It's strange to be writing my blog entries by hand in advance, but the internet/gaming cafes do not provide the solitude necessary for condensing into digestible form the experiences and thoughts of the week.
Guilt
I forgot to mention a few weeks ago that I finished reading Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins. (Thanks, Pastor Rodney, for sending it my way!) I found it to be quite compelling and have been thinking about how other countries pay for the economic excess of the U.S. For the last decade or more, I'd had a vague notion of horrible, self-serving things that the U.S. had done in other countries, but I'd always been too lazy to research it to learn of specific examples. I knew from my first experience with the African students at Texas A&M that they were very wary of foreign aid programs, and on my last job working with scientists from "third world countries," I was sensitized to the need to let people decide how they want to fix their own problems and to the negative image of the World Bank. Nevertheless, it's interesting to catch myself getting indignant at the things which are seemingly unavailable here in Brazil's third largest city. I know that you don't find the variety of imported goods in Belo Horizonte that you'd find in São Paulo (Brazil's New York) or Rio de Janeiro, both of which are home to many more foreigners. I'd gotten spoiled by being able to easily find European cheese,etc. even in a small North Carolina city. But I guess the real question is, at what cost to the rest of the world do these conveniences come? Enough of the soapbox for now...
Projects
Here's a little bit about what's happening at the projects. At both São Gabriel and Liberdade, there are new children in wheelchairs. The girl at Liberdade is in the pre-school there, not the Shade and Fresh Water program. What's interesting to me is that neither of those places could be remotely considered "handicapped-accessible." But the resilient Brazilians always find a way, and in this case, other kids in the program (at São Gabriel) or the teachers (at Liberdade) help the wheelchair-bound children get where they need to go--including upstairs.
You find the same situation here as in the U.S., where a child's family might enter into his or her schoolyard conflict. One difference is that in the U.S. , I'd heard of an older brother or sister threatening to (or executing the threat to) beat up another child in their younger sibling's defense. Here, extended families are so large it can be cousins, uncles, aunts, etc. The administrator at Liberdade spent most of Friday morning sorting through a school conflict with threatened participation from the kids' aunts that carried over into the project.
The kids are "on vacation" and not at the projects this week for Carnaval, by the way. (More about Carnaval later...) We'll have meetings on Thursday and Friday to plan out the rest of the semester at the two projects.
When I was walking in São Gabriel the other afternoon, I was horrified to see a man wearing a helmet driving his motorcycle with one hand and,with the other, securing a 9-month-old baby girl, who, of course, had no helmet. I thought that she looked a lot like baby Melisa, whose parents both used to work at São Gabriel, and then a moment later, I saw Melisa's mother pushing an empty stroller. I stopped to talk to her and asked her if that was Melisa on the motorcycle. She said that yes, it was, because she didn't want her to get wet. (It was raining ever so slightly and people here worry a lot about getting caught in the rain and catching the flu.) I begged her not to do that again and explained that riding on the motorcycle was extremely dangerous for the baby. When I shared the story with two of my colleagues later that day, one expressed the same horror I'd felt, and the other one was more matter-of-fact and said she'd used to ride on a motorcycle with her husband, baby and two other small children, and people used to yell at her "Take the bus!".
On the street
Streeet scenes are quite different here than other places I've been. For one thing, in the working class neighborhoods,it's very common (especially in the evening) to sit outside on the curb and hang out with your family/neighbors. And if sitting on the curb isn't for you, you can usually walk less than two blocks in any direction to find a small neighborhood bar. I remember hearing a statistic about the number of bars in Belo Horizonte--I don't remember if it was the greatest overall number or number of bars per population. In any event, I have no idea how they can financially survive in such close proximity to one another. Within a four-block radius of my apartment, there've got to be at least a half-dozen little bars (but don't worry, Mom, I'm really not living in a rough neighborhood).
Another thing I've only seen here is people getting tattoos on the sidewalk downtown. I'm not sure who, in these days of HIV, would want to trust the sterility of the equipment of a tattoo artist who works on the sidewalk, but I've seen that they do have customers.
Carnaval
This past weekend through today is Carnaval, Brazil's internationally known party. Belo Horizonte is not known for its Carnaval celebrations, so people that can afford to travel to other cities that have more lively festivities or just get out of town.
I had the urge to try to see whatever movie in English on Saturday night, but I didn't have any information on what movies were playing where or when. I ended up just taking the bus to the trendy neighborhood where most of the foreigners and the many of the well-to-do live. I couldn't believe what a ghost town the place was, in marked contrast to my neighborhood,where it's pretty much business-as-usual. The only major thing I noticed in my neighborhood was that my normal internet/gaming cafe is closed, so I had to try a different one, where, unfortunately, they also have several Play Stations set up without earphones. I tried posting the update on Monday night, but only had 30 minutes before they closed and didn't finish. Thankfully, internet access at these places is very cheap (about US$1/hour).
As someone who has a phobia of seeing people vomit plus someone who didn't enjoy going to the pre-Carnaval festivities by myself, I'm in no hurry to try to witness Belo Horizonte's version of Carnaval and am actually just treating it like a long weekend. I'm feeling more introspective and okay with being alone this weekend. The party stops on Wednesday, businesses downtown open up on Thursday, and then the Brazilian year starts in earnest. A lot of people joke that things only get accomplished in Brazil between Carnaval and Christmas.
Mystery solved
I never knew the source of the mysterious electronic "Ave Maria" (think ice cream truck music) that always floats through the neighborhood exactly at 6:00 PM everyday until the bus took a detour this weekend at 6:00 and, lo and behold, there's a Catholic church in the neighborhood that must play that to call people to mass. I was surprised to also find a commercial radio station interrupting a song at 6:00 PM to play a different version of the "Ave Maria." So it's clearly a Catholic thing, but I'll have to do more research and get back to you.
Ironies of the week
I went to the "Hippie Fair" on Sunday morning and was amused to see Brazilian style reaching to the extent of modifying ugly Birkenstock-type sandals to have a glitzy buckle with fake gemstones (appearing more feminine?). After the fair, by the way, I bought a beef kabob (aware that you can get food poisoning from poorly cooked chicken but not beef...) and went to eat lunch at Liberty Plaza, one of the nicer parks in the city.
I've wondered what is the purpose of people locking rooms or closets to protect what's inside but then leaving the key in the lock on the outside.
And finally, saving the best for last, I passed the very ironically named "Church of the Open Doors," which appeared to have every window and door bricked shut.
Guilt
I forgot to mention a few weeks ago that I finished reading Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins. (Thanks, Pastor Rodney, for sending it my way!) I found it to be quite compelling and have been thinking about how other countries pay for the economic excess of the U.S. For the last decade or more, I'd had a vague notion of horrible, self-serving things that the U.S. had done in other countries, but I'd always been too lazy to research it to learn of specific examples. I knew from my first experience with the African students at Texas A&M that they were very wary of foreign aid programs, and on my last job working with scientists from "third world countries," I was sensitized to the need to let people decide how they want to fix their own problems and to the negative image of the World Bank. Nevertheless, it's interesting to catch myself getting indignant at the things which are seemingly unavailable here in Brazil's third largest city. I know that you don't find the variety of imported goods in Belo Horizonte that you'd find in São Paulo (Brazil's New York) or Rio de Janeiro, both of which are home to many more foreigners. I'd gotten spoiled by being able to easily find European cheese,etc. even in a small North Carolina city. But I guess the real question is, at what cost to the rest of the world do these conveniences come? Enough of the soapbox for now...
Projects
Here's a little bit about what's happening at the projects. At both São Gabriel and Liberdade, there are new children in wheelchairs. The girl at Liberdade is in the pre-school there, not the Shade and Fresh Water program. What's interesting to me is that neither of those places could be remotely considered "handicapped-accessible." But the resilient Brazilians always find a way, and in this case, other kids in the program (at São Gabriel) or the teachers (at Liberdade) help the wheelchair-bound children get where they need to go--including upstairs.
You find the same situation here as in the U.S., where a child's family might enter into his or her schoolyard conflict. One difference is that in the U.S. , I'd heard of an older brother or sister threatening to (or executing the threat to) beat up another child in their younger sibling's defense. Here, extended families are so large it can be cousins, uncles, aunts, etc. The administrator at Liberdade spent most of Friday morning sorting through a school conflict with threatened participation from the kids' aunts that carried over into the project.
The kids are "on vacation" and not at the projects this week for Carnaval, by the way. (More about Carnaval later...) We'll have meetings on Thursday and Friday to plan out the rest of the semester at the two projects.
When I was walking in São Gabriel the other afternoon, I was horrified to see a man wearing a helmet driving his motorcycle with one hand and,with the other, securing a 9-month-old baby girl, who, of course, had no helmet. I thought that she looked a lot like baby Melisa, whose parents both used to work at São Gabriel, and then a moment later, I saw Melisa's mother pushing an empty stroller. I stopped to talk to her and asked her if that was Melisa on the motorcycle. She said that yes, it was, because she didn't want her to get wet. (It was raining ever so slightly and people here worry a lot about getting caught in the rain and catching the flu.) I begged her not to do that again and explained that riding on the motorcycle was extremely dangerous for the baby. When I shared the story with two of my colleagues later that day, one expressed the same horror I'd felt, and the other one was more matter-of-fact and said she'd used to ride on a motorcycle with her husband, baby and two other small children, and people used to yell at her "Take the bus!".
On the street
Streeet scenes are quite different here than other places I've been. For one thing, in the working class neighborhoods,it's very common (especially in the evening) to sit outside on the curb and hang out with your family/neighbors. And if sitting on the curb isn't for you, you can usually walk less than two blocks in any direction to find a small neighborhood bar. I remember hearing a statistic about the number of bars in Belo Horizonte--I don't remember if it was the greatest overall number or number of bars per population. In any event, I have no idea how they can financially survive in such close proximity to one another. Within a four-block radius of my apartment, there've got to be at least a half-dozen little bars (but don't worry, Mom, I'm really not living in a rough neighborhood).
Another thing I've only seen here is people getting tattoos on the sidewalk downtown. I'm not sure who, in these days of HIV, would want to trust the sterility of the equipment of a tattoo artist who works on the sidewalk, but I've seen that they do have customers.
Carnaval
This past weekend through today is Carnaval, Brazil's internationally known party. Belo Horizonte is not known for its Carnaval celebrations, so people that can afford to travel to other cities that have more lively festivities or just get out of town.
I had the urge to try to see whatever movie in English on Saturday night, but I didn't have any information on what movies were playing where or when. I ended up just taking the bus to the trendy neighborhood where most of the foreigners and the many of the well-to-do live. I couldn't believe what a ghost town the place was, in marked contrast to my neighborhood,where it's pretty much business-as-usual. The only major thing I noticed in my neighborhood was that my normal internet/gaming cafe is closed, so I had to try a different one, where, unfortunately, they also have several Play Stations set up without earphones. I tried posting the update on Monday night, but only had 30 minutes before they closed and didn't finish. Thankfully, internet access at these places is very cheap (about US$1/hour).
As someone who has a phobia of seeing people vomit plus someone who didn't enjoy going to the pre-Carnaval festivities by myself, I'm in no hurry to try to witness Belo Horizonte's version of Carnaval and am actually just treating it like a long weekend. I'm feeling more introspective and okay with being alone this weekend. The party stops on Wednesday, businesses downtown open up on Thursday, and then the Brazilian year starts in earnest. A lot of people joke that things only get accomplished in Brazil between Carnaval and Christmas.
Mystery solved
I never knew the source of the mysterious electronic "Ave Maria" (think ice cream truck music) that always floats through the neighborhood exactly at 6:00 PM everyday until the bus took a detour this weekend at 6:00 and, lo and behold, there's a Catholic church in the neighborhood that must play that to call people to mass. I was surprised to also find a commercial radio station interrupting a song at 6:00 PM to play a different version of the "Ave Maria." So it's clearly a Catholic thing, but I'll have to do more research and get back to you.
Ironies of the week
I went to the "Hippie Fair" on Sunday morning and was amused to see Brazilian style reaching to the extent of modifying ugly Birkenstock-type sandals to have a glitzy buckle with fake gemstones (appearing more feminine?). After the fair, by the way, I bought a beef kabob (aware that you can get food poisoning from poorly cooked chicken but not beef...) and went to eat lunch at Liberty Plaza, one of the nicer parks in the city.
I've wondered what is the purpose of people locking rooms or closets to protect what's inside but then leaving the key in the lock on the outside.
And finally, saving the best for last, I passed the very ironically named "Church of the Open Doors," which appeared to have every window and door bricked shut.
posted by Christine Piggee at
4:48 PM
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