So on Saturday night we went out to eat at an Italian restaurant with everyone. It was fantastic! We were kind of skeptical at first because when we walked in, we were the only people in the restaurant, and then they didn’t actually have half of the items listed on their menu (no pizzas! Only juices or wine, no sodas, etc). We all ordered different things and ended up just passing them around and eating a little bit of everyone’s meal. It was fantastic!
The next day was Esther’s birthday, so after dinner we went to a different restaurant/cachaça bar to hang out and to attempt to stay up until 12:00 to reign in Esther’s birthday. Cachaça is the a popular Brazillian liquor – the most popular in the country. It is made from sugarcane and is used to make many drinks, most notably the Caipirinha, which is made with sugar and lime. Anyways, this cachaça bar had many different flavors of cachaça, and they serve you a shots worth that you sip. I got a fruit flavor as my first – I can’t remember which one (it was one of the Brazillian fruits and it was the one the waitress recommended). It was alright but I couldn’t really sit there and sip liquor. Jeff got a really good one – cinnamon! Joel got coffee which was also very good (it was more creamy vs. straight liquor). After that, we each tried a different flavor. I got coconut (another creamy flavor) which was very very good! Renee and Sebastien were already back at the hotel cause they were tired (they left after the Italian restaurant) and at this point, the rest of us were getting tired so we decided to leave (it was only 11:15 so we didn’t quite make it to 12:00). We had a lot of fun though, sharing and listening to each other’s funny stories (especially Joel’s, about herding sheep in Greece and being homeless across Europe etc)…
The next morning we woke up for our second day of hiking. We were doing the same hikes that Jeff and Joel had done the day before we got there, and he said they were much easier than our hike up the mountain, which we were definitely excited about. We had six places to see in Chapada Diamantina so we had a busy day ahead of us. We all ate breakfast together (no monkeys or yummy coconut tapioca rolls today… food was alright though!). Renee wasn’t feeling well, so she decided to stay behind and get rest. So, Sebastien, Esther, Andreas and I got into the car (which was smaller this time since there weren’t as many of us) and made our drive out to the first stop. It was pretty bumpy, which was funny and annoying at the same time.
Our first stop was a hike out to a waterfall called Poco do Diabo, also known as the “Devil’s Throat.” It was very pretty. The hike wasn’t bad at all, although it was pretty funny because at one point, you have to scale these big rocks that have fallen on their sides, and it’s kind of tricky, and Andreas snapped a pretty quality shot of me struggling. Anyways we swam for a while in the pool, which meant Esther and I had to change, so we did our same old same old routine (act like a bunch of prudes and go change behind the towels that we hold up for one another) although this time we had gotten better at it. By the end of the day, when we needed to change, we were able to do it on our own!!! We’re pretty much pros. OK! Geez I sidetrack a lot. At the falls, there was also a big zip line that looked SOOoo cool (I’m actually not sure why we didn’t do it? Maybe not enough time?) as well as carabineers cascading down the mountain.
Our next stop was a hike up a mountain, which was more similar to the first day’s hike (although not as difficult) to the top of Pai Inacio, one of the mountains of Chapada Diamantina (it is one of the ones usually featured in books etc.) At the top of the mountain, the rock was pretty flat and there were beautiful plants and flowers growing everywhere – in particular, cactus and these beautiful small purple flowers! The view was SPECTACULAR – you could see so far and see so much! Of course, all you could see was nature, since there wasn’t much development nearby. You could see the Lencois area in the distance, which is probably the busiest “city” within proximity. It was so pretty!!!!
The next stop we made was at Pratinha, an area with a cave and a huge pool. Upon arriving, we saw they had a huge zipline into the lake, although at the bottom were a bunch of couples making out, so we decided to check out the cave. We decided to go snorkeling into the cave, so Esther and I once again changed (this time in front of many more people, and there weren’t any walls or steep inclines or rocks or anything to kind of change against and use as protection, but we still changed successfully – let me reiterate, we’re pros now!) and we rented some cute little fins and goggles and snorkels etc. We flipped around looking at fish, and then we got into groups of three and each group (ours was Esther, Andreas and I… Sebastien got put with these two local girls, haha, I’m sure he didn’t mind) got a flashlight, and we were led by this guy in a kayak back into the cave, where it started getting really really dark. We were able to see the cave, which was so cool – the water was SO clear! Although there weren’t any fish once you got back into the cave. Or sharks. Or eels. So it wasn’t TOO exciting, but not too scary either. It was still beautiful and I’ve never been snorkeling before so I thought it was really really cool! And then at the very end of the snorkel – once we reached the end of the cave (about 10 mins in), they turned off all of the flashlights and we sat there in darkness for a minute! It was awesome. We were at the “end” of the above water part of the cave, but the cave doesn’t actually end there – if you have proper scuba equipment, you can dive underwater and continue swimming for 10 minutes or so until you reach above water again. Anyways, the cave that we started in connected 13km later with a different cave called the Gruta Azul, or Blue Pool.
After we were done at Pratinha, we drove/walked over the Gruta Azul – which was only a 10 minute walk away. There was no one there, and it was so peaceful – and the water was SO blue. It was kind of hard to see much inside the cave because it doesn’t have much access to light, but we got there late in the afternoon, when it got the most sun it would get during the day, so we could see some of it. Ah it really was sooo pretty. My pictures don’t do it justice in the least – it was really hard to get a good one that really looked like the cave!
The last stop we made that day was a place 30 mins away, called Gruta Lapa Doce, or Sweet Cave (or something to that effect). It was completely different than anything we had done yet – although really, our day had been full of many many different things. Anyways, Gruta Lapa Doce is this underground cave that used to have a river running through it, but now doesn’t (the river now actually somehow runs into Gruta Azul… over time it eroded into it or something) and hasn’t for a while. So we got to walk the cave – which took at least an hour? – with the help of a guide and his lantern. It was SO cool!!! We were completely underground in pitch black, the five of us. The cave was full of stalactite and stalagmite rock (random 1st grade knowledge suddenly becomes useful!). It takes over 33 years for only one centimeter of stalagmite rock to form in this cave! Which is crazy. A lot of the rock formations in the cave had different “shapes,” and our guide was eager to point them all out – they were all pretty funny. My favorite part was when, at one point, our guide told us to sit down, and he turned his lamp off. We sat in COMPLETE darkness and silence for three minutes. I was kind of scared at first, but it was SO cool! We were all meditating there in the complete nothingness. It is one of those experiences that just is so cool and you don’t really get an opportunity to experience much.
After that, our day was done so we went back to the pousada, where Renee was waiting for us, feeling a bit better. I still had a lot of energy so I went for a run around Lencois for a few minutes, then came back and took a shower. Jeff and Joel were already back, and after we all were done showering etc, we went out for Esther’s birthday dinner at a pizza place. It was great food (the pizza in Brazil is amazing. All thin crust and best toppings – ah. America has some learning to do). And then Jeff and I went up to the chef and told him it was Esther’s birthday, so he made her a special “dessert” pizza! Aka honey/banana/cinnamon. It was great! Dinner with the bunch was so so much fun – we were laughing the whole time.
After that, we walked into town and saw this concert going on, which ended up being a carnival for kids with a live band for kids. haha. Esther and I danced around for about, two minutes, but then I started feeling like a pedophile, so I stopped, although Esther was really enjoying being silly and dancing around so she did for a while longer. We finally made our way back to the pousada, stopping along the way to get some supplies for the road (aka water and food). We finished packing and made our way to the bus station, where we caught our 11:20 pm bus back to Salvador. I took another one of Renee’s NyQuil pills, much earlier this time, so luckily I got a lot of sleep. I did wake up a lot though, at one point I think it was 3:00 or so and I noticed the stars outside the window (we were in the complete rural countryside). The stars were SO bright and so beautiful! I’ve really been getting into looking at the stars when I’ve been abroad. Especially in the southern hemisphere were there are some diff constellations! Anyways I got way excited so I tried to show Andreas, who was completely unconscious, and barely responded when I nudged him and was like, “Andreas! Look! The stars!!!” Finally, in his slumber, he just grabbed my hands and arms and pulled me over into his arms, where I fell asleep pretty quickly, so I guess he was successful in getting me to shut up. It was a pretty nice sleep too!
We arrived back in Salvador around 6:15 and took a taxi back to the house, where we slept-walked around for an hour and a half and took a shower and ate breakfast until we had to leave for placement at 8:00, ready for our long days ahead!
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Saturday, January 31, 2009
WIthdrawals.
I MISS BRAZIL. so so much. Also, I'm not too fond of the Miami airport. So confusing. Also, freezing. I miss Brazil so much... I don't know what I'm going to do with my life.... ahhh I love the States, but take me back now!
Lencois
Our last weekend in Brazil was a lot of fun – Renee, Esther, Andreas and I traveled to Lencois, a smaller town near the Parque Nacional da Chapada Diamantina (or Chapada Diamentina National Park). We were only there for two days, but we were able to do a few different hikes and see different nature-y things in Brazil. It was a nice change from the beach/city scene that we had come to know as Brazil.
On Friday night, we all went out to Sophia, a way cute restaurant near our homebase. We went to have a goodbye drink with Anya and Rachel, who were leaving the next morning. After Sophia’s, the four of us left for the bus station and caught out 11:30pm bus to Lencois. The trip is a 6 (or so) hour bus ride from Salvador, so we decided to take the night bus to maximize our time in Lencois. The bus ride was alright, although I was having trouble falling asleep, so I took one of Renee’s NyQuils, and was able to doze on/off until about 3:30am, when the bus made a quick pit stop, and upon returning onto the bus, I completely passed out. Not-so-lucky for me, though, we arrived in Lencois only 2 or 2.5 hours later, and I was still feeling kind of NyQuiled, which was weird (I was soooo out of it). We got to our pousada, (Pousada das Arvores, I think) and even though check-in wasn’t until 10:00am, they allowed us to get into our room early to take a nap, which was really nice. So I got to sleep from 6:00-7:30 or so, and then we got up for breakfast before our day of hiking. I was feeling a little bit less tired at breakfast (thank goodness). Their breakfast was a bunch of fruit and cakes/breads, as well as this really cool food that was some sort of tapioca and coconut pancake-y sort of thing. I really liked it. The breakfast was outside, and all of sudden we noticed a ton of monkeys on a nearby birdfeeder (or monkeyfeeder?) which was kind of funny. Esther had been DYING to see monkeys so she got way excited, which was fun.
We got a guide for the weekend to take us around to places (that is what everyone does here – you don’t really just go hike by yourself), and we had decided before arriving what we wanted to do. We left for our first site at 8:00 or 8:30 (can’t remember at this point, although I guess it really isn’t too important) to drive out to where our hike would start. The drive was about 2 or 3 hours – more time to sleep! There were three other guys from our pousada who came with us – Jean-Francois (also known as Jeff) and Joel, two friends from Canada who are in their late 30’s, and Sebastian, a guy from France, who I think was 26 or so. Or maybe older. They were all really fun and we spent a lot of time with them throughout the weekend – it was a really fun group! We finally started getting near the site, and Esther and I were rocking out to our music, and then we decided, why not rock out together?! So we simultaneously turned on ABBA on our Ipods, and we started pulling out some hella sweet dance moves to Dancing Queen, and then Renee (who also was in the back with us) woke up and wanted in on the fun, so the three of us proceeded to TOTALLY jam out. First Dancing Queen, then Mamma Mia, then Lay All Your Love On Me (from the movie!). At one point, Jean-Francois turned around and was kind of like… ??? And asked if we were all listening to the same song or something. We told him yes and just started laughing a lot. He loved our moves.
We finally arrived around 11 at the starting point of our five-hour hike to Cachoeira da Fumaca, which is one of the tallest waterfalls in Brazil. It was extremely hot outside (sweltering heat!) and the climb up the mountain was very strenuous – it was so so steep, and the rocks we climbed up were bright white, which reflected more sun on us. The hike up was pretty difficult, and to add on to it, our guide was a) pretty in-shape and b) didn’t care that we were struggling, so he was pretty much racing up the mountain. Ah! Esther and I were joking the whole week before about how we needed to train for our hike (aka walk to and from the beach multiple times a day, sometimes carrying one another up the hill to the homebase, sometimes running, etc etc) and when we started our ascent we kind of laughed because we obviously did not train hard enough (our laughs quickly turned into heavy pants. About 90 seconds into our hike, haha). After an hour or so (??) of the hard, steep climb, we made it to the top of the mountain, where we just had to walk across flat ground for an hour and a half or so to get to the waterfall. This past was pretty easy, especially after we had mastered the feat of climbing up the mountain. We arrived at the waterfall/cliffs, which was absolutely beautiful (kind of terrifying because it was sooooo high, and people would get on their stomachs and inch their way out to the edge of the cliff… ah). The waterfall wasn’t much because the amount of water depends on how much rain the area had received that day, and we went on a day when there wasn’t any rain (and thus there wasn’t a huge waterfall). But it was still really cool and worth it. It was also worth it, because I realized that I can climb up a mountain and not die.
After climbing back down the mountain (which was a bit easier than climbing up! Although it was actually pretty difficult because our guide was still being a space cadet and climbing down at the speed of light, whereas Renee and Esther and I were going slower (aka at the speed of three grandmas) so we wouldn’t fall down and get hurt on the slippery stone. We took a short bus ride down to a beautiful waterfall and pool. Esther and I changed into our swim suits (which was hilarious… there were so many people around and the pool/falls are located on a trail, so we were trying to hold up a towel for one another so we could have pseudo-privacy to change, and we kept laughing, and I think the locals were laughing at us, but hey, when in Brazil!) We swam around for a while and slid down natural rock slides – it was a great way to end the day!
After a long drive back to the pousada, we all showered (thank goodness for hygiene) and then met up with Jeff, Joel, and Sebastien and went to dinner in town at this Italian place which ended up being FANTASTIC!
Ah I’m in the Miami airport (which is freezing by the way. Wtf America.) and my flight to Charlotte is boarding now…. So I’ll update more when I get home, aka tomorrow because I get home way late and I’m fully intend on passing out.
On Friday night, we all went out to Sophia, a way cute restaurant near our homebase. We went to have a goodbye drink with Anya and Rachel, who were leaving the next morning. After Sophia’s, the four of us left for the bus station and caught out 11:30pm bus to Lencois. The trip is a 6 (or so) hour bus ride from Salvador, so we decided to take the night bus to maximize our time in Lencois. The bus ride was alright, although I was having trouble falling asleep, so I took one of Renee’s NyQuils, and was able to doze on/off until about 3:30am, when the bus made a quick pit stop, and upon returning onto the bus, I completely passed out. Not-so-lucky for me, though, we arrived in Lencois only 2 or 2.5 hours later, and I was still feeling kind of NyQuiled, which was weird (I was soooo out of it). We got to our pousada, (Pousada das Arvores, I think) and even though check-in wasn’t until 10:00am, they allowed us to get into our room early to take a nap, which was really nice. So I got to sleep from 6:00-7:30 or so, and then we got up for breakfast before our day of hiking. I was feeling a little bit less tired at breakfast (thank goodness). Their breakfast was a bunch of fruit and cakes/breads, as well as this really cool food that was some sort of tapioca and coconut pancake-y sort of thing. I really liked it. The breakfast was outside, and all of sudden we noticed a ton of monkeys on a nearby birdfeeder (or monkeyfeeder?) which was kind of funny. Esther had been DYING to see monkeys so she got way excited, which was fun.
We got a guide for the weekend to take us around to places (that is what everyone does here – you don’t really just go hike by yourself), and we had decided before arriving what we wanted to do. We left for our first site at 8:00 or 8:30 (can’t remember at this point, although I guess it really isn’t too important) to drive out to where our hike would start. The drive was about 2 or 3 hours – more time to sleep! There were three other guys from our pousada who came with us – Jean-Francois (also known as Jeff) and Joel, two friends from Canada who are in their late 30’s, and Sebastian, a guy from France, who I think was 26 or so. Or maybe older. They were all really fun and we spent a lot of time with them throughout the weekend – it was a really fun group! We finally started getting near the site, and Esther and I were rocking out to our music, and then we decided, why not rock out together?! So we simultaneously turned on ABBA on our Ipods, and we started pulling out some hella sweet dance moves to Dancing Queen, and then Renee (who also was in the back with us) woke up and wanted in on the fun, so the three of us proceeded to TOTALLY jam out. First Dancing Queen, then Mamma Mia, then Lay All Your Love On Me (from the movie!). At one point, Jean-Francois turned around and was kind of like… ??? And asked if we were all listening to the same song or something. We told him yes and just started laughing a lot. He loved our moves.
We finally arrived around 11 at the starting point of our five-hour hike to Cachoeira da Fumaca, which is one of the tallest waterfalls in Brazil. It was extremely hot outside (sweltering heat!) and the climb up the mountain was very strenuous – it was so so steep, and the rocks we climbed up were bright white, which reflected more sun on us. The hike up was pretty difficult, and to add on to it, our guide was a) pretty in-shape and b) didn’t care that we were struggling, so he was pretty much racing up the mountain. Ah! Esther and I were joking the whole week before about how we needed to train for our hike (aka walk to and from the beach multiple times a day, sometimes carrying one another up the hill to the homebase, sometimes running, etc etc) and when we started our ascent we kind of laughed because we obviously did not train hard enough (our laughs quickly turned into heavy pants. About 90 seconds into our hike, haha). After an hour or so (??) of the hard, steep climb, we made it to the top of the mountain, where we just had to walk across flat ground for an hour and a half or so to get to the waterfall. This past was pretty easy, especially after we had mastered the feat of climbing up the mountain. We arrived at the waterfall/cliffs, which was absolutely beautiful (kind of terrifying because it was sooooo high, and people would get on their stomachs and inch their way out to the edge of the cliff… ah). The waterfall wasn’t much because the amount of water depends on how much rain the area had received that day, and we went on a day when there wasn’t any rain (and thus there wasn’t a huge waterfall). But it was still really cool and worth it. It was also worth it, because I realized that I can climb up a mountain and not die.
After climbing back down the mountain (which was a bit easier than climbing up! Although it was actually pretty difficult because our guide was still being a space cadet and climbing down at the speed of light, whereas Renee and Esther and I were going slower (aka at the speed of three grandmas) so we wouldn’t fall down and get hurt on the slippery stone. We took a short bus ride down to a beautiful waterfall and pool. Esther and I changed into our swim suits (which was hilarious… there were so many people around and the pool/falls are located on a trail, so we were trying to hold up a towel for one another so we could have pseudo-privacy to change, and we kept laughing, and I think the locals were laughing at us, but hey, when in Brazil!) We swam around for a while and slid down natural rock slides – it was a great way to end the day!
After a long drive back to the pousada, we all showered (thank goodness for hygiene) and then met up with Jeff, Joel, and Sebastien and went to dinner in town at this Italian place which ended up being FANTASTIC!
Ah I’m in the Miami airport (which is freezing by the way. Wtf America.) and my flight to Charlotte is boarding now…. So I’ll update more when I get home, aka tomorrow because I get home way late and I’m fully intend on passing out.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
One More "Fine" Quality About Andreas.
Andreas has just reminded me of another one of his admirable traits. Yesterday, a HUMONGOUS cucaracha was on the offense, trying to attack us in the common room, and I succeeded in killing it, ie, throwing my flip at it and splattering its guts everywhere. Not very professional. But I was proud of myself nonetheless for defeating the enemy.
Anyways Andreas was manly enough to clean up the carcus of the dead cucaracha and dispose of it in the toilet, and he has just reminded me of this amazing feat. I think he was quite disappointed that I failed to mention this in my previous post, as I apparently came across as only promoting his ability to kill mosquitos. Like that is all he is good for or something.
Andreas, man of the house and man of many talents!
Oh my gosh and I forgot to mention. Andreas even picks up our laundry and waits on street corners for us to pick him up. See attached visual.
Anyways Andreas was manly enough to clean up the carcus of the dead cucaracha and dispose of it in the toilet, and he has just reminded me of this amazing feat. I think he was quite disappointed that I failed to mention this in my previous post, as I apparently came across as only promoting his ability to kill mosquitos. Like that is all he is good for or something.
Andreas, man of the house and man of many talents!
Oh my gosh and I forgot to mention. Andreas even picks up our laundry and waits on street corners for us to pick him up. See attached visual.
Ah I Love My Kids.
So today during class my kids showed me their sweet samba skills. Here is a vid I got of them! Oh my I love them. especially the boy in the spiderman shirt.
Rest of Last Week? I Think?
Ok so recap of last week: (courtesy of this sweet calendar we made for our last two weeks here, that is hanging in the common room. It’s called “Master Calendar: aka epic last two weeks together.”)
Monday: Professor Fred. Portuguese class (went well!).
Tuesday: we went on a tour of the open market! It was very much like the medina in Morocco, which made me so happy! (Although the medina in Morocco was much cooler. Or at least it had cooler stuff). Anyways there were SO many fruit stands, and random item stands, and goats, and peacocks, and jewels, and machetes, and even a meat section (with all parts of the body, including eyes and intestines and tongues etc!). Candomble service.
Wednesday: Can’t remember at this point.
Thursday: We had samba class…only Andreas and I went, and we had fun!! The instructor said that I’ve gotten much much better and that I’m very good at samba and that I can help teach now! Haha (what a joke).
Thursday: Went to the beach whoo! And went to Sophia's with Anya and Rachel.
Friday: We went to Lencois!
I think this is it? I can’t even remember anymore. Everyone’s just been really sick so we haven’t been doing too much. Anya and Rachel were both really sick before they left, and Esther and Renee were really sick last week, and Renee left this morning cause she still hadn’t gotten better, and Esther didn’t go to placement today cause she was still feeling bad etc. Ah. Brazil is killing us haha. Except not me! I LOVE BRAZIL AND I DON’T WANT TO LEAVE IN THREE DAYS…….
Monday: Professor Fred. Portuguese class (went well!).
Tuesday: we went on a tour of the open market! It was very much like the medina in Morocco, which made me so happy! (Although the medina in Morocco was much cooler. Or at least it had cooler stuff). Anyways there were SO many fruit stands, and random item stands, and goats, and peacocks, and jewels, and machetes, and even a meat section (with all parts of the body, including eyes and intestines and tongues etc!). Candomble service.
Wednesday: Can’t remember at this point.
Thursday: We had samba class…only Andreas and I went, and we had fun!! The instructor said that I’ve gotten much much better and that I’m very good at samba and that I can help teach now! Haha (what a joke).
Thursday: Went to the beach whoo! And went to Sophia's with Anya and Rachel.
Friday: We went to Lencois!
I think this is it? I can’t even remember anymore. Everyone’s just been really sick so we haven’t been doing too much. Anya and Rachel were both really sick before they left, and Esther and Renee were really sick last week, and Renee left this morning cause she still hadn’t gotten better, and Esther didn’t go to placement today cause she was still feeling bad etc. Ah. Brazil is killing us haha. Except not me! I LOVE BRAZIL AND I DON’T WANT TO LEAVE IN THREE DAYS…….
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Andreas: Man of the House
Ok so last Saturday my roomies Anya and Rachel left (Anya was staying four weeks, but she discovered that one of her classes started earlier than she thought, so she needed to get back). Now, there are only four of us - Esther, Renee, Andreas, and I. Esther and Renee have been sick last week (I kind of felt sick for a day or two but I got over it, then they were getting sick, and theirs stayed around all week). Anyways Esther got better by Friday for our weekend in Lencois, but Renee still felt sick this weekend, and she still isn't feeling better (she's got a cough and all), so she changed her flight last night to leave tomorrow morning. Today is Renee's birthday so we're going to go out and celebrate, then she's leaving :( and it'll only be three of us! Ah which is so weird since this house is so big, but also kind of nice since that means a small group. We'll miss Renee though! And I miss my roomies - ah my huge room is so empty now!
Oh but so anyways my point in writing this entry is to celebrate the manliness, the strength, nay, the power, that is Andreas, who is the man of the house (and has been now for a week and a half!). He is sitting across from me in the common room, also updating his blog. Just now, he all of a sudden stopped typing and totally killed this mosquito that was out to get us. He has the reflexes of a puma! And I never even notice when they're on me, sucking out my blood slash prob giving me diseases, let alone when they're buzzing around nearby. Ah he is ALWAYS killing mosquitos. When we've been in Morro and Lencois for the weekends, sharing a hotel room, we'll all of a sudden wake up in the middle of the night to loud slaps of Andreas killing mosquitos that have unfortunately (for them) decided to take a quick break a nearby wall. I just think it's pretty funny. One time last week, he had been trying to get one, and it landed on Esther's back (she didn't notice) and he totally slapped her back... he ended up killing it but she was not too pleased. Nor was her back, which had a huge red handprint for the next 30 mins lol. But it's great to have Andreas around, since is very good at killing mosquitos, while the rest of us either a) have awful reflexes and really just don't stand a chance against the mosquitos or b) at this point just have given up caring about the mosquitos, as we realize that we already look like we have chicken pox, with our number of mosquito bites [so a couple of more won't hurt]. Or perhaps it's a combination of the two.
This really isn't too exciting but just wanted to let you know some of the little things that happen at our homebase, day to day. The ongoing war between Andreas and the mosquitos. Man vs. insect.
Oh but so anyways my point in writing this entry is to celebrate the manliness, the strength, nay, the power, that is Andreas, who is the man of the house (and has been now for a week and a half!). He is sitting across from me in the common room, also updating his blog. Just now, he all of a sudden stopped typing and totally killed this mosquito that was out to get us. He has the reflexes of a puma! And I never even notice when they're on me, sucking out my blood slash prob giving me diseases, let alone when they're buzzing around nearby. Ah he is ALWAYS killing mosquitos. When we've been in Morro and Lencois for the weekends, sharing a hotel room, we'll all of a sudden wake up in the middle of the night to loud slaps of Andreas killing mosquitos that have unfortunately (for them) decided to take a quick break a nearby wall. I just think it's pretty funny. One time last week, he had been trying to get one, and it landed on Esther's back (she didn't notice) and he totally slapped her back... he ended up killing it but she was not too pleased. Nor was her back, which had a huge red handprint for the next 30 mins lol. But it's great to have Andreas around, since is very good at killing mosquitos, while the rest of us either a) have awful reflexes and really just don't stand a chance against the mosquitos or b) at this point just have given up caring about the mosquitos, as we realize that we already look like we have chicken pox, with our number of mosquito bites [so a couple of more won't hurt]. Or perhaps it's a combination of the two.
This really isn't too exciting but just wanted to let you know some of the little things that happen at our homebase, day to day. The ongoing war between Andreas and the mosquitos. Man vs. insect.
Favelas
Every Monday, we have a lecture from Professor Fred. Last Monday, (aka over a week ago... oops) he talked about a topic that really caught my interest – favelas. Favelas are living areas, and Professor Fred wrote his PhD dissertation on the topic, so he really knew a lot about them. The word favela comes from an African tree that grows in the desert, with branches that extend far past the trunk of the tree, providing shelter and protection to those underneath it. Today, favelas in Brazil are communities for those who may not be able to afford their own land and huge house, etc.
There is a rule in Brazil that if a person comes and squats on land for three years (and builds a house), that the land becomes theirs. In recent years, groups of 500 and more have traveled from the countryside into “open” land near Salvador to build communities. They travel in large groups so that they when they arrive at the land, they can quickly work together to build each other’s houses. Six or seven very very rich families in Salvador own the vast majority of land in the city, so most times, they didn’t catch these groups intruding upon their land (or I guess it could also be that the families just don’t care). If the intruders are caught, though, the landowner can call the police and have them removed. After three years, though, the land becomes theirs, and if the landowner then discovers them, they can either continue to let them live there or offer to build the people houses on different land (so that they can reclaim their original land). Now that I’m writing this, though, I’m wondering who is there to dispute number of years… who keeps the records and who is to say who is right and wrong? Ah I wish I had thought of that when Fred was here!
The families must not be good at catching these land intruders, because there are SO many favelas around the city. The interesting thing is since they [usually] only have a limited amount of land, when they want to expand, they continue growing vertically. So houses grow by floors, and houses are built on top of houses. It is so interesting to see! My volunteer work is inside one of the favelas here in Salvador, and by going to and from the other placements, as well as other places around the city, we’ve been able to see many, many favelas. Some are nicer than others, but in general, the concept is very interesting. And it is so much of a community. My volunteer placement is in a very poor favela (the Brazillian socioeconomic ladder essentially is like this: poorest of the poor, middle class poor, upper class poor, lower of the middle class, middle middle class, upper middle class, and then a few VERY rich families. My favela is middle class poor). It does not seem like much of a dangerous area, and when we asked Fred about crime in the favelas, he said there isn’t much. And another random fact is that the houses in the favella may be VERY nice, even though from the outside they don’t look like much. The people don’t care much to keep up their houses’s outwardly appearance, but then when you go inside the house, you will see that the family has a huge plasma tv, etc, because they are paying on a plan over a long amount of time. Whereas Fred, who is middle middle class, said that he would never be able to afford a plasma tv under the plans available to him. Or something to that effect. It was just interesting because when we learned about the townships in South Africa, it rang a similar bell – the outside of each township house may not be very nice at all (aka it looks like it is falling apart), but then when you enter the house, they will have tvs and stuff etc (it will look much nicer than you would expect). The reason this happens in the townships is because the people are living on government assigned land and in government houses, so they don’t care to invest much into the actual property, but instead, they wish to invest into their OWN property (aka tvs, etc.)
So, interesting little facts about Brazil. I’ll upload pics of diff favelas. And hopefully I’ll continue to learn more because I think the whole idea is very fascinating!
There is a rule in Brazil that if a person comes and squats on land for three years (and builds a house), that the land becomes theirs. In recent years, groups of 500 and more have traveled from the countryside into “open” land near Salvador to build communities. They travel in large groups so that they when they arrive at the land, they can quickly work together to build each other’s houses. Six or seven very very rich families in Salvador own the vast majority of land in the city, so most times, they didn’t catch these groups intruding upon their land (or I guess it could also be that the families just don’t care). If the intruders are caught, though, the landowner can call the police and have them removed. After three years, though, the land becomes theirs, and if the landowner then discovers them, they can either continue to let them live there or offer to build the people houses on different land (so that they can reclaim their original land). Now that I’m writing this, though, I’m wondering who is there to dispute number of years… who keeps the records and who is to say who is right and wrong? Ah I wish I had thought of that when Fred was here!
The families must not be good at catching these land intruders, because there are SO many favelas around the city. The interesting thing is since they [usually] only have a limited amount of land, when they want to expand, they continue growing vertically. So houses grow by floors, and houses are built on top of houses. It is so interesting to see! My volunteer work is inside one of the favelas here in Salvador, and by going to and from the other placements, as well as other places around the city, we’ve been able to see many, many favelas. Some are nicer than others, but in general, the concept is very interesting. And it is so much of a community. My volunteer placement is in a very poor favela (the Brazillian socioeconomic ladder essentially is like this: poorest of the poor, middle class poor, upper class poor, lower of the middle class, middle middle class, upper middle class, and then a few VERY rich families. My favela is middle class poor). It does not seem like much of a dangerous area, and when we asked Fred about crime in the favelas, he said there isn’t much. And another random fact is that the houses in the favella may be VERY nice, even though from the outside they don’t look like much. The people don’t care much to keep up their houses’s outwardly appearance, but then when you go inside the house, you will see that the family has a huge plasma tv, etc, because they are paying on a plan over a long amount of time. Whereas Fred, who is middle middle class, said that he would never be able to afford a plasma tv under the plans available to him. Or something to that effect. It was just interesting because when we learned about the townships in South Africa, it rang a similar bell – the outside of each township house may not be very nice at all (aka it looks like it is falling apart), but then when you enter the house, they will have tvs and stuff etc (it will look much nicer than you would expect). The reason this happens in the townships is because the people are living on government assigned land and in government houses, so they don’t care to invest much into the actual property, but instead, they wish to invest into their OWN property (aka tvs, etc.)
So, interesting little facts about Brazil. I’ll upload pics of diff favelas. And hopefully I’ll continue to learn more because I think the whole idea is very fascinating!
Candomblé
This past Tuesday (a little less than a week ago), a few of us took part in an interesting Afro-Brazilian experience when we attended a Candomblé service. Candomblé has roots in Africa but really is prominent in Brazil, especially in Salvador, where it first originated. Today, there are about 1,100 Candomblé churchs (vs. 2000 Catholic churches). Those who practice Candomblé believe in many gods and through ceremonies, celebrate them and call them down to the people.
Most Candomblé services are not open to the public, and only those who actually practice the religion (and I believe, also must be members of the church) are welcome to services. There are certain ceremonies etc that are open to those who are not a part of the church, but we could only go because we had a contact who was a member of the particular Candomblé church. (Apparently, you have to know someone to be able to go – you can’t just walk in yourself). You also cannot take pictures. I’m not sure what their routine services are like, or what a year’s calendar would be for a Candomblé church, but the particular ceremony we attended was the closing ceremony of a ritual that they had been celebrating slash preparing for all week. This particular ritual celebrated the Warrior God, the Harvest God, and the God of Leaves.
Esther, Renee, Andreas and I arrived in the neighborhood around 8:00. Also in our group were two Brazilian tour guides, a Danish couple, a Brazilian from Rio, and this hilarious random German guy. We made our way to the church, and we had to separate into guys and girls (opposite sexes can’t sit with one another). A few guys came out and started playing drums for a few minutes, and someone came around swinging one of those incense bulb things (I’ve seen them at Catholic services?) but then the incense swinging was done, and the guys stopped drumming. Much to our surprise, the service didn’t start for an hour and a half! By that time we were kind of tired, although it was really fun talking to the Brazilian tour guide girl and the Danish woman. Anyways so three guys started drumming again, and soon a few women came out dressed up in these huge dresses with big hoop skirts (circa 1860, Gone With the Wind). They started dancing around in a circle, throwing leaves everywhere (since the ceremony honored the God of Leaves) and they kissed the doorstep and kissed this wooden beam in the center of the room that was covered in wrappings. After a while, a few of the women started receiving these spirits, which was quite unusual to watch, having never seen anything quite like it before. Many audience members also received spirits. Apparently only women can actually dance around to receive the spirits, as every woman pledges to a God when she joins the religion and has a deep connection with that particular God, and is only able to receive that God (and thus prepares for days, or even weeks, leading up to a ceremony where her God is to be honored). The women would keel over and start trembling and put their hands behind their backs and shake a lot and then make animal noises. Then they’d be in a trance and dance around with their eyes closed, usually with the aid of someone not in trance so they wouldn’t run into stuff. Once they received their spirit, a cloth was tied around their waist so that the spirit could not escape through the belly button. All of the original dancing women quickly fell into trances, as did random audience members, including men (both young and old), other women, and even a couple of young children. Soon, the whole group proceeded through a door near the “alter” area, and we had a lot of free time again. After another long wait, two of the women and one of the very young girls came out, still in trance, but more decorated. They danced around forever, and by 11:20, they were kind of finishing up but our group needed to leave. Because only 3 of the millions of entranced people had gotten to dance around, it would be another few hours before the ceremony was complete.
It was very interesting to see something so completely different, and I had had quite a different image of what to expect going in (not that I really knew what to expect, but I’ve always associated sacrifices and stuff with my extremely limited knowledge of Candomblé, so I wasn’t sure if they’d slaughter something right there in front of us! Which they didn’t – they had already prepared the sacrifice earlier that afternoon. We didn’t get a chance to stay around long enough to see what happens with that…). We all thought it was quite an experience…
Most Candomblé services are not open to the public, and only those who actually practice the religion (and I believe, also must be members of the church) are welcome to services. There are certain ceremonies etc that are open to those who are not a part of the church, but we could only go because we had a contact who was a member of the particular Candomblé church. (Apparently, you have to know someone to be able to go – you can’t just walk in yourself). You also cannot take pictures. I’m not sure what their routine services are like, or what a year’s calendar would be for a Candomblé church, but the particular ceremony we attended was the closing ceremony of a ritual that they had been celebrating slash preparing for all week. This particular ritual celebrated the Warrior God, the Harvest God, and the God of Leaves.
Esther, Renee, Andreas and I arrived in the neighborhood around 8:00. Also in our group were two Brazilian tour guides, a Danish couple, a Brazilian from Rio, and this hilarious random German guy. We made our way to the church, and we had to separate into guys and girls (opposite sexes can’t sit with one another). A few guys came out and started playing drums for a few minutes, and someone came around swinging one of those incense bulb things (I’ve seen them at Catholic services?) but then the incense swinging was done, and the guys stopped drumming. Much to our surprise, the service didn’t start for an hour and a half! By that time we were kind of tired, although it was really fun talking to the Brazilian tour guide girl and the Danish woman. Anyways so three guys started drumming again, and soon a few women came out dressed up in these huge dresses with big hoop skirts (circa 1860, Gone With the Wind). They started dancing around in a circle, throwing leaves everywhere (since the ceremony honored the God of Leaves) and they kissed the doorstep and kissed this wooden beam in the center of the room that was covered in wrappings. After a while, a few of the women started receiving these spirits, which was quite unusual to watch, having never seen anything quite like it before. Many audience members also received spirits. Apparently only women can actually dance around to receive the spirits, as every woman pledges to a God when she joins the religion and has a deep connection with that particular God, and is only able to receive that God (and thus prepares for days, or even weeks, leading up to a ceremony where her God is to be honored). The women would keel over and start trembling and put their hands behind their backs and shake a lot and then make animal noises. Then they’d be in a trance and dance around with their eyes closed, usually with the aid of someone not in trance so they wouldn’t run into stuff. Once they received their spirit, a cloth was tied around their waist so that the spirit could not escape through the belly button. All of the original dancing women quickly fell into trances, as did random audience members, including men (both young and old), other women, and even a couple of young children. Soon, the whole group proceeded through a door near the “alter” area, and we had a lot of free time again. After another long wait, two of the women and one of the very young girls came out, still in trance, but more decorated. They danced around forever, and by 11:20, they were kind of finishing up but our group needed to leave. Because only 3 of the millions of entranced people had gotten to dance around, it would be another few hours before the ceremony was complete.
It was very interesting to see something so completely different, and I had had quite a different image of what to expect going in (not that I really knew what to expect, but I’ve always associated sacrifices and stuff with my extremely limited knowledge of Candomblé, so I wasn’t sure if they’d slaughter something right there in front of us! Which they didn’t – they had already prepared the sacrifice earlier that afternoon. We didn’t get a chance to stay around long enough to see what happens with that…). We all thought it was quite an experience…
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Ahhhhh
So I'm continuing to write more blog entries to update with interesting learnings, experiences, etc etc and I'm sweating sooo much right now. ahhhh. mucho calor!
Past Weekend
This past weekend was filled with many different experiences. Friday night was many of the other volunteers’ last night in Salvador, so we all went out to a club/bar called Boomerangue – but our taxis ended up getting lost so only our taxi made it there (within reasonable time), and Boomerangue wasn’t even really opening/starting for a couple of hours so we headed to a bar a couple of spots down. It had a western theme, which was pretty cool. The owner had gone to Hawaii a few years back, and fell in love with America (since Hawaii is obv representative of the greater United States). He wanted to bring it back to Brazil and give the people of Salvador an opportunity to experience American (and western) culture, so he opened up this bar. It had pictures up everywhere of various singers/performers – Elvis, Marilyn, etc etc, and SO MUCH Beatles paraphernalia (including a huge Beatles Love wall art – I think he said it was from the Cirque de Soleil show). The bar/restaurant area was on the main floor, with huge mirrors lining the wooden walls and an open patio extending out of the main restaurant (giving it a very open vibe). Then, at the back of the restaurant, there was an overhang where there was a live band. The first live band was an Eric Clapton cover band, and then the second band played a mix of music – some Bahian music, some random songs in English (some we knew and some we didn’t), and even a couple of Beatles songs – Eight Days A Week and She Loves You (the owner said they were playing them just for me! After I told him how much I loved the Beatles). We had a fun night and got back late.
Esther, Renee, Andreas and I traveled to Cachoeira on Saturday. We had to get up early to catch the bus. We slept during the two-hour bus ride, as we didn’t get that much sleep the night before since we had to keep waking up way early in the morning (4:30 am, and again at 6) to say goodbye to everyone who was leaving. We finally made it to Cachoeira later in the morning. Cachoeira is a small town that produces a lot of tobacco and sugarcane. It is located inland on the Rio Paraguaçu, a river that flows out to the Atlantic (through Salvador!). This helped it, over the past few centuries, establish itself as a huge production town. The town today, though, still looks like a page from the past. All of the buildings look like they are from the 18th century, as if nothing has changed since then. They are old and falling apart, although this gives the town much of its charm. These buildings, though ghostly, are beautiful. And there are so many buildings everywhere – I don’t see how they can possibly all be used – for living or work or both. The population just can’t be that high!
The town was very cool, though. They had a humongous open market running all day Saturday, where locals sold vegetables and fruits (they have many here in Brazil that I had never heard of in the United States), spices, cheeses, meats, sugarcane, woven baskets, knives, etc etc. Tons of random items. And around the town, you saw anything and everything. We saw people carrying round roosters, donkeys carrying huge baskets of items, really, everything (I can’t remember at this point). Across the river was an even smaller town, Sao Felix. We had to cross this bridge made of wood, which I’m surprised still works – I felt like the cars may fall through at any minute. Sao Felix had a cattle area (reminded me of the stockyards at Fort Worth – except it was only one pen, instead of miles upon miles). It also had this cool museum, part of which was dedicated to a big tobacco company, Dannemann. We saw women making cigars and even got to smell the tobacco they use – the leaves smelled absolutely delicious! As previously mentioned, we also saw sugarcane everywhere, as the town is a big producer of the item. They made this drink from the sugarcane by stringing a whole piece of sugarcane through a saw/mower sort of item, which would collect the juice.
Anyways! So I’ll put up some pictures but it was a pretty cool town – I’m glad I went. It was so different seeing a more rural town, as we have only really seen Salvador (the third biggest city in Brazil) and beaches/islands. Very successful day!
On Sunday, Andreas and Renee and Esther went to an island, but I wasn’t feeling too well so I stayed back and slept and later, went to the beach with Anya and Rachel. That evening, we went back down to the beach area (which is only a fifteen, twenty minute walk from our house – it’s just down the hill) and listened to some live music at an outdoor restaurant.
Esther, Renee, Andreas and I traveled to Cachoeira on Saturday. We had to get up early to catch the bus. We slept during the two-hour bus ride, as we didn’t get that much sleep the night before since we had to keep waking up way early in the morning (4:30 am, and again at 6) to say goodbye to everyone who was leaving. We finally made it to Cachoeira later in the morning. Cachoeira is a small town that produces a lot of tobacco and sugarcane. It is located inland on the Rio Paraguaçu, a river that flows out to the Atlantic (through Salvador!). This helped it, over the past few centuries, establish itself as a huge production town. The town today, though, still looks like a page from the past. All of the buildings look like they are from the 18th century, as if nothing has changed since then. They are old and falling apart, although this gives the town much of its charm. These buildings, though ghostly, are beautiful. And there are so many buildings everywhere – I don’t see how they can possibly all be used – for living or work or both. The population just can’t be that high!
The town was very cool, though. They had a humongous open market running all day Saturday, where locals sold vegetables and fruits (they have many here in Brazil that I had never heard of in the United States), spices, cheeses, meats, sugarcane, woven baskets, knives, etc etc. Tons of random items. And around the town, you saw anything and everything. We saw people carrying round roosters, donkeys carrying huge baskets of items, really, everything (I can’t remember at this point). Across the river was an even smaller town, Sao Felix. We had to cross this bridge made of wood, which I’m surprised still works – I felt like the cars may fall through at any minute. Sao Felix had a cattle area (reminded me of the stockyards at Fort Worth – except it was only one pen, instead of miles upon miles). It also had this cool museum, part of which was dedicated to a big tobacco company, Dannemann. We saw women making cigars and even got to smell the tobacco they use – the leaves smelled absolutely delicious! As previously mentioned, we also saw sugarcane everywhere, as the town is a big producer of the item. They made this drink from the sugarcane by stringing a whole piece of sugarcane through a saw/mower sort of item, which would collect the juice.
Anyways! So I’ll put up some pictures but it was a pretty cool town – I’m glad I went. It was so different seeing a more rural town, as we have only really seen Salvador (the third biggest city in Brazil) and beaches/islands. Very successful day!
On Sunday, Andreas and Renee and Esther went to an island, but I wasn’t feeling too well so I stayed back and slept and later, went to the beach with Anya and Rachel. That evening, we went back down to the beach area (which is only a fifteen, twenty minute walk from our house – it’s just down the hill) and listened to some live music at an outdoor restaurant.
Friday, January 16, 2009
BONFIM.
Thursday was perhaps one of the greatest days EVER! Most of us went to Lavagem do Bonfim, a festival that is held every second Thursday of January. The festival has been around forever – for hundreds of years, and thousands upon thousands of people go each year to celebrate. The general idea of the festival is that everyone meets near the harbor, at a church, and walks 10 kilometers to the Church of Bonfim, where women dressed in all white (Baianas) wash the church steps.
Most of us got up early and made it to the Mercado Modelo – a huge building with shops etc near the harbor – by 8:30 am. We thought that the parade started at 8:00 or so but it actually started at 10 so we were there a bit early. We enjoyed it though – a few drum groups played and stuff, and we got to see everyone getting ready for the parade. Most of us were wearing white (as most people do for the festival) and we got these necklaces with blue and white beads that everyone wears.
Many people take part in the parade – including the Baianas, whom I’ve already mentioned. They wear these huge white dresses with wide-brimmed skirts (think Gone with the Wind) and carry pots of flowers on their heads. There was also a group called Filhos de Gandhy (Sons of Gandhi). They are kind of a big deal because they’re big at Carnival. They wear all white and blue and turbans etc. and drove this huge truck, on top of which a few stood, throwing rice at everyone in the crowd and releasing doves. Another large crowd of the Filhos surround the truck, holding hands the entire time (for 10 kilometers!). Many government officials were there too, as well as various groups celebrating (and protesting) different occasions/issues. Most groups in the parade though, no matter their cause for joining, were so joyous and played music etc. There were a bunch of Afro-drum groups, which were our favorite.
So to sum up the parade, there are many groups, MANY people, so much music, so many colors, beads, etc., so much white, so much dancing, a lot of people drinking beer and other drinks, many donkey-pulled carts, many palm leaves, just so much of everything.
So the parade started at 10 and we stuck around a while to watch all of the groups go by in the parade, and we started walking a bit later (prob 10:30). We walked (and occasionally danced!) for a while, and then as we started getting closer to the front we hit some of the big Afro-drum groups. The music was so amazing! Everyone liked dancing, but Andreas and I LOVED the dancing. We all were dancing for a while, and then during one particular song that everyone LOVED and knew all of the words to, the beat sped up and everyone kind of started running, so Andreas and I started running through the crowd (while dancing, of course) and got up towards the front where all of the really happy/joyous/festive people were. We were with the PMDR band and seriously oh it was SO much fun! At one point we were dancing and someone accidentally stepped on my flip flop and it FELL OFF. I seriously thought it was a goner! The man behind me (and the man behind him) noticed though, and the latter braved the ever-forwarding crowd and grabbed for it and passed it forward. So I DID manage to get my flip flop back (thank goodness... those remaining miles would NOT have been fun!)
Anyways so we kept dancing and it was great! Although then Andreas got pickpocketed which was kind of weird slash scary etc. We were dancing with the band and all of a sudden these four guys were way near him and then surrounded him, dancing (they were VERY close to him…all over him) and he kind of noticed too and was hitting them away, as did the man behind us (same guy who helped me during the shoe debacle!) who also began hitting them away. They quickly dispersed, and luckily, none of Andreas’s stuff was actually stolen, but it was very weird to watch and as I imagine, very weird for Andreas to have happened to him. He said they first all got really close and kind of were touching him (like grazing their hands on his shoulders and waist etc.) to get him “used” to it (that sort of touching happened a lot during the day, as we were in a parade with a gazillion people and it’s hot and sometimes it got really crowded at particular spots – so it’s kind of like you don’t think much of it). Then one of them would dance around and unzip his pant pocket and then he realized what they were doing when he felt one of them reaching down in the pant pocket. He only had a few reis and luckily they didn’t make it to that pocket. So no real harm except for Andreas feeling violated.
We continued to walk and dance with the crowd. Our group eventually made it up to the area with the Filhos do Gandhy, but their area was SO crowded and everyone was touching everyone etc. So Andreas and I decided to wait back for the band and get back at that part of the parade. We did, and we spent the rest of our time dancing our hearts out and laughing so much. With 1.2 miles left (I think?) we decided we would dance the whole way to the church. Which we pretty much did! We literally danced for miles and miles that day. One of the drummers in the band really liked us, too, and he offered to let me play his drum! Ah it was so much fun. We ended up talking to him as we walked and he was so friendly – his name was Luis and he LOVED America.
The day was so great. Everywhere our band went, people went crazy because they played these great songs that people loved (and knew all of the words to!). As we passed by, everyone watching from the sidewalk and even from the balconies of their houses would just break out in smiles and dance and song.
Four hours (and much dancing and walking!) later, we made it to the Church of Bonfim. We missed the traditional washing of the steps (at least I think we did – we couldn’t make it all the way to the front because it was so crowded) but we saw a priest giving a sermon out of the second floor window to the crowd. We took a taxi home and an hour later, had samba lessons (even more dancing!). It was a great day!
PICS
one of the drumming bands before the parade!
sarah and i before the parade!
people before the parade started (so many people!)
sarah and i with a couple of the Baiana women!
Filhos do Gandhy! (throwing rice at the crowd.... also releasing doves!)
we saw a lot of these in the parade
cool car!
band in the parade!
mime
women dancing
another band (notice the crazy hair!)
crowd at one point during the walk
onlooking crowd
policemen hosing people down (slash wet tshirt contest? haha). it did feel really really nice!!
andreas and our band!
me drumming with luis!!!
funniest picture... these girls were sambaing on the side of the road next to these cool stands, and andreas told me to take a pic, and i jokingly told him to go dance with them and he did and they were DEF laughing at him.
crowd getting to the church (in the top right corner)
SO MANY PEOPLE
bonfim church
view from the church of the parade
walking down from the church - another shot of the crowd
Most of us got up early and made it to the Mercado Modelo – a huge building with shops etc near the harbor – by 8:30 am. We thought that the parade started at 8:00 or so but it actually started at 10 so we were there a bit early. We enjoyed it though – a few drum groups played and stuff, and we got to see everyone getting ready for the parade. Most of us were wearing white (as most people do for the festival) and we got these necklaces with blue and white beads that everyone wears.
Many people take part in the parade – including the Baianas, whom I’ve already mentioned. They wear these huge white dresses with wide-brimmed skirts (think Gone with the Wind) and carry pots of flowers on their heads. There was also a group called Filhos de Gandhy (Sons of Gandhi). They are kind of a big deal because they’re big at Carnival. They wear all white and blue and turbans etc. and drove this huge truck, on top of which a few stood, throwing rice at everyone in the crowd and releasing doves. Another large crowd of the Filhos surround the truck, holding hands the entire time (for 10 kilometers!). Many government officials were there too, as well as various groups celebrating (and protesting) different occasions/issues. Most groups in the parade though, no matter their cause for joining, were so joyous and played music etc. There were a bunch of Afro-drum groups, which were our favorite.
So to sum up the parade, there are many groups, MANY people, so much music, so many colors, beads, etc., so much white, so much dancing, a lot of people drinking beer and other drinks, many donkey-pulled carts, many palm leaves, just so much of everything.
So the parade started at 10 and we stuck around a while to watch all of the groups go by in the parade, and we started walking a bit later (prob 10:30). We walked (and occasionally danced!) for a while, and then as we started getting closer to the front we hit some of the big Afro-drum groups. The music was so amazing! Everyone liked dancing, but Andreas and I LOVED the dancing. We all were dancing for a while, and then during one particular song that everyone LOVED and knew all of the words to, the beat sped up and everyone kind of started running, so Andreas and I started running through the crowd (while dancing, of course) and got up towards the front where all of the really happy/joyous/festive people were. We were with the PMDR band and seriously oh it was SO much fun! At one point we were dancing and someone accidentally stepped on my flip flop and it FELL OFF. I seriously thought it was a goner! The man behind me (and the man behind him) noticed though, and the latter braved the ever-forwarding crowd and grabbed for it and passed it forward. So I DID manage to get my flip flop back (thank goodness... those remaining miles would NOT have been fun!)
Anyways so we kept dancing and it was great! Although then Andreas got pickpocketed which was kind of weird slash scary etc. We were dancing with the band and all of a sudden these four guys were way near him and then surrounded him, dancing (they were VERY close to him…all over him) and he kind of noticed too and was hitting them away, as did the man behind us (same guy who helped me during the shoe debacle!) who also began hitting them away. They quickly dispersed, and luckily, none of Andreas’s stuff was actually stolen, but it was very weird to watch and as I imagine, very weird for Andreas to have happened to him. He said they first all got really close and kind of were touching him (like grazing their hands on his shoulders and waist etc.) to get him “used” to it (that sort of touching happened a lot during the day, as we were in a parade with a gazillion people and it’s hot and sometimes it got really crowded at particular spots – so it’s kind of like you don’t think much of it). Then one of them would dance around and unzip his pant pocket and then he realized what they were doing when he felt one of them reaching down in the pant pocket. He only had a few reis and luckily they didn’t make it to that pocket. So no real harm except for Andreas feeling violated.
We continued to walk and dance with the crowd. Our group eventually made it up to the area with the Filhos do Gandhy, but their area was SO crowded and everyone was touching everyone etc. So Andreas and I decided to wait back for the band and get back at that part of the parade. We did, and we spent the rest of our time dancing our hearts out and laughing so much. With 1.2 miles left (I think?) we decided we would dance the whole way to the church. Which we pretty much did! We literally danced for miles and miles that day. One of the drummers in the band really liked us, too, and he offered to let me play his drum! Ah it was so much fun. We ended up talking to him as we walked and he was so friendly – his name was Luis and he LOVED America.
The day was so great. Everywhere our band went, people went crazy because they played these great songs that people loved (and knew all of the words to!). As we passed by, everyone watching from the sidewalk and even from the balconies of their houses would just break out in smiles and dance and song.
Four hours (and much dancing and walking!) later, we made it to the Church of Bonfim. We missed the traditional washing of the steps (at least I think we did – we couldn’t make it all the way to the front because it was so crowded) but we saw a priest giving a sermon out of the second floor window to the crowd. We took a taxi home and an hour later, had samba lessons (even more dancing!). It was a great day!
PICS
one of the drumming bands before the parade!
sarah and i before the parade!
people before the parade started (so many people!)
sarah and i with a couple of the Baiana women!
Filhos do Gandhy! (throwing rice at the crowd.... also releasing doves!)
we saw a lot of these in the parade
cool car!
band in the parade!
mime
women dancing
another band (notice the crazy hair!)
crowd at one point during the walk
onlooking crowd
policemen hosing people down (slash wet tshirt contest? haha). it did feel really really nice!!
andreas and our band!
me drumming with luis!!!
funniest picture... these girls were sambaing on the side of the road next to these cool stands, and andreas told me to take a pic, and i jokingly told him to go dance with them and he did and they were DEF laughing at him.
crowd getting to the church (in the top right corner)
SO MANY PEOPLE
bonfim church
view from the church of the parade
walking down from the church - another shot of the crowd
SO MUCH FUN
Bonfim yesterday = so much fun. Quite possibly one of the best days ever. At least top 10. I have to go to placement right now but when I'm back I'll update you telling more about it... aka what it is (haha) (Mom) and why it is so great.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Pelourinho Nights
BEST EVER. I love Pelourinho and dancing on Tuesday nights. Best ever! Vid clips slash pictures attached! Ps the two pics I got are of Jennifer and me dancing. Haha.
Placement!
Placement is going very well! I love teaching English. Everyone is so eager to learn. Today we taught the advanced group - we taught them how to ask questions using Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How. It's so much fun to see them understand the concepts!
Today in class, we had the three older women that usually come, and then this younger girl (she's only 13) straggled in (she's WAY good at English) and then out of nowhere came this guy our age... or maybe a few years older? He's also reallhy good at English and is really funny. Also! He's a capoeira teacher. Capoeira is this brazillian dance/martial arts etc? It was sooo funny because we had a teacher come in last Tuesday or Wednesday night to teach us, and he had us doing all of these cartwheels and funny moves and stuff and I felt like a jedi. We were all laughing so hard. His wife came the next day though, to teach us the samba, and they did the capoiera together and it was REALLY cool to watch! It's just not so cool to watch when it's us doing it together because we know we're awful so we just laugh the whole time haha.
So anyways I'm loving teaching English. We're about to go on a tour of a church and I'm pretty pumped. Also I've been running here which has been great! I run at noon when I can, so it's way hot, but it feels so good. Except that I got a blister yesterday and so I tried to run today but it hurt so badly. But I did run for a while.
Also this Thursday is this awesome festival - for Bonfim! Ah i'm so pumped. I'll write more about it later.
Today in class, we had the three older women that usually come, and then this younger girl (she's only 13) straggled in (she's WAY good at English) and then out of nowhere came this guy our age... or maybe a few years older? He's also reallhy good at English and is really funny. Also! He's a capoeira teacher. Capoeira is this brazillian dance/martial arts etc? It was sooo funny because we had a teacher come in last Tuesday or Wednesday night to teach us, and he had us doing all of these cartwheels and funny moves and stuff and I felt like a jedi. We were all laughing so hard. His wife came the next day though, to teach us the samba, and they did the capoiera together and it was REALLY cool to watch! It's just not so cool to watch when it's us doing it together because we know we're awful so we just laugh the whole time haha.
So anyways I'm loving teaching English. We're about to go on a tour of a church and I'm pretty pumped. Also I've been running here which has been great! I run at noon when I can, so it's way hot, but it feels so good. Except that I got a blister yesterday and so I tried to run today but it hurt so badly. But I did run for a while.
Also this Thursday is this awesome festival - for Bonfim! Ah i'm so pumped. I'll write more about it later.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Friday, January 9, 2009
Other things...
This afternoon some friends and I are leaving for Morro de Sao Paolo for the weekend... so excited, it should be way legit! It's an island a couple of hours away and is supposedly one of the prettiest beaches in Brazil. There are 8 of us going - me, Jennifer, Lindsey, and Sarah (the three A&M girls - they're all in Kappa together there - they're fun and I spend a lot of time with them), and then Esther, who is from Greece and now lives in London and is sooo funny and is so much fun to hang out with; Renee, who is very smart but also very funny and down for a good laugh; Krista, who is a nurse and is ALWAYS smiling and is very bubbly; and Andreas, who is from Denmark and is a bit more quiet (at least once you get to know him) but will all of a sudden make a really funny joke that has you laughing. He also was the one who on the first day, said, "who is ready to party!!!" haha. (My kind of guy!) He works for Deloitte and is taking an 8 month leave to travel South America, which is awesome. He also works at the orphanage here for placement, and the other day the kids there painted his nails sparkly pink and he was showing them off to us and laughing. Anyways, all four of them - Esther, Renee, Krista, and Andreas - are a bit older, prob mid to late twenties or so. It's fun having that age difference, because they still love to have fun but it makes the group dynamic different than it would be if we were all college kids.
I'm way excited! I don't know if I'll have time to finish updating for this week, though, so I guess there'll be a really long post coming Sunday night (hopefully with crazy slash funny stories!) Everything is going great, though, I loveeee my placement and am excited because I really think this is going to be an opportunity where I can make a big difference. Other things... just random things about Brazil: a) I haven't yet taken a warm shower since coming here, b) I have many mosquitos bites on my body right now... ahh...., c) we have no air conditioning in the house, d) it's usually high of 87 degrees here, without humidity, which makes it feel prob 5-10 degrees worse. you can check out weather.com yourself for more specific details, e) i sweat so much everyday. just sitting on my bed last night at 8 pm, writing my blog entry - sweat was trickling down my leg, f) i have yet to wear makeup here! which is a nice change. well actually we put on mascara on tuesday night when we went down to the historic area, pelourinho, to listen to music. so i guess once. and we may this weekend at night for the party on the beach lol. but it's still a very nice change.
so we're going to morro de sao paolo, a small island with four beaches. there are also no taxis on the island, or something crazy like that! the first two beaches are more outgoing - especially beach #2 (they're all in a row and are labeled) which is the PARTY beach. there are luaus going on there every night, all night! then beach 3 is good for snorkeling, and beach 4 is supposedly the prettiest. beach 1 is good for surfing and has a lot of restaurants, apparently. I have to go to breakfast now, but you can google the island and there are a lot of websites saying more. I know we're going to have a great time!!! we're staying on beach three, where we got two of the last rooms on the island whoooo! and luckily in the same hotel. which hopefully doesnt mean we get there and we have the worst hotel ever. haha. but that'd prob make the whole trip even funnier, so, i guess not all would be lost.
ok that's it... talk to everyone later! send me emails etc!
oh and ps mom - it was john mayer (but good guess!). it's actually dave matthews band! two step! and the other song is belle and sebastian.
I'm way excited! I don't know if I'll have time to finish updating for this week, though, so I guess there'll be a really long post coming Sunday night (hopefully with crazy slash funny stories!) Everything is going great, though, I loveeee my placement and am excited because I really think this is going to be an opportunity where I can make a big difference. Other things... just random things about Brazil: a) I haven't yet taken a warm shower since coming here, b) I have many mosquitos bites on my body right now... ahh...., c) we have no air conditioning in the house, d) it's usually high of 87 degrees here, without humidity, which makes it feel prob 5-10 degrees worse. you can check out weather.com yourself for more specific details, e) i sweat so much everyday. just sitting on my bed last night at 8 pm, writing my blog entry - sweat was trickling down my leg, f) i have yet to wear makeup here! which is a nice change. well actually we put on mascara on tuesday night when we went down to the historic area, pelourinho, to listen to music. so i guess once. and we may this weekend at night for the party on the beach lol. but it's still a very nice change.
so we're going to morro de sao paolo, a small island with four beaches. there are also no taxis on the island, or something crazy like that! the first two beaches are more outgoing - especially beach #2 (they're all in a row and are labeled) which is the PARTY beach. there are luaus going on there every night, all night! then beach 3 is good for snorkeling, and beach 4 is supposedly the prettiest. beach 1 is good for surfing and has a lot of restaurants, apparently. I have to go to breakfast now, but you can google the island and there are a lot of websites saying more. I know we're going to have a great time!!! we're staying on beach three, where we got two of the last rooms on the island whoooo! and luckily in the same hotel. which hopefully doesnt mean we get there and we have the worst hotel ever. haha. but that'd prob make the whole trip even funnier, so, i guess not all would be lost.
ok that's it... talk to everyone later! send me emails etc!
oh and ps mom - it was john mayer (but good guess!). it's actually dave matthews band! two step! and the other song is belle and sebastian.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Updates!
Updates on life!
What I’ve done since Saturday! (First day I arrived)
Sunday: we went on an all day tour of these two islands off the coast of Salvador! The first was Ilha des Frades, an island about an hour and a half or two hours away. It was very pretty! Back in the day, the natives who lived there were cannibals but since then, the majority of the population has died out. Now only about 2,000 people live on the island. There is a really old church there that overlooks the beach and the water – great view. I’m attaching some photos!
We were at Ilha des Frades for about three hours, and then we left to go to another beach nearby – Ilha Ponta de Aleia. This beach was cool because our boat pulled into the bay, but there is no dock for a boat our size, so we had to take little boats over to a smaller dock. We ate lunch at this island. There was a place with a seafood buffet outside but we thought this probably was not the best idea… seafood that has been out in the sun all day, with flies all around… not for us. So we went to this other restaurant and successfully ordered a meal! We got frango frito and camarão frito (fried chicken and friend shrimp) as well as Schin soda (Brazilian Pepsi). When they brought out the food, though, we had so much more than just the fried chicken and shrimp, which is all we thought we had ordered! They also brought rice, beans, Farofa topping (this bread crumb-y type of thing that everyone puts on the beans here), and this salsa slash pico type of stuff! It was all really good. And the shrimp and chicken weren’t really fried at all which made it even better! It was at an outdoor place and it was cool, because there was a patio and a ton of sand around and all of these families there were kind of eating the food from the restaurant but also grilling out on grills and drinking cerveja and dancing to music from the speakers. This one family nearby had all of these babies and they were so cute and dancing around! Then this other lady at a different table noticed us laughing and admiring all of the cute babies so she picked up hers and started walking over and awkwardly stopped about one foot from our table… haha it was so funny. So of course we were like, “ooooh!!! Seu nino!” and we “talked” with her for a couple of minutes. Aka she kept talking and talking and then she’d laugh and we’d laugh as if we knew what she was saying, and we’d mutter a couple of words in Potuguese. It was fun.
Then we tried to find popsicles and were unsuccessful, until we started heading back to the dock to take the small paddle boats over to our boat to go back to Salvador. We were walking through the first restaurant (the death trap, aka seafood buffet) and this guy had a popsicle cart so we bought a couple of ice creams. Then there were these three young teenage girls standing nearby, and they were laughing at our failed attempts at Portuguese, and I noticed one of them was wearing a Powerpuff girl shirt, so I tried to explain to her about two of my best friends and I dressed up as the Powerpuff girls for Halloween, and I think the girls understood, and they were laughing a lot. Then they gave me these coconut treats that they were selling for only 50 cents. The coconut was SOOOo so good! It was shaved coconut mixed with a flavor (we got a pina colada flavored one, I think) that was flattened out into a cookie-shape. We then came back on the boat, which was fun, except there were BIG waves and Jennifer and I kept getting wet and these European guys sitting near us kept laughing at us.
Monday: We had orientation pretty much all day Monday! In the morning, we talked about CCS, and our role as volunteers, and our motives for serving others, etc. We also learned about our specific placements. Later in the afternoon, we had Portuguese lessons – it was so great! I love the language; it’s really beautiful. And I love learning the language outside of class – in Spanish classes, I always get really nervous because I know it’s for a grade. But when you just get to learn the language… ah it’s so much fun. It’s very similar to Spanish but there are also a lot of differences, both with words and pronunciations. We also went down to a supermarket nearby, which was cool – it’s really big and has a lot of fresh stuff, like breads and mini sandwiches and quiches and grains and spices and pastries and various fruits etc in jars.
Tuesday: We started placement! I’m working with Kyle, a volunteer who is also my age and goes to school at Loyola in Maryland. We’re volunteering at a community center teaching English. They just started a new schedule of classes there. We teach 4 different classes each week. On MWF, we teach two classes of beginners – mostly younger students, and on TR, we teach one class of experienced speakers and another beginner class. So we started on Tuesday, with our first class being the experienced students who had already been working with previous CCS volunteers. There were three women and they were so excited to learn! It was kind of difficult, though, because we looked through their notebook and they knew so so much – so many verbs, and even past tense for verbs, etc – but they don’t really know how to use it. They aren’t that good at speaking English and actually understanding and having a conversation. So now we have a challenge – trying to take the information they have, and translate into more useful knowledge, that they can effectively use. Our second class was younger students, and they were excited to learn. They were mostly girls.
Ah it’s getting late so I’m going to finish later… Haha I’ll tell about our tour of the historic district, Pelourinho, which was quite funny. Sneak preview: we were chased by a guy with clay piggy banks. Whoo! And that night, we survived sushi (we weren't sure if we would or not...) and at the music festival, we met some very friendly locals. Lol.
First beach that we went to! Ilha de Frades!
What I’ve done since Saturday! (First day I arrived)
Sunday: we went on an all day tour of these two islands off the coast of Salvador! The first was Ilha des Frades, an island about an hour and a half or two hours away. It was very pretty! Back in the day, the natives who lived there were cannibals but since then, the majority of the population has died out. Now only about 2,000 people live on the island. There is a really old church there that overlooks the beach and the water – great view. I’m attaching some photos!
We were at Ilha des Frades for about three hours, and then we left to go to another beach nearby – Ilha Ponta de Aleia. This beach was cool because our boat pulled into the bay, but there is no dock for a boat our size, so we had to take little boats over to a smaller dock. We ate lunch at this island. There was a place with a seafood buffet outside but we thought this probably was not the best idea… seafood that has been out in the sun all day, with flies all around… not for us. So we went to this other restaurant and successfully ordered a meal! We got frango frito and camarão frito (fried chicken and friend shrimp) as well as Schin soda (Brazilian Pepsi). When they brought out the food, though, we had so much more than just the fried chicken and shrimp, which is all we thought we had ordered! They also brought rice, beans, Farofa topping (this bread crumb-y type of thing that everyone puts on the beans here), and this salsa slash pico type of stuff! It was all really good. And the shrimp and chicken weren’t really fried at all which made it even better! It was at an outdoor place and it was cool, because there was a patio and a ton of sand around and all of these families there were kind of eating the food from the restaurant but also grilling out on grills and drinking cerveja and dancing to music from the speakers. This one family nearby had all of these babies and they were so cute and dancing around! Then this other lady at a different table noticed us laughing and admiring all of the cute babies so she picked up hers and started walking over and awkwardly stopped about one foot from our table… haha it was so funny. So of course we were like, “ooooh!!! Seu nino!” and we “talked” with her for a couple of minutes. Aka she kept talking and talking and then she’d laugh and we’d laugh as if we knew what she was saying, and we’d mutter a couple of words in Potuguese. It was fun.
Then we tried to find popsicles and were unsuccessful, until we started heading back to the dock to take the small paddle boats over to our boat to go back to Salvador. We were walking through the first restaurant (the death trap, aka seafood buffet) and this guy had a popsicle cart so we bought a couple of ice creams. Then there were these three young teenage girls standing nearby, and they were laughing at our failed attempts at Portuguese, and I noticed one of them was wearing a Powerpuff girl shirt, so I tried to explain to her about two of my best friends and I dressed up as the Powerpuff girls for Halloween, and I think the girls understood, and they were laughing a lot. Then they gave me these coconut treats that they were selling for only 50 cents. The coconut was SOOOo so good! It was shaved coconut mixed with a flavor (we got a pina colada flavored one, I think) that was flattened out into a cookie-shape. We then came back on the boat, which was fun, except there were BIG waves and Jennifer and I kept getting wet and these European guys sitting near us kept laughing at us.
Monday: We had orientation pretty much all day Monday! In the morning, we talked about CCS, and our role as volunteers, and our motives for serving others, etc. We also learned about our specific placements. Later in the afternoon, we had Portuguese lessons – it was so great! I love the language; it’s really beautiful. And I love learning the language outside of class – in Spanish classes, I always get really nervous because I know it’s for a grade. But when you just get to learn the language… ah it’s so much fun. It’s very similar to Spanish but there are also a lot of differences, both with words and pronunciations. We also went down to a supermarket nearby, which was cool – it’s really big and has a lot of fresh stuff, like breads and mini sandwiches and quiches and grains and spices and pastries and various fruits etc in jars.
Tuesday: We started placement! I’m working with Kyle, a volunteer who is also my age and goes to school at Loyola in Maryland. We’re volunteering at a community center teaching English. They just started a new schedule of classes there. We teach 4 different classes each week. On MWF, we teach two classes of beginners – mostly younger students, and on TR, we teach one class of experienced speakers and another beginner class. So we started on Tuesday, with our first class being the experienced students who had already been working with previous CCS volunteers. There were three women and they were so excited to learn! It was kind of difficult, though, because we looked through their notebook and they knew so so much – so many verbs, and even past tense for verbs, etc – but they don’t really know how to use it. They aren’t that good at speaking English and actually understanding and having a conversation. So now we have a challenge – trying to take the information they have, and translate into more useful knowledge, that they can effectively use. Our second class was younger students, and they were excited to learn. They were mostly girls.
Ah it’s getting late so I’m going to finish later… Haha I’ll tell about our tour of the historic district, Pelourinho, which was quite funny. Sneak preview: we were chased by a guy with clay piggy banks. Whoo! And that night, we survived sushi (we weren't sure if we would or not...) and at the music festival, we met some very friendly locals. Lol.
First beach that we went to! Ilha de Frades!
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
CCS House Brazil (Slower version!)
I personally think the first vid (in the post below) is cooler cause I did more edits etc. But here is another version that is slower for people (aka my mom) who want to see it, not so quickly! Haha.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
CCS House Brazil!
Defying my wildest expectations, I have pseudo-conquered technology by creating this sweet vid of our homebase here in Salvador. It kind of messes up a bit when it repeats everyone waving but whatevs. Just wanted to give you an idea of what our house is like here! Also my room isn't toooo messy yet, yay! Haha. more to come soon! volunteer placement starts tomorrow so i'm off to bed. tchau!
^^ oops I meant to post this last night but then it was taking forever to upload onto this website so I left it overnight and it still hadn't uploaded yet so I had to condense the file and stuff. Anyways here it is!
^^ oops I meant to post this last night but then it was taking forever to upload onto this website so I left it overnight and it still hadn't uploaded yet so I had to condense the file and stuff. Anyways here it is!
Monday, January 5, 2009
Second Day in Brazil! (Feels like forever...)
PREFACE: Any Portuguese word that I have typed may be wrong. In fact, I will bet you 10 dollars that I have spelled the Portuguese words wrong, if not butchered them. Just so you know.
The flight from Miami to Salvador was pretty good, it was an 8-hour flight, leaving around 9pm. As I mentioned on the last post, there were a few other volunteers on the flight, and I was able to meet a couple in the boarding area, which was nice. On the plane, I sat to this really nice lady, Graciela, who was visiting her two daughters who go to school in America. We talked so much! Within the first ten minutes of sitting by each other, she asked me to come visit her on a weekend and to bring all of my friends – she gave me her business card and wrote her cell phone down and everything! She lives in Aracaju, which is just a couple of hours up the coast from Salvador, so I’m really hoping that a few of us can go up there one of these coming weekends!
Meals were alright, the flight was only 8 hours, I actually managed to sleep for once on an international flight (a whole 2.5 hours! Whoo!). We got off the plane and oh it was so nice – so so warm (at 6:30 in the morning) and sunny and palm tree-y! We made it through customs, immigration etc without much problem, and everyone got their bags (also no problem! Brownie points for brazil) and we made our way to the CCS van. We drove to the homebase, which is about 30 minutes from the airport. We had to drive through what I think is a downtown area – anyways it’s so different here, so busy and big! It’s kind of hard to describe so I’ll just put up pictures as I take them around the city.
Once we got to the homebase, we met some of the household staff – including Vinny, our house director. He is funny – always making a joke – and really nice, just like all of the staff. We moved into our rooms – I’m in a big room with only two other roommates – Anya and Rachel. Our house has no air conditioning though which is kind of hard to live with, since it’s 85-90 degrees during the day and 75-80 degrees low at night. The house is very open – which is pretty cool – there are huge windows that just stay open, as well as a huge door frame out to a patio on our floor (the second floor). It’s doors are always open too. Anyways we can keep the windows to our rooms open, because that keeps our room cooler, but then we risk letting mosquitos in (which isn’t good… especially if any of them carry yellow fever or anything, which isn’t likely, but could happen I guess). Last night we slept with our window open, and I didn’t get bit at all (I think the aloe vera that I had slathered onto my body worked as a shield against any predators) but Anja and Rachel got eaten alive… but they’re the ones who want the window open so…
Anyways we went to the beach for a couple of hours – we left the house around 9:00, and it’s a 15 minute walk or so. We have to go out of our homebase and turn left on the main road we’re located on, which quickly dead-ends into a traffic circle sort of thing with a McDonald’s on the corner. (This has been quite useful, actually, because when we need to get back to the homebase, we just tell taxis to take us to the McDonalds on Graça, instead of trying to point them in the right direction to our house, which would be an epic fail since we still aren’t so hot at Portuguese.) Anyways once we turn left at McDonalds we walk down this long road which overlooks the water, and also is where many hotels are located. The road goes down a steep hill into a more populated area, which is where the beach is. So we went there within our first couple of hours being in Salvador, which was great, and also very humorous. First of all: this beach is SOOO crowded. It’s like Black Friday hits the beach. The beach isn’t that big either – probably only 1500 ft long? I think? I have no sense of measurement but it’s really not that big. But it was packed! At 9:30 in the morning! And of course we were laughing because as soon as we set foot within proximity of the beach, we realized that our pale skin glowed, compared to the millions of other people on the beach who were at least 10 shades darker than us, if not more. We were obviously foreigners, and as soon as we made it to the beach area we were swarmed by vendors trying to get us to rent lawn chairs, and umbrellas (sombreros? I believe is what they called them), as well as water (agua), hats, shell necklaces, etc. We were laughing because we were still trying to figure out how to converse so we just kind of made our way through to the front of the beach where the tide came in. The next challenge was to figure out where to sit. As I previously mentioned, the beach was packed. There was such little space. One of the chair vendors came back and offered to sell us four lawn chairs at $3 reals a piece, which we just decided to accept, and he quickly came back and set them up in an “empty”ish area nearby. He was really great – his name was something like Sergio, we can’t remember exactly, but he kept coming to us every 15 minutes to make sure we were alright and that we didn’t want any water etc.
Later he brought over his friend, whose name we also forgot (did we mention that we were completely overwhelmed? And that could barely understand anything anyone was saying?), but we called him Bruno when he wasn’t around so we didn’t have to call him “yellow shirt guy.” He was really funny because… now that I think about it, I’m not sure what he was trying to sell us?... but he would come around a lot to talk. We would ask him what different things meant, and he would do his best to explain. For instance, as I previously mentioned, there are many vendors on the beach. Many you would expect to see, such as guys pushing ice cream carts, people selling shells, necklaces, sarongs, sunscreen, bottled water. Others were not as expected – people selling beer (cerveza), as well as Smirnoff in cans, cigarettes, henna tattoos (the guy that tried to get me to buy one was funny… he kept telling us to get one, and showed me this nice one of a clawing eagle that I could get [really??] or a unicorn, and then we looked through his book and found other nice ones like two doves with branches intertwined in a heart shape, reading “tea mo” in the center, etc. Anyways he was funny because I kept trying to say no politely, and then he kept trying to convince us, and I was like, maybe when we leave! So they won’t fade! Or at least tomorrow [mañana!]. I said all of this in Spanish and he turned to the rest of the girls and laughing, said sarcastically, such good Portuguese!).
ANYWAYS point being, there were many vendors whose purpose we understood. But then there were a couple that we just did NOT understand. And this is where yellow-shirt-guy slash Bruno helped us. For instance – there were many vendors running around with these long, off-whitish, hole-y slabs of something on sticks. I know that makes no sense. I’ll take a pic next time we’re at the beach because that’ll just be easier. Anyways my first reaction was, is that cheese on a stick?? I totally disregarded that thought because it sounded crazy. I thought maybe it was some sort of ice cream, but the vendors carried it around in plastic bags, not any sort of cooling container. And they also carried around what appeared to be mini-stoves – like little camping stoves! – which also went against my ice cream thought. Jennifer said she thought they were maybe rice krispies on a stick. Anyways, this one particular vendor of the item had captured our hearts when he began singing as he prepared his food, so we decided we HAD to find out what this treat was. So next time Bruno came around, I tried my best spanglish slash Portuguese (which really just means Spanglish… I knew no Portuguese at that point, other than hello and goodbye and thank you! Not that I know that much more now, two days later). And he pointed over and said, “QUESO!” So apparently, I should really stick to my instincts, because it was in fact cheese on a stick. And cheese on a stick – pronounced que-shjo – I’m assuming spelled quejo? Because the j here makes that shj sound. Sorry that I’m awful at describing phonetics. Anyways the quejo is actually quejo de brazia (I believe? Whatever it’s supposed to be, it’s translated to mean toasted/burnt cheese!). The vendors will heat a stick over the grill until it is toasted, then they stick it in a plastic bag full of spices (which we found out, later from Vinny, is oregano!) and they also offer to squirt a liquid on it, which I very much mistakenly thought was balsamic vinaigrette – but turned out to be honey. We’ve decided that quejo at the beach is definitely something we’re going to try out before we leave. Even I am going to brave up and try one – much to the astonishment of those who know of my freakish dislike for melted cheese.
Bruno also helped us figure out what camorrones are – a woman had come over trying to sell us some, and we told her no thank you etc, but she was another persistent vendor, so we tried to understand what she was saying, and Sarah finally realized that the woman was saying coconuts – or so we thought – so we all made globe-circle motions with our hands and said coconuts and the vendor said YES! and nodded a lot. (They sell coconuts with the tops chopped off for everyone to drink on the beach, so we assumed this is what she was trying to sell.) I asked before she left if is tasted like “azuca,” or sugar, and she said kind of, then ran off to go get one to show us. And we were quite surprised when she came back with a plate of various foods, including shrimp. We said no thank you and quickly asked Bruno what camorrones were next time he came to say hi.
Ah but then the funniest thing happened with Bruno. He asked something to me, and I wasn’t sure what he was saying so I just started laughing, and said “No, ocricupada!” [no, thanks!] which we had become used to saying to everyone. Then Sarah said, “I think he just asked if we were married?!?” Which made me laugh harder since my answer was “no thanks.” So he gestured at Rachel and I and essentially said, “you two – me,” and then to Sarah and Jennifer and said, “you two – him,” (him meaning Sergio, the chair guy, who is Bruno’s good friend, and who had just walked away). We all started laughing and he smiled and kept nodding and anticipating an answer – any answer. He had been so kind to us all day! So I didn’t want to blatantly just say no. I was trying to think of how to say maybe in Spanish but just could not remember, so I said the next best thing that came to mind: “Pienso!” (aka “I think about it.”) Haha. Oops. He laughed so I guess that was a good answer!
The beach was great, then we came back and ate lunch – rice, beans, salad, some sort of vegetable mix, beef and potatoes, and some eggplant dish. It was good, although I still kind of had a weird appetite, so I didn’t eat too much. After lunch we went upstairs to nap for a couple of hours, then I woke up and talked on Skype for a bit, which was really great, catching up on life at home and Vandy. Then we decided to go to the ATM and any pharmacy or grocery store nearby to try to find aloe vera. (Did I mention I got sunburnt at the beach? Oops. Lobster Megan.) No one had aloe vera though! Ah. We tried the pharmacy right by our house, which literally has EVERYTHING except sunscreen and aloe vera. Makes no sense! And the girl behind the counter kept making fun of us. So we (Anja, Rachel, Kyle and I) went on down the road, heading towards the huge mall 15 minutes away and stopping everywhere in between to see if we could find aloe. We stopped in a huge supermarket which was SWEET! More on that later, though, I”ll try to get more details next time we go. They didn’t have aloe though, so we made it down to the mall, which thank goodness – at least one store there had aloe. So I got some, much to my relief, as well as the relief of the greater population of Salvador, which I think was probably laughing at me behind my back (some were laughing at me to my face) because of my sunburn. I’m so jealous that the people here don’t burn… they just tan. Anyways we also stopped by a couple of other shops (including Pizza Hut… Kyle insisted on getting Pizza Hut for dinner, I guess he had already decided he did not like Brazillian food? Based on lunch? Haha) and finally made our way back to the house where dinner was served. It was delicious – chicken spaghetti which I’m pretty sure had some peanut or almond in it too, oh man it was SO good. Everything else was good too.
After dinner, we all went to this jazz festival at the MAM (modern art museum) which was cool. We met these four 20-something Brazilians in line to buy tickets, and they ended up speaking English, which was really nice. They were so friendly! And when we had gotten our tickets one of the guys rubbed my back and said, “See ya in there!” Haha. Brazillians are really friendly (the ones who don’t mind that we don’t speak much Portuguese, and who tolerate our attempts at Spanish and broken Portguese) and also very touchy feely. We stayed for a little while, and then Anja got hit on by some local who proceeded to show her “magic tricks for a beautiful girl.” We were all laughing as he made her play card games and lock some chain around his wrists (which he magically got off when he did this twisty-turny move! He sure won Anja over with that one!). His poor heart was broken when fifteen minutes (and four magic tricks) later, Anja revealed that she has a boyfriend back in California, and no, she was not up for the option of multiple boys. Haha. After being at the festival for an hour or so, and being called models by a different local guy, and having our picture taken as a group (Touristas! Touristas!) we decided to leave, especially because we were so tired. After the taxi dropped us off at McDonalds, we made our way back to the house, with a quick pit stop at this ice cream shop a couple of shops down from Mickey D’s. We all got two different flavors (our goal is to try every flavor before we leave! Which is fun since we don’t understand what half of the flavors are before we try them!). I got Açai and Crème… Açai is a berry from Brazil, which is popular now at a lot of smoothie places – I’ve seen it around a lot recently but never have tried it, so I decided to get it. It was good, although Sarah said it wasn’t as good as the Açai she’s had other places. The Crème was really good, although we were never able to figure out what the flavor was – I think pineapple? Whatever it was, it was very good.
Today we went on an all-day tour of two islands near Salvador – I had planned to also write about this but it is 1:20 am here (ah!!!) and I really need some sleep so I’ll just give you a sneak preview by putting up a couple of pictures. Tomorrow we have orientation during most of the day so I’ll be at my computer sporadically but I’ll try to update when possible and hopefully talk to everyone – I’m really tired but still missing everyone and I think that I will actually admit for once that I am a tiiiiiiny bit homesick for my family and friends. But I am having an ABSOLUTE blast here … with every minute that I spend in Brazil, I fall in love a little bit more! I just can’t wait to start volunteer placement. Going to the beach is great and all, but I’ve just really been looking forward to teaching English to kids again, as I miss my IBNY kids from Morocco like crazy. I think that’ll also help give me some consistency here. Anyways I’ll write more though tomorrow… this chiquitita has got to go to bed!
The flight from Miami to Salvador was pretty good, it was an 8-hour flight, leaving around 9pm. As I mentioned on the last post, there were a few other volunteers on the flight, and I was able to meet a couple in the boarding area, which was nice. On the plane, I sat to this really nice lady, Graciela, who was visiting her two daughters who go to school in America. We talked so much! Within the first ten minutes of sitting by each other, she asked me to come visit her on a weekend and to bring all of my friends – she gave me her business card and wrote her cell phone down and everything! She lives in Aracaju, which is just a couple of hours up the coast from Salvador, so I’m really hoping that a few of us can go up there one of these coming weekends!
Meals were alright, the flight was only 8 hours, I actually managed to sleep for once on an international flight (a whole 2.5 hours! Whoo!). We got off the plane and oh it was so nice – so so warm (at 6:30 in the morning) and sunny and palm tree-y! We made it through customs, immigration etc without much problem, and everyone got their bags (also no problem! Brownie points for brazil) and we made our way to the CCS van. We drove to the homebase, which is about 30 minutes from the airport. We had to drive through what I think is a downtown area – anyways it’s so different here, so busy and big! It’s kind of hard to describe so I’ll just put up pictures as I take them around the city.
Once we got to the homebase, we met some of the household staff – including Vinny, our house director. He is funny – always making a joke – and really nice, just like all of the staff. We moved into our rooms – I’m in a big room with only two other roommates – Anya and Rachel. Our house has no air conditioning though which is kind of hard to live with, since it’s 85-90 degrees during the day and 75-80 degrees low at night. The house is very open – which is pretty cool – there are huge windows that just stay open, as well as a huge door frame out to a patio on our floor (the second floor). It’s doors are always open too. Anyways we can keep the windows to our rooms open, because that keeps our room cooler, but then we risk letting mosquitos in (which isn’t good… especially if any of them carry yellow fever or anything, which isn’t likely, but could happen I guess). Last night we slept with our window open, and I didn’t get bit at all (I think the aloe vera that I had slathered onto my body worked as a shield against any predators) but Anja and Rachel got eaten alive… but they’re the ones who want the window open so…
Anyways we went to the beach for a couple of hours – we left the house around 9:00, and it’s a 15 minute walk or so. We have to go out of our homebase and turn left on the main road we’re located on, which quickly dead-ends into a traffic circle sort of thing with a McDonald’s on the corner. (This has been quite useful, actually, because when we need to get back to the homebase, we just tell taxis to take us to the McDonalds on Graça, instead of trying to point them in the right direction to our house, which would be an epic fail since we still aren’t so hot at Portuguese.) Anyways once we turn left at McDonalds we walk down this long road which overlooks the water, and also is where many hotels are located. The road goes down a steep hill into a more populated area, which is where the beach is. So we went there within our first couple of hours being in Salvador, which was great, and also very humorous. First of all: this beach is SOOO crowded. It’s like Black Friday hits the beach. The beach isn’t that big either – probably only 1500 ft long? I think? I have no sense of measurement but it’s really not that big. But it was packed! At 9:30 in the morning! And of course we were laughing because as soon as we set foot within proximity of the beach, we realized that our pale skin glowed, compared to the millions of other people on the beach who were at least 10 shades darker than us, if not more. We were obviously foreigners, and as soon as we made it to the beach area we were swarmed by vendors trying to get us to rent lawn chairs, and umbrellas (sombreros? I believe is what they called them), as well as water (agua), hats, shell necklaces, etc. We were laughing because we were still trying to figure out how to converse so we just kind of made our way through to the front of the beach where the tide came in. The next challenge was to figure out where to sit. As I previously mentioned, the beach was packed. There was such little space. One of the chair vendors came back and offered to sell us four lawn chairs at $3 reals a piece, which we just decided to accept, and he quickly came back and set them up in an “empty”ish area nearby. He was really great – his name was something like Sergio, we can’t remember exactly, but he kept coming to us every 15 minutes to make sure we were alright and that we didn’t want any water etc.
Later he brought over his friend, whose name we also forgot (did we mention that we were completely overwhelmed? And that could barely understand anything anyone was saying?), but we called him Bruno when he wasn’t around so we didn’t have to call him “yellow shirt guy.” He was really funny because… now that I think about it, I’m not sure what he was trying to sell us?... but he would come around a lot to talk. We would ask him what different things meant, and he would do his best to explain. For instance, as I previously mentioned, there are many vendors on the beach. Many you would expect to see, such as guys pushing ice cream carts, people selling shells, necklaces, sarongs, sunscreen, bottled water. Others were not as expected – people selling beer (cerveza), as well as Smirnoff in cans, cigarettes, henna tattoos (the guy that tried to get me to buy one was funny… he kept telling us to get one, and showed me this nice one of a clawing eagle that I could get [really??] or a unicorn, and then we looked through his book and found other nice ones like two doves with branches intertwined in a heart shape, reading “tea mo” in the center, etc. Anyways he was funny because I kept trying to say no politely, and then he kept trying to convince us, and I was like, maybe when we leave! So they won’t fade! Or at least tomorrow [mañana!]. I said all of this in Spanish and he turned to the rest of the girls and laughing, said sarcastically, such good Portuguese!).
ANYWAYS point being, there were many vendors whose purpose we understood. But then there were a couple that we just did NOT understand. And this is where yellow-shirt-guy slash Bruno helped us. For instance – there were many vendors running around with these long, off-whitish, hole-y slabs of something on sticks. I know that makes no sense. I’ll take a pic next time we’re at the beach because that’ll just be easier. Anyways my first reaction was, is that cheese on a stick?? I totally disregarded that thought because it sounded crazy. I thought maybe it was some sort of ice cream, but the vendors carried it around in plastic bags, not any sort of cooling container. And they also carried around what appeared to be mini-stoves – like little camping stoves! – which also went against my ice cream thought. Jennifer said she thought they were maybe rice krispies on a stick. Anyways, this one particular vendor of the item had captured our hearts when he began singing as he prepared his food, so we decided we HAD to find out what this treat was. So next time Bruno came around, I tried my best spanglish slash Portuguese (which really just means Spanglish… I knew no Portuguese at that point, other than hello and goodbye and thank you! Not that I know that much more now, two days later). And he pointed over and said, “QUESO!” So apparently, I should really stick to my instincts, because it was in fact cheese on a stick. And cheese on a stick – pronounced que-shjo – I’m assuming spelled quejo? Because the j here makes that shj sound. Sorry that I’m awful at describing phonetics. Anyways the quejo is actually quejo de brazia (I believe? Whatever it’s supposed to be, it’s translated to mean toasted/burnt cheese!). The vendors will heat a stick over the grill until it is toasted, then they stick it in a plastic bag full of spices (which we found out, later from Vinny, is oregano!) and they also offer to squirt a liquid on it, which I very much mistakenly thought was balsamic vinaigrette – but turned out to be honey. We’ve decided that quejo at the beach is definitely something we’re going to try out before we leave. Even I am going to brave up and try one – much to the astonishment of those who know of my freakish dislike for melted cheese.
Bruno also helped us figure out what camorrones are – a woman had come over trying to sell us some, and we told her no thank you etc, but she was another persistent vendor, so we tried to understand what she was saying, and Sarah finally realized that the woman was saying coconuts – or so we thought – so we all made globe-circle motions with our hands and said coconuts and the vendor said YES! and nodded a lot. (They sell coconuts with the tops chopped off for everyone to drink on the beach, so we assumed this is what she was trying to sell.) I asked before she left if is tasted like “azuca,” or sugar, and she said kind of, then ran off to go get one to show us. And we were quite surprised when she came back with a plate of various foods, including shrimp. We said no thank you and quickly asked Bruno what camorrones were next time he came to say hi.
Ah but then the funniest thing happened with Bruno. He asked something to me, and I wasn’t sure what he was saying so I just started laughing, and said “No, ocricupada!” [no, thanks!] which we had become used to saying to everyone. Then Sarah said, “I think he just asked if we were married?!?” Which made me laugh harder since my answer was “no thanks.” So he gestured at Rachel and I and essentially said, “you two – me,” and then to Sarah and Jennifer and said, “you two – him,” (him meaning Sergio, the chair guy, who is Bruno’s good friend, and who had just walked away). We all started laughing and he smiled and kept nodding and anticipating an answer – any answer. He had been so kind to us all day! So I didn’t want to blatantly just say no. I was trying to think of how to say maybe in Spanish but just could not remember, so I said the next best thing that came to mind: “Pienso!” (aka “I think about it.”) Haha. Oops. He laughed so I guess that was a good answer!
The beach was great, then we came back and ate lunch – rice, beans, salad, some sort of vegetable mix, beef and potatoes, and some eggplant dish. It was good, although I still kind of had a weird appetite, so I didn’t eat too much. After lunch we went upstairs to nap for a couple of hours, then I woke up and talked on Skype for a bit, which was really great, catching up on life at home and Vandy. Then we decided to go to the ATM and any pharmacy or grocery store nearby to try to find aloe vera. (Did I mention I got sunburnt at the beach? Oops. Lobster Megan.) No one had aloe vera though! Ah. We tried the pharmacy right by our house, which literally has EVERYTHING except sunscreen and aloe vera. Makes no sense! And the girl behind the counter kept making fun of us. So we (Anja, Rachel, Kyle and I) went on down the road, heading towards the huge mall 15 minutes away and stopping everywhere in between to see if we could find aloe. We stopped in a huge supermarket which was SWEET! More on that later, though, I”ll try to get more details next time we go. They didn’t have aloe though, so we made it down to the mall, which thank goodness – at least one store there had aloe. So I got some, much to my relief, as well as the relief of the greater population of Salvador, which I think was probably laughing at me behind my back (some were laughing at me to my face) because of my sunburn. I’m so jealous that the people here don’t burn… they just tan. Anyways we also stopped by a couple of other shops (including Pizza Hut… Kyle insisted on getting Pizza Hut for dinner, I guess he had already decided he did not like Brazillian food? Based on lunch? Haha) and finally made our way back to the house where dinner was served. It was delicious – chicken spaghetti which I’m pretty sure had some peanut or almond in it too, oh man it was SO good. Everything else was good too.
After dinner, we all went to this jazz festival at the MAM (modern art museum) which was cool. We met these four 20-something Brazilians in line to buy tickets, and they ended up speaking English, which was really nice. They were so friendly! And when we had gotten our tickets one of the guys rubbed my back and said, “See ya in there!” Haha. Brazillians are really friendly (the ones who don’t mind that we don’t speak much Portuguese, and who tolerate our attempts at Spanish and broken Portguese) and also very touchy feely. We stayed for a little while, and then Anja got hit on by some local who proceeded to show her “magic tricks for a beautiful girl.” We were all laughing as he made her play card games and lock some chain around his wrists (which he magically got off when he did this twisty-turny move! He sure won Anja over with that one!). His poor heart was broken when fifteen minutes (and four magic tricks) later, Anja revealed that she has a boyfriend back in California, and no, she was not up for the option of multiple boys. Haha. After being at the festival for an hour or so, and being called models by a different local guy, and having our picture taken as a group (Touristas! Touristas!) we decided to leave, especially because we were so tired. After the taxi dropped us off at McDonalds, we made our way back to the house, with a quick pit stop at this ice cream shop a couple of shops down from Mickey D’s. We all got two different flavors (our goal is to try every flavor before we leave! Which is fun since we don’t understand what half of the flavors are before we try them!). I got Açai and Crème… Açai is a berry from Brazil, which is popular now at a lot of smoothie places – I’ve seen it around a lot recently but never have tried it, so I decided to get it. It was good, although Sarah said it wasn’t as good as the Açai she’s had other places. The Crème was really good, although we were never able to figure out what the flavor was – I think pineapple? Whatever it was, it was very good.
Today we went on an all-day tour of two islands near Salvador – I had planned to also write about this but it is 1:20 am here (ah!!!) and I really need some sleep so I’ll just give you a sneak preview by putting up a couple of pictures. Tomorrow we have orientation during most of the day so I’ll be at my computer sporadically but I’ll try to update when possible and hopefully talk to everyone – I’m really tired but still missing everyone and I think that I will actually admit for once that I am a tiiiiiiny bit homesick for my family and friends. But I am having an ABSOLUTE blast here … with every minute that I spend in Brazil, I fall in love a little bit more! I just can’t wait to start volunteer placement. Going to the beach is great and all, but I’ve just really been looking forward to teaching English to kids again, as I miss my IBNY kids from Morocco like crazy. I think that’ll also help give me some consistency here. Anyways I’ll write more though tomorrow… this chiquitita has got to go to bed!
Saturday, January 3, 2009
First Day in Brazil!
Ah so today has officially been one of the longest days ever – a few of the other girls here in the house were on my flight from Miami, and we landed in Salvador this morning around 6:30am but honestly you would’ve thought it was at least 9 or 10 am… and we’ve been up all day doing everything possible. I feel like I’ve been here at least three days! I’ll update more with what we did today later, prob tomorrow. The people here are awesome though. The locals are so friendly! And funny! And the other CCS volunteers are great. I’m attaching a picture we took tonight at this jazz festival. In the picture are my two roommates - Anja and Rachel, who are really cool and funny – they’re in the front. Rachel goes to Maryland and Anja lives in Santa Cruz. And then I’m in the back row with Sarah, Lindsey, and Jennifer, who all go to Texas A&M. They’re also really funny and great! We all have a great time together and just laugh and laugh and crack each other up. I can't believe we've only known each other 24 hours or less!
Friday, January 2, 2009
Oh ps.
Also!
1. I have skype (yea yea yea!) so if you skype, let me know, or add me as a friend/contact thing!! I think you can just find me by searching for me by name.
2. If you know my brother at all, you'll probably want to check out the comments he leaves on my posts because they are usually sooo funny. I laugh so hard. For reference, go back and see what he said on my Africa posts lol.
3. I'd like to give out to my Dad, who is the solo "follower" of my blog. haha. I'm not sure exactly what being a "follower" entails... I think he gets an email whenever I post something?... but either way, pretty sweet. Props to my pops. haha! I just rhymed.
3b. Ehhh token shoutout to my mom because she is the only immediate family member that I have not mentioned yet in this post.
1. I have skype (yea yea yea!) so if you skype, let me know, or add me as a friend/contact thing!! I think you can just find me by searching for me by name.
2. If you know my brother at all, you'll probably want to check out the comments he leaves on my posts because they are usually sooo funny. I laugh so hard. For reference, go back and see what he said on my Africa posts lol.
3. I'd like to give out to my Dad, who is the solo "follower" of my blog. haha. I'm not sure exactly what being a "follower" entails... I think he gets an email whenever I post something?... but either way, pretty sweet. Props to my pops. haha! I just rhymed.
3b. Ehhh token shoutout to my mom because she is the only immediate family member that I have not mentioned yet in this post.
First post whoo!
I’m sitting in the Miami airport right now killing a couple of hours until my 8-hour flight to Salvador. I’m so excited to be going! I’m really excited for my volunteer placement – I’m going to be teaching English to children, teenagers, and adults at the Comunidade Coração de Jesus (the Jesus Holy Heart Community Center). I can’t wait to see what sort of impact I’ll be able to make in these people’s lives… when I went to Morocco last summer to do similar work, I wasn’t really sure what to expect (meaning I had NO clue what to expect) and right when I felt like I had finally gotten the hang of things, it was time for me to leave. This will be a completely different situation and location, etc, but I feel more prepared for my work. I’m just kind of anxious to see what Brazil will be like because in my head right now, I keep imagining that I am returning to the CCS home base in Rabat. I can’t wait to get to the home base and see what Salvador is like. I’m also ready to meet everyone, since I know no one else going!
I’m also really excited to have four weeks to just… stop. I can’t wait to get out of the rush of school, and have time to really think and figure out what I want to do with my life – where I want to go, what I aspire to do, what my goals are. I’ll have a good amount of free time in Brazil, as I will be volunteering for four to five hours every morning, and then will have most afternoons and weekends free. I can’t wait to be able to just sit down and read for fun, and draw, and write in my journal, and think. I already have finished one of the books I brought along to read (just now, here in the airport… haha oops?) but I have my Bible with me so I’m really excited to have time to read it and really focus on it. Did I mention that I plan on doing a large majority of this reflecting and contemplating on life, ideas, etc on the beach?! Haha.
Anyways I’m going to be updating more often but my battery is draining so I don’t think my comp is going to last much longer here… I had my computer plugged into one of the four outlets provided in this concourse (quality… haha) and there are these two girls sitting in the area who have had their phones plugged in for so long – they had them plugged in for a while before I even got a chance to plug my computer in! – and anyways so just now this older man who has been sitting here waiting for a while finally asked one of them if they were almost done, and the girl just kind of looked at him and did this attitude tongue click thing, and he said, “well you’ve had it plugged in for a really long time now….” and she kept being all attitudey with him (teenagers these days!) so I offered him my plug.
So until my next update, send me an email! Or (perhaps even better) if you are wildly intrigued by my ramblings, and you didn’t get a chance to read my blog that I kept while in Africa this past summer, you can go back and read some of my adventures while in Morocco and South Africa! I would recommend reading the earlier stuff though because a) there are only two or three posts from South Africa since we only had internet twice a week there and b) I had more energy and time to write in Morocco and c) I had some funny experiences in Morocco…. Being hit on in the airport by Yasmine (my long lost love…), almost being sold off for camels (package deal with Natalie! haha), my experience in the hammam (still prob one of my fav things about morocco… also the hazelnut ice cream… and my IBNY kids!!!! Oh my goshhhhh I miss them so much… ah ok Miami airport is not the place to get all sentimental though. I need to get a grip. Also, sleep.), my wedding, etc etc. The link to that blog is: http://meganinafricasummer08.blogspot.com/.
Ok I think that’s about it. Peace out girl scout.
I’m also really excited to have four weeks to just… stop. I can’t wait to get out of the rush of school, and have time to really think and figure out what I want to do with my life – where I want to go, what I aspire to do, what my goals are. I’ll have a good amount of free time in Brazil, as I will be volunteering for four to five hours every morning, and then will have most afternoons and weekends free. I can’t wait to be able to just sit down and read for fun, and draw, and write in my journal, and think. I already have finished one of the books I brought along to read (just now, here in the airport… haha oops?) but I have my Bible with me so I’m really excited to have time to read it and really focus on it. Did I mention that I plan on doing a large majority of this reflecting and contemplating on life, ideas, etc on the beach?! Haha.
Anyways I’m going to be updating more often but my battery is draining so I don’t think my comp is going to last much longer here… I had my computer plugged into one of the four outlets provided in this concourse (quality… haha) and there are these two girls sitting in the area who have had their phones plugged in for so long – they had them plugged in for a while before I even got a chance to plug my computer in! – and anyways so just now this older man who has been sitting here waiting for a while finally asked one of them if they were almost done, and the girl just kind of looked at him and did this attitude tongue click thing, and he said, “well you’ve had it plugged in for a really long time now….” and she kept being all attitudey with him (teenagers these days!) so I offered him my plug.
So until my next update, send me an email! Or (perhaps even better) if you are wildly intrigued by my ramblings, and you didn’t get a chance to read my blog that I kept while in Africa this past summer, you can go back and read some of my adventures while in Morocco and South Africa! I would recommend reading the earlier stuff though because a) there are only two or three posts from South Africa since we only had internet twice a week there and b) I had more energy and time to write in Morocco and c) I had some funny experiences in Morocco…. Being hit on in the airport by Yasmine (my long lost love…), almost being sold off for camels (package deal with Natalie! haha), my experience in the hammam (still prob one of my fav things about morocco… also the hazelnut ice cream… and my IBNY kids!!!! Oh my goshhhhh I miss them so much… ah ok Miami airport is not the place to get all sentimental though. I need to get a grip. Also, sleep.), my wedding, etc etc. The link to that blog is: http://meganinafricasummer08.blogspot.com/.
Ok I think that’s about it. Peace out girl scout.
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