Brazil: Week 2
Mostly routine stuff, with classes in the morning and activities many afternoons. Monday was a history lecture. Two hours in Portuguese. I followed it okay, partially because I already knew some of the material. The students who are new to the language were frustrated, though, especially a couple of the African-American students. One of them is actually a professional public speaker who lectuers on Black history, so he really would have liked to be able to directly understand her. She was very energetic.
The next day was two hours in Portuguese about Candomble, an Afro-Brazilian religion. I´ll be attending a ritual tomorrow evening.
Wednesday was my first sociolinguistics seminar. It is just me, the other graduate student in our program on FLAS funding and the program director. We read part of book chapters about the differences between European and Brazilian Portuguese. It should be interesting. Totally outside my background. The article I read for this week is on the use of English in advertising. I had dinner at another hostmom´s house because mine had to go get medical tests. That conversation deserves another post.
Thursday was an afternoon off. I took a nap and worked on my annual report for the Truman Scholarship. That evening we went as a group to see Handcock and go out to eat at a nice restaurant.
Friday we went to Cachoeira. Saw the house where Caetano Veloso grew up (he lives in Salvador now--we actually saw that house on our way out of town.). We visited an open air market, a cigar factory, the Sisterhood of the Good Death (a sisterhood formed by freed slaves), and many historic buildings including one where the Brazilian independence movement is said to have gotten its start. On our way there we met with some people from the MST. That is also worthy of another post.
This weekend I took it easy, slept a lot, read for pleasure and studied (both for classes here and my methods comp). Ok. So that´s the quick and dirty summary of what I have been up to. I would love to hear from you. By the way, receiving calls on my cell is free and you can call cheap with Skype or phone cards, so I would love to hear from you.
The next day was two hours in Portuguese about Candomble, an Afro-Brazilian religion. I´ll be attending a ritual tomorrow evening.
Wednesday was my first sociolinguistics seminar. It is just me, the other graduate student in our program on FLAS funding and the program director. We read part of book chapters about the differences between European and Brazilian Portuguese. It should be interesting. Totally outside my background. The article I read for this week is on the use of English in advertising. I had dinner at another hostmom´s house because mine had to go get medical tests. That conversation deserves another post.
Thursday was an afternoon off. I took a nap and worked on my annual report for the Truman Scholarship. That evening we went as a group to see Handcock and go out to eat at a nice restaurant.
Friday we went to Cachoeira. Saw the house where Caetano Veloso grew up (he lives in Salvador now--we actually saw that house on our way out of town.). We visited an open air market, a cigar factory, the Sisterhood of the Good Death (a sisterhood formed by freed slaves), and many historic buildings including one where the Brazilian independence movement is said to have gotten its start. On our way there we met with some people from the MST. That is also worthy of another post.
This weekend I took it easy, slept a lot, read for pleasure and studied (both for classes here and my methods comp). Ok. So that´s the quick and dirty summary of what I have been up to. I would love to hear from you. By the way, receiving calls on my cell is free and you can call cheap with Skype or phone cards, so I would love to hear from you.
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8:35 PM
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