Monday, Monday
Frame of reference
When I was walking home from the bus stop tonight, I was thinking about how I no longer have anywhere near the same level of background information on my environment. For example, I really like plants and gardening, and in the U.S. had learned the names of many plants and trees, but here, I can only identify a few, and usually by their English names, not their Portuguese ones. I also could name most of the cars that I saw in the U.S., but not here. First of all, the cars here all look alike because they are so tiny and use so few different colors of car paint. Something that would be a small car in the U.S. (e.g. Toyota Corolla) is quite large here and stands out. The biggest lack of background information, though, is the language. When you think about it, you spend a good 16-20 years building up your vocabulary in your native language, so I guess it's not unusual that my vocabulary is currently sufficient to hold a conversation with most people but not to read the newspaper without a dictionary by my side. It's just a little frustrating at times.
Economic stereotypes and inequalities
Not only do you have an uneven playing field because of my lack of language or cultural background, but then there are daunting economic stereotypes to overcome. Generally speaking, any American that can come to Brazil has at least a moderate level of economic comfort. Many Americans have been generous with the projects and the people when they have been visiting, but then people begin to expect that with an American passport must come an unlimited bank account. I'm constantly having to remind people that I actually do not have a salary and therefore do not have the level of resources they expect I might. But this is only partly true, because this is a country where hardly anybody has any savings, and I actually have a small retirement savings account in the U.S. from when I was working.
Going to church
Attending church services in another language is a challenge. It's a good thing I was pretty familiar with the Bible before I came here, otherwise I'd be totally lost, because the names of the books and the characters in the Bible are different in Portuguese. Sometimes they are relatively easy to guess, and other times not. For example, Zephaniah is Sofonias in Portuguese and Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, is Isabel in Portuguese. Thanks to my Sunday school teacher Ginni Davis-Cook, I can usually remember the order of the books of the Bible by using the song she taught us. Another specific struggle is to remember how to say the Lord's Prayer in English when I am the only one reciting in English and being drowned out by Portuguese. I guess I'll try to learn it in Portuguese, too.
Food
One thing that I find very funny is that people eat cough drops here like candy. They even have some of the same brands that we have in the U.S. Thankfully, most of the food and sweets are not too super-tempting--otherwise I'd be in big trouble. It seems like the food (at least here in Belo Horizonte) uses a smaller number of basic ingredients, flavors and seasonings. It could also have something to do with the fact that I'm experiencing life in a lower class where people don't have the budgets to cook fancy stuff. But also, I'm not experiencing that much food that's been imported from other cultures because I'm not going out to restaurants, etc.
The more things change, the more they stay the same
I was so proud of how much I've changed due to my experience here with respect to some of my major personality, uh, "challenges," but then I was talking to my roommate last night trying to analyze why a particular type of situation was always bugging me, and she very tactfully mentioned several of the possibilities (which I thought I'd already greatly improved). "Well, it could be your control thing, or your perfectionism..." I told her she could only extrapolate to how controlling or perfectionist I had previously been in the U.S. before my mellowing experience in Brazil. :) I never would have taken a trip in the U.S. without knowing exactly when I was arriving and leaving and exactly what I would be doing while I was there, but that's what I did on my recent trip to Nova Almeida.
The reward
And for making it through the rambling, what, you may ask, is your reward? A few more pictures of the kids. This Saturday, three new English-speaking volunteers that live here in Belo Horizonte for various reasons organized a day of making Christmas cards at both São Gabriel and Liberdade to sell to raise money for the project (to buy the kids Shade and Fresh Water t-shirts). Saturday was very cold and rainy, but we ended up having a pretty good turnout at both of the projects.
The morning workshop at São Gabriel
The afternoon workshop at Liberdade
Until the next time...
When I was walking home from the bus stop tonight, I was thinking about how I no longer have anywhere near the same level of background information on my environment. For example, I really like plants and gardening, and in the U.S. had learned the names of many plants and trees, but here, I can only identify a few, and usually by their English names, not their Portuguese ones. I also could name most of the cars that I saw in the U.S., but not here. First of all, the cars here all look alike because they are so tiny and use so few different colors of car paint. Something that would be a small car in the U.S. (e.g. Toyota Corolla) is quite large here and stands out. The biggest lack of background information, though, is the language. When you think about it, you spend a good 16-20 years building up your vocabulary in your native language, so I guess it's not unusual that my vocabulary is currently sufficient to hold a conversation with most people but not to read the newspaper without a dictionary by my side. It's just a little frustrating at times.
Economic stereotypes and inequalities
Not only do you have an uneven playing field because of my lack of language or cultural background, but then there are daunting economic stereotypes to overcome. Generally speaking, any American that can come to Brazil has at least a moderate level of economic comfort. Many Americans have been generous with the projects and the people when they have been visiting, but then people begin to expect that with an American passport must come an unlimited bank account. I'm constantly having to remind people that I actually do not have a salary and therefore do not have the level of resources they expect I might. But this is only partly true, because this is a country where hardly anybody has any savings, and I actually have a small retirement savings account in the U.S. from when I was working.
Going to church
Attending church services in another language is a challenge. It's a good thing I was pretty familiar with the Bible before I came here, otherwise I'd be totally lost, because the names of the books and the characters in the Bible are different in Portuguese. Sometimes they are relatively easy to guess, and other times not. For example, Zephaniah is Sofonias in Portuguese and Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, is Isabel in Portuguese. Thanks to my Sunday school teacher Ginni Davis-Cook, I can usually remember the order of the books of the Bible by using the song she taught us. Another specific struggle is to remember how to say the Lord's Prayer in English when I am the only one reciting in English and being drowned out by Portuguese. I guess I'll try to learn it in Portuguese, too.
Food
One thing that I find very funny is that people eat cough drops here like candy. They even have some of the same brands that we have in the U.S. Thankfully, most of the food and sweets are not too super-tempting--otherwise I'd be in big trouble. It seems like the food (at least here in Belo Horizonte) uses a smaller number of basic ingredients, flavors and seasonings. It could also have something to do with the fact that I'm experiencing life in a lower class where people don't have the budgets to cook fancy stuff. But also, I'm not experiencing that much food that's been imported from other cultures because I'm not going out to restaurants, etc.
The more things change, the more they stay the same
I was so proud of how much I've changed due to my experience here with respect to some of my major personality, uh, "challenges," but then I was talking to my roommate last night trying to analyze why a particular type of situation was always bugging me, and she very tactfully mentioned several of the possibilities (which I thought I'd already greatly improved). "Well, it could be your control thing, or your perfectionism..." I told her she could only extrapolate to how controlling or perfectionist I had previously been in the U.S. before my mellowing experience in Brazil. :) I never would have taken a trip in the U.S. without knowing exactly when I was arriving and leaving and exactly what I would be doing while I was there, but that's what I did on my recent trip to Nova Almeida.
The reward
And for making it through the rambling, what, you may ask, is your reward? A few more pictures of the kids. This Saturday, three new English-speaking volunteers that live here in Belo Horizonte for various reasons organized a day of making Christmas cards at both São Gabriel and Liberdade to sell to raise money for the project (to buy the kids Shade and Fresh Water t-shirts). Saturday was very cold and rainy, but we ended up having a pretty good turnout at both of the projects.
The morning workshop at São Gabriel
The afternoon workshop at Liberdade
Until the next time...
posted by Christine Piggee at
4:28 PM
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