Brazil: Week 1
It´s been a week since I left. I´ll try and do a post for each week.
Trip here was long but no major problems (unlike the people in my program with canceled flights). Got in mid day to the hotel. Met the other students on the program as the trickled in. Spent the first night in the hotel. Monday was orientation.
Went home with my host mom. Her name is Rute, a variant of Ruth. Brazilian Portuguese pronounces r´s like our h´s and t´s before e´s as ch. I´ll let you all piece that together for yourselves. In any case she tells me I don´t eat enough and need to sit up straight, so she´s filling the bill.
The routine is class 9-12 every morning and then cultural activities a couple afternoons a week. Another graduate student and I are taking a three hour seminar on sociolinguistics Wednesday afternoons. We have several weekend trips planned.
Salvador is the oldest city in Brazil. It is the heart of the sugar area of Brazil. The figures I´ve heard put the African descended population at 75% to 85%. There is a very strong African influence in the culture. The city feel in some ways similar to other places I´ve been in Latin America, but different in ways. The entire vibe is just calm and friendly.
Tuesday we had our placement tests and then went on a tour of the old city. I forgot my camera. I´m not very good about taking pictures. If something is famous there are better pics online, right? Other people in the program will send some and I´ll try to be better about it. So I´ll have some from some things I did.
Wednesday, the 2nd of July is Bahian Independence day (celebrating when they actually drove the Portuguese out, as opposed to the national day which is when they declared it). My host mom put me in touch with her nephew. He studies law and sociology. I met him to go watch a parade in the older part of the city. There were people from various political parties (not one but two communist parties, greens, workers´party), unions, candidates, and activists from the urban wing of the MST (landless movement) and others seeking justice for workers killed in an industrial accident. I thought about how much this contrasted with the parades that would be in Eagle River and Manteca in a couple days...
Friday we had back-to-back cultural events. Dance class (including Samba) followed by capoeira at a local school. The first dance/chant they did was very powerful. It´s hard to describe but it really put me in a focused place and made me think about the resiliance of the human spirit. They had these sticks that the banged together that came from cane cutting. So much hardship in the history of the African peoples and people in general but somehow we refuse to give up. And that´s beautiful.
After demonstrating they had us participate. The guy told me to just do what he did after he did it. So we´d both crouch and he´d kick above my head and then I´d kick above his. A woman in our program actually practices it back in the U.S. and wans to do it here. So that left me tired and since I´m an old man in the group I didn´t go dancing (others did).
Saturday we headed to Praia Forte, the oldest Portuguese building in the Americas. I actually took some pictures. We went with the UCLA group which is 30 something (ours is 11), so I met some cool people, and have a couple new small wold stories (naturally). After seeing the building we had lunch at the house of the Brazilian woman coordinating our program. We spent the night in the town of Praia Forte and all went out dancing last night. Good times. The live music (Samba and other stuff) was great. Today we had a great breakfast and hung out on the beach. Also went to see a museum about the restoration of sea turtles. And now I need to get my stuff at the inn, catch the bus home and then do some homework this evening.
Sorry this is sloppy, but at least I posted.
(note: my computer at home has spell check as I type via the google toolbar. This doesn´t so probably has some errors. I´ll fix them when I get back or later.)
Trip here was long but no major problems (unlike the people in my program with canceled flights). Got in mid day to the hotel. Met the other students on the program as the trickled in. Spent the first night in the hotel. Monday was orientation.
Went home with my host mom. Her name is Rute, a variant of Ruth. Brazilian Portuguese pronounces r´s like our h´s and t´s before e´s as ch. I´ll let you all piece that together for yourselves. In any case she tells me I don´t eat enough and need to sit up straight, so she´s filling the bill.
The routine is class 9-12 every morning and then cultural activities a couple afternoons a week. Another graduate student and I are taking a three hour seminar on sociolinguistics Wednesday afternoons. We have several weekend trips planned.
Salvador is the oldest city in Brazil. It is the heart of the sugar area of Brazil. The figures I´ve heard put the African descended population at 75% to 85%. There is a very strong African influence in the culture. The city feel in some ways similar to other places I´ve been in Latin America, but different in ways. The entire vibe is just calm and friendly.
Tuesday we had our placement tests and then went on a tour of the old city. I forgot my camera. I´m not very good about taking pictures. If something is famous there are better pics online, right? Other people in the program will send some and I´ll try to be better about it. So I´ll have some from some things I did.
Wednesday, the 2nd of July is Bahian Independence day (celebrating when they actually drove the Portuguese out, as opposed to the national day which is when they declared it). My host mom put me in touch with her nephew. He studies law and sociology. I met him to go watch a parade in the older part of the city. There were people from various political parties (not one but two communist parties, greens, workers´party), unions, candidates, and activists from the urban wing of the MST (landless movement) and others seeking justice for workers killed in an industrial accident. I thought about how much this contrasted with the parades that would be in Eagle River and Manteca in a couple days...
Friday we had back-to-back cultural events. Dance class (including Samba) followed by capoeira at a local school. The first dance/chant they did was very powerful. It´s hard to describe but it really put me in a focused place and made me think about the resiliance of the human spirit. They had these sticks that the banged together that came from cane cutting. So much hardship in the history of the African peoples and people in general but somehow we refuse to give up. And that´s beautiful.
After demonstrating they had us participate. The guy told me to just do what he did after he did it. So we´d both crouch and he´d kick above my head and then I´d kick above his. A woman in our program actually practices it back in the U.S. and wans to do it here. So that left me tired and since I´m an old man in the group I didn´t go dancing (others did).
Saturday we headed to Praia Forte, the oldest Portuguese building in the Americas. I actually took some pictures. We went with the UCLA group which is 30 something (ours is 11), so I met some cool people, and have a couple new small wold stories (naturally). After seeing the building we had lunch at the house of the Brazilian woman coordinating our program. We spent the night in the town of Praia Forte and all went out dancing last night. Good times. The live music (Samba and other stuff) was great. Today we had a great breakfast and hung out on the beach. Also went to see a museum about the restoration of sea turtles. And now I need to get my stuff at the inn, catch the bus home and then do some homework this evening.
Sorry this is sloppy, but at least I posted.
(note: my computer at home has spell check as I type via the google toolbar. This doesn´t so probably has some errors. I´ll fix them when I get back or later.)
posted by russell at
11:48 AM
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1 comments
