Highlights

Updating my blog is obviously not my top priority, so here are some highlights of the last few weeks to keep you all connected!

University is in full swing now here. It took some time, and frustration, to figure everything out but now I'm set! I am taking introductory Political Science, an anthropology class called Race, Class, and Gender in Bahia, Portuguese, and a capoeira class. Capoeira is a sort of martial arts dance, fight, art form typical to Brazil. It is a mixture of African slave influence in Brazil with the hierarchical presence of the Portuguese, representing the underground struggle in Brazil against slavery. I encourage you all to look up some videos of it online if you have no idea what I'm talking about. It's rather amazing! My class is interesting as well because we're doing history, culture, technique, and practice of capoeira so it's like part anthropology and part physical education. I love it! My professors are all great and the workload is manageable, considering it's all in Portuguese.

My host sister left for the states August 28th so now it's just my host mom Ana Helena, the maid Lucia who lives with us, and me. Lucia is an AMAZING cook and I'm going to try and bring some of her skill home with me! A couple weeks of Friday morning cooking lessons and I should at least be able to master something delicious!

My friend Dan, from southern California, is a great jazz musician so I have been going to some of his musical expositions around Salvador. He's played with Italians, Brazilians, and other Americans at bars, open air music halls, and art museums. It's been a wonderful connection to have and a great way to meet non-creepy Brazilians.

Last Thursday, September 2nd I went to a play with my anthropology professor and some other students at the slum closest to my house, Calabar. It's the same place I have been doing some volunteer work, but I haven't been there recently and never at night. It was put on by a theater student from my university here and was in a tiny house on the edge of the slum. It was a play by a famous Brazilian author called Dois Homens e uma Noite Suja (Two Men and a Dirty Night). It was quite powerful and overwhelming, telling the story of two extremely poor men in Brazil and their different reactions to poverty and desperation. It involved a loaded gun, physical fighting, and complete male nudity all within a tiny room about a foot in front of me. Wow.

September 7th is the national independence holiday of Brazil so I had a wonderful long weekend. I went to a city in the interior of the state of Bahia called Cruz das Almas. It's a small city where my host mom was born and raised her kids before moving to Salvador. I LOVED it! Small town, huge farmer's market with crazy produce, friendly people, safety, open spaces, trees, hills, gardens, grass, mud between my toes, animals, bird song. You get the picture. I promise you all that this living in a big city thing will not happen again for a very long time!! I am a child of the rain and trees and desperately need them in order to be happy. As many of you know, I got a tattoo right before leaving Rio de Janeiro of a basic Evergreen tree on my right ankle. I love it and now everywhere I go Washington and my childhood surrounded by nature comes along with me! People of the cities of the world have no idea what they're missing. We also went to Itaparica Island, which is in the bay across from Salvador, where my host family has a hosue. It was beautiful with deserted, white sand beaches and warm water!

Danielle and I

Lucia (my host family's live-in maid), me, and Lucia's daughter Stephanie

Danielle, Stephanie, and I

I'm thinking of everyone back home now and wishing you were all here with me! It rained here today, but you can tell that summer is on the way! I only have three more months in Brazil and I hope to make the most of it!

Love to you all,

Maya

Sugary sugar, Religion, and Graduations

A new week of adventures under my belt! My friend Danielle and I attempted to make chocolate chip cookies but, ignorant of the intricacies of sugar, we used unrefined Brazilian cane sugar that made our cookies into solid sugar balls instead of what they should be. Oops! Who knew that Brazilian sugar was more sugary!? Later that week my host sister and I made a very successful strawberry cake however. Much more delicious.

This week I also visited one of the most famous churches in Salvador, the Church of Bonfim, and went to an interesting religious ceremony in the city of Cachoeira (which means waterfall in Portuguese), about 2 hours from Salvador. The church has a room full of wax body parts. These are offerings representing illnesses people are asking to be cured. Some of them were very elaborate and the room was a little bit creepy. The gate around the church is full of ribbons with the church's name. These ribbons, also used as bracelets, are used to make wishes. Each knot tied is one wish and when it falls off the wishes are supposed to come true. We'll see!

Wish ribbons on the church fence

Wax body parts hanging from the ceiling

Overlook at a fort by the Church of Bonfim

The ceremony in Cachoeira was a celebration of the ascension of the Virgin Mary, but a combination of Afro-Brazilian cult and Catholicism tradition. The Brotherhood of Good Death is the name of the group who perform the ritual. They are a group of older Afro-Brazilian women who practice candomblé, which often mirrors or includes many Catholic traditions because of Portuguese influence in slave traditions.

The statue of Virgin Mary entering the church at the head of the procession

I also attended a graduation ceremony for the Administration department at my university. Graduations here are VERY different than from the states. It was a private ceremony, not sponsored by the university, and those who chose to participate had to pay about $2000 USD. Needless to say there were not very many participants. It was a huge ceremony with everyone in very formal attire and the most european-looking Brazilians I have seen so far. It felt like a social status parade or show. Very interesting to see the differences from the US and Brazil. The family is the center of the ceremonial traditions here.

My host sister Luize and I in our apt before leaving

The stage

Well that's all I have for now. Again, send me an email or comment. I would love to hear from everyone back home! Many of my friends from Pacific are leaving for their year abroad this month and it's so exciting watching them prepare. Studying abroad is such an enriching and amazing experience. Good luck everyone! Much love from Brazil!

Brazilian birthday, Rainy adventures, and School!

Well hello world!

It continues to rain here in the southern hemisphere where we are currently experiencing winter! There have been a couple beautiful days, but my cold has kept me lazily indoors. Unfortunately, because of my hesitance to bring my camera around with me and seem like the average gringa, I have no pictures to go with my stories yet, but I will search for some from friends.

I attended the 15th birthday of one of the girls from the community library in Calabar on Saturday the 7th. Turning 15 is a coming of age for girls in most of Latin America and the parties thrown reflect that. Me and two other Rhythm of Hope volunteers were invited to the celebration which was held in the community center above the library. The orixá god paintings on the walls from the capoeira class that usually meets there were covered, as this was an Evangelical birthday party. The ceremony and tradition was much like that of a Mexican quinceñera. The room was elaborately decorated (for very poor people in a slum of Brazil I was blown away by the obviously huge amount of time and care put into the decorations) in pink with excessive amounts of delicious food and sweets. The birthday girl was in a legitimate white princess dress with hooped skirt and tiara. People danced for her, sang, cried, and then her dad came out to lead her into adulthood by taking away the symbolic doll she was carrying and putting on her a pair of high heels. Usually they then dance, but as it was an Evangelical no-dancing-unless-religious type of party they skipped that part. I had an amazing time surrounded by happy Brazilians and a lot of the children from the library who all helped out with cooking and decorating for the party. It was an amazing community event to take part in.

I have been to more of the organizations with Rhythm of Hope and the summer intern left so now it's just me. I'm uncertain as to what my role is going to be there. It seems like a great way to get involved here, but there is a lot of work and organizing required. I may need to wait until I figure out university business before I throw myself into it.

Speaking of university... I am attending UFBA (Federal University of Bahia) which is a public institution, unlike the Catholic university I attended in Rio. The education system here is very different than the United States and I think both require development and reform before they can truly serve the people. The public universities are completely free for students who pass the entrance exam (they are shocked to hear that public universities in the US charge!). That said, it is almost impossible to get into a free public university (which tend to be much higher quality than private institutions) without a very expensive, private elementary through high school education. Therefore the poor who attend public schools before college and generally cannot afford a private university are excluded from the universities they could afford because of their inability to pay for a quality education. A very interesting cycle of social exclusion.

Today was supposed to be my first day of classes at UFBA, but as is custom the professors and students did not show up to class. My friend Danielle and I decided to use this time to explore the campus, which is spread out all over the city. We walked a LONG way, usually in the wrong direction, in intermittent rain dumps but eventually found all of the buildings we were looking for. It took all afternoon. We did manage to make some new Brazilian friends and unlock some of the scheduling mysteries of the school (NOTHING is online. You have to go to each individual department/building. But if you don't know where that is and the campus is spread out all over the city...it poses some problems.) This week I am shopping around for classes, but I'm considering some anthropology, gender studies, and political science.

I love you all and let's talk again soon! I love it when people write back, if you can find the time. Interactive blogs and journals are much more fun and make me want to write more!

I'm trying to keep balanced here in my new world of Salvador. Remember that wealth and status aren't all that matter! The world is full of beautiful places and people that will survive without capitalism, profit, and new business growth. Please save a free, clean, public beach for me!

Week One: rain, dancing, and volunteering

The rain has been cramping my exploration style, but it has noticeably gotten better this week. Every Saturday night there is live jazz at the Modern Art Museum, right on the bay. I went last Saturday because one of my gringo friends was invited to play. Despite the rain, there were plenty of people and musicians to make the venture worth it.

The next day I went to a dance lesson in the historical center of Salvador, called Pelourinho. The class was of orixá dances, the gods of candomblé, an Afro-Brazilian religion combining bits of Catholicism and African traditions. Each god, or orixá, has its own dance and during ceremonies members become possessed by the different gods and how they dance indicates what orixá is possessing them. It is much more common in Salvador than Rio.

Candomblé ceremony in Rio that one of my friends participated in so I got to go!

Tuesday night we went back to the Pelourinho to see the popular Bahian singer Gerônimo sing with another gringa from my program who was invited to sing with him. It was a great show and it hardly rained at all!

Gringos at the Gerônimo show

I have been walking and running around my neighborhood and discovered some great stores tucked away! An artisan ice cream shop and Mexican restaurant! I have also gotten in contact with an NGO that works with Brazilian community organizations within Salvador. Check them out at rhythmofhope.org. They help struggling groups network, brainstorm, fundraise, and find volunteers. I have gone to a couple of their organizations with the current intern and it looks like a wonderful program! Hopefully I will be able to get more involved as I settle in. I visited a capoeira class for street children and a community library that was hosting a poetry reading. I am going back to the library today, it's in a favela about 5 minutes walking from my house.

Coming to Salvador from Rio shows me just how diverse Brazil is! I'm so glad I took the opportunity to get to know to extremely different parts of the country. So much is different here: food, music, favelas, language, buses, people, universities, etc. I am trying to pick it up quickly and thank goodness I speak Portuguese already!

Normality does not exist.

To Do (for all of you): Read Half the Sky. I finished it in Chile and it was absolutely eye-opening and inspiring.

Goodbyes and Changes

I have made a new semester resolution: WRITE IN MY BLOG MORE! This should be easy because I have internet in my new house. So no excuses!

My semester in Rio de Janeiro ended July 7th. It was hard to say goodbye to all of my new Brazilian and international friends, but hopefully I will see everyone again someday, somewhere. July 11th I flew to Santiago, Chile for ten days in order to get a new visa. It was extremely cold, especially after 6 months in Rio, which may have permanently weakened my tolerance of the cold. I returned to Brazil on the 21st and moved to Salvador, Bahia the next day.

In Pichilemu, Chile (3 hrs from Santiago on the coast) wearing EVERY layer possible to stay warm.

I am now living in Salvador, in NE Brazil in the state of Bahia, with a nice Brazilian mother, daughter, and empregada (live in servant). The program here is very different from Rio, more like the one I participated in in Ecuador during high school. Much more cultural and experience based and only 25 students from the US, in comparison to over 500 international students in Rio. The academic director is an anthropology professor! I start classes in the beginning of August at the Federal University of Bahia, though I have no idea what classes I will be taking yet. Everyone else has been here a month already, so I have entered as the sort of late comer who already knows Portuguese and a lot about Brazil. It's funny to see all of their reactions to things that I now consider normal and don't think about at all!

So far I have been recovering from my trip and not seen much of the city. I live in a relatively ritzy part of the city called Barra, about a 10 minute walk from the main beach. All my meals are provided by the family so I get to eat some DELICIOUS Bahian food! I just have to avoid gaining over 15 pounds like I did in Ecuador... Today we went to a percussion lesson in a social organization in a favela that provides percussion, circus, and art classes for kids in the community, as long as they prove they are attending school regularly. It's very interesting for me to compare the favela dynamics here and in Rio, as well as tons of other things. Studying here was definitely a good choice and I'm really excited, though I miss Rio and everyone there a lot!

Lots of love to everyone! I miss you all and hope you haven't forgotten about me!

Beijos.

Easter and rain

So this has been a rather eventful last week or so for Rio. We got a long weekend for Easter, one of the advantages of living in a Catholic country and going to a Catholic university. On Easter day I woke up at 5am and went with a group of friends to an island about an hour from Rio called Paqueta. We rented bikes and rode around the island for a couple of hours. There were beautiful views, beautiful houses, and great parks. You can only get to Paqueta by boat, and there aren't any cars on the island so the only transportation is horse-drawn cart and bike.

The girls!

After we took another boat to a city across the bay from Rio called Sao Goncalo. I have a good friend (Brazilian) from my university who has family there. They live on the outskirts of the city in a very poor neighborhood and welcomed us into their home for Easter. My friend's aunts fed us the best meal I have had so far in Brazil. There was fried chicken, chicken salad, pasta salad, roast, two rice dishes, flan, homemade jello, and chocolate cake. We all ate SO MUCH and had great conversations and laughs with his aunts, uncles, and cousins. Many jokes were made at my expense, as the only blond-haired and blue-eyed person in the group, but it was all fun. After lunch we played soccer with some of the neighborhood kids before starting the 2 hour, 3 bus trip back to Rio. On the way though we enjoyed a tumultuous bus ride along a dirt road and made friends with two ADORABLE Brazilian girls, Joyce age 4 and Jessica age 6, who even shared their Easter chocolate with us. It was definitely one of the best Easters I've had.

The whole group

So now for the rain. Rio is currently experiencing the worst tropical rainstorms in over 60 years. Tuesday the 6th was the hardest rain I've ever seen and it continued all day and night. My apartment was out of power and water for 20 hours and the streets all around us were under at least a foot of water. When we finally did regain connectivity to the outside world, we found out that almost 100 people died and the city had completely stopped. The rain is supposed to continue all week. Classes have been canceled at all institutions for the week and many businesses were closed for at least a day or two. I finally ventured out of my home today and there is mud and sand washed all over the streets from the hills. All of the people who died were in the hillside slums, called favelas, in Rio and the surrounding cities. When natural disasters hit, the poorest suffer the most damage and loss while the wealthy watch on their televisions and complain about the inconvenience.

This is a link with some great pictures of the flooding. Many of them were taken right near my house in places I pass everyday!

Almost 2 months in 1 post...Take a deep breath!

Dear friends and family,

I am alive! And it has become clear that I will never be an avid travel-blogger, but I will attempt to fill you in quickly and keep up better now that I have settled into a routine here in Rio.

Carnaval was a great experience. Not quite all the glamour I was expecting, but definitely full of glitter, samba, sun, cheap beer, and very little sleep. Rio fills up with foreigners for carnaval and all of the cariocas (Brazilians from Rio) flee to other, more remote cities. Carnaval in Rio is characterized by street parties called blocos that include heart pounding drum lines and samba singers. There were over 100 blocos everyday of carnaval, all over the city. I LOVED the drums and went to multiple blocos everyday of carnaval. Many people get dressed up in costumes and it is a great excuse (not that Brazilians need one...) to make-out with random people in the street.

Dancers from the samba school Salgueiro, last year's winners

Partiers at the bloco Suvaco do Cristo (Armpit of Christ)

Iguazu Falls, Buenos Aires, Buses

Immediately after carnaval, I left with four friends to Iguazu Falls and Buenos Aires. We spent two days exploring the Brazilian side of the falls and then another day on the Argentina side. The pure mass and strength of so much water was overwhelming, one of the most awe-inspiring things I have ever seen.

Iguazu Falls!

We then bussed to Buenos Aires and spent six days being tourists in a wonderful city. We went on a city tour, spent an afternoon in La Boca listening to tango and admiring artisan crafts, went to a tango show in the oldest tango club in the city, visited the Eva Peron Museum, rented paddle boats, wandered around the city on foot, visited a planetarium and an old Jesuit church with underground tunnels, explored the port, and went to a soul shaking drum show at a popular cultural center, as well as ate large quantities of bread, steak, and dolce de leche. We also met people from all over the world and had an AMAZING trip. Even though we did almost no pre-planning, the trip went perfectly and was one of the best times of my life. Oh yeah, and my friend Garazi and I saved $200 USD each by taking the 40 hour bus ride from Buenos Aires back to Rio. It was actually pleasant and definitely worth it!

Jesuit tunnels used to protect the city

La Boca

Plaza de Mayo and La Casa Rosada

Showing some love to a toucan in the tropical bird park

Jenny, Garazi, me, Michelle, and Jessica

University

I started classes at PUC March 2nd. This has thrown off my feeling of perpetual summer, but I'm thankful for that. The bureaucracy and inefficiency of PUC's administration has been very frustrating to deal with, from copy houses with hour long lines to manual registration with two+ hour long lines!! I am taking one Brazilian anthropology class in English that is providing the opportunity for some great fieldwork. The rest of my classes are in Portuguese, including Portuguese level 3, Community Development, Photojournalism, and futsal (indoor soccer). I am enjoying all of my classes immensely and it has proved to be a great way to meet Brazilian students, though the size of Rio makes it difficult to meet up with them outside of school.

Volunteering

Today was my first day of volunteering in a public school in the favela Vidigal, near my university with a program called Educari. Twice a week I will help an English teacher with 10-12 year olds and co-teach a Spanish class to 13 year olds with a friend from my university. I think this will be very challenging and take up a lot of time, making curriculum and lesson plans, but I am very excited! The school has a unique history. It used to be a private school for the very wealthy families that lived in the area. As Vidigal grew, the wealthy families moved away and the private school was turned into a public school for children from Vidigal, in one of the nicest buildings in the area.

I miss you all back home, but am having a wonderful time here! If there is anything you would love to hear more about, let me know! Sitting down to write about my experience can be overwhelming, since so much is new. So give me direction on what you want to hear about!

Love you all!

Beijos,

Maya