deixe-me dizer-lhe

so i'm back in the EUA. fun. or, weird is more like it. or normal way too fast. something like that.

my last days in brazil:
after i frantically interviewed sílvia for my isp and scrambled to get my stuff back from angélica, i had one last night in pelo with chill people in salvador. then, we were back in fortaleza, writingwritingwriting until the isp was due. writing and not much else.
the last week after the isp was turned in was spent in this retreat location 2 hours outside fortaleza. expect pictures... eventually. this place was idyllic. standing on the beach and looking left or right, it appeared as if i was in some ad for club med or chique chique travel shit. just sand and shore and our little brick retreat buildings. spoiled. we went through several days of presentations of isps and discussion. people did some incredible projects. or their projects where okay, whatever, but the organizations or people they met were incredible.
one girl spent time with this org banco palmas which works with "at risk" communities to reduce poverty by creating a system of economy that is affordable and accessible by all members of the community, despite the disparate realities.
other people worked with dance groups, sex worker orgs, domestic worker orgs, studied migrant communities, and on and on. i learned a lot, to say so little.
and then it was over. we shook the sand out our sheets and said goodbye to our host families and spent hours in the fortaleza airport.
and then we were gone.

i've seen so many brasils now, seen some really hard-working organizations, and had some great experiences handed to me on a platter, mais ou menos. i'm home and empty. do i have any regrets? i try not to count those. but, i gotta go back. don't know when or how or why, but one day.
(i think it'd be fun to go with a dance troupe or something. not that that's really feasible for me.)

so much things to say, so much things i saw in me and the world. don't know where i am sometimes. hope you're well.
lovelovelove

liberdade!

soooo, guess who just finished her 31-pages-with-acknowledgements indie study project?
i'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count.

ahoy, lovies! estou em fortaleza de novo, com sua como sempre, mas terminada ao fim!

the last days before the Last Day of salvador were stressful and wasteful, until the Last Day, which was like a best of. i finally got my stuff back from angélica that she had had for 10 days, saw her cool friends again (não fica). gazed at the beautiful av. oceanica which gets a hat over the e or the a, can't remember. got *something* (tune in next semester!), took care of some business, bought the book i wanted to buy, chilled with chill people in pelourinho, a little dancey, a little drinky, and tchau. the next morning we were gone. it was a good send off, we will be com saudade de salvador, but we needed to get back. did you know? i'll be home in one short week.

it was nice to see the host fam again, but little time to enjoy it given my ISP field journal and write up had to happen in a weekend. if this semester ends the same way the last few previous semesters have with major stress and despair and then bowing out with a sweet grade, i have bested myself. if not, well, it was time for it, anyway.

anyway, you probably want to hear about my project some more or being back in fortaleza or i don't know what. but the thing is, i don't know what. i've been terribly terribly spoiled. study abroad is pretty much a joke in terms of hardhitting realities that will change the world as i know it. what else is new?

we're about to shove off for the wrapping-shit-up excursion on a beach that i won't be able to fully enjoy. got another eeensy weensy paper to do, but it's not biggie after the baby behemoth. i wish i was clever.

just know that i'm doing well, spoiled as ever, miss you tons, and am super psyched for next semester (although i'll probably be begging to graduate with this years seniors by the end of january).
amor e paz.

oh and pinochet died? hm.

next semester

okay, because i said i would (and who doesn't need another excuse to procrastinate?)
my schedule next sem:

BLCK144A BK 01 Jackson,PJ PO LE 201 -R-- 1:15p 4:00p Black Women Feminisims Soc Chnge
MS 071 PZ 01 Lawless,J PZ BD PERF-M-W 1:15p 2:30p Video Art
ARHI184 PO 01 Pohl,FK PO LE 217 -M-W 11:00a 12:15p Modernism,Antimodernism, Postmod
-OR-
ARHI186K SC 01 Koss, J SC ST 101 -W--- 2:45p 5:30p Seminar in Modern Art

I'm currently pre-registered for both. I'm going to drop one of those two (depending one whichever one i like more) and get permission for
MS 082 PZ 01 Juhasz, A PZ SC 230 --T-- 1:15p 4:00p Intro to Video Production

and if i can't get that, than the T-R 9-11:50 section of Digital Art 1 with Mark Allen. and i'm thinking of taking a 5th class, probably dealing with dance or art, and then some PE course or something.

i also want a paying PCIP, a QRC or art dept job, progress with WSC, social butterfly skills, and a pony. ambitious, no?

now, it's do or die time. so, i'm off to go do.

novembro

this month is getting kind of better, kind of interesting, kind of... morally ambiguous. stories to tell when i get back?
ugh, but when things aren't interesting, i'm totally sluggish. this is a completely spoiled and obvious statement, but these last 3 weeks would be so much more to me if i didn't have all this work to do. field journal and semester paper = yuck. among other things...

however, despite the yuck, last night had some really beautiful moments. i had made a bunch of new brazilian friends and we were talking and walking down the street in the rain. i was in awe of my first post-thanksgiving xmas lights, and everything felt so bright and alive. i held on to that for as long as i could. there is so much more to say and not say, but really, that moment was it.

i hope i get all the classes i want (will post once i'm pre-registered). for that and many other reasons, i am incredibly excited for 2007.
i miss you.

EDIT: moral ambuiguities have fled. i think of what happened as a test of my integrity. i passed, and hope (but don't expect) for an oppurtunity for some fica fica as a reward. we'll see. this is probably a story better told in person, methinks. it's getting less juicy as i type. anyways, love.

say it loud (i'm black and i'm proud)

let's just say that god bless black consciousness day. there are a lot of despites i could say (incluiding "despite the fact that i have yet to get any in this hipersexualizado pais..."), but i made the right choice to do my study abroad in brasil. i missandloveyouallmuchly. that is all.

okay, so even if i fall extremely short of the required 120 hours and just fail my trabalho and thus several credits for this semester, you are still jealous of my isp. i get to hang out with cool, beautiful people and attend hot hiphop shows and see other parts of town that are not along avenida sete de setembro. it may meen getting on and then falling asleep on the wrong bus multiple times, but whatever. it's making all the other times where i'm completely sluggish and difficult worth it (i hope). the only problem (aside from possibly not being able to fufill the whole isp reqs thing) is that i'm kind of pretending to be a bigger hiphop head in the us than i am. i really do like and appreciate and respect and value hiphop, just maybe not as innately as the people i'm working with do. que pena for me. what a shame.

anyways, today is black consciousness day, which i can not spell in neither english nor portuguese at the moment. yayyyy. now if only i could get my shit together. the november of "unbearable suffering" drags on. why, oh why, does mercury have to be in retrograde?

there's a room where the light won't find you

a few days ago, i totally splurged on magazines, which are very expensive here (R$7-20, 30+ for revistas norteamericanas). i bought the magazine raça, which is brasil's essence, mais ou menos. i also bought the first two issues (outubro e novembro) of piauí, which is this new yorker-esq revista that just recently started being published. it is so much like the new yorker, in fact, that one of the stories in it was one that i had read in english in the new yorker earlier this year. unlike the new yorker, however, piauí has horoscopes.
this month's virgo horoscope (by chantecler) was pretty much the truest horoscope i have ever read for myself:
O virginiano, frio, seco e melancólico, é antes de tudo um perfeccionista. Neste mês, você será seriamente afetado pelas impurezas do mundo e de sua própria personalidade. Só vejo uma forma de evitar sofrimentos insuportáveis: não saia de casa sob nenhum pretexto. Não fale com estranhos nem com amigos e familiares, ainda que coabite com eles. Não pense em nada, senão no vazio. Não opte pela sonoterapia, o que seria uma atitude covarde de fugir de você mesmo e do mundo.

"virgo, cold, dry, and melancholy, is above all a perfectionist. this month, you will be seriously affected by the impurities of the world and your own personality. i only see one form of avoiding unbearable suffering: do not leave the house for any reason. do not talk to strangers nor with friends or family, even if you live with them. don't think about anything, rather, think of emptiness [in a manner of speaking]. don't opt for sleep-thearpy; it would only be a cowardly attitude of running away from yourself and the world."
[translation mine]

which would give you a small hint as to my emotional state of being the past few weeks. i have spoken with roommates and strangers, and perhaps i should have locked myself in my pale, blank room because my moodiness has brought down the morale in the apartment, apparently. saddd. i feel kind of like i did at the end of high school, where i feel like it's too late to accomplish anything or fix my mistakes, that i'm wasting and/or biding time until the next big thing. i know i can turn this around, but it's hard. i'm a mess on the inside. (oh, angst!) this is not a new thing -- i'm definitely just as ridiculous with my emotional behavior at school and at home. it's just that the people here don't know me (don't know how to love me) like the people at home do, and it's even worse. i'm trying to work through this.

anways, in an attempt to improve my attitude and circumstances (my isp is kind of weak at the moment, to say the least), i will make a list of things i want to do before i leave salvador. things i will do, okay?

- interview like crazy for isp
- find a creative solution for all those hours i don't think i can fill (for isp)
- hang out in the gay strip a few times
- go to a different beach than the one across the street
- send more emails/postcards/letters
- spend nice time with the companher@s do quarto to make up for my moodiness, i guess
- go out dancing
- get my hair braided
- pre-register for next sem
- thanksgiving (?!?)

speaking of which, i definitely want to take:
- intro to vid production @ pitzer with a. juhasz T 1:15p-4
- black women feminisms and social change with pj. jackson TH 1:15p-4
- kickboxing OR african-based modern (or whatever kim is calling it now) OR weight training OR something else to keep me active

sadly, i cannot find the portuguese for spanish speakers class (or any portuguese class). i plan on doing the español and português mesas de lingua like crazy. maybe convo classes too. there's a bunch of other media studies/ art history-esq classes i'm thinking about, depending on what i need for the major. i'm still trying to figure out why i'm not at least an art history minor, if not major (aside from time). i have ideas for next year too, but we're not there yet.

the silver lining of the past few days:
what's really good* is that i've been able to read and enjoy quite a bit of both issues of piauí (which is all in português). if nothing else, i'm proud of myself for that**.

ok. chin up, young person. and i can and i will.

* = slang i've picked up from my roommates
** = in terms of my abilities with portuguese, this pride only applies to reading comprehension and not much else, but we're trying to stay positive here.


ps. how the hell do you all put up with me and my ridiculous moods? and i love you for it.

Ketchup, catsup, catch up

brace yourself, this is a long one.

So, I’ll be home in a month and week. This would seem like a really long time if I hadn’t already been here for two months. I’m at the point in my trip where i feel less guilty for admitting (at least to myself) that I miss my peoples and home. Okay. So that’s out. I can do this.
So what have I neglected?

My last post of some substance mentioned Ceará Music, the huge annual music fest. I declined to go. I had several American and Brazilian friends who did go, and the Americans proceeded to get slapped and robbed, get lost, or make out with random women (depending on who you were). Two friends even ended up in the society pages of the newspaper, which isn’t uncommon for random white Americans, apparently.

That weekend, I chose to go to the movies instead. We saw the American Brian de Palma film “The Black Dahlia” which was laughably bad, despite Scarlet Johansson. Honestly. Mia Kirshner was in it, and I spent the whole movie thinking she was pretty good (although I completely didn’t recognize her) until afterwards when we discovered she was Jenny from the L word and I realized I had watched a 40s movie version of the same role, more or less. Sigh. After the movie, Charmaine, Lorena, Juan and I got something to eat and then headed to Club Europa, which happened to be the only club in town at the time with any people present and good music (I think part of the problem was that everyone was at Ceará Music instead of the clubs). Club Europe, we quickly realized, was a sex tourist club. As in, loud American and Latin American music (which we loved), specially catering to gross white European and American men who were pouncing on brown Brazilian women in tiiight short clothing. Despite the socio-political atmosphere, which someone could have (and has) written an ISP on, we had a bomb ass time, dancing it up but also being very pensive about the culture and economic structure that created the conditions of such rampant sex industry.

I may have forgotten to post about a party-ish thing I went to in Fortaleza, some Brazilian friends the advanced Portuguese class had made through class. This dude had a swank apartment, the nicer than some I’ve seen in the US. We chilled, ate sushi, watched manu chao concert dvd, among others, sang loudly to music I don’t know how I knew the words to (and sometimes didn’t know the words to), discussed life, the universe, and everything, fell asleep. It was a good night on the other side of town, for real. We ended up hanging out with those guys a few other times in Fortaleza, mainly at Dragão do Mar and also for Andrei’s birthday. Good people who inadvertently gave me a view on how the other other half lives in Brazil. So far, those guys are pretty much my only brazilian friends outside of host family and friend’s hosts families. This is an absolute tragedy and I blame the program and myself for it. I hope my isp gives me some good peoples to hang out with here. Or at least some courage.

Aside from that, there isn’t much to report of happenings in Fortaleza. I neglected to hit both Pirata (cheesy touristy pirate-themed club) and Cuba Libre (the cool-sounding salsa club), but will try to go to when I return to Fortaleza in a month. Two weeks or so ago, we went on our “excursion” to Recife, which is further south of Fortaleza in Pernambuco. Recife was really cool; we immediately liked it more than Fortaleza. We met the women’s group Grupo Mulher Maravilhosa, which was really inspiring. They’re a 31-year old group who work in their community to raise issues of human rights, especially as they pertain to race and gender (but also of class and sexuality). They’ve done a lot, working with the domestic rights laws to make sure they actually work for the women they address, educating people about their rights and systems of oppression, and giving kids political formation whilst teaching them about different professions. Aside from classes and our sessions with GMM, I didn’t do anything much but rent movies with people in my program and stay in the convent-run hotel (another one) complex. Sad. But the down time was really needed.
After a few days in Recife, we finally headed to Salvador. Salvador! Salvador is bigger than Fortaleza, and also blacker. Very visibly. It adds an incredibly different dimension to being here. In Fortaleza, much like the US, I had the “Invisible Man” affect, where you’re told you can do anything if you work hard, but you still end up under the powers-that-be’s shoes or scrutiny (depending on how you act) – invisible because they choose not to see you, or only choose to see you as a certain way. Here in Salvador, I feel much more visible and less of a lone floco here, although most people here can tell as soon as I open my mouth that I am American (other tourists, not so much). We’re staying right on the beach in an apartment. I am always hearing the roar of the sea, day and night. The best time to hit the beach is the morning or right when it gets dark before too late – there’s less people around and it can be calming. The sun can be intense here, but for the past few days it’s been overcast and rainy, which I’ve really enjoyed (although it really shuts shit down). I went to the beach when it was drizzly one morning and swam for excerise and it felt pretty good. I got off of that jogging thing. Maybe I’ll pick it back up in cali. We’ll see…

I haven’t really gone out out here either – I’ve been really lazy and low key a lot lately – but there’s lots of stuff to look forward to, including fun samba and other types of clubs, the strip of gay bars, afro-braz dance classes maybe, trips to the museums and theatres, as well as the various hip hop and candomblé events that I’ll learn about through my and my friend’s projects. Night life is more varied and vibrant here, not just the same sex tourist, regular tourist, or forró scenes (it seems like Fortaleza, despite whatever historical significance, is now just made to support a tourist culture and abrasive forró distractions for the natives that ended up there). I saw the National Cuban Ballet do Don Quixote a couple of nights ago here – it was pretty amazing and I am really fucking lucky. I’ve quickly figured out at least part of the “high art” scene here, and the popular and counter-culture scenes seem cool too.

Other news: Sex tourism is rampant though, and we’re much closer to it, staying in this richer touristy area than with host families like we did in Fortaleza. We do our best to avoid contact with the other Americans we’ve met at our favorite café/internet spot as we know what their intentions are for Salvador (we’ve overheard certain sketchy convos). On certain days, depending on what I’m wearing and if I’m alone, it seems like if I make eye contact with anybody they’ll start naming prices. Other days if I make eye contact, it seems like the Brazilian men won’t leave me alone until I buy something or hook them up with one of my white girl friends. Either that or it’s an older man who’s in love with me. quite the mixed kettle of fish. It’s hard, because you have to blame nobody and everybody for the state of things – the state of poverty for so many people permits sex work as a viable job, and the state of wealth everywhere sustains that. we get grossed out by the white guys and the slow, butchered Portuguese come ons, but they will get some in the end, and no matter how bored the girl looks, she’ll get paid. There’s no room for me to butt in and condemn the guys or any one else because it’s normalized here. How do you get rid of a centuries-old cultural construct? So, please, don’t ask me how the men are here. Some are cute. Some are not. A lot that we meet, native or not, are sketchy. that is not to say all guys here are sketchy, just a lot that we have met so far that may just be in this area. i mean, non-sketchyness doesn't advertise itself the way sketchiness does, you know? i'm hoping to meet some cool brazilian friends outside of this (touristy) area.

Queer life is a little more visible and accepted here, as evidenced by more stereotypically-queer looking people and the occasional rainbow flag. I haven’t really hit the gay district yet (they actually have one here) but I intend to. Like, soon. Pronto.

Here, we’ve met with the group CEAFRO, which deals with black women’s issues, especially in regards to domestic work. They’re a lot like GMM, only blacker and a little more militant. Also, the education runs differently – the women of CEAFRO are professors and stuff, while that was less likely in GMM. Also, Candomblé has a presence within this group as well, as well as stuff that deals with religious persecuted (hence, Candomblé). My advisor for my ISP is a prof that works with CEAFRO, and she’s pretty bomb (even though I said I would try to use that word less and bom more).

Black women here are more visible. There’s a greater variety of natural styles of hair and education levels and jobs and colors and on and on. You could be or do so much more of almost anything here (not to say that women are doing everything here in large numbers; the traditional isms are still cutting us down and leaving us out, but there is a sense of strength and presence here in certain pockets that I haven’t experienced in Fortaleza and have experienced to a very small extent in the US). Apparently, Salvador and the town Cachoeira (which we visited and is kind of like a more colonial, smaller scale Salvador, sort of. That’s not really a fair description, but I can’t think of a better one right now.) have received a lot of “Roots” tourism from Black folk in the US who come to learn about the Diaspora. Beautiful. That tourism, in turn, helped bolster rights for black people here, because black Americans wanted to see black Brazilians working and living around them, so hotel and restaurant and tour-leading people had to get off their racist-discriminatory asses and hire some black folk. Tourism redeems itself a little with that. It’s really beautiful to be here and affirm blackness, seeing people around me in this country with a similar racial history and know that we’re connected and capable and strong. Diasporas are beautiful, and we need to start uniting or affirming our connections over history.

Um, I had said I was going to post about the group dynamic and my own shit, but I don’t feel like it’s worth getting into right now. People have had various complaints about the program and the director and certain unlucky occurrences, but não me importa muito agora. Know that things are good, maybe even better, now that it’s just a few of us together in this apartment. (it’s actually just the people of color in the program living together in this apartment. Coincidence? But this does come with its fair share of heated discussions and grievances, of course.) I am able to have more alone time and do my own thing and indulge in my selfishness. I’ve been thinking a lot about my need for independence but also for change and to figure out what’s important so I can start being more responsible. Blah blah, I totally want to get home and see people I love and move out and get an apartment in LA or New York or México or something. I need to get out! But first: my isp. Which is going reallllly slowly, because I haven’t really met anyone yet (lots of exchanged emails though). Blah blah blah. I think this was a pretty good catch-up post.

I’ve been waking up hella early here. Sometimes I go to the beach before anyone wakes up, sometimes I just stare out the window (I love doing that from our apartment here). I’ll end with a pic:


This is one of several views from our 10th floor apartment, in the early morning after a nighttime thunderstorm. Lovely.

Ps. If anyone wants to email me the latest (and steamiest, yes?) episode of lost, I would love you forever (or at least until February, when the second half of the season starts). Abc.com only wants to let US viewers stream the eps for free.

Pps. my use of the word American in these posts (and else where) is problematic (as I’ve known before I even left the country), as I know that the term can be applied to a wide range of people, not just those from the states. I do try to say I’m from the states or the us as much as possible, but I lack an adjective / descriptor that clearly specifies this (although I do like the word norteamericana sometimes). Hello, US? Can we come up with an easy and non-ignorant way to say unitedstatesofamerican?

i've got soul but i'm not a solider

okay, so. it's been a while since i've posted anything of substance (and i still haven't publically posted my "invisible man" entry you're all dying for, i'm sure).

since i last left you, spirits have been up and down. i have spent the past week in Salvador, with some other brief time in Recife and Cachoeira. I hardly went out in Recife, although it seemed pretty cool, and we only spent one brief lovely day touring Cachoeira. Salvador, however, has been great. the city is 85% black, which is so amazing for my consciousness and whatnot. the city itself is very vibrant. it's pretty big as well, about 3 million people. we're staying in a hella touristy area by the beach, which has its high and low points.

i'm going to make a list of things i want to cover later, but i'm going to miss something.
okay. thoughts & experiences:
- sex tourists in salvador and fortaleza
- learning about candomblé
- ceafro & grupo mulher maravilhosa
- being tired a lot and staying in and watching movies (mostly american) a lot
- being dehydrated all the time (and therefore being drunk that much easier)*
- the group dynamic...
- the food
- the beach
- "social justice?"
- the "third world"
- feeling numb
- missing people back home and worrying
- should i go to argentina?
- finally eating at a mexican restuarant (eh.)
- my portuguese vs my spanish
- blending in
- the cigar factory


* = i got tipsy and went to an internet cafe and joined a "home alone" facebook group. sometimes i do not feel my time and drunkeness is being spent wisely.

anways, more to come when i haven't spent forever on the internet already. plus i have postcards to send and work to finish. sigh.
i've squished some pictures at the top to distract you from how little actual info there is in this entry. at the top, you are viewing:
top: a statue that i have no info about in São Felix. Center: my mom, my sister-in-law, my brother in the kitchen. what a lovely host family. last: the road to Cachoeira from Salvador.

this isn't a real post but...

i miss snarkiness and the functionality of passive-aggression, at least as i know and am familiar with it.

that's all.

boa viagem

oi! este postagem é de nova cidade: salvador. tenho muitas coisas pra dizer, sobre meu tempo em fortaleza e commentarios sociais e meu tempo corto de recife e o significado de estar em salvador. não tenho mutio tempo agora mais estou em salvador, bahia e estou muito animada. pronto, vou a pesquiar meu trabalho independente.

que mais? estou contente. tudo bom. estou com suadade dos amigos americanos (de minha casas ambus leste e oeste).

mais logo. i am in an up mood and i hope it stays.

a few pix...

because i am too lazy to post social commentary.


praia do futuro, often called the best beach in fortaleza.

hammocks -- here, they are a way of life, used indoors and out. way comfy and space-efficient. (this picture was taken by laura, another person on my program, at the mst settlement.)


this is the view from a swank apt we hung out in. is this fortaleza or LA?
(btw, the mcdonald's pictured is totally shut down.)
this is frankie and me at the sand dunes on the east side of the city. dune jumping = best ev.

this is also at the mst settlement in the interior, also taken by laura. it is semi-arrid there, very dry and hot, unlike the semi-humid and hot weather in the city.

omg wasting time...

you should just read THIS post that liz wrote last year because it's still really on point. we went to the MST settlement this past weekend and liz nails it. (the whole movimento is so inspiring; people are living this, it's more than possibile.) plus also the stuff about school. not that i make it any easier for myself, spending hours upon hours on my lappy being lame and spoiled and majorly procrastinating with everything.

in other news, tomorrow is the first day of ceará music, which is touted as the largest music fest in south america. not brasil, south america. latin america, even. all different types of music -- rock (say: "hockey"), reggae (say: "heg-gee"), rap (say: "hap"), and forró (say: "fo-ho"). i would go, but my host brother can't afford it, so i feel weird going when he can't. plus i haven't really made the appropriate plans. i feel like i may be missing out though.

i'm kind of tired of fortaleza. either i wish we had more free time (well, tomorrow is a feriado [holiday] - dia das crianças [children's day]) or that i was in salvador already (and could settle into my blackness better). i'm beginning to kind of wish the program was structured differently (more like vicki's, perhaps). among other things.

anyways, i'm really behind in my work and am thirsty.
send me some love, please, any way you know how. miss you like you don't even know.

in top stories...

i'm pretty much the worst social justice student ever, or at least on this program (wait... the jury may still be out on that one, but whatever. who can judge?). while everyone else gasps and gets enraged over whatever is the current bbc headline, i spew obscenities regarding the latest episodes of whatever television programs i'm missing back home (wtf? sean's come back for emma? a drag race? oh, degrassi...). i'm also researching avril lavigne lyrics. this one's almost legit though -- we saw this dude at a concert (a hiphop concert, but whatev) wearing an avril lavigne shirt. the shirt had lyrics to an avril song called broken. i don't listen to avril lavigne (not since the sordid summer of sk8r boi), so i have no idea if this song really exists, as performed by our lady of punk rawk. the lyrics on this guy's shirt though are incredibly ironic and read as such (in english, mind you, NOT portuguese, which is not uncommon to find on clothing here):

"m broken, but no one knows
im just a poser, but ive brainwashed the world
no one will ever know how much of a poser i really am

CUZ IM PUNK! i really am, watch me strum my guitar
IM PUNK hear me roar! im gonna break my guitar
now watch me as i sing my song

i sit hear singing my wannabe punk songs
they are really popish songs but soon they will be punk
cuz im cool like that
cuz im such a punk rawker!

CUZ IM SEW PUNK! i really am watch me strum my guitar
IM PUNK HEAR ME ROAR im gonna break my guitar
now watch me as i sing my song

I used to be a country singer
a cheerleader popular gurl
i never really liked all this punk rawk stuff
but i wanted to break free and be cool and start trends

but its all good, cuz im just so punkie!"

interesting, no? did avril just go hella sarcastic on us, or did this poor brasilian dude get played? (alternatively, does he also dislike the faux-punk stylings of ms. lavigne? but i hear sarcasm doesn't really exist here, not as the youth of the US have embraced it.)

so i do a little googling, and i believe that "broken" is probably how lot of people refer the avril song "nobody's home" (which is nowhere near the self-mockery of the lyrics of the t-shirt i saw). but since most brazilians don't recognize the actual lyrics (not knowing english and all), they may purhcase this knock-off t-shirt with lyrics to a song that doesn't exist (but they think does, only it has a different name).

basically, this is all yet another episode of many of when globalization goes horribly wrong. avril lavigne = a product of the american powerhouse music idustry, sold to and appropriated by other less-moneyed countries, constituents of which then are unknowingly exploited (and some of whom also exploit other constituents) by knock-off products of the product to further participate in the harmful, unjust game of capitalism.

i still earn my social justice stripes after all. at least for being critical, i guess. in terms of practice, we're still all fucked and fucking within the system.

so, what else is new?
a new season of lost, is what. i miss jouissance for its own sake. jouissance in a language i entirely understand, that is, although any media-related pleasure i experience in portuguese ain't too bad either.

i should be working now, huh?

i hate email

but that has nothing to do with anything.

i was sick last week. not any "omg... foreign germs and diseases and diarrhea and whatnot." i had a cold. very average cold, like i get everywhere else in the world (or at least the us). i have a bit of a cough now. (cough = tossi)
what else?

went to a hip hop concert thing on saturday for this progressive hip hop group's 10th anniversary. the group is called MH20 (movimento hip hip organicao with a tail and a tilde). it was cool -- a block party of sorts with all kinds of people just milling around. before it started they were just playing music, and sometimes they would play american songs. the american song would say something like "put your hands up, put your hands up" and we'd be the only one with our hands up, being the only ones who understood the lyrics. right.

nothing much new otherwise. i know what i'm doing for my independent study project. i will be studying female grafiti artists who work within progressive hip hop movements and their communities in salvador.

i should be working and i can't think of anything to say. até logo.

there was a good man named paul revere/ i feel much better, baby, when you're near

what a week. and desculpe, i lied again. the weekend just did not afford me the time to go to a net cafe.

this week in brief:

the good
+ nighttime beach swims. we went again to the restuarant and beach on friday. it was wonderful beautiful and i felt like the newlY born horse that knows nothing and feels everything. all together wonderful great in the ocean in the dark.
+ the second reggae club. we went to this reggae thing on saturday night, a few of us americans with kavin and a bunch of brazilians. my family here thinks i'm really into reggae, hah. this club i liked a lot better than the other club. it had a different vibe, less commodification, more gratification (and black people... and pot). it was very chill, just a great night.
+ hanging out in the praça with people who live there, finally.
+ good food with good people
+ i had a few really interesting conversations with jair (my hostbro). we talk about politics and music and all kinds of things. and i do it all in portugues, which he says i am learning well.
+ i did a lot more stuff in general this past week, stayed active and social, etc.
+ less mosquito bites! (i swear, we looked like we had chicken pox for a while.)

the bad
-my cell phone got stolen, on that beautiful perigroso beach, after our wonderful swim. it was weird. (i ended up knowing everything and feeling nothing.) there were so many of us, i don't know how the guy didn't take more / get stopped. i'm unfazed by it, it was just a cell phone. we're really lucky he didn't do or take more. what's more difficult is the awkward conversations about it i have to have with my family here -- a cell phone is really a lot to lose for them, but for me it's an inconvenience. i didn't even want to tell them and reveal how irresponsible with valuables i can be or whatever, although i know it happens all the time here (jair's phone was stolen, kavin's phone was stolen). the situation all around sucks.
-i've spent more time with americans in the past week than with brasilians. which is bad for learning portuguese and making new friends. yuck.
-i put a lot of interal pressure on myself to hang out with certain people or feel bad about not hanging out with more brasilians and that caused me to stress out too much. there was palpable tension. i like to create what i percieve to be awkward social situations. double yuck.
-that's also related to my hesitant portuguese, although i somehow find it my place to correct my fellow americans' portuguese. wtf.
-i'm not enough of a question asker, politically or socially. this makes me a horrible social justice student and a not friendly enough. yuckyuckyuck.
-i'm a horrible student otherwise -- behind in my journaling for the program, not doing any research, generally spacing out. wheeee. how did i ever get this far?
-there's no gay stuff going down. no one in the program is visibly out (i won't mention that i think someone's closeted...) (and i'm pretty ambiguous myself, as always), although i have talked about it a little with some people. the lgbtq community is hiding from me here, but it's not really a surprise; it can be pretty heterosexist here (just like anyandeverywhere else). overall, i'm feeling (reluctantly) hetero here. not that that's completely a horrible thing. just only kind of. (hahahaha)
-my fucking inbox is stuffed to the gills with shit i don't want to deal with. auuuugh. i hate email, i do, and the uselessness of 85% of my email is pushing me away from the other 15% i actually want (and should) participate in. sigh.

i should have started with the bad to end on the good. whatever. despite all of the negativity, i look very positively on the past week. and today's another week. i've been gone for almost a month, believe it or don't.

one of the last cds i listened to before i left was "totally hits," a compliation of 18 chart-topping hits of 1998. since then, LFO's "summer girls" is the song most likely to be stuck in my head at any given moment. i wake up wanting to tell someone "summertime girls are the kind i like/i stole your honey like i stole your bike." i ride the bus thinking, "when you take a sip you buzz like a hornet/billy shakespeare wrote a whole bunch of sonnets." i want to interrumpt conversations with "you love fun dip and cherry coke/i like the way you laugh when i tell a joke/when i met you i said 'my name is rich/ you look like a girl from abercrombie and fitch.'"
but of course, i can't. i doubt most people would understand what i'm saying (in portuguese or english). but i really, really want to.

oh, and i uploaded an album on facebook, but it's mostly of pictures from this summer. one of these days i'll put pictures on here. one of these days... straight to the moon!

oops

i lied. yesterday, class ran over hella long, and instead of going home, i went out. we went to the touristy strip and walked and ate and they (4 of my american friends here) talked and listened (i was in an observant mood). and then we went swimming in the perigroso ocean (dangerous... but because there're lots of thugs around at night, apparently) at midnight. it was a good end to a ridiculously long day. okay, a great end.

i miss mexican food.

more this weekend, okay?

chuva = rain. humadade = humidity

ugh. i tried to edit my last post a little, but certain computers here in the sit lab suck and i couldn't really view anything. so desculpe (sorry) for typos, ungrammaticalness (new word!), spelling errors and other problems in both english and portuguese.

last night and this morning it was raining, so i left the house with sneakers instead of sandals, my jackets double-layered so i wouldn't get soaked, and a borrowed umbrella. i was sweating before the bus even came. i no longer had any use for any of those items by the time i changed buses. i was dripping sweat by the time i got to school.

what else? i have very specific things to post about, but i've been saving them on my laptop, which hasn't been connected to the internet. i plan on going to a netcafe to-night and take care of various businesses, including email and facebook responses, picture uploading, and saved entry posting.

in non-logistical things...
oh! last friday night we went out to a bar and then to this reggae club on some far side of town. the club was very beautiful and we were having a really fun time. however, i woke up the next morning with a hangover and the thought that i may be the struggling protagonist in a much-needed but not very different update on ralph ellison's invisible man. this is a very complicated subject (obviously), and will be discussed in further detail in a forthcoming entry (as saved to my lappy).

in other news, i can't think. more later.

so much things to say! i love you, faithful readers (vicki and chris? and george?) and pray you are well.

happy birthday mexico / para béns méxico

oi. you're probably hoping for a photo post. no such luck yet, as i need to bring my laptop to school to do such and that's a pain. plus i haven't been taking that many pictures (doing so kind of embarrasses me), so there's not much to upload. however, if you're on the facebook and want to know what some things look like, landen (on my trip) has uploaded a bunch and you can see them by clikcing on the first few pictures of me.

recent events:
on wednesday (quatra-feira) we didn't have regular class. instead, this photograher zé took us around fortaleza. we went to the old cementary and the old lighthouse. we also went to the beriamar, which is this really touristy part. it was really pretty there of course and we got delicious ice cream at this place called 50 sorvertes (or however you spell flavors in portuguese). everyone was taking all "let's come back to this place, i really like it here." i kept thinking, "duh you really like it; it's the tourist part. it's designed for you to like it." but i can't be mad at people for liking the pretty beach place with local color and ice cream flavors listed in english more than the piss-poor places with unpaved roads that smell like piss. but please, people, think about why and what it means.
after being touristy, we went to zé's house which is pretty much a dream house. it is part of what was once a compound and he designed it himself. the walls have bottles in it and there's art on the walls and overall it's a chill place. we climbed trees and i felt so alive. later we went to the sand dunes which were amazing. it was like being on the edge of the world. we ran and jumped and got sand in our crevices. i was gritty and sweaty and windblown and i felt so beautiful.
the events of the 13th are beyond description. i just can't do it.

yesterday we met this guy cavin who did this program 5 years ago and now lives on across the street from my host fam here in fortaleza. he went to pomona and was a history major! sid lemelle was his advisor! small world getting smaller, no? cavin is a really cool guy, so we're all excited to have this little bridge to brazilian 20-something culture.

apparently, everybody but me and like 2 other people went out last night. it sounds like it was a really raucous time, which they still owe me for my birthday, now that i think about it. i'm really good at withdrawing, so i need to stop right now and get out there. altough sometimes i really can't stand the big loud americanness of our group, and i try deny it and blend in. which doesn't exactly work for a lot of reasons. sigh. that's all whole other kettle of fish.

the food:
we eat so much fresh fruit! and all these fresh juices! my hostmom makes fresh juice for practically every meal. we also eat spaghetti (macarroni here) a lot, as well as rice (arroz), beans (feijoes), and meat (carne) quite often. it's not so much different. it's little things that are different.

the language:
i get languages the way some people get math. or at least i learn languages like that. speaking it is another thing. there're all these little rules to follow for making sounds and stuff (rr = h, de = ge, ti - chi, but i get to keep my j!). i'm picking it up little by little. it's frustrating. people tend to repeat the little dumb things i really already know and then take for granted the long strings of stuff i need broken down. oi. except here oi is hey and not an expression of annoyance.

whatever.

hoje (today)

today we had our first portuguese class and also registered our visas at the police station. this post is being typed from the computer lab of our school building, IBEU which could stand for international brasil estados unidos (which doesn't completely make sense), but i really can't remember. this keyboard thinks it's brasilian, but really, it's american because the keys say one thing but do another. like, the c with the goatee key is really the ; key like it usually is in the us. i guess they reconfigured it for our american fingers, but whatev.

i've gotten a bunch of emails and messages i should be responding to, but i hate electronic communication that requires the back and forth. way too easy to backed up in. speaking of getting backed up, i've retained my slacker tendencies and am a little behind with certain essays/readings. but i always pull through, after asserting i will change and then failing to do so.

i had a good weekend, but was kind of bummy. we went to the beach (praia) on sunday and it was one of the best beaches evarrr. seriously though. the water is very clear and clean and so is the sand. the wind is kind of bothersome though and the sand prickles as it's being blown into your face. other than the beach, i didn't really go out, so i declare that next weekend i will be brave and go out with karine (my sister) or jair (my brother) or wander the neighborhood, despite not being able to hold a decent conversation with anybody who isn't karine, jair, or my 13 year old cousin pedro.


in other, non-serious, totally non-program related issues: i desparately need to learn how to flirt.

the end.

mais vs mas

my brother told me i should fica so i ficou.

que mais? i can blend in a little here, being dark and all. only benefit is not being asked for change by other pretas (black women). being darkdark also means i get honked at a lot whilst jogging down the street, but i pretend not to notice. mais, sou americana. there's another preta americana and we're tight. i'm excited about most of the other people in the group, all chill people. i can't wait until we're all a little closer though, because right now we're still in the "one big happy family" stage where there's no one to gossip with/confide in forrealsforreals. i feel lame caring about those trivial college group dynamics, but shit. i'm in college, we're a group, and trivial stuff happens.

it's hot. here, i take it bathtubs are a luxury. the bathrooms are generally a showerhead over a lower part of the tiled floor, next to the toilet (which gets soaked). you're to throw the toilet paper into a trash can because otherwise it'll fuck up the sewer system. generally i remember, but sometimes i remember when i sit down and forget by the time i'm down. at the hotel, i had to find a stick to fish out such instances. fun, no?

the food is muito bem (very good). lots of bread. we also ate a lot of pasta at the hotel, but that may have been just. i trust a lot more stuff to be grown locally or more naturally or whatever (but to be honest, i don1t really know).

i feel like i'm going to be tired all the time, which is not good. brasil seems like a great place to take lots of naps, but the stuff i'm going to be doing here is not for the half-asleep. i need to be awake and en pointe for working with various social movement groups, field research, learning portuguese -- all on top of getting along with my family, missing eos estados unidos, and possible anything (anyone!) else. dealing with all that "i am so privileged and lucky and grateful" baggage, which is nothing new, just more in my face. it's not easy to think that i am fighting to lose my privilege, but we do what we must. right? of course right. so enough to this selfish thinking. i am so spoiled.


what else?
counterstrike is popular here. also, basketball and street ball. my brother had a dvd of american basketball and asked me where monte du was. i had no idea where he was talking about, until i saw a sign in the background of the clip that said mountain dew. nos americanos somos tudo o mundo.

that's it for now. gotta go. tchau

por favor nao mexa na webcam ela esta com problemas

oi! i am currently in an internet cafe down the street from my host family's house in o barrio de cristo redentor, fortaleza, ceará, brasil. i still don't know how to do all the symbols for all the letters, the hats and the goatees (is that how you spell that?) and whathave you for portugues. i only know what i knew for spanish. and the placement of the ' key is going to continue to trip me up (it traded places with the ~ and now all my contractions are approximations.)

here, night does not fall here. there is no gentle tumble into twilight into obscuridade. night plumments. you do a triple take -- the sky is bright; look again, the trees are silohuetted; look again, it's black. this is what being so close to the equator does. plus also, constant tempatures in the 70s-80s. nice to borderline not so nice, but generally pretty good.

i have spent a few days in this convent-turned-conference center of a compound with the other american SIT students, which was nice, but we thought we were locked in for the first few days and despaired rapunzel style until we found out we could actually wander the neighborhood. now i am with my family. i have a mom, a sister, two brothers, and a sister-in-law. the siblings are all around my age, which is cool. apparently, jazz and shawnrey stayed with my family's relatives who live upstairs, so they know people i know. wee.

we haven't had class yet. i will be in the second level of portuguese (yay spanish background!) and also have a cds class, which i've forgotten what it abbreivates. quite possibly Culture, Developement and Social justice. the program itself so far has been incredibly down and well-structured in terms of acclimating us with the community and social justice issues. i mean, down. it's exciting, but also a lot of pressure. i can be a very introspective introverted (redudant?) person, so sometimes i get in my head all selfish like and have all of the regular selfdoubts about not feeling completely comfortable with the family or missing my friend and fam back home or wanting to spend all of my time with the americans and just being a tourist. but i know that is not my greater purpose here. and it hasn't really been that difficult so far, although it is just the very begining.

i will suck it up and be the best i can be. and so far, i get along well with my family. we trade info about music, movies and food. i translated the chorus of the black eyed peas song "pump it" for them ("pump it (louder)" becomes "enche (com bomba)"). yay cultural echanged

fortaleza on the whole looks like the poorer parts of some cities i've been in, only more walls and dirt roads. american influence is evident eveyrwhere -- clothes, music, words. the stores say stuff like "lanche - sanduiche, salgodas, self-service."

my computer froze in the middle of that, which meant my time was up, so i paid for more (another hour?), but i don't want to be here for that much longer. i will finish up here for now and let my cousin play or something.


paz e amor (peace and love)




vocabulary!
abacaxí - pineapple
ficar - to stay, to hook up
ligar - to be in contact with
legal - cool

day 1

estou no brasil!

so it's about 9:40p fortaleza time, and i'm the last one up. the apostrophe is all the way over where the tilde usually sits. and the backslash is hard to find. and the semi-colon took a backseat to the ç. alrighty, but enough about the keyboard.

i arrived in fortaleza today around one pm, after a red-eye flight to sao paulo (where's the hat for the a?). i met most of the group in miami, where we were for hours. it~s funny how i~ve only known them for a day total but since it~s been constant, it seems like much longer. no comment on who's cool yet, but there~s supposed to be 18 of us in all.

brasil is very warm and night happens very quickly, being so close to the equator. right now we~re staying on this lovely place for orientation that has a man-made laguna right at it. very beautiful. simple birthday. cutting short for now, am apparently not last one up and other people need to use the computer. mais en o futuro

my portuguese sucks.

pre-post

okay, so currently i am at JFK airport in new york, but that has nothing to do with brasil (i'm between my mom and my dad's houses right now, which, if you know where they live, doesn't make any sense, but that's the inefficiency of airlines for you).

this is the pre-post: everything i can tell you about my trip before i actually take my trip (a week from tomorrow!!!).
so, i will be in fortaleza, brasil, which is on the northeast coast. fortaleza is a beach town, really a beach city, with about 2.2 million people. it's less afro-centric than salvador, where i will also be spending time. (fortaleza is in the state ceará and salvador is in bahia, which is a little further south down the coast.) i will be staying with a family, whom i don't find out about until i get there. there are 18 other kids in my program, none of which go to any of the claremont colleges (the closest person goes to oxy).
the official program title is "culture, developement, and socal justice." we will be going to class for a few hours everyday to learn about brazilian culture, history, etc, as well as portuguese classes. we will also go to special events and talk to different groups and people about the titular topics. (last year, they saw dance troops and worked a little with a group of farmers who are fighting to gain the right to work with unused land, among other things i'm sure.)
i will also have free time to hang out with the locals and the other kids in my program. they seem nice enough so far -- some people expressed excitement about the readings, which are pretty cool (pedagogy of the oppressed by paulo freire and the open veins of latin america by eduardo galeano).

right now, i'm trying to speed learn a little portuguese and speed read the books and speed get everything together and speed stop thinking about everyone i'm going to be missing (or continue missing) for the next 4 months. what's cool is that at the end of my program, my mother is coming and we're going to spend christmas in salvador (which was recommended to me by liz).

i hope i don't forget anything and that everyone is fine. i already miss california and everyone everywhere.

so... this will be my travel blog once i leave the country. you're simmering in anticipation, i know.

in the meantime, i've got heartburn.

also, blogger thinks i'm still on the westcoast. i'll get on that later.