venturing a little into floreas, which is the general term for the fancy stuff, like flips, handstands, and moves that knock down your opponent. We also spent time learning about the history of capoeira and the last month we devoted to learning the 8 sequences that Mestre Bimba, the creator of capoeira regional, used to teach his students the basics. From what I can tell in the US, however, the focus is much more on floreas - watching my new classmates in the roda at the end of every class, they spend most of the time doing tricks and not much time at all kicking, like I’m used to. I haven’t participated in the end of class roda yet, because I only know two tricks and don’t do them that well. Another roda difference is that in Brasil, two people almost always entered the roda together, with people only occasionally cutting in, while here only the first pair enter together - after that, everyone cuts in. I don’t like this as much because I’ve never cut in before and am not sure how long to wait before trying to enter, and I also don’t love the surprise of who my second partner will be. These differences aren’t necessarily bad, just, well, different, and I’m in general very resistant to change. I’m trying to work on this, but I think it’s a pretty common thing, to be attatched to what’s familiar and wary of what’s new and untried.

A little walk...

Hi friends!

First of all, here are some photo links for those of you who are not my facebook friends:

http://usfca.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2043745&l=22500&id=7103173

and

http://usfca.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2044094&l=69430&id=7103173

and these are the Thanksgiving pictures:

http://usfca.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2044095&l=dd36e&id=7103173

Thanksgiving went really well, there was a fun group of celebrants and we made turkey hand drawings and went around and said what we were thankful for and ate a lot. Afterwards we were maybe going to go to a forró but that didn't happen because everyone was incapacitated by the traditional Thanksgiving Food Coma and no one was in the mood to get jiggy with it.

All last week we didn't have capoeira because our teacher was in Salvador for a big capoeira event, and that worked out really well because I spent a lot of time looking for Thanksgiving ingredients and cooking. However, by Saturday I was feeling rather sedentary and like I'd gone a week without working out and had had Thanksgiving besides, so I decided to go for a little walk around Lake Pampulha, which is probably 6 or 8 blocks from my house.

It's a big Belo Horizonte landmark and I hadn't been yet, so I figured I should explore it a little before I left, and seeing how as I lived so close I didn't really have a good excuse for not going. So, I put on my sneakers and set out for what I thought would be probably about an hour of walking. Well, turns out the lake is a little bigger than I thought. I walked for quite a while, and then decided to try running to make it go faster, and then got tired of running, so I walked some more, and then got bored of walking and ran some more... About 2 hours into it, I happened upon a fruit stand and bought myself half a pineapple to munch on, which made me feel better (did I mention that I left the house about 11:45, having only eaten a light yogurt for breakfast?). However, the sugar high from the pineapple wore off after not too long and I started getting really done with walking and running. The thing is, I didn't know how big around the lake was and I didn't want to turn back because I hoped that I'd already gone around more than half of it and that it would be quicker to just keep going. So on I trudged.

Every hundred meters all around the lake there is a little post that tells you how many meters you've gone. The place I started was 5.200 meters, which maybe should have given me a clue that this was kind of a large lake... but anyway, I started noticing that the reverse sides of the posts were approaching 0 (there are different numbers on each side, so that no matter which direction around the lake you are walking, the meters count up). This was sort of exciting - in only 600 meters, something was going to happen! When I reached the post that should have said 0 on the other side, it was at a giant sign that said "O," which I'm assuming is for "origin" and this post informed me that all the way around the lake is 18.300 meters, also known as just over 18 km or about 11 miles. Yeah. Had I known this before starting, I would not have tried to walk all the way around, but I guess ignorance is bliss/really sore legs. This also meant that there were only 5.200 meters left until I could leave the stinkin lake and start walking back to my house. Those last 5 km were hard, but at least I had something to look forward to. I finally got home just before 4pm. First, I took off my shoes and took a little rest in front of my fan. Then, I ate a whole bunch, and then I showered and took a nap. Now it's Monday and my legs still hurt, but at least I have seen all that Lake Pampulha has to offer, which is more than a lot of Brazilians can say!

Saturday night was my Portuguese professor Henrique's birthday party, so we all went out to a club and danced and made merry. I got home Sunday morning about 4:30, slept until noon, and then got to work on my papers.

In the approximately 3 weeks I have left in beautiful Brasil, I have three papers to write and a test to take. One of the papers is partially done, one of them is a group project and my group is really smart so that's good, but the other one I'm doing by myself and I just figured out that I'm sort of behind on the reading for that class, so I've been rushing to read and write as much and as quickly as I can. I'll get it all done, I always do, but it's just sort of stressful right now. Oh, and did I mention that two of the papers and the test are due/happening within two days of each other? I'm going to work really hard this week, so that hopefully all I'm doing the night before everything is due is proofreading. That would be nice...

Enjoy the photos, and I'll see you later!

Loooooong time no see!

Hi everybody!

so, i haven't finished writing about chapada diamantina, and i haven't even started buenos aires, but, surprise surprise, end of the semester in brazil is just as hectic as end of the semester in the us, so i've come to terms with the fact that i will not have time to write about those amazing experiences until i am back in the us, where the homework and papers and tests can't find me. until then, i figured it would be nice to drop in here every now and then to let you know what i'm up to.

first of all: happy thanksgiving everybody! none of you lucky ducks have work or school today so you can spend the whole day prepping your amazing thanksgiving feasts - i, on the other hand, started prepping my amazing thanksgiving feast on monday because there's no way one person who has class and homework can do everything in just one day. i cut up bread in tiny pieces and set them out to get stale for stuffing, which i'm going to start cooking when i finish writing this, and they are nice and hard so i'm happy about that. now i will relate the saga of the pumpkin pie.

so, as some of you may know, pumpkin pie is my favorite thanksgiving food of all time. it really makes the holiday for me and i love it with all my heart. naturally, when i was planning my brazilian thanksgiving extravaganza, a pumpkin pie was an integral part of that. i started researching recipes online in october, and found one i liked at http://www.pumpkinpatchesandmore.org/pumpkinpie.php with detailed instructions and lots of pictures. they don't have jack-o-lantern pumpkins in brazil, but they do have cooking pumpkins, and my family had one they said i could use, so the hard part was already done for me. or so i thought. turns out no one uses allspice here (or thyme or celery seeds, which i need for my stuffing). supermarket doesn't have them, my host mom doesn't have them - but without them, thanksgiving doesn't taste right. luckily, claudia (my host mom, for those of you who've forgotten) had the bright idea of checking at the mercado central, they have everything there. luckily, she was right, and i found all my spices without a problem. honestly, anything you think you could want in belo horizonte - beer, a fancy dress, a haircut, an entire dead pig, thyme, a puppy - it's all at the mercado central.

ok - pumpkin? check. spices? check. other ingredients? check. oh wait. what's evaporated milk? didn't see that on the bottom of the list... claudia swore up one side and down the other that it must be condensed milk, but i was still skeptical. in brazil, the condensed milk aisle of the supermarket resembles, in variety and size, the canned soup aisle in the us. and they don't have canned soup here. moral of the story - brazilians eat condensed milk like there's no tomorrow, so claudia's certainty that that's what the recipe called for was founded, but in the end, erroneous. i did some more internet research, and found out that evaporated milk is, just like it sounds, milk without 60% of the water, unsweetened. in the us, you can buy it in a can, but in brazil? oh no. that would be much too easy. so i kept reading online and found out that you can make your own evaporated milk, by heating it on the stovetop on really low heat so it doesn't boil and coagulate. ok, that's not so hard. or so i thought. but i'll get back to that in a minute.

wednesdays i have class until 1 or so, and then i usually have lunch with an assorted bunch of foreigners. however, yesterday i deemed it prudent to skip lunch, which usually extends into the mid-afternoon, in order to go home and make my pie, which, let me tell you, was a really good idea. i got home, ate a quick lunch, and got to work on my pumpkin pie. i prepped the pumpkin and stuck it in the microwave for 15 minutes, and then started to evaporate the milk. should you ever find yourself making a pumpkin pie in brazil and evaporating your own milk, here's a tip for you: hire an unsuspecting neighborhood child to be your milk evaporator, because it involves stirring simmering milk for hours and hours. it took me quite a while to figure out that i could not just let the milk sit there by itself - oh no, if you want it to steam you have to stir it. constantly.

my microwaved pumpkin was great, then i pureed it and that was also great, then i put in the spices and the sugar and it tasted just right, and then i stirred the milk some more. after about half an hour of stirring milk, i remembered i had class, so i did a quick cleanup, threw everything in the fridge, and hiked off to ufmg. i got home at 9:15, ate a quick dinner, and started evaporating milk again. when it was finally ready (about 10pm), i started mixing the milk into my pumpkin and spice goo. i mixed and mixed, but it started getting really soupy, so i didn't add all the milk, which i think was a good idea. i poured the pumpkin liquid into my lovely homemade crust (which i rolling pinned inside a large ziploc baggie, how smart am i?) and stuck it all in the oven.

oh yeah, and did i mention i inadvertently almost exploded the maid? yeah. oops. i didn't realize that the oven, like the stovetop, was a gas thing with a flame, so i thought i was preheating it when in fact i was just releasing gas into the oven. i asked zelia, the maid, to help me turn the oven on because i noticed it wasn't getting hot, and she opened it up and pushed the fire button. luckily, no one was hurt and we both have our eyebrows still, but a nice large fireball came shooting out of the oven at us, and now i know how it works and won't make that mistake again.

so, i left my pie slosh to cook for the hour that was suggested in the recipe, but when i went to check on it, it was pudding consistency, not pie consistency. at this point it was 11:15 and i had to go to bed, so i called my mother, who suggested turning the oven off but leaving the pie in there to hopefully evaporate some more of the liquid in the warmth overnight, and that's what i did. i went down to my room, and as i was getting changed for bed, realized i didn't have any more clean underwear. zelia washes all of our clothes except the underwear, which is each family member's responsibility, and i tend to leave mine to the last minute to wash, which is what happened this time. i didn't want to wear dirty underwear or go without, so, at 11:45 last night, i had a little laundry party. by the time everything was clean and hung up on the line to dry it was 12:40, and i decided that my class at 7:30 was not something that i really had to be at. plus, i still wouldn't have any underwear. so, i texted marlieke and asked her to get my paper for me, if the teacher gave it back, and i went to bed.

i woke up this morning about 9:30, refreshed from my night of sleep, and tentatively and with fear in my heart crept upstairs to see my pie soup. i opened up the oven, and, much to my surprise, i was greeted by a real live, firm, normal-looking, pumpkin pie! the only explanation i can think of is that my pie was visited by the thanksgiving fairy while i was sleeping, but i'm not going to overanalyze - the point is, my pie is perfect and now i have to go make the stuffing.

happy thanksgiving everyone!

Chapada photos

Here are the links, folks! I have ton more pictures that aren´t on facebook if you want to see them when I get back to the US, but this is all you get for now :)

http://usfca.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2040974&l=6a938&id=7103173

http://usfca.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2040979&l=8bc09&id=7103173

http://usfca.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2040984&l=0c31a&id=7103173

http://usfca.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2040990&l=729f5&id=7103173

i promise i´ll finish writing about all this soon, but i have a test wednesday that i should probably study for, and friday i go to buenos aires, so we´ll see...

The Happiest Place on Earth (and no, it´s not Disneyland)

Well, here I am in the internet cafe in the bus station of Feira de Santana again. Since I still have two hours until my bus to BH gets here, I figured I´d blog.

First of all, I almost missed the bus from BH to F de S last Friday because Carolina wrote me a note Friday morning saying she´d give me a ride to the bus station. Fine. I went to capoeira, packed my bags, and waited for her to show up. About 5:30, Claudia and Zé came home, and Bia came home shortly after. At 6:15, Claudia asked me what time my bus was leaving, and I told her 7. She called Carolina, who was at UFMG, and who, as it turns out, was convinced that my bus left at 8. She hurried home, grabbed a bag of clothes (she was going to a party in the center but didn´t have time to shower and change because of my bus) and we rushed out to sit in traffic for 20 minutes. When we got close to the bus station, she parked illegally kind of in an intersection and we ran the rest of the way to my bus. We had plenty of time, as it turns out - I arrived at the bus at 6:55 but we didn´t leave until 7:15 because someone on the bus appeared to be moving to Salvador or something - they had a ton of stuff and it took awhile to get it all in the underbelly of the bus.

Now, to skip forward to Saturday night in F de S after my blog post about it - after the internet cafe closed, the bus station started to get a little sketchy. Almost all of the normal-looking people got on busses, and the bus station emptied out except for me and a handful of people who looked really ill and like they hadn´t showered in a couple of years and like they were not waiting to travel, but rather hunkering down for the night. There´s a restaurant/snack bar thing sort of attached to the main waiting area, and there were a couple of people in there and two employees and TV, so I decided that looked like a safer and healthier place to wait for my bus. While I was in there, I got to talking to three men, two of them named José and the other one named João. One of the José´s was really old and looked vaguely Italian, the other one was probably in his early thirties, and João was maybe 50. João started the conversation, and when he found out I was American, he almost had a heart attack. He gushed on and on about what a great country the US was, and how he was so excited to meet me and that I was the first American he´d met, and I was so lucky to come from such a great country, and wasn´t it wonderful how we´d saved the day in both of the world wars... It was really awkward, because I don´t share his opinion and I was trying to tell him that the US wasn´t all it´s cracked up to be and that war isn´t everything and that Brazil is pretty great too, but he´d have none of it. The young José started talking about how he didn´t agree with the US involvement in Iraq, and I tried to agree with him, but João was really mad that we were criticizing his favorite country so we shut up. Also, he was kind of drowning us out with his pro-American banter. I ate some fried dough balls with fish inside, which were better than they sound, and then I said goodbye to my buddies and got on my bus. If you ever find yourself in the bus station in F de S at midnight, I would highly suggest staking out a spot in the restaurant, it felt a lot safer than the general waiting area.

My bus ride to Lençóis was uneventful, I think I slept most of the way there, and when I arrived at 5AM I was greeted by Arnaldo, one of the town´s many tour guides. He brought me to Pousada da Rita and promised to come back that afternoon to tell me all about the great places he could take me. Rita, the pousada owner, told me that there was one other person staying there and that he was having breakfast at 9, and how did that sound to me? I said it was fine, and went to sleep for a couple of hours. After waking up and showering, I went to eat breakfast and met my pousada-mate, whose name I don´t remember. What I do remember is that he was Italian and he had a fever and went back to sleep after he ate. When I finished eating Arnaldo came back and tried to get me to go on a three-day trek with him. I considered it, but then decided that sleeping in a cave and bathing in a river and pooping in a hole and carrying all the food I was going to eat for three days didn´t sound that great. He told me that he had a group of people going on a short hike to some waterfalls nearby later that afternoon, so I agreed to do that with him. I took a walk around town, had some açai, and then headed back to the pousada.

Arnaldo showed up at 2 but I wasn´t quite ready to go. I asked him who else was coming with us, and he said there were some Germans but they were moving in to their pousada, and that he´d come back for me in 20 minutes. He came back, and we started off through town. I asked him about the Germans again, and he said they were in town getting their things in order. I assumed that we´d be going by their pousada to pick them up, but pretty soon we left town and started walking on a little trail and I deduced that the Germans were not coming. If I´d known it would be just the two of us I don´t think I would have gone, but I didn´t know and I didn´t want to make a fuss, so off we went into the wild green yonder.

The hike was nice, we visited Rio do Serrano, Cachoeirinha, Salão de Areias, and Cachoeira da Primavera (in Portuguese, cachoeira is waterfall, in case you were wondering). There were other people out on the trails, but it was still a little odd, just the two of us.

When we got back, I showered again, to get the waterfall microbes off of me, and then walked around in search of dinner. I ended up eating at this Arabic/Italian/Greek restaurant. I had something that the English version of the menu called "Pizza with Cronchy Dow," which I didn´t understand, and the Portuguese version of the menu called it a pizza with a casquinha, which is, as far as I know, a little peel (like on fruit) or a cone (like with ice cream inside). So, I really had no idea what I was in for, but I chose it because it had Gorgonzola cheese and sun-dried tomatoes, and I miss cheese with flavor. Minas cheese is very mild, and I was ready for a little spice in my life. It turned out to be pieces of pita pocket that had been toasted a little and a plate of toppings, which included the promised Gorgonzola and sun-dried tomatoes as well as olives, tomato paste stuff, and lettuce. It was really delicious, and a bargain at only U$5.

After dinner I went to the bank, which thankfully took my card, and on my way back to Pousada da Rita, a table set up next to bank caught my eye. Hanging from the awning on the table were several brightly colored paper lanterns, shaped like stars, which were lit from within. It was so pretty I couldn´t resist going over to look at them closer, and I ended up buying one for myself. The guy who was selling them, Diego, was born in Brazil but grew up in Argentina, so his Portuguese was liberally peppered with Spanish, but that´s ok because Argentine Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese are pretty much the same thing. He was really nice and I talked to him for quite awhile.

Well, now it´s time to go get my things and get on the bus for another 23 hour ride of fun back to BH, but when I get a chance I´ll pick up where I left off.

first couple of days in chapada da diamantina

the internet cafe is closing in 15 minutes so i can´t write much, but i just wanted to let you all know that i got here ok and that i love it and that i´ve met some people and i´m having a really fun time.

i´m really sunburned and my legs kind of hurt from hiking for like 6 hours today, but our hike today was really fun, we went to cachoeira da fumaça and another waterfall, and yesterday i walked to a couple of waterfalls with a guide.

tomorrow i´m going on another tour and we´re going to see a whole bunch of stuff, including a cave with water where you can snorkel with a flashlight, which i´m really excited about.

the food here is good and i met some nice people on my journey today, had dinner with one couple from rio and after-dinner juice with a dutch woman who´s going to email me pictures she took today when i was swimming in a waterfall.

sorry if this is really choppy, i´m skyping my mom as i write this so i´m not concentrating fully on anything, i have some really funny stories i´ll share later when i have more time.

23 hours on a bus is a really long time - and not done yet!

hi everybody.
well, here i am in lovely feira de santana, bahia. the bus ride here, which i was told would be between 15 and 20 hours turned out to be 23. the first 17 were fine, but the last 6 hours were really tough, and now i have to wait here in the bus station until 12:50 to catch another 5-6 hour bus to lençois, where i plan to find a pousada, take a shower, and maybe nap a little. i´m really really tired, so i´m hoping to sleep like a baby who sleeps really well... like ayla? was it her who could take a productive nap in the middle of the living room? i don´t remember. anyway, i hope to sleep on the bus.

i arrived here at 5:30pm, so by the time i´d bought my bus tickets to lençois and dropped off my stuff in the guarda-volumes, it was dark. i tried taking a little walk around town, but the busy part ended pretty quickly and i stuck out like a sore thumb, being the only white person in the vicinity, so i climbed back to the bus station, where i´ve been ever since. i watched a little tv, read a little, and then decided to take advantage of the internet while it was still open (it closes at 11, so i´ll have to find something else to do for almost two hours after that). i considered getting a room and staying here for the night, but i really want to get to the park, and i´m going to have to leave there friday night because they don´t have a bus saturday morning, so i´ll be spending a good part of saturday here in lovely feira de santana, and didn´t want to stay here longer than i had to.

i downloaded skype, but the microphone here doesn´t work, so i called my grandma twice but she couldn´t hear me. then i tried texting my mother´s cell phone from skype, but she can´t respond so i don´t know if that worked or not.

i´m really tired. i think i´ll go try to find some food or something to keep me awake. for four and a half more hours. lovely.

this park better be good. i think it will be, i´m just a little sleep deprived right now.

goodnight and enjoy sleeping in your comfy beds!

Travel Plans

Hello friends!

Just wanted to let you know, those of you who have been checking here daily in hopes of news from me (which is probably no one, but we can pretend), that tonight (sep. 28) I'm going to Chapada da Diamantina, which is a national park in the interior of Bahia, I'm coming back to Belo Horizonte on October 7, I'm going to Buenos Aires October 12-16, and I'm probably going to Barbacena October 19-21 for some sort of English teacher/language thing - I don't know too many details about this one yet, but they want me because I speak American and they're going to pay for everything, so I'm stoked.

I'll try to find some time in there somewhere to post more on here, especially about how all my travels are going, so you all don't get too lonely.

Last night after Portuguese class I went with Marlieke to Bruna's house for dinner. Bruna is another capoeira student, she's Brazilian but she started capoeira at the same time as we did. She's working on her master's in Biology, and she's really friendly. At her house, we met her brother Alan, who's studying to be a judge, and her sister Tatiana, who's in her first year of residency on her way to becoming a doctor. They're a very well educated bunch, and super friendly too. Dinner was really good, it was a spanish tortilla-style thing, I'm not really sure what it had in it but I think it was even vegetarian, and a really good chocolate cake.

After dinner Bruna and Marlieke went to a capoeira academy in Savassi because every Thursday night they have a roda there, and Cris, our teacher, always encourages the people in our class to go. There were a couple of other people from our class there, and Cris, and a lot of really amazing people who study at the academy. There were also 6 or 8 kids, some of whom were not that good, but a couple of them were amazing, way better than I am and they were like 9! One of the really good kids was Cris's nephew, and the two of them "fought" and it was really cute watching them show off for each other. A lot of the kids "fought" each other, and then the mestre, who's the big cheese, "fought" with all the kids, which was funny to watch because he's probably 50, and he's obviously really good at capoeira but it would be hard for anyone to duck low enough to avoid a kick delivered by a 7 year old who's probably two and a half feet tall. After the kids went, the more experienced adults made all the new adults go in, I didn't do very well, but I don't feel too bad about it. After the new adults, the really good people started "fighting," which was really exciting to watch. The music sped up, and I'm not sure how they avoided knocking each other's heads off sometimes, especially since a lot of them were wearing shoes. Some of the really good people started incorporating some contact into their moves, usually in capoeira you don't touch each other, but I guess sometimes people like to give their opponent a playful swat on the head or something. However, two of the guys who were getting sort of touchy with each other started to really fight, and one of them ended up with a bloody nose. The mestre broke them up, which took some doing, and then stopped the music and gave them a lecture about how capoeira does have an element of fighting, but that it's not ok to actually hurt someone, and that both of them showed a lack of respect for him as the mestre when they didn't let go of each other right away when he told them too. He also explained that they guy with the bloodied nose was a visitor, and that the guy who had done the bloodying liked to pick fights with outsiders, but that if you want to fight to injure, don't do it in the roda.

After that, some more people "fought," and then the mestre and some other guy did this really weird REALLY slow version of capoeira, and sometimes they stood up and joined hands and looked like they were doing a traditional Austrian dance or something (Austrian because I just watched the Sound of Music and it sort of reminded me of the party they have). He didn't explain that, and Bruna and Marlieke and I are going to ask Cris today what that was all about.

After the roda was done, the three of us went to Sushi Beer to meet up with Bruna's sister and some of her friends, and I had a little bit of sushi and a glass of pineapple juice with mint, which is officially my new favorite drink. It's so refreshing and unexpected, I love it. The sushi was really good too, I'd like to go back there when I'm hungrier.

Well, I've got to go, it's almost time to leave for capoeira, but I'll let you know how my trip was when I get back!

abraços,
sarah

Best day ever and futebol and presentation

Hi everyone!

I know it's been forever since I've written, but I've been busy prepping for a presentation I made today in my "Press, History, and Politics in Latin America" class. But now it's done so I can update you guys.

Friday I had my best day since I've been in Brazil - it was just really really great. I slept until 10:15, which was fun, and then I woke up, had yogurt and granola for breakfast, and went to capoeira. Last time we had a roda in capoeira I did a really bad job, but this week I did really well, considering I'm new. I felt good about it and had a lot of fun. We got out a little late, so I missed the 1:32 bus to the other side of campus close to where I live. Usually when that happens I wait for the 1:50 bus, but today I decided to try hitchhiking. Hitchhiking is really common from the entrances to campus, it's safe, and I've never seen anyone wait very long to get picked up. There were a couple of other people looking for a ride, so I went and stood by them and stuck out my thumb. Shortly thereafter, a car pulled over, and I got in, along with two other hitchers. The guy wasn't going exactly where I was going, but he dropped me off by the exact sciences building, which is pretty close. I went in there and bought some açai/orange juice, which was really good, and then continued on my way. Since then I've hitchhiked two other times, and it's really nice to not walk so much. I was nervous to do it before, but being with other people for my first time helped. After that I went back home, showered and had lunch, and then set out to go shopping. There's a bus that runs about 3 blocks from my house that I'd never taken because I didn't know where it went, but I looked it up online and it goes to Bairro Preto, which is where the clothes stores are. I'd been looking for a pair of jeans, so I decided to take myself on a little shopping trip on the close to my house bus. The bus went right where I expected it to, and the second store I went in I found a pair of jeans for 35 reais that I liked that FIT. This is a miracle, because jeans hardly ever fit - they usually gap in the back of the waist, but these fit perfectly. I tried on a couple of shirts but didn't find anything I liked. I was wandering around the neighborhood, being overwhelmed by all the stores, when a really colorful window display caught my eye. Upon closer inspection, I found out that it was AN ENTIRE STORE FULL OF BEADS! It was so pretty! Most of them were cheap and plastic, but they were really bright colors, and I spent quite a bit of time in there just enjoying the view. I didn't buy anything, but I plan to go back there to take pictures and soak up the colors again. Shortly after that store, I found one that was having a yarn sale, so I bought myself some. Then I found this weird mall that was a city block long but only two stores wide and like 5 or 6 stories tall. It kind of made me feel like I was in that double-decker bus that Harry Potter takes that can squeeze really thin to fit in between oncoming traffic - it was the narrowest mall I'd ever seen. It mostly had bead stores and fancy jewelry stores, but there was a bookstore on the second floor that was having a special on the book "O Zahir" by Paulo Coelho, who is officially my favorite Brazilian author because #1 he uses words I know #2 I like the way he writes and #3 he's the only Brazilian author I've actually read. So, I bought jeans, yarn, and a book. I was very pleased with myself. I had a little moment of panic trying to get back home because the return bus stop was on a different street and by then it was dark, but I had my map and my "Ponto a Ponto," which is a little book with some of the bus routes, and I did some sleuthing and found it, finally. When I got home I had dinner and then went to the party at the biology building with Bia, Marlieke, and Kate, who's British and who I don't hang out with that much but she's fun. The band played samba and they were really good and we danced a lot. It was just a really perfect day and I was really happy all weekend because of it. Sometimes it's easy to only focus on what goes wrong, but I try to notice the good stuff too.

Sunday I went to the futebol match between Cruzeiro and Atletico, which was crazy and loud and really fun. Cruzeiro and Atletico are both based in Belo Horizonte, and they're big rivals. People get really into their teams, and the stadium is split in two by big fences and lots of security people to keep the fans from beating each other up. I stayed safe by #1 being a girl (overzealous fans won't hurt women) #2 not wearing the colors of either team #3 sitting on the Cruzeiro side (Cruziero fans are a lot calmer and less violent than Atletico fans) #4 being with a big group which included tall, scary-looking boys and #5 not bringing anything with me I wanted to keep (no camera, only a little money, my phone concealed under my clothes). Like I said when I wrote about the Atletico game I went to last month, I don't really love futebol, but the energy of the fans is really fun, and it's especially high at classicos, as matches between Cruzeiro and Atletico are known. It was a good game, Cruzeiro won 4-3, and afterwards we went out for ice cream and then Niels and Kelib walked me home because they were nervous for my safety. Most of the fans had dispersed by then and I probably would have been fine, but it was nice to have company.

The rest of the weekend and the beginning of this week was devoted to my project. I had to read a chapter from a book, write a summary, and talk about it in front of the class. The reading wasn't too bad, it was in Spanish and it was describing really complicated political alliances, but I think I understood most of it. The writeup was a little tricky because I was trying to quote and synthesize the reading, but I was writing in Portuguese and translating stuff into English in my head, but I got it done. Talking in class today was hard, I was nervous and kept trying to say things I didn't know how to say, but the professor was very helpful, and when I went to turn in my writeup after class she said I'd done a good job speaking and that it seemed like I'd understood the reading. She was nervous because it was complicated and in Spanish, but she said I did just fine. I don't feel like I did that well, but it's her opinion that counts, so that's good.

Today I asked the professor for Brazilian Anthropology how we were going to be evaluated, and she told me that we were going to have a seminar at the end of October and a final paper at the end. The seminar is apparently going to be group presentations, which sounds pretty good to me because the Brazilian students can help me out, and the final paper is going to be comparing a couple of the readings we've done in class, so that doesn't sound too bad. I'm really glad it's not a cumulative final test, because I still have a really hard time paying attention to her the entire class - she's really monotone and her train of thought is sort of hard to follow sometimes. And she has really small hands, which is distracting.

We got our project proposals back in Art and Society in Brazil, and the professor liked the sound of mine, thankfully. I don't think it should be too hard to find information, and it's a topic that interests me, so I'm looking forward to it.

Portuguese is going well, right now we're reviewing the present subjunctive, but we also spend a lot of time on fun stuff, like colloquial expressions, slang, songs, and brazilian culture stuff.

My environmental class is a little odd - we have a new professor every week, but they mostly say the same thing over and over again. It's fun always having someone new, and most of them seem knowledgeable, but I'm a little nervous about the midterm we have in a couple of weeks. I'm going to email the guy whose name is on the syllabus to ask him about it tomorrow.

Want to know something interesting? The week break I have the third week in October has been changed to the first week of October. I already have plane tickets to Buenos Aires for a good chunk of the third week, so I guess I'll be missing class, but now that means I get to plan something for the first week. I think I'm going to try to get a group together to take the train to Vitória, which is a little beach town that I don't think is that special, but the train ride is supposed to be beautiful.

That's all for now, folks, it's midnight and I have class at 7:30AM, but I'll write more later! Until then, keep on keeping on...

Weekend of Joy in Niterói

Hi friends!

I never know what to say at the beginning of my blog entries, so I’ll just jump right in. For my Art and Society in Brazil class I have to do a research project, which I think is what my entire grade is based on (yikes!), and the proposal for it is due on Tuesday. I’ve written it and started doing some preliminary research, but it’s hard because, just like we don’t get syllabi, we also don’t get guidelines for the paper. I have no idea how long she wants it to be, how many sources we’re supposed to consult, what sort of format we’re supposed to use - the only guidance we’ve gotten so far is that we’re supposed to write about something that combines, surprisingly enough, art and society in Brazil. I’m going to do something about tropicalia, which was a musical movement in the late 1960’s in Brazil that combined elements of a lot of different cultures and musical styles, and also criticized the military dictatorship that was in power at the time. My thesis is going to be something about the effect that the music had on the popular perception of the government - the professor said that we didn’t have to have anything set in stone yet, just an idea and then she’d help guide us, so I hope she does that.

So, something exciting has happened in capoeira - since the beginning I (along with all the other new people) have been spending the class practicing different kicks and ducks in front of a school desk, which acts as a fake opponent and gives us something to make sure we kick over. Last class, however, Marlieke and I graduated from the desks and were instructed to start practicing with each other! It’s very exciting because every Friday we actually do capoeira, where people take turns going in the middle and “fighting,” and last week I was really horrible when I went in the middle, partially I think because I was trying to do all the stuff I knew, but had only ever done it with a desk. Now that I’ve started practicing with a real person, I’m hoping I’ll be more comfortable on Fridays and do a better job.

Something I still need to practice a lot is cartwheels - they’re a basic capoeira move, and I can’t do them. For now I’m doing really dumb-looking frog-jump things, and it’s embarrassing. I think they’ll be like riding a bike - once I do it successfully the first time I’ll be able to repeat it, but I have to get that first time. I’ve never been very comfortable upside down, but I’m trying.

Tuesday was JoBren’s 21st birthday, so a bunch of us (23, to be exact) went out to dinner to celebrate at TGI Friday’s in Savassi, which is the chique part of Belo Horizonte. When we got there, the waitress greeted us in English, which was odd at first, but it makes sense, I guess. If there were American tourists in Belo who didn’t speak Portuguese, they might flock to familiar American restaurants, so it makes good business sense for the staff to have a grasp of English to make them feel at home. Another odd thing was that on the menu, the names of the foods were in English, like Beef Fajitas and Onion Rings, but the descriptions were in Portuguese. I had a quesadilla, which was really good, and to drink I had an Electric Lemonade, because it was blue and looked pretty in the picture - however, when it came out, it was about the size of a bread bowl like clam chowder comes in! It was the biggest drink I’ve ever had in a restaurant in my life! When I was exclaiming over the size of it, Niels said that he thought all drinks in the US were huge. I told him about the Super Big Gulp at 7-11, which is about half a gallon, I think, but in restaurants the drinks are usually not that big. Something interesting he told me that was that in McDonald’s in Holland, a super-size drink is approximately the size of a medium drink in the US. Not that I was doubting it, but this just goes to show that the US is certainly the land of the big and excessive, at least where portions are concerned (and cars, and houses, and military spending...).

Friday was Brazilian Independence Day, which means that it was a holiday from work and school, but that’s about all it means. Bia explained that no one really celebrates it because Brazilian independence wasn’t something they fought for - the king of Portugal gave the country to his son and said, “OK, now you’re the king and this is an independent country.” It wasn’t a big deal, like it was in the US. Apparently there are demonstrations in some cities, where the military gets all gussied up and marches around, but they’re not that well attended. What this meant for me was that we took a family vacation to Niterói, where all of Claudia’s family is from and where most of them still live.

We were supposed to leave on Thursday at 1PM - Bia was going to work in the morning, come home and eat lunch, and then we were going to go. Zé and Claudia and Carolina had gone to São Paulo on Wednesday because of a business meeting, and Bia and I were going to travel with her uncle, aunt, and a colleague from work (Zé and Claudia jointly own the Castrol in Belo Horizonte, and Bia’s being groomed to take over someday). I went to class in the morning and then came home and didn’t go to capoeira so that we could leave on time (capoeira goes from 12-1:30). In true Brazilian fashion, we left promptly at 3.

The drive to Rio was not great - there was traffic the whole way, it was hot, and Bea and her aunt and I were squished in a backseat that was built to be comfortable for two skinny people. Brazilian highway driving is a real treat - as Valentina, my Korean friend, would say, I felt the terror of death. Just to give you a little taste, we passed several semis on two lane, double yellow line down the middle roads, we passed people around blind curves, and when there wasn’t traffic we went about 130km/h. I don’t know how fast that is in miles per hour, but it felt fast to me. There was a section of road with a lot of rolling hills that were dotted with mounds of something - I asked Bia what they were, and she said they were termite hills. They were huge and numerous and I don’t think I’d like to meet the bugs that built them, especially not in a dark alley.

We got to Tia Dede’s apartment at about 10:30, had some soup, and went to bed. Tia Dede is probably about 80 years old and has lived in her apartment for 50 years. She’s actually technically Claudia’s aunt, but Bia calls her aunt (tia) too. She seemed like a nice person - she smelled a little odd and I practically had to hold onto my plate while I was eating to keep her from clearing it (she noticed that I hadn’t put anything in my cup after having been eating for about 2 minutes and almost had it in the cupboard before Bia stopped her, which I was happy about because I was in fact thirsty). She was a little nit-picky and wouldn’t let me do a thing in the kitchen (I tried to clear my own plate but she would have none of that). She wasn’t my favorite of the aunts, but she was nice and I’m not going to complain about free room and board. Bia slept in an extra bed in Tia Dede’s room, and I slept in the living room on a foam mat thing, which was more comfortable than it sounds. What was not comfortable, however, was the temperature and the bug situation. It was hot hot hot, I took a quick shower and didn’t even mind that I couldn’t figure out how to work the hot water. There were also a lot of mosquitos - I got nine bites that night, and more later on. After I drenched my bed and body with Off and rolled up my pj pant legs and opened the window and repositioned my bed to maximize the breeze, I slept pretty well. I can’t figure out why, but traveling really wears me out - you’d think that sitting down all day would be relaxing, but I’m always tired after a long trip.

Friday I woke up, took another cold shower, had some breakfast, and then Bia and I walked over to Tia Didi’s house to meet up with Helena, the middle sister in Bia’s family who lives in Niterói with Tia Didi and was going to be our driver for the weekend. We went to pick up Raquelzinha, who’s 18 but looks about 13 and is Bia’s cousin (as is pretty much everyone else in Niterói - everywhere we went I met some more of Bia’s cousins). The four of us went first to the Parque da Cidade, which was really pretty. It was pretty much a big hill (I felt the terror of death around the blind curves again), and the view from the top was gorgeous, we could see most of Niterói and quite a bit of Rio too. There were a couple of different people offering hangliding excursions from the top, Helena sort of wanted to go but then decided against it. Getting up high and looking at stuff is one of my favorite things to do (like at Twin Peaks or Telegraph Hill in San Francisco), and Parque da Cidade didn’t disappoint.

After that, we spent the middle of the day at Praia da Piritininga, which was a really nice beach, still in Niterói. For those of you who don’t know (I didn’t) Niterói is on a peninsula across the bay from Rio - it is to Rio what San Francisco is to Berkeley, except in this case the Berkeley is the more famous, big city one. We met up with Raquelzinha’s mom and dad (Bia’s actual aunt and uncle) on the beach, and then Bia and I, who were the only ones in beach wear, went for a walk along the shore. It was so so so pretty, but my camera ran out of batteries so I wasn’t able to take any pictures. There were a lot of people there, probably because it was a nice day and no one had work or school because it was a holiday. The thing about the beaches in Brazil is that all the women, and I mean ALL of them, wear teeny tiny bikinis. There aren’t that many people in actual thong bottoms, but the back of the bottoms look about the same as the fronts - I think you could put your swimsuit on backwards and not even notice. There were a lot of really adorable little kids, and some pretty adorable twenty-somethings playing futebol too.

After the beach, we went back to Tia Dede’s house for lunch, which was good - rice, black beans, broccoli, beets, and green olives which I don’t like but Bia loves. Bia and I both showered, and then Bia took a quick power nap before we headed out to the MAC, or Museu de Arte Contemporáneo. Be sure to look at my pictures, it’s one of the coolest buildings I’ve ever seen. It looks like a flying saucer/stylized flower, and there’s a really nice view of the beach and Cristo Redentor and Pão de Açucar from it because it’s up on a hill. We decided to take a look around inside (it was only 2 reais for students, and they accepted my USF ID, which I was a little surprised about, but they also accepted the card Bia uses to get into the campus sports center, which is not her student ID, so I guess they weren’t feeling to strict about it. It was one of the smaller museums I’ve been in, but the novelty of the building was cool, and the art was neat too - there was an exhibit from the US about racism and inequality, and a section that I think schoolkids had something to do with, and a section of photography taken in Rio, Havana, and Florence. Apparently in Brazil, at least in this museum, you’re allowed to take pictures of the art, so I did, just for the heck of it. By the time we left there it was dark, but it was only like 7pm and we were in a really nice section of Niterói so walking to Tia Didi’s apartment wasn’t a problem.

We went to her place and not back to Tia Dede’s because apparently every weekend, a different aunt hosts a big family dinner, and whoever’s in town goes. It was really fun, I got to meet some more aunts, and by that time Claudia and Zé and Carolina had arrived from São Paulo, and it was good to see them too. I didn’t realize it until I saw them all again, but I really did miss them, and it felt like reuniting with actual family members. Dinner was simple, hamburgers (or cheese sandwich, in my case), but we had delicious cookies and ice cream afterwards. Hanging out with all of them really made me glad that I chose to live with a family - had I moved into an apartment with other students, there’s no way I would have gotten to travel to Niterói and have family dinner and see the city with a local. I don’t remember everybody’s names, and I probably didn’t understand everything that was said, but it was really nice and I feel like I got to see a part of Brazilian culture that not a lot of tourists do.

Friday night Bia and I slept at Raquelzinha’s house because Friday night we went to a party with her - it could have been fun, except it was really dark and it was all high schoolers (Bia complained that we were there changing diapers), and at midnight they ran out of water, which was what we were all drinking because Raquelzinha doesn’t drink and Bia and I don’t like beer (which they ran out of at 1:30). The music was techno, which I don’t like, and aside from some more cousins we didn’t know anyone there - let’s just say that by the end of the night Bia and I were playing Uno, and that was the highlight of the party.

We woke up sort of late on Saturday and had a leisurely breakfast. I would have preferred to leave earlier, because Saturday was Rio day, but it would have been sort of rude to grab a banana and run. Raquelzinha’s whole house smelled like dog (they have 3), which I really liked - dog smell is comforting and homey to me. One of her dogs (again, look at the pictures) was pretty much the fattest thing I’ve ever seen. It was the height of Jack Russel Terrier, but the girth of a well fed Golden Retriever - it’s nickname was footstool, and rightly so.

After that, we went back to Tia Didi’s apartment to meet up with her, Zé, Claudia, Helena, and Carolina for lunch. We went to a really delicious per kilo place down the street, and looking back on it, I realize that this was the only day since I’ve been in Brazil that I haven’t eaten rice and beans at least once. The food was good, but dessert gave me a little trouble - there was a choice between a plop of caramel stuff or a plop of pumpkin stuff, and I chose the pumpkin. Trouble is, it tasted exactly like pumpkin pie filling, and I immediately got a really strong wave of homesickness. It was delicious, pumpkin pie is my favorite Thanksgiving food (aside from stuffing, and mashed potatoes, and chocolate pie, and green bean casserole, and sweet potato casserole...) but it made me sad. I composed myself though, I don’t think anyone noticed, and then we headed off to Rio.

We went to Cristo Redentor first, which was cool and had another nice view, this time of most of Rio and part of Niterói. I bought some postcards from a little store on the way up that I meant to send, but I don’t think I actually will - they’re really pretty, and I think I’m going to put them on my wall instead. So, for those of you who were wishing for a postcard (mom) it’s not going to happen, at least not yet. I bought postcards in Ouro Preto too, but those are also being used as room decorations. Too bad for you guys.

After Cristo we went to Copacabana to try to find the 10 foreigners who were apparently somewhere on the beach (Niels, Jess, Barbara, Anika, Selina, Tom, Tiffany, JoBren, Jennine, and Lourdes). No one was answering their cell phones, and Copacabana is pretty big, so we didn’t really expect to find them, and decided to just take a little stroll in the sand. We hadn’t gone far when we noticed, like a beacon in the night, a tall blond guy about 50 yards away. Now, had we been in the northern hemisphere, a tall blond guy might not have stood out so much, but amongst all the bronze cariocas (that’s what people from Rio are called) Niels stuck out like a very useful sore thumb. We trotted over and said hello, and then met up with most of the rest of the group, who were a little ways down the beach. We didn’t stay long, it was getting dark and they didn’t have any set plans for the evening, but it was fun to see them for a little while. After that we drove by Ipanema, just so I could see it, took a little tour of the Ipanema neighborhood (super cute!) and then went back to Niterói, this time to Tia Norma’s house for dinner.

The dinner food was the same as at Tia Didi’s house (in fact, some of it may have been the same), but it was good again, and we spent a good three hours after dinner just sitting around talking. One of the topics of discussion was who in the family was fattest, which I thought was kind of odd. I know that some families talk about weight a lot, but mine isn’t one of them. I think I may have made a bit of a faux pax - they were discussing someone who was really fat, and asked my opinion - I asked them to repeat who it was, and they said something about Raquelzinha - I assumed it was the dog, and replied, “Yeah, super fat!” Then they said, “And that dog is big too!” Turns out who they’d consulted me on was, in fact, her father. He is big, but had I known we were talking about him I wouldn’t have been so enthusiastic in my affirmation. Oh well, I guess that’s what I get for pretending to understand when I don’t, exactly. We took a family photo (which is in my photo album, with everyone’s names so you can see how they look), and then headed back to Tia Dede’s apartment for the last night.

I was told that we were going to leave at 9AM on Sunday, so I set my alarm for 9 and figured I’d be fine. Turns out that Bia’s parents are a lot more punctual than she is - Bia knocked on my door at 8:30 and said that her dad had called her and they were awake and having breakfast, and that we should do the same. I had wanted to shower, but there wasn’t time, so we had a hurried breakfast, packed our stuff, and headed out. The ride back was a lot more comfortable - Zé drives an SUV thing, so there was plenty of room in the backseat, even though there were three of us, and he is a lot safer of a driver. We stopped at a German bakery outside of Petrópolis, which is where Zé grew up, and had croquetes, which were really good. We stopped for lunch at Rosalanche, which is the Brazilian equivalent of Casa de Fruta. It’s not as big (there is, unfortunately, no Rosa de Choo-Choo or Rosa de Sweets), but it’s a big rest stop/restaurant/flower nursery/artisanal crafts store that Zé has been stopping at for 25 years, he said. We had a simple lunch (rice and beans re-entered my diet), and then went along our way. I didn’t sleep, I don’t think, but I rested my eyes a lot and was surprised upon opening them to find that we were back in Belo Horizonte.

Looking back on it, Rio was everything and nothing I’d expected. I hadn’t expected bugs or heat, and not all of the city is beautiful beachfront. I think I’d built it up so much in my mind that when I figured out that Rio was actually a city, with graffiti and traffic and elementary schools, it was sort of a let down from the perfect beachy dream I’d been imagining. That said, there was certainly a feeling of magic in actually being at Cristo Redentor, Copacabana, and Ipanema - they’re so famous, and I was actually there. I had a really good time, and I’m glad that my first time there was in a family situation, but I’d really like to go back with a group of friends and stay in Rio so that I can do some nightlife stuff and some shopping and see more of the city - an afternoon wasn’t enough.

I’m also really starting to feel like a part of my host family - not that I didn’t before, but I think traveling together strengthens bonds and makes them more obvious. I look a lot like them - curly hair and glasses - and when Raquelzinha saw me she thought I was Carolina, as did one of the other cousins. I don’t look exactly like any of them, and I have a different body type, but I don’t stick out like Niels on Copacabana. Another thing that really made me feel included was that on the road, I didn’t pay for my own food. It seems petty and shallow to care about something like who pays for lunch, but I felt like just another daughter - Zé paid for all of us, and there was never even a question of me paying for my own. When I go out to eat with my biological family someone else always pays, and that made me feel like part of their family. It was really nice, especially after the pumpkin dessert homesickness.

Okay, cultural difference time! I don’t know if it’s just Bia’s extended family or all of Brazil, but everyone here seems really into “tomando remédios,” or taking medicine. Every house had a medicine cabinet that rivals the prescription section at Long’s, and I have to admit that I brought a lot of medicine with me and we have quite a collection at my house - the difference here, though, is that people actually use what they’ve got. I took some Dramamine and I’ve used my eyedrops a couple of times, but aside from that, I’ve been medicine-free in Brazil. In contrast, everyone here seems to take one pill or another, or some drops of something, almost every day.

Another difference is the shoe in the house situation. Again, I can’t speak for everyone in either the US or Brazil, but in my house in the US no one ever wears shoes, and I’m barefoot whenever I have the opportunity. In my house here, on the other hand, everyone wears shoes all the time, and Claudia told me that she sometimes wears flip-flops in the shower to avoid touching the floor with her bare feet. My ear was hurting last week, and she was convinced that it was because I walked around barefoot. Funny sidenote - the word for barefoot is descalça, and pants are called calças, so I thought she thought I was sick because I walked around without any pants on, which I don’t... luckily, I asked for clarification, and we had a good little chuckle about it.

The chocolate syrup here is translucent. Brown, but translucent. It makes me nervous and I avoid it, if I can.

I don’t leave the house anymore until 7:15 or 9:15 (depending on the day), because even though it takes me half an hour to get to class, which starts at either 7:30 or 9:30, they never ever start on time and today was the first day I arrived after the professor, who got to class about a minute and half before I did.

Yesterday I had my first Brazilian soy burger, and it wasn’t bad! It was a little hard to taste because it was about the size of a McDonald’s hamburger patty, which, last time I checked, were almost nonexistent, but with french bread and ketchup and mustard it went down just fine.

If you find yourself abroad and really want to order something online, you can do it through www.thehungersite.com - I ordered some recycled sari yarn for Claudia from there because she was coveting mine, and it came today! It took about a month, but it arrived, which was a pleasant surprise. I haven’t given it to her yet, she was leaving right as the mail came, but I think she’ll like it.

Até mais!

photos from rio/niteroi

http://usfca.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2039188&l=aa1e6&id=7103173

Photos from Parque das Mangabeiras and the dogs at my house

http://usfca.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2038330&l=18164&id=7103173

Mangabeiras and the old folks

Hello there! Well, it’s been another eventful week here in Belo Horizonte. My classes are going well, I’m getting better at understanding the professors, but it’s still sort of hard to put their words into meaningful concepts. For example, in my Art and Society in Brasil class we’ve been talking about the modernist movement in the 20’s and 30’s in Brazilian literature and art, and how the art being done at that time was “modern” because it was distinctly Brazilian, it wasn’t trying to copy European techniques and themes. So, I’ve got that, but I’m having trouble seeing how it fits into the rest of the course. I think part of the reason I’ve having this trouble is that in Brazil, not all teachers hand out syllabi. In Art and Society I know we’re being evaluated based on a research project, the proposal of which is due in a couple of weeks, but I’m not sure if we’re having some sort of final test too, or if we’ll have to write an essay synthesizing the main ideas of the readings or the lectures - I just don’t know, so that makes it hard to know how closely I should be paying attention. I didn’t catch the year that foundation was created, but do I care or not? That’s the tricky thing.

For Brazilian Anthropology, she hasn’t given us any clue at all what our grades will be based on, and it’s the same for my Portuguese class. We have a quasi-syllabus for Press, History and Politics in Latin America (it lists all the readings we’ll be doing), and the professor has told us orally that we’ll be writing summaries of two of the readings and then having two take-home essays based on class material, so that’s nice. My Sustainable Development class still hasn’t met, we were supposed to have class last Wednesday but it was canceled for some reason, so I don’t know how that one will be. However, I’ve gotten all of my professors’ emails and sent them an email asking for a syllabus, because without one I’ll have a hard time getting credit for what I’m taking back at USF. Hopefully they’ll get on that quickly, so that I’ll know what’s expected of me. I guess getting used to a different education system is part of what you learn studying abroad - I don’t mean to complain, I just hope I’m getting what I’m supposed to out of the lectures and reading and that I won’t get to the end of the class and be surprised at the details I should have remembered but didn’t. I’m recording my classes on my digital voice recorder, just in case, but it would be nice to not have to go through and listen to them all the week before some giant final test I wasn’t expecting.

Capoeira is going really well, I feel like I’m learning a lot and getting better and stronger every time, and the teacher and the other students are really nice. I don’t feel very graceful, but that will come later, I guess. I also find myself getting really frustrated sometimes that I can’t do everything perfectly the first time and that I’m not a cartwheeling, jump-kicking, awe-inspiring capoeira master yet. I know that it takes years and years to be as good as some of the other students in the class are, and I’ve had a grand total of three classes so I shouldn’t feel bad, but I guess I’m used to more instant gratification - there aren’t many things I do that are hard for me. That’s not to say that I’m good at everything, of course, just that I don’t usually do stuff I’m not good at. I’m a horrible soccer player (well, I’m pretty bad at every sport, if you want to know the truth), but I also don’t play very often; I’m pretty good at knitting and crocheting, and I do that frequently. I’m definitely going to stick with capoeira, but it’s not easy and the challenge and slowness of learning it is contributing to my personal growth.

Friday I didn’t have capoeira because the teacher had to travel suddenly, so I slept in and then went to Parque das Mangabeiras, the same place I went with Mariana my first day in Brazil. I walked to UFMG first, to see if the Brazilian Anthropology teacher had put tomorrow’s reading in the Xerox (she hadn’t, so this is the second week I haven’t been able to do the reading for that class, but it’s not my fault so I don’t feel too bad), and then I took the bus into the city center. After that I got on another bus, which I thought would take me to the park, but it turns out I was wrong, and the money-taker told me where to get off and which bus I should actually be on. When I got off to wait for the right bus, two middle-aged guys did too. We weren’t really standing together, but I could hear them speaking English to each other - one with a British accent and one with an accent that sounded faintly German. I asked them where they were from, and the British guy told me he was from England and the other guy was from Finland. We talked a little, and I learned that the British guy had been in Brazil since March because his Colombian girlfriend is getting her PhD at UFMG, and that once she graduates they’re going to England. I’m not sure why the Finnish guy was here, he didn’t really talk to me, but it was nice to have company while we were waiting for the bus. It finally came, and we got to the park without any more trouble.

When we got there they went one way and I went another. I walked to the place we’d seen the monkeys before, but they weren’t there, so I chose a trail and walked into what I thought would be a lovely little hike through the forest. I went up one big hill and then my forest trail opened into a cobblestone road with a bus stop, and the two guys were waiting there. They told me they were hoping to catch the internal bus to the lookout point, but that they didn’t know when or even if was running. I like lookout points, so I decided to wait with them. After awhile we decided that the bus wasn’t coming and that it would be better to try to walk - only problem was, we had no idea where we were in relation to the lookout point. We chose a direction, and ten minutes later ended up back at the entrance of the park. They wandered off to try a different trail, and I went to the information booth to inquire about a bus. The lady working there called the bus driver, and he came over and said that he’d take me, and maybe we could find some other people to go too. I looked for my new friends but couldn’t see them, but there were other people waiting for the bus so we all piled in. I guess my buddies (whose names I never learned) weren’t too far away, because just as the driver was about to leave they came running up and got in too. While we were waiting to amass a group, the driver and I had gotten to talking. He’s been working at the park for 15 years, and is collecting postcards from all 50 of the United States. He doesn’t have California yet, so he gave me his address and I promised him that when I got home in December I’d send him a postcard for his collection. He was really nice, and we kept chatting the whole way. He took us to the lookout first, and then a pond thing with some little waterfalls and bridges (at which I saw a monkey really high up in a tree and took a not-that-recognizable photo), and then another pond thing, and then we drove past the sports area with tennis courts and the playground and then back to the entrance to the park. By that time it was around 4:00, and I asked him if he knew when the next city bus would arrive. He told me it would be 20 minutes or so, so I decided to have some ice cream and see if I could find any closer monkeys while I waited. I bought my ice cream cone and then headed back to where I seen the monkeys the first time, hoping that they’d been napping or something before.

Well, they weren’t there, but the place was overrun with quatis, which look to me like a mix between a raccoon and an anteater - they’re about the size and shape of a raccoon and have a long striped tail, but their nose is really long and skinny. I thought they were adorable, and hoped I could get close enough to one to take a decent photo. That didn’t prove too hard - apparently these guys, like raccoons, are scavengers, and they were very interested in sharing my ice cream cone with me. I was considering feeding the one that was closest to me when all of a sudden 7 more started advancing on me, and the one I had been looking at before looked like he was ready to crawl up my leg to get to the ice cream. I flapped my arms around and yelled, “Shoo, raccoon-things!” but that didn’t deter them much. At this point, more of them seemed to be noticing me, maybe because of all the racket I was making, and I decided it would be best to not pass go, to not collect $200, to not give them any ice cream cone, and get the heck out of Dodge. I ran back to the bus stop, got on the bus, and counted my blessings that I hadn’t stuck around any longer. They’re not big animals, or particularly scary looking, but I’ve developed a healthy fear of wild animals who don’t shy away when you wave your arms and yell.

When I got on the bus, I learned that it went all the way to Shopping Del Rey, which is where I was planning on going next anyway, to try to buy a pair of jeans. I’d never taken this bus before, but the driver assured me that Shopping Del Rey was the final destination, so I staked out a good seat (I had my pick, being the only one on the bus except for the driver and money taker) and got comfortable. An hour and 10 minutes later, after a lovely and unexpected tour of the biggest favela in Belo Horizonte, I arrived at Shopping del Rey. By this time it was 5:45, and it gets dark here around 6:15, but I thought I might have time to grab some jeans and get on the bus back to campus before then. Well, here’s the thing about Brazil - like I’ve mentioned before, the people here are skinny. I have no idea what size pants I wear in Brazilian, but 44 is the largest most stores carry and they’re too small in the legs. I tried on a skirt that was 44 and it fit fine, but I can’t get the pants over my knees. I went everywhere I could find, but no one had anything bigger, so I went home without them. I asked Bea about it, and she said she’d go with me next weekend and we’d find some, so I hope she knows magic/where the plus-size stores are. After my unfruitful shopping excursion I took a lovely dark bus ride to UFMG and walked home from there.

I arrived home just in time, because Bea was about to leave for Niels and Kelib’s housewarming party, which I was also going to. She assumed, when she got home from work and I wasn’t there, that I’d already gone to their apartment, and had I arrived any later she would have been gone (she probably would have come back for me, but it was nice not to have to go through all that). I changed my clothes quickly and then we headed out. The party was small but nice (just like their apartment) and about 10 we went to the Biology building for their Friday night live music thing.

Today I slept in again, and when I was checking my email Bea asked me, in Portguese, if I wanted to go to a picnic that she and some friends were having at 1:00. At least that’s what I thought she said. I agreed, and we left the house promptly at 1:20. We drove for about 15 minutes and she parked in the middle of a sort of run-down neighborhood. Not a grassy hill or picnic table in sight. Then she rang the doorbell of a large building, and in we went. I was utterly confused, but didn’t want to sound stupid by asking her where the picnic was, so I just followed along.

When we got inside, there was an old man with his legs all wrapped in Ace Bandages making his way up a short flight of stairs, and Bea greeted him and helped him up the last few. Then she pointed down the stairs and told me that that was where the men stayed. I saw someone who appeared to be nurse come around the corner and go down into the men’s room, and that’s when I figured out where we were. Bea volunteers at a retirement home every Sunday, and I gathered that that's where we must be. I wasn’t sure what this had to do with a picnic, but I’d been meaning to ask her if I could go with her some Sunday, so I was fine with the change of plans (at least in my head). We walked up some more stairs into what seemed to be the dining room, and then down a hallway into the women’s room. Now, I haven’t spent much time in nursing homes, but this was like nothing I’d ever seen before. There were 9 beds in one big room, all of them occupied by a very old woman. Each bed had a little nightstand by it and a tile over the head with the occupant’s name and birthday, and some of them had religious posters on their piece of wall too. Most of the women were sleeping, but the ones that weren’t Bea introduced me to. A few of them were very alert and lucid and recognized Bea and recognized that they didn’t know me, but others of them looked to be on their very last legs, and one of the sleeping women looked like pictures I’ve seen of corpses. There was another who was so skinny I could count the bones in her fingers and see her shoulder joint clearly, but she was talking and seemed cheerful. I haven’t spent much time at all with sick, old people, and it was a little bit of a shock at first. I was feeling really sorry for them, all sitting in that room together in various states of decay, but then when I got to talking to one of them, Laura, who woke up about 10 minutes after we arrived, I started feeling better. She told me that she wasn’t going to go on the picnic today (apparently I had heard picnic right, but just hadn’t caught that we were picnicing with the nursing home folks) because her arm and her back and her leg were hurting her, but that she had been up and had watched some TV earlier and that she was enjoying the warmth of the sunshine coming through the window right by her bed. She started telling me gossip about some of the other women (apparently the one across the way from her has reconnected with an old flame and he’s been visiting her) and that she was looking forward to mass that night. Bea told me that a lot of the people there don’t have family that come to visit them, so she likes to go and spend time with them every week and that they miss her when she doesn’t. At first I thought that the shared room was pretty bad, because in other nursing homes I’ve been in they’ve had private rooms, but hearing Laura talk about the others showed me that they have a sort of community and that they keep each other company. None of the women were feeling up to going out, but three of the men decided to go, so when some other volunteers had made their rounds and said hello to everybody, we got the participants in cars and set off for the park.

When we got there we found some nice benches in the shade, and everybody got a cup of diet soda and a pão de queijo. The three men who came with us were all very different from each other - there was the guy with the bandaged legs, who can walk but not very well and who I could not understand when he spoke for the life of me, and a guy who could get around just fine but wasn’t really interested in talking to any of us (he went and sat by himself the whole time and couldn’t be persuaded to rejoin the group, but at least he seemed to be enjoying being outside). There was also a guy, Manuel, who was in a wheelchair because he’s missing his left leg, who was very talkative and who I happened to be sitting next to. I couldn’t understand everything he said, but he told me that he was raised by his sister because his parents died when he was two months old, and he didn’t learn how to read or write until he was 30, and where he used to live in the countryside he would get up and start working at 2AM and they’d have lunch at 8AM and coffee at 11AM and dinner at 1PM and then go to bed by 7. He also explained that his leg had been amputated in 2002 because if it hadn’t been taken off he would have died, but I didn’t really understand why. I think he may have served in the military for awhile, but I’m not sure. He also told me that he likes to eat black beans and rice and meat, and that they didn’t have much food when he was a kid so he ate every little grain of rice on his plate. When I first told him my name he said something and then everyone laughed and he explained that it was a joke so I laughed too, but I didn’t understand a word of it. After we had dropped everyone off back at the nursing home, I asked Bea what he’d said, and she explained that when someone is sick and they’re getting better, the verb for getting better is “sarar,” so when he heard my name he’d said that I was always welcome when he was sick. Pretty clever, and I learned a new word too. Even though it was shocking at first, I’m really glad I went to the nursing home with Bea, it was a lot of fun talking to Manuel, and I’d like to go with her again sometime, if she invites me.

Now it’s general observation time! First of all, along with being the land of parties and samba and pão de queijo, Brazil is the land of lizards and condensed milk. Not together though. Lizards, because every time I walk between my house and UFMG in the afternoons, I see at least one lizard, and sometimes as many as five. They’re between 3 and 8 inches long, brown, and they scurry around under bushes and up stone walls. It’s kind of fun to try to spot them. Now for condensed milk. The only time I’ve ever come into contact with the stuff before coming to Brazil is when making 7 layer cookies at Christmastime, but here it’s a dietary staple. At barbecues they always have grilled banana with condensed milk drizzled over the top and sprinkled with cinnamon (it’s REALLY good), there’s condensed milk flavored ice cream, and Carolina mixed it in with some passionfruit jello she made. A lot of drinks have it too. I’m getting really used to it, and I think I might have condensed milk withdrawals when I go back to the US. But, at least it will be Christmastime and I’ll be able to get my fix in the 7 layer cookies.

Another general observation I have to share with you all is that it’s really weird trying to get used to thinking about time and day in another language. To start with, a lot of times here are given in 24 hour time, which is fine for everything before noon, but when a poster says that a concert will start at 19:00, it takes me a little while to figure out when that is. I’m getting better at it, but it’s odd.

Days of the week are still tripping me up too. In Portuguese, Monday is segunda-feira (literally, second-market), Tuesday is terça-feira (third-market) and so on until Friday, which is sixth-market. All my life I’ve thought of Monday as the first day of the week, or at least the first of the weekdays, and it’s tricky to get myself to think of it as the second (segunda). Again, I’m working on this, but when someone says, “Hey, what are you doing quarta-feira,” the first day I think of is Thursday, which it’s not. Quarta-feira is Wednesday. I think I’m having a lot of good brain exercise trying to switch this stuff.

Festa Festa Festa!

Brazil is the land of parties, and I’ve been learning about this part of the culture this week. On Wednesday night we had two going away parties for Salamão, because he flew to the US yesterday to spend a semester at Gonzaga, and we’ve gotten to be really close with him. First he came over to Bea’s house and we ate pão de queijo and cake that Carolina made, and I gave him a hat I’d crocheted for him (apparently it snows in Spokane, so I think it should come in handy). Then we went to the moradia and had a bigger party there, with all the Argentines and Italians and Americans and Canadians and Chilean and Uruguayan and Brazilians too. We started out on the lawn, one of the Brazilians had a guitar and sheet music so we had a little sing-along, and then when it got cold we moved inside. Salamão made a maracujá mousse, which was really good, and someone bought some more cakes, so we ate those too, and we danced and everyone practiced their Portuguese and said a little something to Salamão. It was a little cramped because we were in a dorm room and there were at least 20 people, but it was a lot of fun. I’m sad to see Salamão go, but I know he’ll have a good time at Gonzaga, and he’s staying in the US until January, so I think I’ll be able to see him again there.

Thursday night I went to Savassi (which the section of town where all the nightlife is) with Barbara and Marlieke, and we met up with Jess and Selina and Anika and Tom (who’re English) and Elijio (who’s from Texas) and Abu and Nelly (who are from São Tomás Principe, which is an island off the coast of Africa, I’m pretty sure). We hung out at one place until it closed, and then went to another, and I got home about 4:30AM. At the second place we went we had mandioquinha, which is pieces of mandioca the size of tater tots, fried, and they’re especially delicious with salt and ketchup... mmmm... I like hanging out with the Brits because, while they obviously speak English, it’s a different English, and they’ve been teaching me some of their slang, like for example if someone is attractive they’re called “boff” (I think that’s how you’d spell it). It was also fun to talk to Abu and Nelly, because in their country they speak Portuguese and their native dialect, but their Portuguese accent is very different from Brazilian Portguese. They’re both here for their whole time in college, they’ve been in Belo for two years already.

Friday night we went to hear Fernando sing again, in the same bar as last time, and we also said goodbye to him because he’s in the US now too. We met some of his friends and his parents, and the people we met last time were there again. I had cheese on a stick, which was good, but very salty, and I gave the last of it to Bea because I couldn’t finish it. Fernando sang a song in English dedicated to us, and we all left by 11:30 because he had a flight at 10AM Saturday and we were all tired. The bar isn’t in Belo, it’s in a city right next door, and Bea got good and lost on the way there and back. I think we spent more time traveling than actually at the bar. It was nice though, and it was good to have an opportunity to see Fernando again before he left.

Saturday we went to a barbecue that was put on by the chemistry department - Bea didn’t organize it, but a lot of her friends did. It started at 1PM, and we were there until 11. It was held at a house, but I don’t think anyone lived there - they have houses here that people rent out for parties, and I think it was one of those. It had a little pool, and a big outside area, and room to play soccer, and tirolesa, which is a zip line. That wasn’t quite as impressive as it sounds, it was two tires and some rope, but I did it a couple of times, it was pretty fun. The tickets were totally sold out, Bea said that almost 200 of them had been sold - I don’t think there were quite that many people there, but almost. There was a ton of meat, of course, and they also had rice and salsa and garlic bread, which I ate quite a bit of, especially the garlic bread. My mouth still tastes a little garlicky, but it was worth it. There was music, and we did some dancing, and I met a couple of Brazilian guys who wanted to practice their English with me. One of them was speaking German to Niels and then started speaking German to me, and didn’t really understand that I didn’t speak German, so I told him “ich bin ein haus frau,” which Jen taught me and which means “I’m a house wife” because that’s the only thing I can say in German. He thought that was pretty funny, and then switched to English, which I understood better. About 6PM whoever was picking the music got in the mood for the sounds of the US, and we heard every hit by Michael Jackson, the YMCA, and some Beach Boys, it was pretty funny. When we got back to Bea’s house the neighbors were having a party, so I didn’t sleep very well, but it was a nice way to end my week of celebrations. Tonight I’m going to sleep a lot.

On Friday at noon I went to my first capoeira class. I wasn’t really sure I was going to try capoeira, because it looks (and is!) hard, but Niels and Paola went on Wednesday and told us about it, so Barbara and Marlieke and I tried it out on Friday. The class was an hour and a half long, we started out with warming up and then stretched and then started doing capoeira stuff. Most of the people in the class were really good, so Barbara and Marlieke and I and one other new person stood off to the side and practiced basics while the rest of the class did exciting tricky things. At the end, we got in a circle and everyone took turns going in the middle and “fighting,” including Marlieke, Barbara, Niels, and I! I didn’t expect to do it at my first class, but the teacher insisted. I felt very un-graceful, especially after watching the other students, but it was a lot of fun and I’m going to stick with it. My legs are still sore, and I’m hoping that by the end of the semester I’ll have a lovely little six-pack like everyone else in the class who wasn’t new. After capoeira we went to CEU, the sports center, and I ate açai and watched everyone else swim.

That’s all for now, see you later alligators!

a walk around town

here are some pictures of my surroundings:

http://usfca.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037404&l=90a7f&id=7103173

Portuguese for Strangers (extrangeiros)

Hi guys!
Well, I just thought I’d give you an update on my class situation. When we first met with Maria Helena, she had wanted to arrange a special Portuguese for Foreigners class for Barbara, Lourdes, and I, but that didn’t work out, so we’ve enrolled in the UFMG course, which happens to be at the same time as my cinema and music classes. Bummer. If I don’t take the Portuguese class, I don’t get grant money, and the advanced class was only offered at one time. The intermediate 1 class worked with my schedule, but it was in the city center (a half hour bus ride from school) and they were only going to go over the indicative tenses (not subjunctive), and subjunctive is what I need to review. So, this morning I dropped my two conflicting classes, and went to Portuguese instead. While I am disappointed that I don’t get to take the other classes, this may be a blessing in disguise, because the Portuguese class is going to be my easiest one by far, it won’t assign long technical reading, and the professor, Henrique, is really fun. He taught the basic class during the summer, so I haven’t had him as a teacher before, but he went on a lot of field trips with us and I like him a lot. He’s 24 (there’s a student in our class who’s 27, so that makes Henrique not the oldest), speaks English really well (and Portuguese, of course), and is very flamboyantly gay. I think I’m going to learn a lot in his class because he’s easy to understand, there are only 9 other people, and we’re going to practice conjugating verbs. Yay! Not that I love making verb charts, but it’s how I learn best, and I desperately need to review the subjunctive tenses.

Sunday was Father’s Day, which I wasn’t expecting here in the middle of August, but the upside of it was that Claudia made moqueca de peixe for lunch/dinner (we usually eat the same thing until it’s gone, and she cooks in bulk), and it was really delicious. It’s fish in some sort of tomato-y sauce with other stuff (I know, I know, that’s really descriptive) and I think it’s my favorite Brazilian food so far. Pão de queijo from the snackbar in Fafich comes in a close second though. Mmm, it’s hot and cheesy and only costs U$.30... Yum. However, not all the food is great - Claudia had me try something yesterday called “Romeo and Juliet”, which is where you eat goiabada, which is a gelatinous sweet made out of guavas, with fresh cheese. The flavor wasn’t horrible, but the textures together were too much for me, and I don’t love goiabada to begin with. She loves it, but Carolina doesn’t so I don’t feel bad not sharing her enthusiasm.

Salamão and Fernando are leaving this weekend, I’m really sad to see them go! We’re going to have a going-away party for Salamão tomorrow night, because he’s leaving Belo on Thursday to spend his last couple days in Brazil with his parents, who live in Betim, which is nearby but not that near, and Friday night Fernando is singing again so we’re going to go see him and say goodbye then. They’ve both been so helpful, I really hope that people in Spokane are as helpful to them as they were to us. I know for sure that when I get back to USF I’m going to go out of my way to assist the Brazilians, and any other exchange students, in any way I can - having people who want to help you when you’re in a foreign country really makes a huge difference. I mean, look at Bea - I mentioned to her that I was trying to find a place to live, and her family has taken me in! I’m going to try to be a lot more hospitable when I go home, it’s amazing to be on the receiving end of it.

Speaking of Bea’s family, I have to talk about her parents a little bit. They’re great, and they’re hilarious. Her dictator-missing dad also loves to sing karaoke, and he’s quite serious about it, and his favorite sentence in English is “the book is on the table.” After lunch he lays down on the couch and snores for 20 minutes or so, and in his spare time (like every evening) he watches old American movies on TV. Old westerns, the original Superman (that was last night’s feature), really bad 70’s movies - you name it, if it was made in the US before 1985, he’s probably seen it. He went a nutritionist earlier this week, and now he’s on a diet, so all the cheese and butter and packaged food in the house is light now. I didn’t realize this at first, and had some really disgusting cream cheese. I hope the light food does its job soon so that we can go back to real food. I could probably buy my own full-cal cream cheese, but I don’t want to make anyone feel bad. Maybe I’ll lose weight too, who knows.

And then there’s Claudia. She is a character. Her favorite adjectives in English are “delicious,” “lovely,” and “pretty beautiful,” and she uses them all frequently. She crochets, and I do to, but I don’t really like crocheting around her because she always tugs at my hats to try to make them flat, give me suggestions about how to hold my crochet hook, and asks me why don’t I make a bag or a poncho? She means well, I guess, but she’s very controlling when it comes to crocheting. The other night, after we made chocolate chip cookies (which turned out well, except for being pretty burnt and crunchy), I was teaching Barbara how to make a crocheted flower. Claudia noticed, and asked Barbara what she was going to do with said flower. Barbara replied, “Oh, I don’t know, I just wanted to learn to make it.” Claudia pursed her lips and suggested making a scarf or a bag instead. Barbara politely declined, and I went about teaching her the flower. After she finished, Claudia asked to see it and Barbara handed it over. Claudia made a noise like you might make if you opened up a present you were expecting to be a giant chocolate cake, but it turned out to be a raspberry. It was a noise of thinly veiled disappointment, after which she proceeded to point out all the holes and inconsistencies. Let me make a disclaimer - this flower was the first thing Barbara had crocheted in several years, and the thing she made then was half a scarf. Now, her flower wasn’t perfect, of course, but it was recognizable and really not bad at all, considering. After Claudia left to get some shirts that she’d appliqued flowers to to show us (she’s a big fan of showing me clothes she’s appliqued, and I’m keeping a close eye on all my tops), we proceeded to crack up while re-enacting the noise. It was hilarious. She’s a nice woman, just a little bit of a crochet nazi.

Another thing I’ve been noticing lately is that living here is different from living in the US in a lot of ways, but in others it’s really not. This is the longest I’ve been out of the US, and I’m really starting to see the effects of cultural imperialism, or neoliberalism, or whatever you want to call it. I’d learned about the huge influence that the US has abroad in class, but now I understand it a lot better, living it. With very few exceptions, the only movies on TV are made in Hollywood, McDonald’s is everywhere (although Starbucks is only in São Paulo), and the TV in the Xerox room is perpetually set to a Beyoncé concert (I think they’re looping the DVD). Almost everyone who has a college education speaks English, and Claudia is obsessed with garage sales, which she’s seen on TV but which don’t happen in Brazil. I’ve been trying to think about if there are any major cultural influences like this in the US, and I can’t. There aren’t other countries that we idolize, and with the exception of cars and some luxury goods, I think most of the products we buy come from companies that originated in the US. That’s not to say that Brazil doesn’t have its own culture, it certainly does, but the US is big here too. It will be interesting to spend next semester in El Salvador, and see if the US has the same sort of influence there that it does here.

For something completely different, Ava, the German Shepard, is in heat right now and Chico, the dachshund, has been doing his best to get romantic with her. Unfortunately for him, she’s about three times his height and the physics of that aren’t working out so well.

That’s all I have to say for now, good night!

First Week of Classes

Here's the thing about classes in Brazil - the homework that's assigned is, oddly enough, in Portuguese! Who woulda thunk? I haven't blogged in so long because I've been terribly busy reading about anthropology and modernism and pre-modern authors (not all for the same class). It's going OK but I read slowly in Portuguese, and I have to look up at least three words in every paragraph because it's really technical stuff. My favorite is when I look up a word, like for example "fantasmagoria", and I get "phantasmagory". Glad I understand that one now! To remedy that sort of thing, I bought a Portuguese dictionary, and that's actually been really helpful in these kind of situations.

Aside from the slow-going homework, I like all my classes a lot, and Fafich, the building where almost all my classes are, feels like home. It's the philosophy, psychology, communication, history, and social sciences building, and the students look like they've been lifted right out of Santa Cruz - a lot of people have dreads, only a couple of the men have short hair, people wear a lot of earth tones, there are cats everywhere - it's a little hippie haven, and I love it. I've already made some acquaintances, there are people that I have a lot of classes with who I see frequently and I've started getting to know some of them. There's also at least one other foreigner in every single one of my classes, which is nice because I don't feel like the professors are trying to talk slowly just for me. Speaking of professors, a few of them are really easy to understand and I don't feel like I miss very much at all, and some of them I leave class feeling like perhaps they were speaking Russian or something for all I understood, but overall it's a good learning experience and I trust that my comprehension will continue to improve.

The university atmosphere is different in Brazil than at USF - I have not had a class start on time yet, and on Wednesday one of my professors never showed up, without any explanation at all. I guess the first couple of weeks of school are a little scattered, and some classes don't even meet the first week, so maybe this will change later on, or maybe it's just another manifestation of the cultural norm that is lateness.

Another difference is that a lot of students have a lot to say - usually in classes at USF, the professor will introduce the class on the first day and then say something like, "Does anyone have any comments or suggestions of other things you'd like to incorporate?" and no one says anything and class is over. Here, though, students respond to that question in great detail, which took me by surprise every time it happened, which was in every class I've been to. Students seem to be really well read, there were suggestions of additional reading supplied by students in all of my classes, which the professors agreed to try to incorporate into the class.

Here's another thing - only one out of the 5 classes I've been to handed out a syllabus. I think/hope I'll be getting them for the other classes, but maybe the professors didn't pass anything official out yet because they were anticipating incorporating students' input. Also, you don't buy textbooks here, you go the Xerox room and they print the readings for you. It's a really easy and affordable system, I like it a lot better than toting books, and the pages are double sided so it's environmentally friendly too!

Like I said before, there are random cats all over campus - some are big, some are little, all are skinny and shy, but I've seen students dumping the remnants of their lunch into the plants, which are then attacked by the cats, so I guess they know that they'll get fed there.

Here's another difference - the buildings themselves. Everything is very open - the only enclosed spaces are the actual classrooms, all the corridors and the snack bar are open to the elements. I'll take pictures, I'm not a very good explainer, but it's very different from the rectangular, enclosed buildings I'm used to at USF. I guess because it doesn't get cold here they don't need to heat the buildings, and there's usually a breeze, which, since it travels freely throughout the building, is a good cooling system on hot days.

There are some things that are the same, of course - my classes give a lot of reading, the professors are really nice and seem to care about whether or not I'm understanding them and are helpful when I don't, and the on-campus food is pretty good. All of my classes so far have between 25 and 35 students, so that's only a little bigger than my classes at USF, and I really don't feel like I'm at a school with 35,000 undergrads (which I am) because I just hang out in Fafich with the hippies and I see the same people all the time, it's not like I have to run from one side of campus to the other to get to classes.

On Friday night, most of the international students and Bea and Salamão went to Boteca, which is a bar/concert/dance party that's held in the Biology building every Friday night. Yeah, you read that right, IN th Biology building, on campus. Odd. It was really fun though, there were a ton of people there, and Bea said she usually goes there on Fridays if there isn't something else going on.

Well, I've got to go, we're having a chocolate chip cookie baking party, but I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who's helped me get here - Jack and Andrea at USF, Jim Hayes and the Santa Cruz Rotary and Elk's Lodge and Native Daughters and FCC Santa Cruz who've given me scholarships, and my family and friends for all their help and support - studying abroad in Brazil is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I'm really thankful to have it, and even though there are hard parts and odd cultural differences (like eating chicken hearts!), I'm having a great time. So thanks!