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!