To live and die in B.H.
The funeral
This week I attended my first Brazilian funeral. A family in one of the communities where I volunteer had already adopted their three nephews a few years ago because both of their parents were alcoholics. The kids' father died last year, and their mother died on Wednesday morning, both from complications due to alcholism. Amazingly, sending off the dead must be the only thing that this country does quickly because the funeral/burial was the afternoon of the same day that she died. It probably helps that most families live much closer to each other here than families do in the U.S. They do not generally embalm or cremate bodies here, so the burial needs to happen quickly out of necessity. I'm not how characteristic this funeral was (the woman was not your typical upstanding citizen), but I understand it's not unusual for family members not to attend a funeral, particularly if they would have to travel from far away. People were very casually dressed (basically in their normal clothes) and wandered in and out of the chapel in the cemetary, where the body was displayed in an open casket with netting over the top, seemingly to protect it from flies; a friend also mentioned that in older times, this was a necessary method of preventing the transmission of infectious diseases. The pastor mentioned a few words about the deceased, read a few passages from the Bible, said a prayer for the deceased and her survivors, and that was about it. People were standing around talking (and even joking) when I left; I'm not sure if the others stayed to watch the casket be buried or not. The part that broke my heart was watching the middle son, who was old enough to remember a relationship with his mother, but also old enough to know how unhealthy that relationship had been, as he broke down sobbing upon seeing her body.
Hard lives
The more personal stories I learn of the families in the communities where I volunteer, the more I am in awe of the will to survive but also overwhelmed by the seemingly insurmountable obstacles they can face. I haven't done any formal research, but it seems that every family (and many are headed by women) has a history of some combination of inadequate education, unemployment, physical or sexual abuse, alcoholism and abandonment or being kicked out of the house. It is clear that the women, especially, have major self-esteem issues. I've begun to think about and discuss possible models to try to build up the young women's self-esteem; we need to have more detailed discussions, I need to research successful models, and then I'd like to talk to the young women to see what they think and what they would like to do--if I get confirmation that this is a direction God wants me to pursue (and if I get the visa to come back).
Surreal Christmas
It is a very strange thing for me to be in a tropical climate and see everywhere I go the Christmas icons imported from the U.S. I understand that countries like to imitate each other (I would say the U.S. imitates Europe, for example), but it seems so strange to see a White Santa Claus dressed in a snow suit in a country where very few people are that color and it is very rare to see snow. I had a similar reaction when I visited South Africa and realized that the native Africans I encountered there did not have, as I assumed they would, pride in their physical appearance and culture. It makes you want to shake people and yell "Don't you see how beautiful you are and how priceless your culture is?? Love yourself, doggoneit!" But I digress...
Artificial pine Christmas trees seem to be the standard. As somebody who balks against the over-commercialization of Christmas and delays decorating for as long as possible, you cannot imagine my shock to come home one evening in mid-November to see that it was suddenly Christmas in our apartment.
Mommy muscles
I'm not sure if it's due more to lack of money to purchase them, lack of availability, the poor condition of the sidewalks, the common lack of elevators in smaller buildings or the inconvenience of trying to bring a stroller on the bus, but baby strollers are quite rare here. Generally, the parents (usually the mothers) are carrying the babies wherever they go. I also have not seen many wheelchairs--maybe one or two.
Waiting for Godot and everything/body else
In this country, waiting seems to be an art form that everyone practices. Anytime you pass a government office, bank, or the like, you'll see a line winding around. In many offices, they have those computerized systems that give you a number and then post on the screen which number is being helped next at which window. One day I went with the teachers from both of the projects on a retreat. We gathered early in the morning (translation for those that don't know me--8:00) to meet the big rented bus. Finally when the last of the stragglers showed up, we set out on our journey and got almost to the highway, at which point the bus driver pulled over to the side of the road. For the first 20-30 minutes, nobody interrupted their conversations to ask what was going on. I was in total amazement because Americans would have been screaming after 5 minutes. Finally, they asked the driver why we had stopped. It turned out that he had forgotten his official documents for driving the bus, and if he was found without them on the highway (each bus would be stopped, in theory), he would face severe punishment. Now in my mind, if you're a bus driver here, you need to remember just a few things--the bus, the gas and the documents. Anyway, we probably waited another 15 minutes for the driver's wife to show up with his documents.
It is not uncommon at the airport for a national flight to be delayed several times and finally canceled until the next day (or later). [You actually don't see that many airplanes and hardly any heliocopters at all in the sky here, by the way.]
What to wear
By the time I'd finished paring down my wardrobe to about one-fifth of its original size when I was preparing to come here, I felt like I had almost no clothes. Then I came here and I feel like I still have five to ten times as many clothes as the people in the two communities. Here they iron everything--probably because they have no clothes dryers (everybody hangs their laundry on the line to dry). Particularly when I lived in Texas, it was a point of pride not to wear the same outfit more than once every 2-3 weeks, and here, I feel like I've already seen people's entire wardrobes. High heels are very popular here, which makes no sense to me considering the condition of the sidewalks (and lack thereof), and rubber flip-flops are the footwear of necessity for many folks. And have I mentioned that this topography is a lot like San Francisco? I feel like Rocky Balboa every time I arrive at my apartment building in the evening after climbing up the steep hills.
And now for a few more thousand words
A neighborhood I pass on the highway on my way to Liberdade
A bus stop on the side of the highway
[Many are much closer to traffic.]
Suburban skyscrapers I pass on my way to Liberdade
Precipitous neighborhood close to downtown
[You can see how different the quality of construction is within neighborhoods. The brick buildings on the left are built on the side of a steep slope; you often hear about buildings like those being washed away during landslides caused by heavy rains.]
Prison? No--track/exercise area.
[This is a small, triangular area in the middle of heavy traffic where people go to walk and run.]
Apartment buildings in my neighborhood
[If you look closely, you can see the litter in the street. Graffiti is pretty common here in almost every neighborhood. The signatures ("tags") are often symbols rather than letters, so they often resemble hieroglyphics.]
This week I attended my first Brazilian funeral. A family in one of the communities where I volunteer had already adopted their three nephews a few years ago because both of their parents were alcoholics. The kids' father died last year, and their mother died on Wednesday morning, both from complications due to alcholism. Amazingly, sending off the dead must be the only thing that this country does quickly because the funeral/burial was the afternoon of the same day that she died. It probably helps that most families live much closer to each other here than families do in the U.S. They do not generally embalm or cremate bodies here, so the burial needs to happen quickly out of necessity. I'm not how characteristic this funeral was (the woman was not your typical upstanding citizen), but I understand it's not unusual for family members not to attend a funeral, particularly if they would have to travel from far away. People were very casually dressed (basically in their normal clothes) and wandered in and out of the chapel in the cemetary, where the body was displayed in an open casket with netting over the top, seemingly to protect it from flies; a friend also mentioned that in older times, this was a necessary method of preventing the transmission of infectious diseases. The pastor mentioned a few words about the deceased, read a few passages from the Bible, said a prayer for the deceased and her survivors, and that was about it. People were standing around talking (and even joking) when I left; I'm not sure if the others stayed to watch the casket be buried or not. The part that broke my heart was watching the middle son, who was old enough to remember a relationship with his mother, but also old enough to know how unhealthy that relationship had been, as he broke down sobbing upon seeing her body.
Hard lives
The more personal stories I learn of the families in the communities where I volunteer, the more I am in awe of the will to survive but also overwhelmed by the seemingly insurmountable obstacles they can face. I haven't done any formal research, but it seems that every family (and many are headed by women) has a history of some combination of inadequate education, unemployment, physical or sexual abuse, alcoholism and abandonment or being kicked out of the house. It is clear that the women, especially, have major self-esteem issues. I've begun to think about and discuss possible models to try to build up the young women's self-esteem; we need to have more detailed discussions, I need to research successful models, and then I'd like to talk to the young women to see what they think and what they would like to do--if I get confirmation that this is a direction God wants me to pursue (and if I get the visa to come back).
Surreal Christmas
It is a very strange thing for me to be in a tropical climate and see everywhere I go the Christmas icons imported from the U.S. I understand that countries like to imitate each other (I would say the U.S. imitates Europe, for example), but it seems so strange to see a White Santa Claus dressed in a snow suit in a country where very few people are that color and it is very rare to see snow. I had a similar reaction when I visited South Africa and realized that the native Africans I encountered there did not have, as I assumed they would, pride in their physical appearance and culture. It makes you want to shake people and yell "Don't you see how beautiful you are and how priceless your culture is?? Love yourself, doggoneit!" But I digress...
Artificial pine Christmas trees seem to be the standard. As somebody who balks against the over-commercialization of Christmas and delays decorating for as long as possible, you cannot imagine my shock to come home one evening in mid-November to see that it was suddenly Christmas in our apartment.
Mommy muscles
I'm not sure if it's due more to lack of money to purchase them, lack of availability, the poor condition of the sidewalks, the common lack of elevators in smaller buildings or the inconvenience of trying to bring a stroller on the bus, but baby strollers are quite rare here. Generally, the parents (usually the mothers) are carrying the babies wherever they go. I also have not seen many wheelchairs--maybe one or two.
Waiting for Godot and everything/body else
In this country, waiting seems to be an art form that everyone practices. Anytime you pass a government office, bank, or the like, you'll see a line winding around. In many offices, they have those computerized systems that give you a number and then post on the screen which number is being helped next at which window. One day I went with the teachers from both of the projects on a retreat. We gathered early in the morning (translation for those that don't know me--8:00) to meet the big rented bus. Finally when the last of the stragglers showed up, we set out on our journey and got almost to the highway, at which point the bus driver pulled over to the side of the road. For the first 20-30 minutes, nobody interrupted their conversations to ask what was going on. I was in total amazement because Americans would have been screaming after 5 minutes. Finally, they asked the driver why we had stopped. It turned out that he had forgotten his official documents for driving the bus, and if he was found without them on the highway (each bus would be stopped, in theory), he would face severe punishment. Now in my mind, if you're a bus driver here, you need to remember just a few things--the bus, the gas and the documents. Anyway, we probably waited another 15 minutes for the driver's wife to show up with his documents.
It is not uncommon at the airport for a national flight to be delayed several times and finally canceled until the next day (or later). [You actually don't see that many airplanes and hardly any heliocopters at all in the sky here, by the way.]
What to wear
By the time I'd finished paring down my wardrobe to about one-fifth of its original size when I was preparing to come here, I felt like I had almost no clothes. Then I came here and I feel like I still have five to ten times as many clothes as the people in the two communities. Here they iron everything--probably because they have no clothes dryers (everybody hangs their laundry on the line to dry). Particularly when I lived in Texas, it was a point of pride not to wear the same outfit more than once every 2-3 weeks, and here, I feel like I've already seen people's entire wardrobes. High heels are very popular here, which makes no sense to me considering the condition of the sidewalks (and lack thereof), and rubber flip-flops are the footwear of necessity for many folks. And have I mentioned that this topography is a lot like San Francisco? I feel like Rocky Balboa every time I arrive at my apartment building in the evening after climbing up the steep hills.
And now for a few more thousand words
A neighborhood I pass on the highway on my way to Liberdade
A bus stop on the side of the highway
[Many are much closer to traffic.]
Suburban skyscrapers I pass on my way to Liberdade
Precipitous neighborhood close to downtown
[You can see how different the quality of construction is within neighborhoods. The brick buildings on the left are built on the side of a steep slope; you often hear about buildings like those being washed away during landslides caused by heavy rains.]
Prison? No--track/exercise area.
[This is a small, triangular area in the middle of heavy traffic where people go to walk and run.]
Apartment buildings in my neighborhood
[If you look closely, you can see the litter in the street. Graffiti is pretty common here in almost every neighborhood. The signatures ("tags") are often symbols rather than letters, so they often resemble hieroglyphics.]
posted by Christine Piggee at
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