The first leg of the journey
Although things did not go as expected, I am very happy to be in Brazil. I was able to obtain a different visa for 60 days, and I left the U.S. on Thursday, October 13th to arrive in São Paulo on Friday morning. Rather fittingly, my travel day was also filled with waiting, as I had a sizeable amount of time to kill in both the Chicago and Houston airports. My friends in Brazil were kind enough to drive the 2.5 hours each way from their city to pick me up at the São Paulo airport. I spent a very relaxing weekend with them, getting to see their new house and their one-year-old daughter for the first time.
At first, I was overwhelmed with how little Portuguese I was understanding, but my friends have been very encouraging--particularly enjoying the opportunity to correct my grammar after years of my "helping" them with English.
The sense of time is very different here. For example, in my friends' house, I've only seen one clock, and that was on the microwave. Compare that to the average household in the U.S., where you might find a clock in every room. The majority of our time has revolved around socializing with family and friends, usually over meals. Hospitality is very open and generous. My friends were already hosting one visitor before I arrived, and then on Sunday another mutual friend came to visit during the afternoon with her small child, yet the meals and conversation still seemed like no major effort.
The people may be friendly and laid-back, but the traffic is crazy. Driving is one thing I do not plan to do here. Not only do cars, buses and trucks not exactly follow the traffic regulations, but you also have motorcycles, scooters and seemingly suicidal pedestrians to deal with.
The houses here are much more open to the outdoors, with doors and windows usually open during good weather. Because of the socioeconomic disparity, most middle- and upper-class houses are enclosed by walls, gates, fences and alarm systems. This imbalance also creates a very cheap labor pool providing most middle- and upper-class households with services such as cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, gardening and taking care of children.
There is no passenger train service here to speak of, so that leaves the regular people taking the bus to travel around the country. Can you imagine routinely taking 10-20 hour bus rides? Although Brazil has seen a few bargain airlines established in the past five years or so, air travel is still out of reach of the majority of Brazilians. I plan to take a bus tonight to get to my final destination, Belo Horizonte.
At first, I was overwhelmed with how little Portuguese I was understanding, but my friends have been very encouraging--particularly enjoying the opportunity to correct my grammar after years of my "helping" them with English.
The sense of time is very different here. For example, in my friends' house, I've only seen one clock, and that was on the microwave. Compare that to the average household in the U.S., where you might find a clock in every room. The majority of our time has revolved around socializing with family and friends, usually over meals. Hospitality is very open and generous. My friends were already hosting one visitor before I arrived, and then on Sunday another mutual friend came to visit during the afternoon with her small child, yet the meals and conversation still seemed like no major effort.
The people may be friendly and laid-back, but the traffic is crazy. Driving is one thing I do not plan to do here. Not only do cars, buses and trucks not exactly follow the traffic regulations, but you also have motorcycles, scooters and seemingly suicidal pedestrians to deal with.
The houses here are much more open to the outdoors, with doors and windows usually open during good weather. Because of the socioeconomic disparity, most middle- and upper-class houses are enclosed by walls, gates, fences and alarm systems. This imbalance also creates a very cheap labor pool providing most middle- and upper-class households with services such as cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, gardening and taking care of children.
There is no passenger train service here to speak of, so that leaves the regular people taking the bus to travel around the country. Can you imagine routinely taking 10-20 hour bus rides? Although Brazil has seen a few bargain airlines established in the past five years or so, air travel is still out of reach of the majority of Brazilians. I plan to take a bus tonight to get to my final destination, Belo Horizonte.
posted by Christine Piggee at
1:01 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home