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.