Tuesday night capoeira wasn’t so great. It was taught by the master whose style I don’t particularly care for because he uses lots of maneuvering on the ground and adores moves that involve supporting your weight with your head (which I don’t feel properly trained to do and I’m mildly-severely concerned that I’ll snap my neck and become a vegetable). He also made us all take turns playing an instrument and since I have no instrumental training I played a little percussion instrument that basically looks like a small and a big coconut on a stick with circle openings on the top that you strike with a stick to create a dung-DUNG-dung sound. Then to top off the class he pulled me out and made me fight with him, whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiich… didn’t go that well. Uff! Right when I thought I was catching on! Some days I genuinely love going to capoeira, then others I feel so incompetent… but I figure that I can afford to humiliate myself in front of people who live on the other side of the world. I can only get better, right?

Yesterday I officially registered for classes which means that I can’t switch around anymore. We still haven’t heard about whether my anemia class will be funded, but we are going to start preparing anyway. Yesterday we started discussing different types of nematodes and amoebas that can cause anemia. Our teacher told us that last semester at a birthday party the class saw a boy get sick and throw up some worms- a few even came out his nose. Infection normally occurs from contact with infected human feces or water/vegetables/fruits that have been infected. Good times, eh?

I gave a presentation today in my Spanish class and I think that I mostly spoke in Spanish. My main issue is pronouncing words like ‘de’ correctly, that is, with a soft ‘d’ like they do in Spanish and not the ‘g’ sound that is used in Portuguese. When I got home I read through a few articles in Spanish and my pronunciation is coming back. Just hearing Spanish spoken does wonders to help me differentiate the two in my mind. I also bought a Portuguese- Spanish dictionary that I think will force me to go from English to Portuguese to Spanish when I want to look up a word so that I am reminded of the Portuguese word as well.

Yesterday morning I tried out a Spanish class at 9:00AM. The most advanced class I could find was level VI for secretaries. In Brazil once you pick your discipline you are divided into turmas or groups of students in your major. For the most part all the students in your turma follow the same schedule and you don’t have the option of taking random classes in other disciplines. Thus, since Spanish in and of itself isn’t a very functional major, they have applied Spanish only for secretary work (i.e. ordering office supplies from an Argentinean company). It will serve my purpose because all I really want is to hear Spanish spoken so that I can work to differentiate it with Portuguese in my mind.

I went straight to CAASAH after Class and Race. Katie and I invited Ana to go with us because she doesn’t speak much Portuguese and wants to find a place where she can work with babies. We brought colored string with us to make bracelets, though it turned out that the kids mostly just wrapped themselves in string and few bracelets got made. I’ve got some more of the kids names down now:

-Michael is a plump, lethargic little baby. He’ll give me a smile when I coo over him and pretend that his bear is giving him kisses, but he doesn’t beg to be picked up or cry for attention. I went home with mementos of his spit-up down the front of my shirt.

-Lariça is the little girl I mentioned last week that is about 1.5ish and is learning to stand up/walk. She’ll shamelessly compete for attention if I’m holding another baby but she’s the prettiest little thing. You just can’t hold it against her.

-Clara is 6 months old and reminds me of a little smurf. Her ears kind of stick out and she has a wide forehead and a tiny little nose and mouth. She likes to be held and I’m pretty sure that her diaper leaked on me because I smelled pee on me for the rest of the afternoon.

-Juliete is 12 years old and likes to hang out with the babies. When she saw my bag of thread she took me by the hand to one of the tables so that she could make her bracelet. At which point an even older girl named Michelle took over and started to distribute the spools to her friends which meant that no one wanted to share colors or cooperate to actually make the bracelets. Michelle referred to me as “Americana” and insisted that I played cat’s cradle with her over and over and over again.

I also befriended a group of boys that asked me to bring my soccer ball with me next week and gave me a new hairdo. When they finished climbing on me I had snot and spit to add to the assortment of bodily fluids pasted to my skin and clothes and all my curls had been combed to frizz by their little fingers.

When I got home, I took a nice long shower and spent the rest of the evening studying/chatting with Conchita. Today she has a few medical exams to check on her breast cancer and osteoporosis, so keep your fingers crossed for good results.

Speaking of breast cancer, this morning in my Social Services and Health class I accidentally asked a question about papayan cancer (câncer da mamão), instead of breast cancer (cancer da mama). Good times…

Well I’m pleased to report that the second half of my week went much smoother. Thursday was routine, except that my Portuguese class went to see a documentary on Mestre Bimba and capoeira. Mestre Bimba was the man responsible for modifying Angolan capoeira into what it is today. He turned it into a discipline and helped pull many poor youths out of the life of crime. I went to capoeira that night and I was encouraged that the exercises that we did are becoming easier for me. When I got back from capoeira Conchita told me that my art/sculpture teacher had called and that scheduled out lesson for 7AM. Droga! That meant that for the third time this week I woke up at 5:15 so that I could get ready and walk to class. After class I stopped by a few shops to look at beads because I want to make bracelets with the children at CAASAH and bought some more glue sticks (I tend to go through glue sticks like fiend).

When I got back I studied a bit until lunch, then Bethany and I went to CIEE to look over classes again. I want to try a Spanish class because the other day I tried to write an e-mail to Dina (my contact for the Mission Honduras) and I wrote it without many problems, but I struggled with pronunciation when I tried reading it out-loud. I found Spanish VI that meets Mondays and Thursdays and Bethany showed me where the campus is where it meets. She decided to try a ceramics class and I showed her where that campus was, then we walked to Dulces Sonho and sat and chatted while Bethany ate a slice of chocolate cake.

I decided to go out and samba Friday night. There is a tiny bar in Rio Vermelho that everyone in the program loves to go to and I met up with a small group around 10:00PM. When I say tiny, I mean tiny. I was literally dancing against the wall and we stayed until 1 at which point the bar was intolerably hot and crowded. We spent a good portion of the time outside the bar on the sidewalk so that we could catch the breeze.

Saturday I slept in until 9:30 then meet Bethany to go to the beach at 10:30. I went for a run for about an hour and found a great stretch of beach with a running path, a skate board park, pull-up bars, etc. When I got back I went swimming a bit then ate some açaí at the shop across the street. By 2 I decided to walk back and stop by the grocery store. I studied a bit last night, but by 9:30 I was falling asleep with my book open and decided to call it an early night.

Today has been pretty calm. I studied and worked on letters this morning. Bethany came over and we sat and talked for a few hours and I went to mass at 6:30. I got a reply back from my e-mail to one of professors from the Institute of Collective Health and we are going to try to meet later this week.

Mom, in response to your question about the shortage of funding for my Health and Education Class: Prevention of Anemia, basically we need funding because we will be traveling to a poor community in the Interior to take blood samples and do surveys. We need money primarily for transportation and for food because we will spend one full Saturday a month there. The department grants the money but low on funds because of the strike.

YAAAAAAWN! O, gente! It’s been a bit of an off-week so far, but that also means that I’ve had my fair share of mistakes to learn from. I woke up Monday feeling stuffy with a sore throat so I just went for a short run and studied a bit before my 11:00 class. After lunch I went to meet with Katie to go to CAASAH (the home for children and adults with HIV/AIDS). Katie was about 15 minutes late because she was coming from a class beforehand, but while I waited for her I watched the buses going by to see which stop we needed to wait at. The name of the bus we needed was Ribeira, but the trick is that there are 4 different lines. (We needed Ribeira/Luis Tarquinio). When in doubt, I always ask the guy who sells coconut water and he told us to wait in front of the theater. After about 10 minutes we see a Ribeira go by but it doesn’t stop when we flag it down. We moved to the stop at the corner because the buses all stop there because it’s an intersection. We wait another 15-20 minutes, so by the time the next Ribeira passes it is already 4:10 and we were supposed to arrive at CAASAH by 4:00. We saw on the side of the bus that it passes through Luis Tarquinio though the name of the route was something else that I can’t remember now (maybe Ribeira Liberdade). Katie got on the bus and asked the money changer if the bus passed the street that CAASAH is on but the lady seemed to put a mental block as soon as she saw that Katie was a blond with pale skin and furrowed her eyebrows before she even asked the question. We didn’t get any clues from her but we stayed on the bus and kept our eyes peeled for landmarks that we recognized…

…and an HOUR later we concluded that we are definitely NOT in the right place and we should probably figure out how to get back. It’s funny how traveling with other people changes your behavior. If it had been me alone I would have been asking questions the second that I suspected something was amiss, but since we were together we both assumed that the other person had everything under control and we reacted alot slower than I think we ordinarily would have. We asked the money changer again and she advised us where to get off and which bus to take back home. (It was already dark and too late to try to go to CAASAH.) When I got home I asked Conchita where we should have caught the bus and it turns out that for the first time the Coconut man led me astray. I was utterly distraught by this realization because I had put so much faith in the Coconut guys.

Tuesday morning started at 5:15AM and I caught the bus at 6:30AM without a problem. My stop is the last one so normally everyone gets off the bus at the end of the line and you can’t miss it. Unfortunately I caught the bus at a different stop and my stop was not the last one and I sat reading an article and missed my stop, returned all the way to Campo Grande, and had to catch another bus. (The buses change routes so I couldn’t stay on the one I was on.) I ended up being 20 minutes late to class but I befriended the money changer on the bus and talked to him while we sat in traffic.

After class I went to talk to Isabel, the professor who can supposedly help me get into contact with Dr. Barreto for my research. I went to the Social Services office and talked to the secretary but it turns out that she only comes in on Mondays now. Until next week…

I went to CIEE to talk to Flavia and apologize for not showing up to volunteer at CAASAH. We rescheduled for today at 3:00PM and I ran a few more errands before my Portuguese class. I decided to go to UFBA early to see if I could catch Dr. Barreto before his class in the Pharmacy school. When I was there last week I saw that he teaches an Epidemiology class on Tuesdays from 3-4 and I thought that at last I might tag him down. Great idea but it turns out the class isn’t at 3:00PM its at 13:00 AND it isn’t at the Ondina UFBA campus its at the Institute for Collective Health. Fabulous. I spent the extra hour before my Portuguese class trying to read in the library but its already turning so hot here that with the heat and my exhaustion it took me the entire hour to get through the 6 page article for my Social Services class.

I had a long debate with myself on the way home about whether or not I wanted to go to capoeira and in the end I opted out because of my cold and my bruised heel from falling Saturday. I took some time to unwind and listen to music, then finished up my paper for Class and Race that was due today.

This morning I scoped out the bus stop we should have waited at for Ribeira and went to class. Afterwards Katie and I ate a quick lunch with a big group of students from the program and went straight to CAASAH. We caught the bus next to CIEE and we were able to see exactly where the stop is by Campo Grande when it passed by. When we got to CAASAH we met with Sandra and filled out some forms. Afterwards she introduced us to one of the coordinators and set us loose to play with the children. Oh goodness! During the interview/form signing with Sandra two of the girls came up to us and asked in English “My is your name?” One of the girls, Michelle, gave us each a kiss and told us “ben-vindo” or welcome. There was hardly a minute that I was there without someone in my arms or on my back. I got to see the babies today and they were infinitely precious. Two are itsy bitsy infants, two are a between 6-9 months old, and one is about 1-1.5. The 4 youngest ones were sleeping but I spend about half an hour with the 1-1.5 year old letting her craw around and practice standing. I spent quite a bit of time with another girl who wouldn’t tell me her age (I’d guess 5ish) whose name I couldn’t understand. She spoke very little but she clung to me from the moment she saw me. (It amazed me how I went in there nervous that I had nothing to offer and it turned out that all I needed were two arms to hold them, enough energy for a few piggy back rides, and kisses.) Her skin was covered in scars and she still wears diapers. Her belly-button is abnormally large, though I don’t know why that would be. We stayed for about an hour and half then headed back because I had at 5:30 class. We had no trouble on the return trip and arrived at Campo Grande at 4:00. I used the spare time to try to find the Institute of Collective Health which took be about an hour of running in circles. It’s hard to ask people on the streets because the locations move so often and there are several departments with similar names. I found Dr. Barreto’s office and talked to his secretary who told me that he would be traveling until August 31^st. Perhaps that is why he hasn’t responded to my e-mail. Let’s hope that I hear something soon.

I went straight from my quest to find Dr. Barreto to my Anemia class. When I got there I found out that there are some issues because of the strike at UFBA and we may not get the funding that we need to go to the community where we will be working. We discussed our options and ended class early today. They are trying to recruit students from other departments so that they can pool funds. Keep your fingers crossed.

I was short 40 cents for the bus ride home so I had to find a bank to get some cash from the ATM. That was a little bit sketchy because it was already dark outside and the campus was deserted, but mission successful!

Beijos!

Hello! Can you believe that the semester is already 1/3 of the way gone? Only 4 more months to go to the date and I’ll be on my way back home!

Saturday morning I went with Bethany to Pelourinho to help her look for a gift for her boyfriend’s birthday. We went to the top floor in one of the stores to look at artwork and even though I heeded the owner’s warning to hold on to the rail, I slipped and fell down a few steps. No permanent damage done, although my heel is bruised and I pulled a muscle in my left arm where I was holding onto the rail. (I swear I’m not that big of klutz. The conditions were extremely adverse b/c I was swearing slick, loose sandals and the stairs were super slippery and steep.)

I studied a bit in the afternoon then I went over to Bethany’s to watch a Brazilian film (Meu tio matou um cara- My Uncle Killed a Guy) and the soap opera Paraíso tropical- Tropical paradise. The film was cute and Sonia if you’re reading this I thought about you in the scene where the boy eats the banana with cinnamon. Watching the soap opera was amusing as well because the producers are so blatantly promoting their pet social cause. In the episode we watched one of the characters calls in to donate to Criança Esperança and in another idyllic scene a white, rich couple adopts a black boy.

Sunday morning I went to mass at 7 then spent the rest of the morning trying to write an essay for Classe e Raça, my culture class. This Sunday it was Conchita’s turn to host the family gathering so by 1 the entire house was buzzing and I was lured out of studying by Conchita’s adorable baby nephew and her niece’s new puppy. Although the TV was on, conversation was much more the center of attention this time and I’ve never seen a group of people so enjoy each others’ company.

Luciana, puppy, and cousin (left) and Conchita with her nephew and her niece's puppy (below). Update coming soon!

Before my class on Race and Class Monday morning I went for a run in Campo Grande. After the run I found myself watching the shadows on the sidewalk stretch, then fad as the clouds passed in front of the sun. I’ve made of ritual of finding a different place to sit in the park after each run and I usually pass half an hour there just observing and thinking. It usually drizzles on me in the morning but it’s worth it to see the vibrant limbs of green shimmering against a backdrop of grey. I think that I could easily pass the whole day there just watching the people pass by and listening. There is a homeless lady that usually sits on the bench outside the fence of the park facing the theater on my street. If it rains hard she wraps herself in a tarp and some days she takes a smoke. She smiles subtly when she looks at me but I’m not convinced that she actually sees me. I can’t explain why, but she looks like what I’d imagine a young teenage boy to look like after he’s had sex for the first time. Perhaps it is the inherent innocence confused with a profound loss of innocence that provokes me to feel that way.

There are two police officers, a man and a woman, that secure the area. They spend the majority of their time outside the gate on the side facing Barra. If I run at 8AM there are a group of shirtless guys in green shorts that are usually there too. Vendors selling shots of coffee pass through with their carts that are made to look like miniature cars or trains and play music when they turn the crank. By 9AM the popcorn and coco water vendors set up across from the monument of July 2^nd, Bahian independence day. There are lots of elderly men and women walking in the park or on the outside perimeter. I wished that I had a camera because there was an elderly woman with a neon green shirt a few paces behind a middle aged woman with a green top and bright green sneakers. The vividness of those colors surrounded by the melancholy was almost comical and reminded me of an energy drink commercial.

At 11:00 I went to the class on Race and Class in Brazilian society offered by CIEE. It seems like it going to be more intense than the Contemporary Brazilian Culture class though it taught by the same professor that I took during the intensive summer session. While I was at the CIEE office I took another look through the class schedule and picked 2 classes to try out for Tuesday morning.

I went home for lunch, mailed a couple letters, then walked back to CIEE to meet with Flavia, Alexia, and Katie to visit the HIV home, CAASAH, at 3:30 PM. (Flavia and Alexia are both coordinators of the program with CIEE and Katie is a student in my Portuguese class.) We flagged a taxi and the whole ride the driver joked back and forth with us about Bahian stereotypes because he was from Minas Gerais When we got to CAASAH I must confess that I had a few butterflies in my stomach. Flavia told me that in the past when she took students they walked in, looked around, and never went back. Conchita said she had the same experience when she went, because some of the things that you see are very emotionally difficult to digest. I was braced to expect the worst.

We told the security guard at the gate that we were there to see Sandra and he escorted us through the dirt parking lot to the reception area of the house/clinic. While we waited I read the mission statement on the wall and looked at the collages of pictures. (My heart strings were already pulled and I hadn’t even met any of the children.) Sandra greeted us all warmly and took us to the park area to talk because the rest of the house was buzzing with activity. She asked us what type of work we’d like to do and when we were available to come. Katie wants to work with the children during their recreation time in the afternoons and while I’d love to do that, I’d also like to see more of the clinical side and shadow a nurse in the adult unit. For now we decided that I would work with Katie on Monday afternoons and after I feel more comfortable with the clinic, I can come a second day a week or work separately from Katie. Sandra then gave us a brief tour of the facility and we saw a few volunteers teaching dance to the children. (I then felt suddenly inadequate because the children can already dance better than I can.) I’m thinking about maybe busting out the soccer ball that I brought and starting a mini-soccer team and teaching the kids how to play Frisbee. I’m also envisioning some craft sessions because Katie and I both love card making.

I got back home around 6:00 and invited Bethany over because we have to write a paper for next Wednesday (8/22) on the city of Cachoeira and the Irmandade de Boa Morte (The Sisterhood of Good Death). I borrowed a documentary from CIEE to orient us for the field trip to Cachoeira to see the procession of Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte (Our Lady of the Good Death) on Wednesday (8/15). What I gathered from the film is that during slavery in Brazil the Africans were obligated to “convert” and so they found ways to continue to practice their native religion under the cloak of Catholicism. As my host mom explained, the assigned a saint to each of their Orixás so that while they prayed St. Barbara, for example, they were really worshipping Iansã. The feast of the Assumption of Mary became particularly important to the slaves. According to the church though Mary died she was assumed into heaven and never knew decay. I suspect that the slaves identified with this holiday as a symbol of their dream of freedom and passing on to the glory and justice that they deserved. The female Afro-Brazilians older than 40 years formed the Irmandade de Boa Morte as a group dedicated to celebrating the feast every year with a procession, religious ceremonies, and parties. Though you might think that the death of Mary would be a solemn occasion, it is anything but. There are parties and music in the streets of Cachoeira during the 3 day celebration. After the film Bethany and I started to read one of the articles for class but at 9 PM when Tropical Paradise, Bethany’s favorite soap opera, came on we stopped and gathered around the TV.

Tuesday was a long, rough day. I got up at 5:30 AM, ate, and got dressed. By 6:10 I was ready to head out the door but for some reason I couldn’t get the lock open. After trying for 10 minutes I sheepishly had to wake up Conchita to help me. It turns out that there is a second lock that I didn’t know about and I’m not quite as incompetent as I feared. I was told that I could catch the bus for Federação were I had my 7AM class in Garcia, so I went to the bus stop in front of my house and waited for about 10 minutes. I decided that it might be a better idea to try the stop down the street with more traffic, so I walked over there and asked a guy standing there if the bus I needed passed by that stop. He told me that it did, then after thinking for a minute asked one of his friends who said that it didn’t and that I needed to go to Campo Grande. Ok, fabulous. So I walk to Campo Grande and ask a woman there who refers me to yet another bus stop. I asked someone at that bus stop and they told me no and that I needed to walk down another block. At this point it was 6:45 and I ask a woman on the corner if she knows where I can catch the bus that I need. She walked with me a bit and pointed out the stop. When I rounded the corner the bus was just about to leave so I had to run to catch it and I squeezed in the jam packed bus. I couldn’t even pass through the turn wheel where you pay fare and I rode on the steps for about 15 minutes until another wave of passengers tried to squeeze in. I ended up in the middle of the bus completely closed in so that I couldn’t see out the windows, meaning that I couldn’t see my stop. Most everyone there were students and I heard several people talking about Federação so I figured that I’d be safe getting off when I saw all the students get out. It was 7:10 when I got off the bus with a mass of students only to realize that we were at part of UFBA, not Católica. I saw the bus turn off to the left, so I started walking in that direction on the side of the road. After walking for 20 minutes following signs and verbal directions from people I asked on the street, I finally made it to Federação at 7:30. I wandered a bit longer finding my classroom then walked in flustered, but relieved to finally have made it. My first class was a senior seminar on Social Service and Health. I had to introduced myself to the class and everyone was very welcoming and reassured me that if I needed any extra help, just to ask. The class sounds perfect for me. Some of themes of the class are:

o Concepts in sickness/health and their social dimension (i.e. how the same sickness looks different in different sectors of society)

o Levels of health attention (i.e. primary prevention, secondary prevention, treatment, etc.)

o Basic concepts of epidemiology

o The health situation in Brazil and Bahia

o Social movements in health

o SUS (the Brazilian healthcare system)

o Models of healthcare

o Social Service and health

I noticed on the syllabus that one of the texts in written by Mauricio Barreto, the professor I have been trying to reach for research. Victoria, one of the students in the class, told me that her daughter studied abroad in Dallas and that I can count on her if I need help with anything.

The second class I tried was a Social Work class called Work and Sociability but it was large with mostly freshmen and seemed off the mark for what I’m interested in. I sat through the first 50 minutes of class, and then walked out as politely as possible.

I walked around and looked on the bulletin boards to see if there was another class that I wanted to try. CIEE didn’t have the schedule for the law classes and there were a few that I was interested in looking up. I saw that the class in Agricultural and Agrarian Rights was next so I decided to try it out. It’s a class for 5^th year law students and the professor reminded me of my highschool US history teacher. He wore a suit and tie, was plump, old and balding, and spoke slowly but eruditely, inserting witty and sarcastic remarks intermediately. The class filed slowly in so it took him half an hour just to take role. He then proceed to explain the complexity of the course and the unfathomablity of covering it all in the course of the semester. We received no syllabus, no text assignments, and no guidelines on grading. I introduced myself to him after class to see if I could glean any more information and we talked for half an hour. He asked me what I was interested in, why I came to Brazil, etc. I told him that I wanted to take his class because I was interested in public health and social justice, and land rights is a huge issue in many of the countries that I’d like to work. He then laughed and said that he doesn’t know what justice I was referring to. Everyone raises there hands and says they want justice but no one can agree on what justice is. I confessed my own naivety with out reserve and told him that was why I needed to take his class. He asked me what religion I was and was surprised when I answered Catholic b/c he was under the impression that there are few Catholics in the US. He also asked why I wore an African necklace and not a crucifix around my neck. I suspect that he was just trying to convey his own naivety and we bantered on like that. I left the campus around 12:30, completely famished and exhausted. I ate lunch at home, and then went to buy some chocolate for Bethany’s birthday which was Wednesday. I left extra early for my Portuguese class so that I wouldn’t be late again and I got there early enough to sit and relax a bit.

After class I got a quick bite to eat and went to capoeira at 7:30. We started out the class running and doing sets of push-ups and sit ups. The instructor maintained the same intensity throughout the entire class and by 9:30 when the class was over I was beat.

Wednesday I went on a field trip to Cachoeira. Baird and Owen made Bethany a cake which was eaten before 9:00AM. The drive was an hour and half and the landscape slowly became more and more rural. Cachoeira is a quaint little town that looks like it hasn’t seen development in 50 years or more. We visited a cigar factory there that was once a vastly lucrative business, but now half of the factory functions as a museum and the other half continues its limited production. Afterwards we joined the procession of Mary through the streets. It tickled me to see the little white marry floating above a sea of black women in huge white dresses that made them all look like fat marshmallows. The procession wound through the streets to the church of the Irmandade de Boa Morte. They have been forbidden to celebrate mass in the Catholic church because they are considered cultish for their hybridization of African and Catholic practices. We visited several churches and museums and took some time to watch street dancing and other festivities. You can read about the holiday on wikipedia if you are interested. Jeferson Bacelar, one of the experts referenced on wiki is the director of my program and one of my professors. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Our_Lady_of_the_Good_Death)

After the field trip we went to eat sushi to celebrate Bethany’s birthday but I didn’t stay out late because yesterday was another early day. Luckily I made it to Federação without the drama from Tuesday. I decided not to take the law class after all because my schedule seems demanding enough and I want time to volunteer and get involved in the community. I asked my Social Service’s and Health professor if she knew Bacelar and she told me that she has a friend who works closely with him that could help put me in contact. I waited in the Social Services office for almost 2 hours but the other professor never showed up. I’m going to try to meet her on Tuesday and if nothing else, I’ll ask if I can do research directly with her. I’ve e-mailed another lady in the department but she works more with dengue than HIV and she referred me to another professor. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

In my afternoon Portuguese class we had to host a radio show and I was assigned to do a segment as a music critic. It went fine and after class Bethany and I finished up our reading assignment on the Irmandade de Boa Morte. This afternoon I’m going to a service learning class on Health and Education and capoeira tonight since I skipped out yesterday to study with Bethany.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! Beijos!

Oi gente! Saturday after I posted my blog I spent the afternoon studying. Bethany called around 7 and asked me to go with her to meet some others from the program at Shopping Barra. We ended up going to a Tex Mex restaurant nearby, which ended up being a dissatisfying experience both because of the food and the price (shocking I know, who knew a Mexican food in Brazil was a bad idea?). We sat and talked at a bar afterwards but by 11PM the majority of the group was tired from the night before and we split a cab back to Garcia. The crazy pigeon by our table that chased its tail and contorted its neck into unnatural positions and the 80’s music videos are in a toss up to be named the most absurd, but entertaining feature of the night.

Sunday was a family day. It’s fascinating to me how empty the streets get on Sundays. I honestly did not see anyone on the street today except Conchita because I was walking with her. I spent the entire afternoon and evening at Conchita’s sister, Guta’s, house. Conchita, Isa and Luciana go there almost every Sunday for lunch and visiting with the extended family. I showed up after they had just finished eating because I had a skype date with Chase beforehand, but they saved plenty for me. (There was baked fish, rice w/ ham/veggies/cheese, a shrimp dish, a salad, fried potatoes, etc.) Conchita made a dessert out of condensed milk, sugar, and other goodness that she insisted that I try in addition to a truffle with maracujá (passion fruit) filling. After lunch we gathered around the TV and watched Pride and Prejudice, then 2 hours of a special event going on this weekend to raise money for a children’s charity, Criança Esperança. It’s amazing how much TV is watched in this society and how captivating and influential Brazilians find it. The actors from the soap operas show up everywhere: on magazine covers, on advertisements on store fronts, on commercials, on talk shows, and of course, on Criança Esperança. Although the quantity of TV was mind-numbing, it was great to see Conchita cracking jokes and socializing with her sisters and cousin. When we walked back to our apartment (which is just across the street) she told me that she used to live in the same building as Guta as did many other relatives (stacked one on top of the other) until she moved about a year ago, followed by a few others. She lived on the first floor of the apartment and solicitors and visitors would knock on the window trying to sell something or get information about other people living in the building. One of her sisters was also robbed by a man who later broke into another apartment building on the street and raped a woman living alone there with her daughter and robbed her DVD player and other small appliances. In the apartment where she lives now she feels much more secure because it is gated in with 24 hour surveillance.

I have to run but I'll write more soon. Until then check out the website for the HIV home where I went today: www.caasah.com.br.

I don’t have too much to report about the last few days. Thursday I studied in the morning (i.e. I reviewed the Portuguese novel that I’ve been reading aloud to Conchita and my MCAT study book) and went to Portuguese class in the afternoon. The bus I take to campus was late so I got there about a minute for class started. On my way to the Letras building, I ran into 3 other of the students in my class. On the one hand that was a good thing because with the majority of the class with me it didn't look so bad being late, but unfortunately, they stopped to talk to people coming out of the session before us, so we were a good 10 minutes late before we actually made it to the classroom. The door to the room was locked which I assumed meant that the room must have changed, but the others were feeling comfortable b/c the 4 of us were together and we were joined a minute later by another classmate. After another 5-10 minutes of waiting I went down to the office and asked if there was a room change, which there was. By the time I went back up to the three flights of stairs to tell the others and came back down, we were 20-25 minutes late to class. Opps!

I went to capoeira Thursday night, though I was still sore from Tuesday. It went okay until it was time for roda de capoeira where everyone forms a circle and takes turns fighting one-on-one while everyone else WATCHES. I didn’t realize that sitting next to the musicians meant that your turn was next and I sat down second in line. Bad idea… My first turn was very humbling (to say the least) but I think that I was a slightly more dignified the second time around. Little by little is what I keep telling myself.

Friday Bethany and I went to the beach in the morning. I packed a peanut butter and banana sandwich and an apple which we split and we passed the time talking about our usual themes of life, faith, and relationships. We tried sitting on the right hand side, which has fewer tourists and more natives, and settled down near a game of foot-volley.Unfortunately we were seated too close to the tide and had to move several times. By 12:45 it was drizzling steadily and we decided to retreat and buy some açaí at a shop across from the beach. Bethany was feeling crafty and needed to start on a birthday card for her boyfriend, Jere’s birthday, so she came over to my place and we spent the afternoon making cards and listening to music.

This morning I finished my Portuguese assignment for Tuesday, went for a run in Campo Grande, showered, went to the grocery store, and here I am! Things will be getting more routine with classes starting and Monday I am going to an AIDS clinic were I hope to begin volunteering. Beijos!

Hello my dear ones. Well yesterday Portuguese class started again. I passed Intermediate I and I advanced to Intermediate II with the same professor. There are 7 students total: 5 from my last class, plus an Italian and another student from the CIEE program who skipped a level. My Portuguese class time was moved from 2-4 to 4-6, so that means that I can’t take the social work class I wanted. There’s a chance that the time could be moved back, but if not I’ll have to go back to the CIEE office to look over the schedule again and pick a different class.

I went to capoeira last night and paid for the month so I’m officially committed! The class is definitely too advanced for me, but I’m trying. Algodão, one of the instructors that Sonia and Bethany befriended, helped me with some of the basics. He’s a bit of a flirt, but he’s a patient instructor. (Sonia, if you’re reading this, he wants to know why you didn’t say goodbye before you left.)

Today Bethany and I went to an island a 40 minute ferry-ride from Salvador. We took a bus to Pelourinho, paid 5 centavos to take the Elevador Lacerda down by the port, and rode the ferry. The ride was a bit rough, but I only saw one little boy get sea-sick. When we got to the island we were a bit disappointed because the beaches were dirty and it certainly didn’t seem like the paradise that we had imagined. After walking around for a bit, we stopped for lunch and the man who attended us suggested that we take a taxi to the historic part of the island, then to the Ponto da Areia where the best beach is.

The “historic” region consisted of a port where it is prohibited to fish, swim, or even touch the water. Our taxi driver escorted us to the dock and explained that it was a nature preserve and pointed out a few exotic fish that swam by. We also visited Fonte de Bica, which is a source of mineral water that is clean enough to drink from the tap.

When we got to Ponto da Areia it was overcast and we feared rain. Our taxi driver agreed to pick us up at 4:00, so we had three hours to burn on the beach. When we saw a man renting out his horses for those who wanted to take a ride along the beach and Bethany’s eyes lit up. I haven’t been on a horse since I was a little girl, so the man agreed to lead and let me go alone if I was comfortable. We trotted along the shore and a little ways into a forest trail. On the way back Bethany and I switched horses and I rode solo. It went okay until the strap to my backpack came undone and I had to toss my bag to the man. I regretted having done that when I thought about my camera and wallet, but I didn’t have any trouble and he didn’t even mind waiting a few hours to be paid since we didn’t have any bills smaller than R$50.

We had about 2 hours of sunshine before the rains came back and we headed home. On the way to the island we sat on the top deck, but for the way back we decided to try the bottom level. It was hilarious because everyone riding down there laid down on the benches. I’m not sure if it is because they were motion sick or because they were so accustomed to the ride that they didn’t care for the view above and passed the time napping. Whatever the case, Bethany and I decided that when in Rome, do as the Romans and laid down like pros until water sloshed in through the windows. So that’s why everyone laid down in the middle benches…

Farewell Sonia!

Sonia left this afternoon for her flight back to California and I already miss her! Yesterday Bethany and I went shopping to pick up some gifts for her family and she showed us a store nearby where they sell nature/organic stuff. (I bought some wheat germ for my yogurt and oatmeal.) We parted ways for the rest of the afternoon, but they came over to my place after mass to paint nails and chat. They surveyed some of the music on my computer and we talked about first impressions and continued our usual discussion on relationships. This morning we were all going to go running at 7:00 in Campo Grande, but everyone ended up canceling b/c it was drizzling. I went running anyway and I had one of the best runs that I’ve had since I’ve gotten here. We spent about an hour together before lunch and then Bethany and I saw her off on the bus to the airport.

I’ve been here over a month and starting today, I’ve resolved to actually start doing all those things that I came here for. Bethany and I have agreed to make our best effort to talk to each other only in Portuguese and I have asked Conchita if she will let me read to her out loud everyday from a book that I have so that she can correct my pronunciation. (I read to her for about 30-40 minutes this afternoon and it reminded me of reading bedtime stories with my parents. We’re reading Agosto by Rubem Fonseca which is a historical fiction about the murder of a politician. It’s great that I’m reading it with her b/c she explains to me parts of the history that I wouldn’t otherwise have understood.) I’m going to capoeira tomorrow and my goal is to make it to 2-3 classes a week. I know that will be hard once classes and volunteering gets going, but I’m going to try. Bethany and I went by the CIEE office this afternoon and asked about volunteer opportunities and we were told that they would take us in small groups to the different projects, but that they wanted to wait until we had our class schedule set first. I asked specifically about working with children with AIDS and I was told that I could, though that type of work can be very emotionally challenging and few stick with it. I insisted and they agreed to take me once classes start.

This evening I’m going to an opera with Bethany at the theater near Campo Grande. The opera is Tosca by Puccini. Tomorrow Portuguese class starts.

Friday morning I had an opportunity to look at classes and pick a few to try out. The employees at Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA) are on strike so we are only allowed to pick one class there and as many as we can handle at Universidade Cátolica da Salvador (UCSAL). Jefferson (the program’s resident director) told us that he doesn’t feel that the strike is justified, but they are paid enough though they aren’t working, so for them it’s a beautiful deal. Right now I’m planning on taking Portuguese, a course on class/race/gender, a social work class taught by the guest lecturer on gender roles from my Brazilian Contemporary Culture course, a service learning course on health education and prevention of anemia, and possibly a course on agrarian rights through the law school. My Portuguese class starts Tuesday, the classes with UCSAL the following week, and UFBA still hasn’t announced when classes will start (…if they start).

I spent the afternoon reading through e-mails until 4:30 when Sonia and I went for a run up and down the hill on our street. Afterwards we showered and met up for pizza at a restaurant near by. Sonia is leaving Monday so we are trying to do all of her favorite things one more time. The pizza was incredible. We got half with ham, eggs, green pepper, onions, and olives and the other half with corn and chicken. The food, the company, and the conversation were all top notch.

We spent the whole day at a beach that we saw on the way to the airport last week. We laid down beach towels on some rocks a little ways off shore and had the ocean to ourselves. We saw lots of crabs and fishies and came back with all sorts of treasures. Tonight we’re planning to watch Cidade de Deus and sit and admire our paintings for a while.

Faye, Kaye, Andrée, and Tara: If you are reading this, allow me to apologize that I haven’t gotten your birthday cards in the mail yet. I have a postcard for each of you sitting on my desk and I promise to get them on their way Monday. Happy (early) Birthday!

Hello my lovelys. Well, Rio is one of the most famous cities in Brazil for good reason. I had a wonderful time and managed to see quite a bit during my visit. Saturday morning I met Bethany and Sonia at the bus stop at 8AM and we got to the airport by 9ish. The check-in line was slow but we had plenty of time and our flight was about half an hour late anyway. We got to the gate about 10 minutes before our official boarding time but there was not another soul there. After about 5-8 minutes a bleach-blond Californian looking guy sat down and started reading, but it wasn’t until nearly the time that our flight was supposed to leave that the majority of the flight arrived. Unbeknown to us, our flight went first all the way down to São Paulo then back up to Rio de Janeiro. We arrived around 4:30ish, instead of 1:00PM but it turned out to be freezing and rainy when we arrived anyway so it wouldn’t have been a great sight-seeing day. We took a bus from the airport to Shopping Botafogo which is a mall near our hostel. We overheard the Californian looking guy from our flight talking to some Europeans on the bus and learned that he was indeed from California and that his name is Chris. We asked if he was a student and how he knew Rio, etc. and he told us that he had dropped out of high school and spent 5 years traveling the world. He is a part-time microbiology student now and just visited a friend studying public health in the favelas of Salvador. He lived 11 months in South Africa and the experience completely changed him. He said that he stopped living for himself and decided to go back to school. I was, naturally, intrigued. I asked him about his impression of Africa and what he hoped to do now. He has traveled all over the sub-Saharan region and his conclusion is simply that “Africa is fucked.” They say that for every year of war, you must work 10 years for healing and war and destruction has shadowed Africa generation after generation. Originally Chris wanted to get educated and go back to help, but after visiting Brazil he is leaning towards working here b/c he feels that in Brazil he could make more of a difference and actually live a comfortable life. Fair enough.

Chris was headed to Botafogo also, so he was able to point out the stop to us. He came to Rio without any plans or preparations so we let him look at our tourism book so that he could look up the address of the hostel that he liked and said goodbye. In the mall we looked around for some food, warmer clothes, and a backpack for Bethany. (Thanks again for that overnight bag Mrs. Cobb. Bethany was able to use it on the way to Rio, then we used it for overflow on the way back.) By about 7:30ish we walked to our hostel which was only 1.5 blocks from the mall, but we missed it at first because its down a dead-end road between 2 restaurants. (I promise, it isn’t as sketchy as it sounds.) We checked in and settled into a 9 person room on the second floor. The downstairs was pretty nice but the mattresses and pillows were... in less than ideal condition. The beds were stacked 3 high in bunks and only the top beds were available. Sonia and I decided to share a bunk so that we could keep warmer and because she was afraid of falling off the bunk. Some European girls that had just left donated their sleeping bags to the hostel, so we grabbed those and made the best of the situation. We were too cold and tired to go downstairs to socialize so we just got ready for bed and I finished reading the last 10 pages of The Great Divorce. We had just begun talking when an Argentinean guy staying in our room walked in and asked Bethany if she would go out with him to celebrate his last night in Rio. Bethany was laying in bed with her purple scarf wrapped around her head and it was painfully obvious that she had no intention of going anywhere. He then proceeded to profess his love for her and insist that she must go out. It went something like this:

Argentinean: I… I love you.

(giggles)

Argentinean: Where are you going after this?

Bethany: We are going back to Salvador.

Argentinean: When are you leaving Salvador? Where will you go then?

Bethany: I’m leaving for home in the US in December.

Argentinean: You must come to Argentina. I want to see you. You must come.

(laughter)

Argentinean: You and I will be stars of the love.

(hysterical laughter)

Argentinean: That sentence… no good grammar? That does not translate?

Bethany: No… no.

(more laugher)

Argentinean: You will not go out with me tonight?

Bethany: I am in bed with my scarf on. (shows scarf) I can’t be anymore ready to not go out than this.

Argentinean: Ok, ok… I understand. Good-bye.

(starts to leave… but wait… here it comes…)

Argentinean: You are my idol.

Oh, Rio. What a lovely start to the trip! We didn’t sleep terribly well because someone was awake and making noise all night. For the first few hours the window kept flying open and misting me with cold and rain, but the guys fixed it when they came in. Sonia and I are both early risers, so we got up by 7:30 and got dressed. We woke up Bethany for breakfast which was included in the cost for the night. They had white bread, ham, cheese, watermelon, sweet pastries, and cereal. We ate, packed extra ham and cheese sandwiches in Bethany’s bag for later, and headed off to a hippie fair in Ipenema. It was another cold and rainy day, but the fair is a Sunday only event and it seemed worth seeing. We used the subway near our house and the buses for nearly all our travels and were able to get around easily that way. The fair was in a park a few blocks from the coast at the south most end of the city. We spent about 3 hours there and left with all sorts of treasures, including a painting each. The purchase of the painting alone made the trip worth it to me and I think the girls agree.

We went to the beach to eat our packed sandwiches. The wind was so strong that it made the waves crash stunningly. We could see a favela in the distance and islands through the spray of the waves. It reminded me of my trip to Switzerland with Grandma and Christy when we were standing in the alps looking at the Matterhorn. In both experiences I was numb with cold, looking out at something so beautiful and immense that science seemed a petty, silly thing and the unexplainable so alluring.

We went back to the hostel to drop off our goodies and ask how to get to the Museum of Modern Brazilian Art. We took the subway to Glória and walked to Parque do Flamengo from there, but the streets were all pretty deserted because it was Sunday. The museum turned out to be a flop because they were in the process of setting up a new exhibition and there wasn’t much to see. In general I think I agree that museums in Latin America are a bad idea. If you want museums, go to Europe.

We went back to Batafogo and found a church near our hostel to go to mass. It was a beautiful pink little cathedral and with the cold and nightfall, it reminded me of evening masses at St. Basil’s Chapel during the hurricane semester. Bethany didn’t feel well and I think we were all stiff and achy from the cold and wet. We got some fruit drinks and head back to the hostel. By 9PM we were all asleep.

It was a bit of a rough night for me. I felt nauseous and went from freezing to feverish. When I got up the next morning my stomach felt like mush and I could actually hear something sloshing around when I rolled over on my bed. I won’t describe any further but it will suffice to say that I had two spells of diarrhea and I threw up once during the day. I swore off the white bread, ham, and cheese sandwiches for the rest of the trip and committed myself to eating better. For breakfast I had granola and we bought fresh fruit off a street vendor. First we went to Santa Teresa, a historic little city on a hill that you can visit by train. It was named after a convent that was founded there and a few nuns were on the train with us. I would have enjoyed the visit more if I had felt better, but it was as soon as I got off the train that I vomited and holding it down occupied most of my attention. Next we went to Pão de Açúcar, or Sugar Loaf. Supposedly the mountain was named such by the Portuguese during the height of the sugarcane ear in Brazil in the 16^th century. Liquid sugar was placed to set in conical clay molds that resemble the shape of the mountain. Here are some fun facts from the brochure:

Sugar Loaf Hill geological constitution: primitive reticular gneiss

Sugar Loaf Hill Age: 600,000,000 years old

Urca Hill Height: 220 meters

Sugar Loaf Hill Height: 396 meters

Distance between Red Beach and Urca Hill: 600 meters

Velocity of Red Beach-Urca Hill Trip: up to 6 meters/sec

Distance between Urca Hill and Sugar Loaf Hill: 750 meters

Velocity of Urca Hill to Sugar Loaf Hill Trip: up to 10 meters/sec

Total amount of cable: 17,000 meters

Basically you take a cable from the ground to Urca, then Urca to Sugar Loaf. Both Urca and Sugar Loaf have nature paths that you can walk through with gorgeous vegetation and a breathtaking view of the Rio. The day was a bit foggy and I still wasn’t feeling my best so the experience wasn’t all that it could have been, but even so, it was worth the visit. I got a Sprite to settle my stomach and we walked around until about 3ish. The girls ate lunch up on Sugar Loaf and I had some pretzels. We decided to stop by the mall to get Sonia a sweater and to maybe see a movie at theater close by. We were speedy shoppers and everyone came out with something warm to wear: Sonia with a red knit sweater and Bethany and I with spandex pants. We went back to the hostel and napped/showered before going to see Transylvania. The movie was excellent and definitely a cultural experience. It was filmed primarily in French, but included English, German, and Transylvanian as well. It told the story of a woman who travels across Transylvania trying to find her lover and the father of her unborn child. When she finds him, he wants nothing to do with her and his rejection drives her mad. She runs away from her friend trying to help her, tries to find companionship living with a girl of the street, and eventually is found by a gold-hunter she befriended in her search for her lover. He takes care of her though her pregnancy, despite her resistance, and goes through his own soul-searching when she finally does give birth to her child. We went to a bookstore after the film and sat and talked about it and relationships for a good while. By this point I’m feeling much better and I was able to eat a solid dinner before bed.

Finally on Tuesday we had a pretty day. We met a girl from Sweden at breakfast (Christina) and she asked if she could go with us to see the Christ monument. The hostel offered a tour for R$35 each but another girl we talked to, a Hawaiian named Amy who had been twice, told us that we could climb there ourselves if we had all day and didn’t mind a good hike. We decided to give it a go and got some snacks for the trail. We got on the wrong bus to get to the Jardim Botânico where the trail starts, so we had to walk a good 30-40 mins just to get there. Sonia asked a police officer at the gate where to start the hike and he told us that it would not be possible for us to climb. First of all there are lots of false paths that we could get lost on. Secondly, we were all girls. We all tried to look as cute as possible and asked him if he could take a teensy-weensy little break and escort us up himself. He insisted that it would take to long, but offered to walk us around the park. After talking with him and working her charm, Sonia convinced him and the younger park guard with him to try and take us up the path if we agreed to take the gondola back down so that they wouldn’t have to wait for us. The path was pretty step at points and although we were shaded by the trees, we all broke out in a nice sweat. After what he estimated to be 10% of the path we came to a huge fallen tree from the rains that blocked the path. He made us turn back because he thought that if that tree had fallen, there were bound to be others as well. We didn’t get to climb the Christ, but he did show us several waterfalls and hiking around those woods was a worthy activity in itself.

We went back to the hostel and agreed to do the tour with them. It wasn’t actually a “tour” but you do get a taxi ride up to the statue, an hour to look around, and a ride back. The view from up at the Christ was quite possible one of the most beautiful views that I’ve ever seen. It was a perfect day to go, but I only wish we had gone closer to sunset. There is something about the clouds here right at sunset that can inspire strange things in a person.

We spent the last few hours of daylight at Copacabana beach, where Sonia and I went for a run barefoot along the shore. Christina and Bethany had hoped to layout or swim but it was too cold for that (remember, it’s winter here). There is no denying that the beach is lovely and its fame is well merited, but the next morning (Wednesday) we went to Ipanema beach which I found to be even lovelier. We spent the whole day there, first climbing on the rocks and taking pictures, then laying on and drawing in the sand. Sonia and I bought peanut butter, crackers, and a turkey pita at a grocery store near by and we stayed at the beach until sunset. I would rival the view from that beach with the view on the Christ or from the Swiss Alps- it was that gorgeous.

The flight last night was surprisingly on time, although we did have a scare when we looked at the monitor and saw that our flight was going to Natal (a city far north of Salvador). It turns out that the flight stopped in Salvador first, then continued to Natal. We got in at 1:30ish and got a reasonable taxi fare to Garcia.

This morning Bethany and I had the first part of orientation for the start of classes on MONDAY. It wasn’t terribly informative, nor was I terribly attentive. We had a walking tour of the different buildings owned by the university but I got completely turned around by our path (we walked through markets, took a bus, etc.) that I doubt that the experience will do me much good. Tomorrow we have the second half of orientation where we actually get to select classes. I’m apprehensive for classes to start because I’m still not confident in my language skills, but I’ll feel better once I know which courses I will have.

After lunch I caught up with Conchita and wrote the majority of this long entry. About an hour ago I went to the market to pick up some food and when I passed by Campo Grande I saw a huge march of protestors. From what I gather they are uniting for better treatment of the Northeast region and for better pay of employees at UFBA, one of the universities where I will be taking classes. The strike may cause one or more of my classes to start late, but I’ll know more about that tomorrow. Good?! Okay. Props on faithful reading. Até logo meus amores…