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!