Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Photos from Parque das Mangabeiras and the dogs at my house
http://usfca.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2038330&l=18164&id=7103173
Sunday, August 26, 2007
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.
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.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
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!
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!
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
a walk around town
here are some pictures of my surroundings:
http://usfca.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037404&l=90a7f&id=7103173
http://usfca.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037404&l=90a7f&id=7103173
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
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!
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!
Sunday, August 12, 2007
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!
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!
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Finally!
Hello strangers!
It’s been a long time since I’ve written, and I’ve been busy. Here’s what I’m going to write about: the end of my week after the futebol game, my new host family, a week in Bahia, and international student orientation.
Wednesday before last, before the futebol game, we took final tests in the Portuguese classes, which were really easy, for the most part. There were a couple of sections of the phonetics test that were sort of tricky, because I still have a hard time identifying open and closed vowels when they’re spoken, and I couldn’t for the life of me hear the difference between “meu” and “mel” (in Portuguese, the letter “l” is pronounced like a “w”).
The test for the grammar class had nothing to do with anything we’d been “learning” - there was a section where we watched a video and had to answer comprehension questions, two pages of reading which we were supposed to respond to, and an oral exam. I guess it made sense for the test to be like that, because we didn’t learn any verb tenses or vocabulary that we could have been tested on, but I feel like I could have wandered around Belo Horizonte for a month and gotten the same grade on the final test. I didn’t feel like it was a real final test, because it wasn’t cumulative at all (not that there was really any way that it could have been). Renato, one of the planners of the course, explained that we hadn’t learned verb tenses or lists of vocab because the point was for us to be immersed in the language and learn Portuguese like children do, naturally. This is a nice idea, but the problem is that 1) we’re all at least 20 years old, and our brains don’t work like children’s brains, 2) we’re all used to verb charts and vocab lists, maybe if we didn’t know any Portuguese before coming to Brazil this method would work, but most of us have already had a lot of exposure, and 3) for those of us who are staying for a semester, or a year, we need to be able to write intelligent academic papers in Portuguese, and in order to do that we need to be able to express ourselves in a way that is grammatically correct. Children have several years to learn how to speak their native languages - we had a month to learn as much as we could. I think that the immersion method could work for some people in some circumstances, but a month is not long enough for it to be effective and teach us everything we need to know, in my opinion. I do feel like my comprehension has improved greatly since I’ve been here - however, my production has not improved comparitively because I haven’t learned many new words or had the opportunity to review verb conjugations in the classroom. OK, that’s enough of that now.
Thursday we took a class field trip to the Museu de Brumadinho, which is also called Inhotim. It was modern art/really pretty gardens/lakes with water birds. I had a really nice time walking around the grounds and enjoying the (sort of) nature. I say sort of because it was definitely controlled and planned and landscaped nature, but it was a nice change from city. I liked a lot of the art too - there was a huge piece that took up an entire wall and looked like a haphazard pile of huge garbage that I really liked, and one of the outside pieces was an igloo that you go in, and inside there’s just a fountain and a strobe light, but it makes the water look like it’s a lot of still individual droplets - if it weren’t for the sound of the water falling, you wouldn’t know that it was moving at all, it was really cool. There was also a room that we could walk in that had white walls and it was set up like a living room, with a couch, tv, bookshelf, and a live bird in a cage, but everything in the room except the walls was red. I really liked the look of it, it would be fun to do a room in my house like that. I was also pleasantly surprised to learn that the snack bar had a vegetarian sandwich. It wasn’t the most amazing thing I’ve ever eaten, it was bread, a big hunk of cheese, a tomato and some lettuce, but it was nice to not have to pick meat off, like I usually have to with sandwiches here. All in all, it was a good day.
Friday we got our test results and our final grades (I got an A) and had a mini Festa Junina. I still don’t exactly understand the motives behind what goes on at a Festa Junina (June Party), but there are certain foods that are served (which I didn’t taste because they all had meat) and there always seem to be women wearing really loud country bumpkin dresses with fake braids and freckles painted on. They tried to get us to do a circle dance, but no one was really buying it. After socializing and eating for awhile, our diplomas were presented, and then everyone went their separate ways. Barbara, Lourdes, Fernando, Salamão, and I spent the afternoon trekking all over campus figuring out what classes everyone wanted to take. One of the differences between UFMG and USF is that at USF, all the courses and the class schedules are online, in the same place, and registration is done either online, all at once, or in the registrar’s office, all at once. At UFMG, however, all of the colleges are totally separate and there’s not much online, so in order to find out what classes are being offered and at what time of day, you have to go to that department’s building and look at a bulletin board, and to sign up, it’s the same thing, you have to go the department. That day, we just looked at what we wanted and filled out an application for the international student office, so they would know what we were interested in doing (registration was yesterday, but I’m going chronologically so I’ll tell you about that later).
Friday night, most of our Portuguese class went to Cafe Travessa because one of the girls from our class was singing there. Katrina’s studying music performance at Florida International University, and she has a really good voice. Apparently she was at a jazz club a few days before, just listening to the music, and some guy approached her and said, “Hey, you look like a musician, do you sing?” and when she replied that she did, he asked her to come to his studio and sing something for him, and after she did that he asked her to accompany he and his band at Cafe Travessa Friday and Saturday night. It was her first gig, and to make things a little more difficult, she didn’t speak Portuguese before coming to Brazil. Everthing went really well though, she looked and sounded great, and we all had a really good time. After she was done, a lot of us were hanging out in the plaza outside the club, and guess who happened to be there? Our guide from the museum we went to on Thursday! We got to talking, and I found out that he’s a vegetarian too, and I gave him my email address because he told me he’d email me the good veggie restaurants in Belo, but I haven’t heard from him. After that we went back to Eni’s place and packed, because Bea was coming for us at 8:30 Saturday morning.
I don’t think I’ve talked about this yet - Barbara and I decided not to keep living with Eni for three main reasons - #1, she lives really far away from the university, #2, we’d rather live with a family with kids our age, and #3, she was asking 900 reais a month (around $450), whereas everyone else who was staying with a family was paying 600 reais at the most, and many paid a lot less. Bea was coming to get us so early on Saturday morning because we had to be out of Eni’s place by Saturday and also because Bea, Barbara, Lourdes, Niels, Leslie, Fernando, Salamão, and some of Bea’s other friends were all going to Ouro Preto for a concert and their bus left at 10, I believe. I didn’t go with them because I was meeting what I thought was going to be my new host family Saturday night. Barbara and I had arranged with Bea to stay at her house until we left for Bahia, and for our stuff to live there while we were gone, so Saturday morning was the best time to move us and our stuff there.
Saturday during the day, after everyone left for Ouro Preto, I hung out with Bea’s mom, Claudia, and her older sister, Carolina. I was sort of sick (cough, runny nose, no energy), so I talked to them while they prepared lunch, then we ate, and then the three of us went to a market that was all sweaters. The women in this family are obsessed with sweaters - it’s pretty much all Claudia wears, and the daughters have quite a collection themselves. I didn’t like anything I saw there/I was barley able to stay awake, so I didn’t buy anything and when we got back I took a two hour nap.
Saturday night, after I woke up from my nap, I went to a concert/party at Jake’s host family’s house. Jake was one of the other students in the intensive Portuguese course, from Florida, and he and I were talking in class one day and he told me that his whole host family was vegetarian. I had him ask them if they’d like to host me for the semester, and he said that they’d be interested, and that I should come to their place Saturday night because the band that some of the sons play in was having a concert, and then I could meet them and they could meet me and I could see the place and we could see how we got along. Claudia and Bea’s dad, José, drove me there, and I arranged to call them when I wanted to get picked up. When I got to the house there were probably 35 people in their large front yard, listening to the band and eating and drinking (the family had set up a food and drink area and were selling things). I didn’t see Jake, but I did see our phonetics teacher, who’s apparently dating the family’s oldest son, so I went to talk to her. She found Jake for me, and he told me that the parents had gone to church but would probably be back in an hour or so. He gave me a tour of their house, which was nice, and we listened to the band a little, and just sort of hung out. I hadn’t spent much time with him before, and it was nice to get to know him better. After awhile the parents and some aunts and uncles and cousins showed up, and I talked to them for awhile. I liked their house, and the oldest brother was really nice, but I didn’t really feel a connection with anyone else in the family, and Jake said that he didn’t see any of them very often because they were all really busy. Around 10 I called Claudia and Zé to pick me up, and in the car on the way back I told them that, if the offer still stood, I’d like to stay with them for the semester. Bea had told me earlier that her family would be willing to have me if I didn’t find another place to live, and I felt a lot more at home with her family than with Jake’s.
Sunday mid-day everyone came back from Ouro Preto, and I went with Zé to pick them up at the bus stop. On the way, he was telling me about how the streets of Brazil are not safe, and that I had to be careful walking around by myself, but that during the military dictatorship, the streets had been very safe, and he missed that. He went on to explain that under the dictatorship, there weren’t people robbing other people on the street, probably because the military was such a strong presence, and that he really missed that safety. He went on to assert that he wasn’t a political man, and just wanted to live his life and have security for he and his family. I asked him, “But didn’t the military kidnap and kill people they thought were subversive?” and he replied, “Well sure, but that wasn’t me, and they had to do that to keep things in order.” I didn’t take the opportunity to share my opinion on the subject, which is that I’d take an unstable democracy and dangerous streets over a stable and “safe” dictatorship any day. I’m going to be living with this guy for the next 5 months, and I want to keep on his good side, and I also don’t know if I could explain myself adequately in Portuguese and his English isn’t that good, but I thought it was really interesting to hear his point of view - I’d never in my life heard of someone missing a military dictatorship. I understand his point, that the dictatorship wasn’t after him, so for he and his family it was safer then, but I still value free speech and fair elections over safer streets. I guess that’s probably because I grew up in the U.S. and have been conditioned to regard political and personal freedom as a fundamental human right - maybe if I’d been born in a country that’s had a military dictatorship (pretty much everywhere in Latin America), or if I’d lived in a country controlled by a dictator, I would feel differently, but all I’ve ever known is democracy and that’s what I’ve been trained to think is best. Another side of the coin is that if I, as I am now, was suddenly plopped in a country that was under military rule, I would for sure be targeted by the government as subversive - I’m leftist, I’m a college student, and I don’t hide my beliefs. So for Zé, who doesn’t really care one way or the other about politics, the dictatorship was safer, but for me, it almost certainly wouldn’t be. Anyway, I just thought it was interesting, and I’d like to hear what you guys think about this too - please leave comments!
After we got to the bus station and the Ouro Preto bus arrived, Barbara, Lourdes and I bought bus tickets for Porto Seguro, and then Niels and Barbara and I went back to Bea’s house for lunch. Monday Barbara and Lourdes and I bought plane tickets to get back to Belo (we opted to bus there and fly back to make everyone happy - we didn’t want to spend a ton of money, and I hate flying and Barbara wasn’t that excited about the bus, so this was the compromise we decided on. Niels flew both ways, but he also spent more money than we did). After buying the tickets, which involved going to the airport because the internet won’t take our US credit cards, Barbara and I bought bus snacks (which turned out to be all week snacks because we went a little crazy) and then went back to Bea’s house to pack.
Our bus left Monday night at 8PM, and we arrived in Porto Seguro, Bahia, at 1PM Tuesday. I enjoyed the bus ride, and would have gladly bussed back, but I was a good little compromiser and didn’t whine about it. Barbara and I were sitting in the first two seats of the bus, on the passenger side, and Lourdes was across the aisle from us. We’d opted for the fancy bus, which cost us about $20 more than the regular bus, and it was worth it. It was a really nice charter bus, with air conditioning and footrests and lots of leg room and free pillows and blankets and a snack box. Right after the bus left we watched “Tokyo Drift,” which seemed like an odd choice to me because it has a lot of car crashes and we were in a bus, but whatever. I hadn’t seen it before, and it was entertaining for two hours. Just like on the plane, the noise was coming through speakers that everyone could hear, and it wasn’t that loud - I could sort of hear it, but there were times when I had to rely on the Portuguese subtitles. After the movie was done, I tried to sleep, but, as some of you know, I have a really hard time sleeping if I’m not laying down, so I mostly just rested my eyes. The driver was listening to music, which we were also getting through the speakers, and it was louder than the movie had been, so even if I could have slept reclined in the seat, the music kept me awake. I listened the driver’s music for awhile, but when he switched to country music from the U.S. I put on my headphones and listened to my iPod. I think I may have dozed a little, but I spent most of the night listening to music with my eyes closed, which is almost as good as sleep. Oh, and the bus stopped every two hours, so I got up and walked around and went to the bathroom a lot too.
At 6:30 AM the sun was up and the driver decided we should be too, so he put on “A Walk to Remember.” I don’t know if any of you have seen it, and if you liked it I’m sorry, but it is one of the corniest movies ever produced, in my opinion. At 6:30 in the morning it was too much for me to handle, so I listened to my own music and looked out the window. The countryside was really beautiful, the whole reason I’d wanted to bus (aside from that I hate to fly) was that I wanted to see Brazil go by, and I wasn’t dissappointed. We went through a section that was sandy and desert-y, and then a section that looked like the pictures I’ve seen of African grasslands, and then an agricultural section where the primary crop seemed to be tall, skinny trees with a little bit of foliage on the upper third of the plant - I’m assuming they were rubber trees, but I really don’t know - anyone want to look it up? Or maybe I’ll google image “rubber tree” and see if they look like what I saw. At any rate, there were a ton of them. I would have taken pictures, but my camera was in my bag in the cargo area underneath the bus, unfortunately.
Once we arrived in Porto Seguro we took a cab to the ferry port, and then a ferry across a river, and then another cab to our pousada. Had we known better, we could have taken a bus instead of a cab both times, but we didn’t, so we didn’t. Niels arrived later that evening, and we went in to town to eat and happened upon a giant capoeira thing (check out my pictures to see more).
Leslie was supposed to catch a bus from Maceiô (which is where she’s staying for the semester) and meet us on Thursday, but she had problems and didn’t arrive until Friday. She told us that she was on the bus, minding her own business, when all of a sudden the driver pulled over at a police station, and a bunch of armed police people surrounded the bus. All of the big men were asked to get off the bus, and they joined the barricade. Then some of the police folk opened the cargo hold, guns and flashlights aimed inside, and pulled out two would-be hijackers. Leslie said that the driver had heard something funny in the cargo hold and had suspected robbers, and luckily there was a police station nearby. No one was hurt or robbed, but because of the delay, Leslie missed her second bus and had to wait in Salvador for 8 hours until the next bus left for Porto Seguro. She was understandably scared and frustrated, but she arrived safely at 7 AM on Friday, and decided to take a plane back to Maceiô. She told us later that her host sister had told her that the bus from Maceiô to Salvador was really unsafe because a lot of merchants from Maceiô go to Salvador to buy goods to bring back and sell, and robbers know that there are going to be people on those particular busses with a lot of money, because they’re going to buy things. So, if any of you ever find yourselves in Maceiô, wishing to be in Salvador, fly.
I’m just going to go over some of the highlights and lowlights of the trip, because the pictures and their captions will give you the general gist of what we did, and I still have to talk about the week after we got back. On Friday after we picked up Leslie, we went to a water park, which was a lot of fun - it had a lot of really good slides, a “river” that you could float down in an inner tube, and a zip line that landed you in a pool (that was my favorite part). Three of the days we were there we ate dinner at a really good Japanese restaurant, and almost every day for lunch we ate fish on the beach, which was super delicious. The first morning we were there it rained, which I thought was really novel, but by the end of the week it was raining off and on all day long, and it made it difficult to go anywhere because we were periodically drenched. The rain was warm, as was the ocean, but it’s still not nice to be soaking wet all the time. We spent some time shopping, I bought some really neat earrings and necklaces and some artsy-craftsy stuff. Overall, it was a fun trip, and very relaxing except for worrying about Leslie for a couple of days.
We flew back to Belo Horizonte on Tuesday, and international student orientation started Wednesday morning. To make a very long story short, we got talked at a lot, received our student ID cards, and most people signed up for classes. Some of my classes I’m still not signed up for, because we’re meeting with the head of the department to sign up on Friday, but I’ve chosen what I want and there shouldn’t be any problems getting in to the classes. I’m happy with my schedule, and Bea and Barbara and Niels and I are going to sign up for a dance class, and maybe capoeira as well, except I don’t know about that because I can’t do cartwheels, and they’re sort of important. So far, here’s what I’m taking, clumsily translated into English:
History, Music, and Politics (Thursdays from 3:10-4:50)
The Press, History, and Politics in Latin America (Wednesdays from 11:30-1:10)
Modernity and Cinema in Brazil (Tuesdays from 3:10-4:50)
Either Brazilian Politics II or Art and Society in Brazil (both on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7:30-9:10 AM)
Brazilian Anthropology (Mondays and Wednesdays from 9:30-11:10)
Ecological Foundations in Sustainable Development (Wednesdays from 7:00-9:40 PM)
Portuguese for Foreigners (I don't know the timing yet)
So there you go. Friday we had a party at the on-campus sports place, it has two pools and courts/fields for just about every sport you can think of. After eating a ton, we had a capoeira lesson/demonstration, and then a forró lesson (forró is the kind of dance class I'm going to take, it's similar to salsa but the music is different), and then we socialized for awhile and the people who had brought swimsuits swam. Friday night Fernando was singing at a bar, so Bea, Niels, Barbara, Lourdes and I went to see him. The bar was pretty far away, but it was really fun. All the seating was outside on the sidewalk on little plastic stools, there was an inside but it was all kitchen, and Fernando and his band were set up at one end. The drinks were really cheap, as was the food, and the people were really nice - we met a 40-something couple who want to invite us to their house for a barbecue sometime. Fernando sang really well, he's a very expressive performer and was a lot of fun to watch. He's singing again on the 17th, and I think we're going to try to go back.
Yesterday afternoon/evening I went to a bbq that was put on by some Brazilians living in the moradia, which is like a dorm but it's not owned by the university. There were a couple of Brazilians, but it was mostly international students - there are a bunch of people from Argentina, a girl from Uruguay, several Germans, some guys from Quebec (not Canada, Quebec, mind you), some English girls, a few other Americans, some Italians, and Niels and one other girl from Holland. On Friday afternoon I drank mate with the Argentines, it wasn't as gross as I was expecting it to be, and it was really fun to experience some of their culture. The bbq was fun, I didn't eat the meat of course, but there was music and dancing and socializing and it was nice to hang out with everybody.
Today Barbara moved in with her new host family (she'd been living at Bea's house since we got back from Bahia), I haven't heard from her yet but I really hope she likes them. Niels went to meet the vegetarian family yesterday, and he didn't like them at all and isn't going to live with them, so he's crashing on Salamão's couch for now, and I would hate for Barbara to be in that situation too. We're all going to see Harry Potter tonight, so I'll see her then and hear how it went.
Now for an interesting piece of Brazilian life - food on a stick. It's big here. So far I've seen beef on a stick, chicken wrapped in bacon on a stick, chicken heart on a stick (Bea's favorite), crepe on a stick, garlic bread on a stick, cheese on a stick, pineapple on a stick, and ice cream on a stick. Oddly enough, I haven't seen any corn dogs or mixed kebobs, but hey, I could probably find them if I looked hard enough. Food on a stick is really easy to eat, and it's better for the environment too - the sticks biodegrade and there aren't any plates or silverware to wash or throw away. It's not usually the healthiest stuff, but it's quick and easy and I like it.
I miss fabric softener. My t-shirts stand up by themselves, I suspect because it's hard to get all the soap out when rinsing by hand. I configured my computer so now I can plug into the DSL here and use my computer, so hopefully I'll be better about blogging and posting pictures more frequently, and now if you skype me you can see me because I'll be able to use my camera.
That's all for now, talk to you later!
It’s been a long time since I’ve written, and I’ve been busy. Here’s what I’m going to write about: the end of my week after the futebol game, my new host family, a week in Bahia, and international student orientation.
Wednesday before last, before the futebol game, we took final tests in the Portuguese classes, which were really easy, for the most part. There were a couple of sections of the phonetics test that were sort of tricky, because I still have a hard time identifying open and closed vowels when they’re spoken, and I couldn’t for the life of me hear the difference between “meu” and “mel” (in Portuguese, the letter “l” is pronounced like a “w”).
The test for the grammar class had nothing to do with anything we’d been “learning” - there was a section where we watched a video and had to answer comprehension questions, two pages of reading which we were supposed to respond to, and an oral exam. I guess it made sense for the test to be like that, because we didn’t learn any verb tenses or vocabulary that we could have been tested on, but I feel like I could have wandered around Belo Horizonte for a month and gotten the same grade on the final test. I didn’t feel like it was a real final test, because it wasn’t cumulative at all (not that there was really any way that it could have been). Renato, one of the planners of the course, explained that we hadn’t learned verb tenses or lists of vocab because the point was for us to be immersed in the language and learn Portuguese like children do, naturally. This is a nice idea, but the problem is that 1) we’re all at least 20 years old, and our brains don’t work like children’s brains, 2) we’re all used to verb charts and vocab lists, maybe if we didn’t know any Portuguese before coming to Brazil this method would work, but most of us have already had a lot of exposure, and 3) for those of us who are staying for a semester, or a year, we need to be able to write intelligent academic papers in Portuguese, and in order to do that we need to be able to express ourselves in a way that is grammatically correct. Children have several years to learn how to speak their native languages - we had a month to learn as much as we could. I think that the immersion method could work for some people in some circumstances, but a month is not long enough for it to be effective and teach us everything we need to know, in my opinion. I do feel like my comprehension has improved greatly since I’ve been here - however, my production has not improved comparitively because I haven’t learned many new words or had the opportunity to review verb conjugations in the classroom. OK, that’s enough of that now.
Thursday we took a class field trip to the Museu de Brumadinho, which is also called Inhotim. It was modern art/really pretty gardens/lakes with water birds. I had a really nice time walking around the grounds and enjoying the (sort of) nature. I say sort of because it was definitely controlled and planned and landscaped nature, but it was a nice change from city. I liked a lot of the art too - there was a huge piece that took up an entire wall and looked like a haphazard pile of huge garbage that I really liked, and one of the outside pieces was an igloo that you go in, and inside there’s just a fountain and a strobe light, but it makes the water look like it’s a lot of still individual droplets - if it weren’t for the sound of the water falling, you wouldn’t know that it was moving at all, it was really cool. There was also a room that we could walk in that had white walls and it was set up like a living room, with a couch, tv, bookshelf, and a live bird in a cage, but everything in the room except the walls was red. I really liked the look of it, it would be fun to do a room in my house like that. I was also pleasantly surprised to learn that the snack bar had a vegetarian sandwich. It wasn’t the most amazing thing I’ve ever eaten, it was bread, a big hunk of cheese, a tomato and some lettuce, but it was nice to not have to pick meat off, like I usually have to with sandwiches here. All in all, it was a good day.
Friday we got our test results and our final grades (I got an A) and had a mini Festa Junina. I still don’t exactly understand the motives behind what goes on at a Festa Junina (June Party), but there are certain foods that are served (which I didn’t taste because they all had meat) and there always seem to be women wearing really loud country bumpkin dresses with fake braids and freckles painted on. They tried to get us to do a circle dance, but no one was really buying it. After socializing and eating for awhile, our diplomas were presented, and then everyone went their separate ways. Barbara, Lourdes, Fernando, Salamão, and I spent the afternoon trekking all over campus figuring out what classes everyone wanted to take. One of the differences between UFMG and USF is that at USF, all the courses and the class schedules are online, in the same place, and registration is done either online, all at once, or in the registrar’s office, all at once. At UFMG, however, all of the colleges are totally separate and there’s not much online, so in order to find out what classes are being offered and at what time of day, you have to go to that department’s building and look at a bulletin board, and to sign up, it’s the same thing, you have to go the department. That day, we just looked at what we wanted and filled out an application for the international student office, so they would know what we were interested in doing (registration was yesterday, but I’m going chronologically so I’ll tell you about that later).
Friday night, most of our Portuguese class went to Cafe Travessa because one of the girls from our class was singing there. Katrina’s studying music performance at Florida International University, and she has a really good voice. Apparently she was at a jazz club a few days before, just listening to the music, and some guy approached her and said, “Hey, you look like a musician, do you sing?” and when she replied that she did, he asked her to come to his studio and sing something for him, and after she did that he asked her to accompany he and his band at Cafe Travessa Friday and Saturday night. It was her first gig, and to make things a little more difficult, she didn’t speak Portuguese before coming to Brazil. Everthing went really well though, she looked and sounded great, and we all had a really good time. After she was done, a lot of us were hanging out in the plaza outside the club, and guess who happened to be there? Our guide from the museum we went to on Thursday! We got to talking, and I found out that he’s a vegetarian too, and I gave him my email address because he told me he’d email me the good veggie restaurants in Belo, but I haven’t heard from him. After that we went back to Eni’s place and packed, because Bea was coming for us at 8:30 Saturday morning.
I don’t think I’ve talked about this yet - Barbara and I decided not to keep living with Eni for three main reasons - #1, she lives really far away from the university, #2, we’d rather live with a family with kids our age, and #3, she was asking 900 reais a month (around $450), whereas everyone else who was staying with a family was paying 600 reais at the most, and many paid a lot less. Bea was coming to get us so early on Saturday morning because we had to be out of Eni’s place by Saturday and also because Bea, Barbara, Lourdes, Niels, Leslie, Fernando, Salamão, and some of Bea’s other friends were all going to Ouro Preto for a concert and their bus left at 10, I believe. I didn’t go with them because I was meeting what I thought was going to be my new host family Saturday night. Barbara and I had arranged with Bea to stay at her house until we left for Bahia, and for our stuff to live there while we were gone, so Saturday morning was the best time to move us and our stuff there.
Saturday during the day, after everyone left for Ouro Preto, I hung out with Bea’s mom, Claudia, and her older sister, Carolina. I was sort of sick (cough, runny nose, no energy), so I talked to them while they prepared lunch, then we ate, and then the three of us went to a market that was all sweaters. The women in this family are obsessed with sweaters - it’s pretty much all Claudia wears, and the daughters have quite a collection themselves. I didn’t like anything I saw there/I was barley able to stay awake, so I didn’t buy anything and when we got back I took a two hour nap.
Saturday night, after I woke up from my nap, I went to a concert/party at Jake’s host family’s house. Jake was one of the other students in the intensive Portuguese course, from Florida, and he and I were talking in class one day and he told me that his whole host family was vegetarian. I had him ask them if they’d like to host me for the semester, and he said that they’d be interested, and that I should come to their place Saturday night because the band that some of the sons play in was having a concert, and then I could meet them and they could meet me and I could see the place and we could see how we got along. Claudia and Bea’s dad, José, drove me there, and I arranged to call them when I wanted to get picked up. When I got to the house there were probably 35 people in their large front yard, listening to the band and eating and drinking (the family had set up a food and drink area and were selling things). I didn’t see Jake, but I did see our phonetics teacher, who’s apparently dating the family’s oldest son, so I went to talk to her. She found Jake for me, and he told me that the parents had gone to church but would probably be back in an hour or so. He gave me a tour of their house, which was nice, and we listened to the band a little, and just sort of hung out. I hadn’t spent much time with him before, and it was nice to get to know him better. After awhile the parents and some aunts and uncles and cousins showed up, and I talked to them for awhile. I liked their house, and the oldest brother was really nice, but I didn’t really feel a connection with anyone else in the family, and Jake said that he didn’t see any of them very often because they were all really busy. Around 10 I called Claudia and Zé to pick me up, and in the car on the way back I told them that, if the offer still stood, I’d like to stay with them for the semester. Bea had told me earlier that her family would be willing to have me if I didn’t find another place to live, and I felt a lot more at home with her family than with Jake’s.
Sunday mid-day everyone came back from Ouro Preto, and I went with Zé to pick them up at the bus stop. On the way, he was telling me about how the streets of Brazil are not safe, and that I had to be careful walking around by myself, but that during the military dictatorship, the streets had been very safe, and he missed that. He went on to explain that under the dictatorship, there weren’t people robbing other people on the street, probably because the military was such a strong presence, and that he really missed that safety. He went on to assert that he wasn’t a political man, and just wanted to live his life and have security for he and his family. I asked him, “But didn’t the military kidnap and kill people they thought were subversive?” and he replied, “Well sure, but that wasn’t me, and they had to do that to keep things in order.” I didn’t take the opportunity to share my opinion on the subject, which is that I’d take an unstable democracy and dangerous streets over a stable and “safe” dictatorship any day. I’m going to be living with this guy for the next 5 months, and I want to keep on his good side, and I also don’t know if I could explain myself adequately in Portuguese and his English isn’t that good, but I thought it was really interesting to hear his point of view - I’d never in my life heard of someone missing a military dictatorship. I understand his point, that the dictatorship wasn’t after him, so for he and his family it was safer then, but I still value free speech and fair elections over safer streets. I guess that’s probably because I grew up in the U.S. and have been conditioned to regard political and personal freedom as a fundamental human right - maybe if I’d been born in a country that’s had a military dictatorship (pretty much everywhere in Latin America), or if I’d lived in a country controlled by a dictator, I would feel differently, but all I’ve ever known is democracy and that’s what I’ve been trained to think is best. Another side of the coin is that if I, as I am now, was suddenly plopped in a country that was under military rule, I would for sure be targeted by the government as subversive - I’m leftist, I’m a college student, and I don’t hide my beliefs. So for Zé, who doesn’t really care one way or the other about politics, the dictatorship was safer, but for me, it almost certainly wouldn’t be. Anyway, I just thought it was interesting, and I’d like to hear what you guys think about this too - please leave comments!
After we got to the bus station and the Ouro Preto bus arrived, Barbara, Lourdes and I bought bus tickets for Porto Seguro, and then Niels and Barbara and I went back to Bea’s house for lunch. Monday Barbara and Lourdes and I bought plane tickets to get back to Belo (we opted to bus there and fly back to make everyone happy - we didn’t want to spend a ton of money, and I hate flying and Barbara wasn’t that excited about the bus, so this was the compromise we decided on. Niels flew both ways, but he also spent more money than we did). After buying the tickets, which involved going to the airport because the internet won’t take our US credit cards, Barbara and I bought bus snacks (which turned out to be all week snacks because we went a little crazy) and then went back to Bea’s house to pack.
Our bus left Monday night at 8PM, and we arrived in Porto Seguro, Bahia, at 1PM Tuesday. I enjoyed the bus ride, and would have gladly bussed back, but I was a good little compromiser and didn’t whine about it. Barbara and I were sitting in the first two seats of the bus, on the passenger side, and Lourdes was across the aisle from us. We’d opted for the fancy bus, which cost us about $20 more than the regular bus, and it was worth it. It was a really nice charter bus, with air conditioning and footrests and lots of leg room and free pillows and blankets and a snack box. Right after the bus left we watched “Tokyo Drift,” which seemed like an odd choice to me because it has a lot of car crashes and we were in a bus, but whatever. I hadn’t seen it before, and it was entertaining for two hours. Just like on the plane, the noise was coming through speakers that everyone could hear, and it wasn’t that loud - I could sort of hear it, but there were times when I had to rely on the Portuguese subtitles. After the movie was done, I tried to sleep, but, as some of you know, I have a really hard time sleeping if I’m not laying down, so I mostly just rested my eyes. The driver was listening to music, which we were also getting through the speakers, and it was louder than the movie had been, so even if I could have slept reclined in the seat, the music kept me awake. I listened the driver’s music for awhile, but when he switched to country music from the U.S. I put on my headphones and listened to my iPod. I think I may have dozed a little, but I spent most of the night listening to music with my eyes closed, which is almost as good as sleep. Oh, and the bus stopped every two hours, so I got up and walked around and went to the bathroom a lot too.
At 6:30 AM the sun was up and the driver decided we should be too, so he put on “A Walk to Remember.” I don’t know if any of you have seen it, and if you liked it I’m sorry, but it is one of the corniest movies ever produced, in my opinion. At 6:30 in the morning it was too much for me to handle, so I listened to my own music and looked out the window. The countryside was really beautiful, the whole reason I’d wanted to bus (aside from that I hate to fly) was that I wanted to see Brazil go by, and I wasn’t dissappointed. We went through a section that was sandy and desert-y, and then a section that looked like the pictures I’ve seen of African grasslands, and then an agricultural section where the primary crop seemed to be tall, skinny trees with a little bit of foliage on the upper third of the plant - I’m assuming they were rubber trees, but I really don’t know - anyone want to look it up? Or maybe I’ll google image “rubber tree” and see if they look like what I saw. At any rate, there were a ton of them. I would have taken pictures, but my camera was in my bag in the cargo area underneath the bus, unfortunately.
Once we arrived in Porto Seguro we took a cab to the ferry port, and then a ferry across a river, and then another cab to our pousada. Had we known better, we could have taken a bus instead of a cab both times, but we didn’t, so we didn’t. Niels arrived later that evening, and we went in to town to eat and happened upon a giant capoeira thing (check out my pictures to see more).
Leslie was supposed to catch a bus from Maceiô (which is where she’s staying for the semester) and meet us on Thursday, but she had problems and didn’t arrive until Friday. She told us that she was on the bus, minding her own business, when all of a sudden the driver pulled over at a police station, and a bunch of armed police people surrounded the bus. All of the big men were asked to get off the bus, and they joined the barricade. Then some of the police folk opened the cargo hold, guns and flashlights aimed inside, and pulled out two would-be hijackers. Leslie said that the driver had heard something funny in the cargo hold and had suspected robbers, and luckily there was a police station nearby. No one was hurt or robbed, but because of the delay, Leslie missed her second bus and had to wait in Salvador for 8 hours until the next bus left for Porto Seguro. She was understandably scared and frustrated, but she arrived safely at 7 AM on Friday, and decided to take a plane back to Maceiô. She told us later that her host sister had told her that the bus from Maceiô to Salvador was really unsafe because a lot of merchants from Maceiô go to Salvador to buy goods to bring back and sell, and robbers know that there are going to be people on those particular busses with a lot of money, because they’re going to buy things. So, if any of you ever find yourselves in Maceiô, wishing to be in Salvador, fly.
I’m just going to go over some of the highlights and lowlights of the trip, because the pictures and their captions will give you the general gist of what we did, and I still have to talk about the week after we got back. On Friday after we picked up Leslie, we went to a water park, which was a lot of fun - it had a lot of really good slides, a “river” that you could float down in an inner tube, and a zip line that landed you in a pool (that was my favorite part). Three of the days we were there we ate dinner at a really good Japanese restaurant, and almost every day for lunch we ate fish on the beach, which was super delicious. The first morning we were there it rained, which I thought was really novel, but by the end of the week it was raining off and on all day long, and it made it difficult to go anywhere because we were periodically drenched. The rain was warm, as was the ocean, but it’s still not nice to be soaking wet all the time. We spent some time shopping, I bought some really neat earrings and necklaces and some artsy-craftsy stuff. Overall, it was a fun trip, and very relaxing except for worrying about Leslie for a couple of days.
We flew back to Belo Horizonte on Tuesday, and international student orientation started Wednesday morning. To make a very long story short, we got talked at a lot, received our student ID cards, and most people signed up for classes. Some of my classes I’m still not signed up for, because we’re meeting with the head of the department to sign up on Friday, but I’ve chosen what I want and there shouldn’t be any problems getting in to the classes. I’m happy with my schedule, and Bea and Barbara and Niels and I are going to sign up for a dance class, and maybe capoeira as well, except I don’t know about that because I can’t do cartwheels, and they’re sort of important. So far, here’s what I’m taking, clumsily translated into English:
History, Music, and Politics (Thursdays from 3:10-4:50)
The Press, History, and Politics in Latin America (Wednesdays from 11:30-1:10)
Modernity and Cinema in Brazil (Tuesdays from 3:10-4:50)
Either Brazilian Politics II or Art and Society in Brazil (both on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7:30-9:10 AM)
Brazilian Anthropology (Mondays and Wednesdays from 9:30-11:10)
Ecological Foundations in Sustainable Development (Wednesdays from 7:00-9:40 PM)
Portuguese for Foreigners (I don't know the timing yet)
So there you go. Friday we had a party at the on-campus sports place, it has two pools and courts/fields for just about every sport you can think of. After eating a ton, we had a capoeira lesson/demonstration, and then a forró lesson (forró is the kind of dance class I'm going to take, it's similar to salsa but the music is different), and then we socialized for awhile and the people who had brought swimsuits swam. Friday night Fernando was singing at a bar, so Bea, Niels, Barbara, Lourdes and I went to see him. The bar was pretty far away, but it was really fun. All the seating was outside on the sidewalk on little plastic stools, there was an inside but it was all kitchen, and Fernando and his band were set up at one end. The drinks were really cheap, as was the food, and the people were really nice - we met a 40-something couple who want to invite us to their house for a barbecue sometime. Fernando sang really well, he's a very expressive performer and was a lot of fun to watch. He's singing again on the 17th, and I think we're going to try to go back.
Yesterday afternoon/evening I went to a bbq that was put on by some Brazilians living in the moradia, which is like a dorm but it's not owned by the university. There were a couple of Brazilians, but it was mostly international students - there are a bunch of people from Argentina, a girl from Uruguay, several Germans, some guys from Quebec (not Canada, Quebec, mind you), some English girls, a few other Americans, some Italians, and Niels and one other girl from Holland. On Friday afternoon I drank mate with the Argentines, it wasn't as gross as I was expecting it to be, and it was really fun to experience some of their culture. The bbq was fun, I didn't eat the meat of course, but there was music and dancing and socializing and it was nice to hang out with everybody.
Today Barbara moved in with her new host family (she'd been living at Bea's house since we got back from Bahia), I haven't heard from her yet but I really hope she likes them. Niels went to meet the vegetarian family yesterday, and he didn't like them at all and isn't going to live with them, so he's crashing on Salamão's couch for now, and I would hate for Barbara to be in that situation too. We're all going to see Harry Potter tonight, so I'll see her then and hear how it went.
Now for an interesting piece of Brazilian life - food on a stick. It's big here. So far I've seen beef on a stick, chicken wrapped in bacon on a stick, chicken heart on a stick (Bea's favorite), crepe on a stick, garlic bread on a stick, cheese on a stick, pineapple on a stick, and ice cream on a stick. Oddly enough, I haven't seen any corn dogs or mixed kebobs, but hey, I could probably find them if I looked hard enough. Food on a stick is really easy to eat, and it's better for the environment too - the sticks biodegrade and there aren't any plates or silverware to wash or throw away. It's not usually the healthiest stuff, but it's quick and easy and I like it.
I miss fabric softener. My t-shirts stand up by themselves, I suspect because it's hard to get all the soap out when rinsing by hand. I configured my computer so now I can plug into the DSL here and use my computer, so hopefully I'll be better about blogging and posting pictures more frequently, and now if you skype me you can see me because I'll be able to use my camera.
That's all for now, talk to you later!
Saturday, August 4, 2007
I'm baaaack...
First of all, here's pictures from Bahia:
http://usfca.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2036595&l=02564&id=7103173
you have to copy and paste the whole thing, both lines, into the address section of your browser - clicking on the first part won't work. you shouldn't have to sign up for facebook to see the pictures either, if you have any questions leave a comment here and i'll try to help.
Now then - I haven't finished writing all that I mean to, but I'll hopefully be posting a really long entry later today or tomorrow at some point. For now, you can enjoy the photos!
http://usfca.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2036595&l=02564&id=7103173
you have to copy and paste the whole thing, both lines, into the address section of your browser - clicking on the first part won't work. you shouldn't have to sign up for facebook to see the pictures either, if you have any questions leave a comment here and i'll try to help.
Now then - I haven't finished writing all that I mean to, but I'll hopefully be posting a really long entry later today or tomorrow at some point. For now, you can enjoy the photos!
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