The Brazil Files

2006-08-16T14:52:00.000-07:00

So lucky me managed to get the first flight from Brazil to the US that is under the new airline restrictions. This meant standing in line for 2 hours at the gate (in addition to the normal security line) while they hand checked everyone’s carry-on luggage. I guess the extreme annoyance would be justified if I actually thought it did any good, but the idiots let me through with all sorts of gels and liquids. I thought I had taken everything out of the carry on, and when I realized that I still had on me some items that I wasn’t keen on throwing away, I nonchalantly stuck them in a side pocket of my backpack under some random scarves. There was no need to be so thorough because they didn’t even bother to check my side pockets. These days, it’s not too hard being a terrorist. I must say though, racial profiling has gone in my favor since 2001. While I used to be stopped in customs and security lines for “random” checks every single time I went to the airport (to the point that I filed several complaints), in the past 5 years I haven’t been stopped once. And while the debate over racial profiling is starting to rage (like profiling is not already in use—yah right), the benefits fail to convince me because evil comes in many shapes and colors. Targeting a certain type makes it easier for actual threats to escape undetected because these guys know how to play the game. If you want to profile, target suspicious behavior not suspicious facial features. But instead of ruminating on airport logistics and anti-terrorism strategies, I’d rather take this last blog entry to reflect on the past few months, to continue the narrative, and to say my final goodbye to the most challenging yet the most rewarding experience of my life.

My last week on route was extremely hectic as one of my towns was chosen to be showcased on the national news. Why they picked my town, when I was knee deep in latrine mayhem, is still a mystery to me. Instead of being able to calmly insure that this latrine project would be completed by my departure, I had to shift gears and make the town with its spotty cistern construction ready to shine on the big stage. This included interviewing town members to see who would be the best representatives, keeping on the heels of the construction workers so that we had at least 2 presentable cisterns available by the day filming was planned, going over possible interview questions with my volunteers so they would be prepared to answer in Portuguese whatever was thrown at them, giving the camera crew and reporter a tour of the town and an overview of everything that has been going on, etc etc. It was fun to be behind the scenes, and thank goodness they didn’t interview me on TV. I realize my place is not in the limelight. However, I did show up in the background with my crazy Brazil hat on national TV. I can check that off my list of things to do before I die. The report turned out decent although I wish they had focused more on the community members and less on making a kitchy clichéd feel good story that lacked substance and barely scratched the surface on the overwhelming problem of poverty and drought that affects the Northeast. However, the town didn’t seem to mind as the report was taped and played over and over again, in slow-mo, sped up, closed captioned, and every other variant the TV was able to produce. Seeing the town enjoy the experience made me feel better.

The last weekend the volunteers where in country, we went to one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever seen, staying at an amazing hotel. While you would think I’d welcome such luxury after 3 months of stress and roughing it, I somehow felt out of place. Something about experiencing such luxury thousands of miles away from my home, when the communities I’ve been working in could not even dream of such splendor even though they are a mere 100 miles away, was a bit disconcerting. One of the volunteers put it best when he disgustedly likened himself to a Greek god, who had spent 2 months among mortals, just for the sake of having an experience, only to return back to his kingdom where he never again will have to mingle with those less privileged. He was feeling the effects of reverse culture shock, where what he once knew now has little importance to him. One of the best parts of being a supervisor is seeing kids who have had most of the privileges life could possibly afford them learn what little value this privilege really holds in the grand scheme of things. His experience taught him about the trials of many people in the world, about how something like water that every American takes for granted completely controls and limits the lives of people across the developing world. However, when thinking about the emotions he and many of the others were feeling, it helped me realize that I shouldn’t hold contempt for the beauty I was seeing as I took in the coastline. It is as natural as the beauty that we all learned to see in the communities we had been privileged to be a part of. And while I don’t need to be like those rich tourists who have no idea and want no idea of how people in the interior live, I can use my ability to travel between both worlds as a way to show as many people as possible a little about what life is about.

Other than philosophizing, I spent my 3 days on the beach doing a myriad of activities: boogey boarding, mud bathing, forro dancing, seafood eating to name a few. Yes, for those of you who know about the annual pudding wrestling contests my friend and I put on in Houston, I must admit that mud works so much better. You should check out the accompanying photos if you are having difficulty imagining what being covered in mud is like. Perhaps I was a pig in a former life. I also took out all my volunteers out to dinner, which is a highlight of the summer, because you get to hear all their stories and find out all the rules they broke. Since this organization caters mainly to high school students, there’s a whole list of rules that they are supposed to abide by. So it’s always amusing to hear about their exploits. However, I was somewhat disappointed. None of them pulled off something of the magnitude of the great escape (see the blog on the Great Escape in the Mexico Files) that my partner and I did last year.

After the volunteers returned to the states on Tuesday, I had to return back to one of my communities to insure that the latrine project would be seen to completion. I handed it over the labor union and called a town meeting to get their perspective on the past 2 months. Of course, the town was in the middle of a huge rainstorm. I was perpetually wet for 24 hours straight. In thinking of the conditions, I was shocked that a good 20 people walked 30 minutes uphill to attend the meeting. They thanked me for the work we did and marveled at how wonderful it was to have these kids in their community. The greatest part of AMIGOS is the cultural exchange on both sides. While practically the whole world has a negative view of the US, it’s refreshing to show the more humane side of us. I left among tears and hugs the following morning, promising that I would some day return. It was a miracle that I even got out of there as all the roads were washed out. Cars couldn’t really get through and so I got to rely on a motorcycle taxi that fishtailed itself down the mountain. I would like to say that I was scared as I was often just a few inches from the side of the cliff, but nothing fazes me anymore when it comes to transportation. And I have a burn scar from the muffler to remind me of my last exit from Brejo.

Saturday morning I took a 3:30 am flight (most of the people at the airport didn’t even know they had flights at the ungodly hour as I was inquiring about transportation to the airport), arriving to Rio for another couple of days of R&R. I fell asleep on the bus from the airport and was woken up by the driver who decided that pinching my cheeks would be the most effective way of waking me up. While scaring the hell out of me, it did the job. And thank goodness I had told him to wake me up or I would be halfway to Argentina by now. None of my friends were in town so I spent the weekend reflecting while enjoying the best weather I might have ever seen. Apparently, Brazilian criminals were also enjoying the weather as it was Father’s day and many prisoners are released from prison to spend time with family. The same courtesy is given on Mother’s day. If you recall the Sao Paulo riots that lasted for weeks, those began on Mother’s day when several prisoners decided not to return. If I were a prisoner, I can’t say that I wouldn’t skip town either. What’s shocking to me is that Brazil is known for their awful prison conditions and prisoners are given “get out of jail free” cards at least twice a year. Go figure.

I spent Saturday evening as a tourist, going to the famed Pao de Açucar and watching the sunset. The view was breathtaking as I took in all of Rio from a huge rock. As night fell, I felt like I was in a fog as my senses were distracted by the dazzling lights, the strumming of a guitar, the smell of the crisp air, and the realization that I was sitting above what could be considered the most beautiful city in the world. I listened to a family speak in a weird mix of Portuguese and Italian (I understood the whole conversation but couldn’t figure out when they were speaking each language…the brain is a mess right now), watched couples snuggle on park benches, and realized that somehow someway I was going to one day live in Rio. The logistics surrounding this newfound decision are blurry but so are all my ideas when they first form. I’m on a mission now ;-)

The next day I went to the Northeast festival which happens every weekend in Rio. With the live forro music and the regional cuisine, I felt like I never left Pernambuco. Of course, dancing wasn’t the same. Instead of having people from the community to dance with, there were only random drunk guys. As long as they had rhythm, I took what I could get. There’s something about forro that’s contagious. On the subway ride back, I people-watched and reflected more about the crazy turns my life takes. It was a last minute decision to work in Brazil this summer, and while the journey started rough, it was the right decision. As I sat in a subway cars reserved only for women (during rush hour traffic only women can ride in certain cars…interesting concept), I took a deep breath, sighing that I would soon have to leave my adoptive country once more. I then quickly decided to run off the train and found a bus, a random bus, not paying attention to where it was going, so I could get lost once more in the thrills and beauty of Rio de Janeiro. The scenes passed me by and all I could do is smile.

2006-07-27T18:31:00.000-07:00

Babies everywhere

As most of you probably know, I’m not a kid person (unless we are talking about goats). I prefer that they stay put far far away but for some reason, they have been showing up everywhere this week: in the form of pregnant mothers, tyrant toddlers, and screeching babies. In fact, I think I was assaulted by a two year old. I was waiting at the house of one of my contacts when a suspicious looking child approached me with his metal toy truck. Something about him, I knew he was trouble. He started ramming his truck into my legs over and over again as I leered at him and his mother beseeched him to behave. Then he threw his truck down, wheels facing up, and pretended to light it on fire, simulating the accompanying explosions. I was wondering how he could act out match-lighting so well. That’s when his mother explained to me that one day he had gotten a hold of the matches and threw a lit match at his father, which caused his shirt to catch on fire. Maybe it’s just me, but that’s a clear sign that you have a veritable Damian on your hands. I tried ignoring him until he crawled over to me and lifted up my skirt! His mother did her normal “Stop that, hun!” and he did his normal ignoring of everything she said. By this time I was giving him the evil eye so he decided to sit next to me and ask what all the objects in my hair were. Then he asked if they were edible, obviously not interested in an answer as he stuck one of them, dreadlock and all, in his mouth. As I deterred him from eating my hair (that’s what my cat always would tried to do and it really would creep me out), he then turned to my arm and tried to take a bite out of it, telling me afterwards that it was very “gostoso.” That’s Portuguese for “pleasing” or “good-tasting.” I try to block out the images of the little cannibal. It’s a miracle I managed to escape from there in one piece and I can say that I will NEVER be going back.

Meanwhile, bathrooms are still not being built as I’m having a materials crisis. I have one week to construct ten dry latrines. Not to add even more pressure but I was informed today that the national news station wants to do a report on my town and their work with cisterns and latrines. Why I was chosen, I’m still not sure but I have a whole project to turn around in a matter of a couple of days. Somehow, getting things done with an ever-lingering language barrier, an “it will get done tomorrow” work ethic, and weather patterns that do a good job of holding up my material trucks, makes the task that much more…infuri—interesting. So I’m just chill’n, knee deep in latrine stuff…literally…with only a prayer to save me. Of course there is solace…I can’t get fired because I’m not getting paid! But the fact that I have no idea what I’m doing since construction was never a subject of mine in college and that miscommunication seems to be the word of the week, I’m humbled into a state of incompetence. Not used to that. I guess it builds character.

And of course, it wouldn’t be a Maya blog without an animal excerpt. There’s so many that I always have to choose. I was a couple feet from the biggest snake I’ve ever seen close up. It was at least 2 meters long and had the diameter of my fist. Its jet blackened body slithered across my path, taking the time to acknowledge me, and disappeared into the brush. With all the stories of poisonous snakes killing farmers, I’d prefer not to run into my little reptilian friend again. I like the ones that have legs, hence my dream of being the proud parent of an iguana someday. Meanwhile, across town, I ran into a frog that was walking on its hind legs. I was headed down the road at night, about to pick up a rock to scare away the dog that was barking and running towards me when I noticed that my rock started moving. I shined the flashlight to witness a frog get up from its sitting position and stand on its back legs. Then, for reasons I will never know, it started walking—not hopping. Is that normal? Do I just not know anything about frogs? Why was it walking? And why have I never seen one walking during the day. They are all over the place. When I got back to where I was staying, I was greeted by the latest member of the family, a wild baby bunny that had fallen into the cistern hole. The host sister kept chasing after it with a knife, threatening to make stew. While she claims she was kidding, I’ll be interested in knowing this rabbit’s whereabouts in about a year. I picked it up and after it had sufficiently peed on me, it calmed down. I put him (or her—no one has been able to tell the sex of the creature) on my shoulder and witnessed him climb up my head with the help of my dreadlocks. He perched himself on top of my head and contented himself to stay there for 30 minutes as I watched one of these horrible soap operas with the rest of the family. I will hopefully be able to put up pics next week (along with some of the random dance shots I found).

Speaking of soap operas, I thought American television was bad but Brazilian TV is abominable. The acting is awful, the humor borders on stupidity, and if I thought American shows were racially biased, Brazilian shows take the taco. As I have been stressing in my blog, Brazil is the most impressive country in the world in terms of racial make-up, but as I have also been hinting at, it has a long way to go in racial equality, and this ineptitude manifests itself in many ways. One of the most visual manifestations is the use of the media. While the country is a hodgepodge of ethnic groups, their equivalent of Hollywood does an excellent job of whitewashing their characters and relegating most of their black and Native American (when they are represented) characters to maids and porters. While I’m in the Northeast with its beautiful shades, Brazilian TV practically feigns the same tired monotony for which American TV has been criticized. It’s amazing how class dictates experience and perception. However, as I endure the same problems that shape America, I realize that these aren’t isolated incidents because the same scenario repeats itself across the globe. If not because of race or economic status, than because of religion or caste, often so intertwined that one fails to name the culprit. But I will leave these ramblings to another time.

However, don’t confuse this quick look into the underbelly of society, albeit a superficial one when you consider the greater problems that face Brasil, with a reason to not love this country. I’m still having an amazing time, even if I’m working on the most challenging project of my life.

Stay tuned for more crazy and not so crazy stories!

2006-07-20T07:08:00.000-07:00

The view from one of my town's, Brejo, also where I like to go hiking
Fostering Brazil/American relations
Me and Taina, host sister of a volunteer
The dog (grimlin?) at a host family's house (I think he needs to be exorcised) It's forro time!
My volunteer and beans
Happy me

2006-07-20T07:04:00.000-07:00

Military Police

I forgot to mention in my post this week about my time spent with the military police. Normally, I wouldn’t trust people wielding semi-automatics and I’m often skeptical of the police in the States, but in Brazil, things are different. I was sitting in the back of a Toyota with some of my volunteers when these two officers hitched a ride on the back. They’re hanging off the ladder. Once we stopped to let some passengers off I called to them that there was space inside the vehicle. One of my vols looked at my like I was crazy as she was eying their weaponry, but I’m a much different person when working here. I talk to everyone. Normally I get stuck with the random crazy person that is obligatory on every Toyota ride. I listen to them rambling on about chickens or cisterns or the municipal government’s inability to do anything. I smile, nod, and say “eh” about a thousand times, which is what is used in the NE more than “yes.” They say, I can’t believe you are American. I thought Americans were evil. This is after they spend 5 minutes trying to figure out where I’m from. Once they realize I’m not from Bahia (NE Brazil with the large black population), the answers vary. I was called Bolivian and Ecuadorian last week. Not sure what they were basing the guess on…

Anyway, back to the military police. So for some reason I had this uncontrollable urge to start asking them lots of questions. I’ve gotten used to making people speak ever since I started seriously doing my linguistic research. Normally I wouldn’t go up to a random military officer and ask how long they’ve been training, what is their job like, how often do they get to use their semi-automatics, or comment on how I usually just see them stand on the side of the road hanging out. But Brazil empowers, empowers me to put my foot in my mouth. Luckily for me, they met my impudent questions with interest. They explained to me what life was like for them in a very candid way. They then asked what I was doing in Brazil (luckily they weren’t the federal police. I’m under the suspicion that they are still after me for losing my exit card the last time I was in Brazil). After talking about work, they started explaining how the people differ depending on what town they are from. The more experienced officer pointed to his cadet, whose smile betrayed the braces that made him look younger than he was, and said that the men from his town are known for their sensitivity. Of course you can’t be in the military police or in Brazil for that matter and accept someone calling you sensitive. So then the cadet told me that all the men from the officer’s town were known for getting fat once they reached a certain age. I couldn’t tell if they were trying to arrange my marriage by giving me town names, descriptions of the male population, and advice on how to deal with them. All I know is that I’ve never laughed so hard with a huge gun 6 inches away.

2006-07-19T13:46:00.000-07:00

PS- I just wanted to let my bro know I'm proud of him. Through his internship this summer at Comedy Central, he has not only met people like Chris Rock and Whoopie Goldberg, he has also worked on the write staff of many shows, including "The Colbert Report" and "The Daily Show." In fact, if any of you watched the other night, Jon Stewart's nickname for Vladimir Putin, "The Impaler," was actually thought of by my very own brother. He has also worked on a pilot. Kudos to you, little bro.

2006-07-19T13:44:00.000-07:00

What is my job description?

It seems to change every day. This past weekend we had what we call Midterm, where all the volunteers meet at this place called “the Sanctuary,” although I still haven’t figured out what it is a sanctuary from. I spent the whole weekend dodging bats. Every time I entered my room, this crazy bat would be waiting for me. As soon as I turned on the light he would start bouncing off the walls, the ceiling, my bed. This is the closest I have gotten to a bat since my cat brought me one in second grade and my mom decided to freeze it so I could take it for show and tell. When I wasn’t dodging bats, I was dodging volunteers. Most of you have probably noticed that I don’t like traveling in groups, worse, I don’t like leading large groups, and a large group of American teenagers in a Brasilian city is probably my worst nightmare. Imagine getting them all on a city bus. Then imagine standing on the side of the highway and picking up my normal transportation, the Toyota, for 25 people. Of course, all the Toyotas were full and we were only able to cram about five vols per vehicle. Let me just say, I never want to repeat the experience again.

Other than crossing guard, I learned my job also entails being a cistern inspector, a latrine consultant, and a shmoozing socialite, all in one day. Yesterday morning, I woke up early and jumped into a 6 foot hole to make sure the base was level. From there I headed to the cistern course where I let people hear the recordings I had taken the day before. I’ve convinced the town to be a part of my linguistic research (“eeeexxxcellent” as Mr. Burns would say), which is picking up. They’ve promised to speak in the recorder if I give them a CD of everything they say. Then I waited for my ride, the back of a truck bed, to take me whirling around the mountain with 3 of my vols. I made it to the city in time to sit with the manager of a construction company as we went over blueprints and material lists for the latrines that one of my communities will be constructing and finishing in the next 3 weeks. I must say that I know more construction words in Portuguese than I do in English. Then I found a ride to my next town where I took one vol to the hospital (for once it was something minor), bought the materials for their project, and made it to Caruaru (that’s where I live…sort of) before dark. Waiting for me was my assistant project director (APD) who informed me that I would be accompanying her to a Rotary club banquet where we would be presenting our organization, convincing these old rich men to give us money, and small talking the assembly. I changed from my dirt-covered clothes to the nicest thing I owned. I even put away my TEVAS. Those of you who know me, know that I don’t like to dress up, and when I do, I keep the same shoes I always wear. But as my APD pleaded, I had to shine. I don’t like public speaking in the states, what on earth possessed me to stand up in front of the Rotary Club of Caruaru in a dress, and explain in Portuguese why I was in Brazil and what they could do for me? Apparently, they liked my dreadlocks as they become the topic of discussion in the after presentation shmoozing. I convinced all these baldies that even they could have dreadlocks. I’m not sure if we ended up raising any funds, however.

Today, I took the job of maid, as the next-door neighbors informed me that we have to help clean the outside patio (even though we don’t use it). So I spent my morning sweeping up cigarette butts before heading off to a convent to talk to the sisters about holding a going away party for the communities there, and then became secretary as I called around to various locations about our debriefing site in Recife. Now, I’m home alone, something that hasn’t happened since coming to Caruaru. I plan to party, “Risky Business” style. I have the music picked out and everything.

As for my job(s), I came home yesterday with a sense of accomplishment. While I was conducting midterm evaluations, the towns I work in informed me that they were happy with the work we have been doing. It is the first time that an organization has come in promising to do certain things and actually does them. I also plan to take more advantage of the beautiful mountains. I went hiking the other day and reached the top of a cliff where I could look out for miles and miles. I plan to hike an even taller mountain this weekend before going to my favorite town for Sunday Night Forro. I spent over 4 hours dancing last time. The town the next morning, instead of referring to me as “the girl with the hair” as they normally do, referred to me as the Forro Queen. I’m not sure what I like more, but all this dancing business is helping to create solid Brazilian/American relations.

I have kept this blog entry short for all you lazy ones that continue to complain about the length. Beware, however, because I might be adding more soon.

Maya

2006-07-09T14:12:00.000-07:00

Quick lament: Oh the pain as the realization sets in that I was about 3 seconds away from buying my ticket to study in Italy this summer, when I found out about the Brazil gig. I get to go back to work while all of Italy celebrates. Cheers to my Italian friends.

Maya

2006-07-09T09:23:00.000-07:00

This was a relatively calm week, except for the fact that four of my six volunteers were ill. As soon as I got to my first town, they were all coming at me with their stomachaches and their colds and their flus and their cactus wounds from all sides. Good grief. It made for more interesting home remedies. (Nothing will ever top the breast milk but I was amused nonetheless). My only guy volunteer lives on the top of this mini cliff where electricity and running water don’t exist. While lacking the basic comforts that most of us take for granted, it’s kind of exhilarating doing your business at the top of the world where you get to bask in the glorious views of mountain tops and surrounding valleys. Of course, this loses its charm when it’s 3 in the morning, your insides are churning in ways you didn’t think possible, and you have a minefield of cacti to run through until you get to your haven. My vol learned this the hard way when one of these sneaky low-lying cacti attacked him as he sought salvation. However, who cares when you have a caring host mother waiting back at home ready to douse your foot with gasoline? Yes, gasoline. My vol was terrified because it came from the lantern they use for light. My vol assumed she was preparing to light his foot on fire. I think that even if his Portuguese had been better, it would have been insufficient in explaining the benefits of gasoline on cactus punctures. When I stayed with them this week, I suggested in the most culturally sensitive way possible that I would prefer that she doesn’t use gasoline on open wounds.

So by the time I got to the community 3 days later, his foot had swollen to the size of a meatloaf and he was hobbling every which way. Subsequent uses of sewing needles failed to extract all the spines still stuck in his foot. While everyone in town assured me they would eventually fall out, that these were somehow the good spines as opposed to the bad spines that hurt something awful (I don’t know how you can tell the difference—a spine covered foot is a spine covered foot), I was prepared to take my poor vol to the hospital. Of course this requires a grand production. Since there is no regular transportation in and out of the town (I rely on the president of the labor union to take me to the land before time), we would’ve had to hike the 2 hours to the nearest hospital, as cactus punctures did not warrant pulling out the emergency transportation. In fact, the town was just laughing at him for complaining so much. Apparently, this is a common occurrence: cactus attacks. So after much debate, we decided to wrap his foot in aloe vera and let nature take its course. I’ll find out Thursday whether he still has a foot.

Staff house, where I come on weekends to decompress, is filled with books. Each supervisor brought at least 5 books and we pass them around. It’s fun living with a bunch of nerds, I finally feel like an intellectual (since when I’m working on my PhD, I spend most of my time proving that I’m not one.) It’s sort of a makeshift Oprah’s book club, because we discuss all the books we read. The next one on my list is Fernando Henrique Cardozo’s The Accidental President of Brazil, a memoir by the president that preceded Lula. Besides helping me to understand what is going on politically and historically in this country, it’s full of amusing quotes, many of them referring to Bushisms. My favorite was when Cardozo was explaining the country’s diversity to Bush during a presidential trip to Brazil. It is hands down the world’s biggest melting pot, even if the US tries to take that distinction, because in Brazil people actually meld and melt into each other. You never know what a person is, and it doesn’t matter. Of course it has many of the same problems as the U.S. in race relations, but their isn’t as stark of divide between different races because most people are of mixed origin. Of course, our great president Bush was unaware of this as he was quoted as responding to Cardozo with “You have black people in Brazil?” Followed by Condie saying, “Of course they do, Mr. President, now about this weather…” I guess the largest black population in the world outside of Nigeria doesn’t count. However, I have promised not to use this forum to blast Bush. That would be tooooo easy. I relate this quote to bring up another interesting story of the week…

What would my email be without a transportation story? (You are probably wondering what kind of segue is this, but I do have a point). While I had been told numerous times that the “Toyotas” can hold up to 30 people (by my calculations, I only see 15 passengers being possible, and that’s with people sitting on top of each other), I hadn’t seen it done until this week. We managed to get 5 people in the front seat. This is particularly difficult when you have a giant gearshift that makes it difficult for even 3 people to sit there. Oh, and the small child…make that 6 people. So the child’s mother put the girl, perhaps about 5 yrs old, on my lap since her lap was covered with groceries. I’m sitting there with this blond haired, blue-eyed girl on top of me while the roof of the Toyota has about 10 people, some bags of rice, and a couple chickens. About 3 people were also hanging from the back of the Toyota. Luckily, they know I’m from out of town and never make me hang from the back or cling to the roof. Anyway, I’m sitting there and the lady to my other side asks, “How many do you have?” How many what? Chickens? She looks at the child and repeats, “How many do you have?” I look at the girl, then her, and laughed, “Oh, no, this isn’t my child. It’s the lady’s right next to me.” Then I looked at the girl again and asked myself how on earth is someone going to confuse this child of the corn with my daughter? But then I take a look around and notice that no one’s child looks like it can actually belong to a specific person. The country has melted to the point that genetics seems to have no place. Light parents with dark kids, dark parents with light kids. Someone asked my co-supervisor who’s Chinese if she was the daughter of this person in the community that would be labeled black by U.S. standards. Race is not decisive. You never know what’s going to pop out in the delivery room. Geneticists say that the more diverse the gene pool, the healthier it is. By that logic, Brazil must then be the healthiest country in the world. More power to them.

Anyway, I’m waiting for the World Cup final to start. I’m still on the fence, but will probably go for France, just because I’ve lived there twice. No offense to my Italian friends, I’ve got nothing but love for you. In the meantime, I’ve been watching the soccer highlights of the last month and wishing that they would play the Wimbledon final. I’m tired of getting all my scores online.

Until next week!

Maya

2006-07-08T20:58:00.000-07:00

Announcement: I have indented the paragraphs I found most interesting since I’m sure no one is actually going to read this whole email. Pity, too.

Well well well. It’s been a while since my last mass email. I guess it’s been a while since my last life changing experience. As most of you know, I decided to spend the summer in Brazil as a supervisor with AMIGOS das Americas, the organization that I work with last summer in Mexico. Remember all those crazy stories then, well I was just getting started. My job description is even wackier and the country crazier (at least when it comes to dancing and partying). I had three weeks to ease my way into Brazilian life as I traveled to Rio de Janeiro and through the region of Bahia with my boyfriend, Arnaud. After deciding to accompany me to Brazil in April when I found out I would be going, he miraculously learned to speak Portuguese in a month. I don’t know how people do that. Anyway, we had a great time. I don’t have any absurd airport stories like last time but there were plenty of interesting moments. I learned just how effective the friend of a friend of a friend network is as my mother put me in contact with a friend who knows people all over the world. She sent out an SOS to everyone she knew and someone responded with a list of people in Bahia. I ended up hanging out with all of them, both Brazilian and Americans who were able to show me a less touristy side of Bahia. So I spent this time practicing Portuguese, eating good seafood, lounging on the beach (when it finally decided to stop raining), and learning as much about the culture here as possible. Bahia has the largest black population of all of Brasil as it was the point of entry for the slave ships. This heritage survives in many ways, most notably through religion. If anyone is interested in learning about Candomble, a religion that combines African gods with Catholic saints, I suggest doing a good ol google search. I went to one of the ceremonies and was quite intrigued by the different customs. However, I won’t go into detail now because I have a feeling this will be a very long email.

So I have just come back from my most ambitious job ever. The way AMIGOS works is they give the supervisor a list of towns to visit. While at these towns all by our lonesomes, we have to find people to house and feed the volunteers. We also have to talk to directors of hospitals, call town meetings to brainstorm secondary projects, make sure conditions are safe for these 16-22 yr olds that will be living, many of them out of the country for the first time, alone in a strange land with little language skills. While overwhelming, the experience was like a giant scavenger hunt. The first day, after being instructed to go to the Grande Hotel where there should be a “Toyota” headed for my first town, I got into this hard to explain vehicle. It’s as if an SUV was gutted, stuffed with seats that are more like benches, and then stuffed with people. It sort of reminds me of that dish, the details are hazy but I think it consists of a chicken stuffed inside a turkey stuffed inside a goose. A bench that would normally fit 3 people can often hold 5 or 6 normal sized adults, and if need be, people can sit on the roof. I don’t think I will be doing that. So after a couple of hours of being apart of this automotive delicacy, I reached my first county and then had to find the labor union so that a representative could take me to the tiny town in the middle of nowhere. There I basically had to go up to random people and convince them to take some teenage American, not forgetting that I also have to make sure that I’m fed and given a place to sleep. I had three nights of this, but I returned to Caruaru (where I live on weekends) in one piece and with 6 host families in place for my volunteers.

The next week was when the vols arrived. Not much to say other than we gave them a crash course in cistern building, water education, history and politics of the NE, NE linguistic variations (you can guess what I was in charge of), religion, and Portuguese classes among many other things. The most difficult moment was deciding which vols would go with which supervisor. It was a relatively painless process being that I’ve heard past projects have nearly adverted disaster as sups fought over whom they wanted to work with. That Friday, we dropped them off at their towns and then spent the weekend recovering.

Sometime later…

I have survived my first week of route, that’s when I visit all my volunteers in their towns, bring them materials, check on their health, help them with ideas, and smooth over any misunderstandings that might have cropped up between the community and these silly Americans. What should take a couple hours of transportation, often takes upwards of 6 hours, because transportation is never guaranteed. Some days I have to wake up at 5:30 to catch the 6 am ‘Toyota’ out of town (the only manner of escape until midday). I get to the larger town and have to wait an hour or two for my inter-county transportation. Once I get to my next town, I then wait another couple of hours until, as I mentioned earliery, the president of the local labor union can take me from the main town to the small mountain town of 3 of my volunteers (vols). 45 minutes of bouncing up and down in a 4 x 4 and swerving around winding roads that hug the side of the mountain, leading to the town nestled in the valley leaves me breathless, both because I’ve been suppressing extreme motion sickness and because this is some of the most beautiful land I have ever seen. This town is next two the second largest peak in the state of Pernambuco and I’m hoping that I can plan a camping trip at some point.

Speaking of camping, I first learned to pee in the woods when camping. Now I get to pee in the woods on a regular basis since most of the houses where I have placed volunteers don’t have any sort of bathrooms. One of my vol groups have decided to submit a grant proposal to build dry latrines, a concept that is foreign to NE Brazil. While I think this is an excellent idea because it is an important component of sanitation and health education and it accompanies our primary project of cistern construction, I must say that I find a certain solemnity in peeing amongst the cacti. I was worried about having to pee at night and accidentally running into a cactus, but my worries were soon assuaged when I was presented with my first pee bucket. I guess bedpans is the proper term but pee bucket has such a nice ring to it. So, this week I can proudly say that I peed in my first bucket (to my knowledge). The subsequent throwing the contents out the window was also a first. Of course, the life of a supervisor is fast paced and I somehow forgot to clean it in the morning. I didn’t realize that minor detail until later on while I was stuck in the second stalled vehicle of the day. I had to inform my volunteer about the nice present I left behind. She graciously offered to wash it out. It’s so nice being, for once, in a position of authority.

I mentioned stalled cars. Wednesday was the day for them. All we were trying to do was get to a town that had a T.V. to watch the Brasil/Ghana WorldCup soccer match. (I was decked out in Brasil garb but secretly rooting for Ghana as it was the first time for an African Nation to reach the second round and Ghana’s first World Cup). I can’t decide which is worse for the project: Brasil winning and there being a national month of celebrations or Brasil losing and there being unified mourning followed by coma. Either way, the truth is that we’ve hardly gotten anything done this month between World Cup play and the June Sao Joao festivals. That will be a topic of discussion later. Back to the stalled Toyota…We got this passing truck to try to tow us, but towing a Toyota uphill on a dirt road with a rope that might have been an inch in diameter was futile. Besides, the vehicle wasn’t blessed. It was just a hypothesis that would be confirmed later on but riding in vehicles lacking the appropriate “hail our lord and savior” stickers is risky business. All cars have some sort of reference to Jesus or God or the Virgin Mary plastered all over the windshield and bumper. This guy had cutesy sayings about secular phenomena. Bad idea. And about 4 hours later, as I was missing the Spain France match because the huge cement truck that me and my 3 vols were squished in as we headed to one of the cistern construction sites became stuck in a giant anthill, one of my vols astutely pointed out the lack of Jesus stickers. To give credit to the driver, there was a rosary…but I don’t think that cuts it. Somehow, the Jesus fervor is lacking in a simple rosary.

When we got to the site, we met the “pedreiro,” which the dictionary says is a stonemason but who I just know as the cistern guy. He was covered in cement. Before he could explain exactly what was happening in the hole, one of my vols has jumped in and asked for a bucket of cement. I don’t think the pedreiro had ever seen a girl so gung-ho about filling a frame with cement. He just laughed, showed her the proper way, and let her at it. I got in the hole as well. Even with my arms straight up, I couldn’t reach the rim of the hole. It was interesting to see the construction process, a nice compliment to the course we all had received on cistern building, maintenance, and usage.

That night was reserved for Cuadrilha, the Brasilian answer to square dancing. However, each song lasts for about 45 minutes (you think I exaggerate?). 4 hours later my vols and I were invited to the school to meet the director, eat food (it was my 6^th meal of the day), and play with some of the town’s kids. I was enjoying myself until I noticed one of my vols looking extremely angry. The way the town is set up is there is a town center that has pavement and running water, surrounded by extreme rural areas with very little resources. It is in these rural areas that we build the cisterns. The rural area is notably poorer, so much poorer that one of my vols doesn’t even have electricity (although the present government is working on a project called “luz para tudos” which aims to hook every family up with electricity…this is the same platform that provides the funding for our cisterns). It’s actually quite amazing the difference in living situations between the North and South of Brasil, as well as between the rural and slightly less rural areas of the Northeast, where I am. Anyway, two of my vols live in the rural region and one lives in the slightly less rural area marked by pavement. When one of my vol invited her host family into the school, her mother refused. After pleading with her to come join them, she realized her mother’s hesitance. The mayor basically denied her family entrance and later locked the door. It’s amazing however people who have very little by our standards would deny those who are even less fortunate to be around them. To make matters worse, the mayor was related to this family. This isn’t the first time similar things have happened. My vol was furious. I unfortunately recognized the reality of the situation. However, in my position, I have my ways to protest. I told my vols to shift their focus on secondary projects that would more greatly benefit the rural area than to continue finding projects in the town center. While this will have little effect on this type of mentality, at least we can say that we didn’t support it.

However, for the most part, my experience here has been positive and the people I have met have been incredibly accommodating, giving us what little they can. I think the biggest thing they give me however is humor. I don’t think I have ever laughed so much, usually over cultural misunderstandings. I remember being on survey and talking with some people around my age. We were doing a language exchange which got on the topic of songs in English. They started asking me if I knew the song about the shipwreck, you know, Chichaneekee. I had no idea what they were talking about. All of a sudden the guy busts out with the theme song from Titanic. I still didn’t get the relation between Titanic and Chichaneekee until I remembered that “T” is often pronounced “ch”, “i” are pronounced “ee” and loan words that end in a consonant get an “ee” added to it. After a minute of the highest confusion, it all made sense. However, 5 minutes of having them say “titanic” proved useless. I’ve now adopted the Brasilian pronunciation.

Meanwhile, I had a scare when I asked what I was eating and they responded by simply saying “gato,” which is cat. I had asked in the first place because it was unlike anything I had ever tasted. The answer was not what I expected, especially since I had always heard that cat tasted like chicken. Luckily, when eating lunch with a different family, I dared to ask again what the strange meat was, all the while trying to figure out how I could subtly avoid eating it, and to my delight I learned that I had heard wrong. It’s “gado,” which is some type of cow meat.

*Nothing, though, tops the story of the week. My fellow supervisor, Sara, went to visit one of her towns who had a sick vol. I had warned all my vols never to get sick. They thought I was kidding until I told them about the medical treatment available here. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. You never know what they are injecting you with (apparently someone one year was almost given viagra to cure a stomach bug) or what remedy they will concoct for all sorts of illnesses. Sara’s vol had been suffering an earache. So the mother decided to take care of it. She ordered the guy to lie down, let in some random woman who approached the vol, unbuttoned her blouse, whipped out a breast and began to squeeze breast milk into his ear. (no- I don’t lie when I write travel emails). According to him, he was cured. I think it helps that the woman was hot, in his opinion. When telling my parents about this, my dad asked if this was an urban legend. Hmm, sounds like it but it happened 2 days ago in front of my partner. Urban legends usually take a little longer to form. But hey, at least he didn’t have to go to the doctor.

A lot of my time here consists of calling town meetings. Most of you know that I don’t like public speaking, and public speaking in Portuguese is about as hard as it comes, definitely when you have old ladies in the audience shooting everything down. What should take an hour of bouncing off ideas about secondary projects and explaining what AMIGOS is, usually takes upwards of 3 hours of everyone speaking at once, people rambling on about the ineptitude of their local government, and as I mentioned earlier, the old women of the group being sourpusses. At least my last meeting was capped with a dance, 3 hours of forro. For those of you who do not know what forro is, it’s like this strange mix of polka, merengue, and country western. No forro band would be complete without an accordion.

Caruaru is the forro capital of the world and the festival of Sao Joao that I mentioned earlier basically comprises of 30 days of nonstop forro. There had to be about 100,000 people at the outside dance hall last Saturday for the main night. This past Thursday we were forced to dance on stage with this group that performed for us and taught are volunteers at briefing last week. We were then interviewed by local radio stations. But I prefer the more low key shindigs like at one of my towns the other night. Everyone dances, from little kids to old old…old people. This old lady kept asking me to dance. She was at least 70 and tired way after I did. Altho, when I look back on that night, I wonder if she was hitting on me. She did give me 5 ears of corn to thank me for all that I had done for the community so far and kept finding me for every other song. Interesting.

When people are not dancing…or eating (I eat an average of 5 meals a day) they are watching the novelas- nighttime soap operas. And since most people only get 2 channels, the whole country watches in unison. The current most popular one is called Sinha Moca and takes place in colonial Brazil. But the superficial treatment of the epoch and the seeming detached acceptation of slavery and the surrounding economic structure while weaving obnoxious love stories throughout is more than I can normally bear. However, I must say it’s interesting to see how Brazil deals with its past when compared to the US. I wouldn’t expect that a national nighttime tv show about the times of slavery would really create any interest in the US as the relationship between race and history is much more taboo in the states than in Brasil. My main point, however, is that there really is nothing else to watch (yes, Brasil just lost to France in the world cup and my guaranteed sports watching has ended)…If you haven’t noticed, this email has taken me several weeks to write. (I haven’t been outside since the loss to see just how depressed Brasil is)

So, I will end this first installment on the subject of rain. While my project is here to help try to alleviate the effects of little rain, I am present for the wet season. So most of my experience here has been with me being soaking wet and covered in mud. I just have to keep reminding myself that this rain is a good thing because once rainy season is over, it might not rain one day for 6 months straight. I should also mention as I’m signing off, that this trip so far has been a tremendous experience and I hope I’ve been able to teach you something about life in the Northeast. Hopefully soon, I’ll be able to start doing some academic research as well, since I’m armed with my new digital recorder and have to prove to Berkeley that I have been working on PhD stuff the whole summer.

I hope everyone is doing great. Write me if you have a chance. I can’t guarantee that I’ll have time to write back but I would love to have news from everyone.

Sincerely,

Maia (the Brazilians have decided to change the spelling of my name)