Volunteer in Mission to Brazil

Goodbye for now

2007-09-08T10:01:00.001-04:00

It seems quite surreal to be back in the U.S., especially in the city where I lived two jobs ago. I wanted to record a couple of things and some of the last pictures in one last post.

Running around trying to wrap up the last things with my apartment and cell phone was interesting. My friends who were selling my appliances and mattress came on Thursday afternoon with a hired truck & truck driver to move almost everything out of my apartment because the real estate agency had scheduled to do a pre-inspection at 9:00 on Friday morning. It was a pretty complicated procedure because I had a load of stuff going to the community center at São Gabriel (some stuff to return to my supervisors and other stuff to ask groups to bring back for me), the refrigerator went to church, the stove went to the pastor's house, and then the rest of the stuff went to my Sunday family's house. Whereas in the U.S., this procedure would generally be done in as short a time period as possible, the Brazilians were in no hurry, and it took more than 4 hours. When we stopped at the church, for example, the women's craft project was meeting. They'd planned to surprise their teacher for her birthday, so the truck driver played "Happy Birthday" and one other song on the guitar while everybody sang, followed by cake and other refreshments. After all of the stuff was moved, I returned to my apartment to finish packing and took a cab with all of my suitcases to my ex-roommate's apartment, where I spent my last few nights in Belo Horizonte. I had requested a large cab, explaining that I had several large suitcases, but what showed up was a regular sized one (i.e. economy car). One huge suitcase took up the entire trunk, and after double-checking that I would be the only passenger, the driver was very creative about putting the luggage in every available space. I had about 18 inches of the back seat in which to sit with a backpack on my lap, with luggage piled up next to me and in the front passenger seat.

Friday morning, I experienced a first--the inspection guy was early. I was walking over to the apartment so I would get there at 9:00, and at about 10 minutes to 9, he called my cell phone to check if I was in the apartment or not because I wasn't answering the intercom. The inspection went pretty well until he said something about a crack in the window in the "service area." I brought out the addendum that I submitted to the first inspection, but the crack was not mentioned. I was pretty sure that it was already there, but just in case, when I got to the community center, I started calling glass places to see if somebody could come out on Friday or Saturday to fix it. (First, though, I had to ask what glass places were called in Portuguese so I could find it in the phone book.) Only one of the places I called said they might be able to come out and give me an estimate, but that they would call me on my cell phone. Thankfully, I had taken digital photographs of every single defect in the apartment before I moved in, so I called the real estate agency and asked them if the photo could serve as proof that it was already there even though I forgot to include it in my addendum. I breathed a sigh of relief when they agreed to accept the photograph as proof and didn't require that I would fix the window (especially since it seemed so impossible to make an appointment with somebody to fix it). I had to pay the fine for breaking the lease (it ended up being a little less than 4 months of rent). I was pretty nervous about carrying around that much cash and glad to be able to get rid of it.

Last Saturday, September 1st, I had the last goodbye party for people who lived in Belo Horizonte. I had planned it for 3-6 PM, but people only started showing up after 4 and continued to show up until 6:30. It was a nice assortment of people from the Sao Gabriel project, my church and others I'd met in the Methodist community here. I received some really nice gifts. It is amazing how generous people with limited resources can be. We had friend snacks ("salgados") and soda and sat around talking and listening to music. When it was time to trade elogies, I once again was crying as I was thanking my Brazilian friends and letting them know how special they are to me. Fortunately there was also a lot of laughter--especially after my "Sunday family" showed up. You know when you are laughing so much that your face hurts? I was in some major pain, but it was a good thing.

Two of my amazing colleagues, Lu and Silene, who work full-time and study full-time.

The final picture of me and my "twin" Chirlei (and her daughter Camila).

On Sunday, I bid farewell to my church and Sunday school class. That was another tearful goodbye. Here's a picture of my Sunday school class. The little kids usually finish their class before we finish ours and then they come looking for their parents.

The "young people's" Sunday school class.

I'll only briefly mention the two hours I spent on Monday trying to cancel my cell phone contract (and pay the fine associated with that). Only with some major persistence did I get the phone canceled, and I still will have to jump through some major hoops here to get the final bill paid.

On Monday evening, I realized that I should not bring an extra suitcase with me since my credit card had expired on the 1st of the month and I might have problems paying for it. Tuesday morning, I brought the suitcase to São Gabriel and did a final clean-up of my desk, etc. I almost forgot to turn in my keys, but thankfully remembered to go back and do that before I caught the bus. Then I was off to the other side of town for a farewell lunch with my Canadian friends. I was a little late because I got off at the wrong bus stop (it's amazing how after so much time, I could still be making new and different bus mistakes...) but lunch was nice with them in their penthouse apartment. Then I took a taxi back to my ex-roommate's apartment, arriving literally five minutes before my ride to the airport showed up 20 minutes early.

We went back to pick up the mother and one of the daughters of my Sunday family and then headed out to the airport. When I checked in, the airline told me that I had to pay for my ticket because it ended up not being charged to my credit card. Miraculously, I had the cash for the cell phone fine that the company did not let me pay. We chatted for a while, and then I was anxious to go through security to get through the gate. Finally they told me to wait for a few minutes because my "twin" Chirlei and her family were on the way. I couldn't believe that they got off work early and took the daughter out of school early to come see me off. I told them that I'd always noticed the Brazilians at the airports with their entourages to either greet them or see them off, and now I had my very own entourage. After yet another tearful goodbye, I went to my gate and waited for my first flight.

One of the first things that struck me upon returning to the U.S. was that, in Brazil, two families were at the airport to see me off, but when I arrived in the U.S., I got a taxi, and that was "normal" for us.

And so here I find myself, back in the U.S., looking for a place to live while living with a friend who always generously offers me a place to stay. Today I'll see my sister's family and my parents as we gather for my niece's birthday party. My mother has already told me excitedly of the things she has bought/collected for me to help me start all over again. While sad to have left my Brazilian friends behind, I am ready to apply some of the great aspects of Brazilian culture to my new life in the U.S.

I thank you for your interest in my mission work in Brazil and hope that, if you haven't already had the opportunity, you, too, may one day experience the beauty and warmth of Brazilian culture.

Transitions

2007-08-27T09:31:00.000-04:00

I'll start with the light this week. For example, there is a one-page "newspaper" that is displayed inside all of the city buses. I think it changes every couple of weeks or so. At the bottom of this sheet, there's a section called "Urban Etiquette" with tips about how to be polite when riding the bus. A couple of my favorites have been: "Don't fart on the bus" and "Don't leave your boogers on the bus seats." And this newspaper is for adults... :)

I bought a new purple (my favorite color) backpack when I was in the U.S., and the other day, I had on the backpack, a purple striped shirt and purple earrings. One of my colleagues said to me, "Oh--you're all matching--you've really turned Brazilian now!" I found it amusing that she thought matching was a uniquely Brazilian trait. But I guess that the Americans they usually encounter are on work teams and are dressed in their old clothes.

Because I was traveling almost the entire month of July, I expected to receive a much lower electric bill this time. Imagine my surprise to find out that it was the same amount, even though it clearly said that my usage for last month was half of what it normally is. That's when I finally learned that there is a minimum charge here that you pay no matter how much electricity you use, and then above a certain minimum usage, you get charged for the electricity you used above that minimum amount plus the minimum fee. I guess because I don't have a TV, I never got above the minimum usage.

I was thinking the other day about women's footwear and how silly it is that the shape of the most fashionable shoes is exactly opposite of the shape of our feet. Then I was thinking that, perhaps in a few hundred years, people will look back at our society and our primitive, damaging practice of wearing pointy-toed shoes, not unlike how we now look back at the Asian practice of foot-binding.

This Saturday, I said goodbye to the kids and my colleagues in Liberdade. About 25 kids showed up, and I was touched that they were freshly bathed and dressed up. The majority disappeared for a while, assembling two big gift baskets for me, as it turned out. They filled the baskets with snacks, fruit and some small trinkets. Who knew that Brazil has its own version of the ho-ho?

During the party, I passed out numbers and we drew for prizes to distribute the rest of the knitting supplies I'd brought back with me as well as a few other new or gently used things that I had to give away. I had one of the adults take pictures of me with the kids because I don't have many pictures with them (I am usually the one behind the camera).

When it was time to eat the snacks I'd ordered, we gathered in the dining hall. My friend who cooks for the project said they were going to play a special song for me, and as soon as I heard the first few notes, I recognized it and started bawling as I was hugging her. It was "Canção da America" by Milton Nascimento, one of the more famous Brazilian singers and composers who just happens to come from this state (Minas Gerais). The words go something like:

A friend is something to guard
Under seven keys
Inside your heart
Thus goes the song that I heard in America
But the one who was singing cried
To see his friend leave
But the one who stayed
Flew in his thoughts
With his song that the other one remembered
And the one who flew kept in his thoughts
The memory of what the other one sang
A friend is something to keep
On the left side of your chest
Even if time and distance say no
Even forgetting the song
What is important is to listen
To the voice that comes from the heart
Therefore whatever is to come, come what may
Some day, friend, I am coming back to find you
Some day, friend, we will meet again

The Liberdade kids

One thing struck me as I was making my way back to the city on the bus--the two people I felt closest to at that project weren't the ones with whom I spent the most time or with whom I had the most in common. Even though our backgrounds were so different, there was some invisible bond with these women. One of them, who has extremely limited resources, bought me several little trinkets, including a little figurine of a big frog with two little frogs to remember her and her daughters. I heard a lot things like "Remember us" and "Don't forget us"; I don't think they understand that there is no way I will ever forget these incredibly open, welcoming and loving people and the time I've spent in their beautiful country.

Bye bye Brazil

2007-08-20T10:42:00.000-04:00

Well, I've made a decision to accept the job and return to the U.S. The good part is that I'll be closer to family and friends, in my native culture and speaking a language that I don't have to think about. The hard part is to think about leaving the Brazilian people.

I feel like a patient with a terminal illness--I know exactly when I'm going, I have a lot of things to finish before I go, and a lot of people to say goodbye to that I don't want to leave behind. In a place where it can be an insult not to greet someone, I want to make sure I officially say goodbye to everybody I know here, so I might try to have a small gathering in both places where I've worked in Belo Horizonte.

I was talking to a young woman the other day about unplanned pregnancies out of wedlock. I'm not sure if this is reflected in actual statistics or not, but it seems like these pregnancies are more common here than in the places I've lived in the U.S. An interesting difference is that almost every single extended family I've met here has at least one child that was unplanned and born outside of marriage, regardless of class, race, etc. I'm not sure how much is the influence of the Catholic church's stance on birth control, the illegality of abortion here, the strong influence of sex in the culture, or possibly some young women's expression of power in a society where they can feel powerless. When I was visiting my neighbors the other day, I was surprised when the woman asked if I knew their older grandson. (My neighbors are a couple in their 60's with three grown sons, two of whom live with them.) I told her that I knew the younger one that they kept after school, but didn't know that they had an older one. She showed me his picture and then very frankly revealed the story of this grandchild--"John took this girl to a motel and got her pregnant. She's not from a good class or family, and she's moved to Spain, where she lives with a gigolo." She did have some good things to say about the child, though, and they do visit with him as often as they can. I found it challenging to keep a straight face and not have my jaw drop to the ground at her candidness.

Oh, and one cultural note on Brazilian motels. Here, "hotels" are for staying overnight while you're traveling, and "motels" are for sex, either paid by the hour, portion of the day/night, or whole day/night. I have not personally experienced this particular aspect of Brazilian culture, but I hear that they have some pretty fancy motels decorated in various themes, furnished with jacuzzis, etc.

The scientist in me has noticed something else about people breaking bones here. Four different people that I've met here have broken their feet/leg so severely that it required surgery with screws to put them back together. To me, that seems like a huge number of bones broken by adults, and I wonder if there's something about the diet, environment, etc. here that results in weaker bones. In none of these cases was a huge amount of force/weight involved.

Finally, I'll wind up with the most exciting moment I've had in the past few weeks...

Last Wednesday was a holiday here (for Our Lady, the patron saint of Belo Horizonte), and my friend from church invited me to go out for pizza early that evening with another acquaintance from church to try a pizzeria they'd heard about. Well, "early" means that we leave my friend's house at 8:00 PM and take the bus, where the acquaintance joins us en route. Normally, you can ask the bus driver or fare taker for directions or landmarks on their routes, but both the driver and the fare taker are new, and neither can tell us where this pizzeria is. Then the fare taker has a revelation and tells us to get off at the next stop. Well, after MUCH (more than 30 minutes) walking and stopping to ask various people on the street, we realize that my friend is confused and the place we want is actually behind us in the other direction, and the place she is confusing it with is even further away in the direction we are headed. Back we go in the other direction, and finally, with the help of a young woman we pass, we find the said pizzeria. The young woman actually walks with us there and then, noting that it is pretty empty, suggests that we try another place around the corner. We follow her advice and finally sit down at a table outside of a small bar/restaurant on the main street. We eat and talk and notice that there are a lot of young people heading down the street where the pizzeria is. We find out that there's a dance place for one of the current dance crazes, "baile funk," on the soccer court down that street. We finish eating, and then suddenly, we hear two shots ring out from the direction of the baile funk place. Much to my surprise, none of the other customers seem too perturbed and remain at their tables outside. We do see some kids who've left the dance place coming up the street. The next thing we know, there is a little military police car speeding down the street with an officer hanging his arm out of the window, brandishing a handgun. (Note: Seeing the police packed 4 or 5 into an economy car always reminds me of the clowns packed into the VW Beetle at the circus...) Within seconds, all of the customers literally vanish, the store across the street puts down its protective metal door in front, and we move to the inside of the restaurant. Hordes of young people are pouring onto the main street, fleeing the baile funk place. The waiters note that the problem is not the original gunshots, which are usually aimed at a specific person/people, but the high probability of getting struck by a stray bullet if the police engage in a shootout, which they are known to do. Thankfully, we got a taxi to our metro/bus stops, and everyone got home safely. I was thinking that people at home might freak out to hear about this incident, thinking that it must be so dangerous here, but then I remembered at least one similar occurrence at fraternity party in college.

Time to get back to winding things up here and trying to get things set up in the U.S. I'm not sure if I'll have time to do another post or not before leaving.

Decisions, decisions

2007-08-08T10:11:00.000-04:00

I'm going to keep it brief this week because I'm in the middle of making a difficult decision--whether to accept an interesting job offer in the U.S. that would require me to leave here pretty quickly or to stay here with an uncertain future. Even though, to this point, my social life in Brail has left much to be desired, the thought of leaving the warmth and closeness of the Brazilian people is grievous to me. When I planned to come here to volunteer, I knew that it would be a temporary stint for 1-2 years, but still... Someone I respect said that I could find the same things in a small, country town in the U.S., but it's not the same (and I don't think I would thrive in a small town).

Now for some lighter weekly observations.

I was waiting at the bus stop the other night when a bus passed by going the other direction. Nearly everybody inside crossed themselves at the same time, because they were Catholic and passing a Catholic church behind the bus stop. I've asked a few different people here what the ritual of crossing yourself is supposed to represent, and the answers I've received have varied widely. I think, like many rituals, people end up doing it out of habit and don't necessarily remember why.

When I was putting away my clean clothes the other day, I noticed that my jeans are now wearing out in new places because of constantly wearing a backpack.

There's an older gentleman in my neighborhood who I call (in my mind) the "Funky Grandfather." He's got to be at least 70 years old, and he is always sporting the latest fashions, including cool tennis shoes, sunglasses, jeans, etc. I could totally see him starring in some commercial (but I'm not sure for what product...).

I love how people are more comfortable with the human body here. For example, the other day I was in a doctor's office, and she had a beautiful drawing on the wall of a nude pregnant woman. I admired it and asked if she bought it or if it was a gift, and she said she had it made from a photo and, actually, it was her pregnant with her second child.

As I think I've mentioned before, there's always something in bloom here. Now, it's time for the spectacular yellow Ipe trees. I've borrowed the picture below from http://www.ipef.br/identificacao/tabebuia.alba.asp.

And finally, something I've wondered about for a long time. You know how some songs get stuck in your head, even though you don't like them? Well, I have a theory that there must be some "faulty" brain cells that record things and will continually bring them to your consciousness against all logic. I'm thinking about the repertoire of songs that I end up spontaneously humming. Some of the songs that always pop up in my head or that I find myself humming are songs that I don't even particularly like. Why, out of the hundreds/thousands of songs stored in my brain, those same few always float to the surface? I think those must be the songs that were stored in the defective brain cells/sectors. Profound, huh?

Wishing everyone a blessed week.

Back to your regularly scheduled program--again

2007-07-31T10:53:00.000-04:00

VISIT TO THE U.S.

I have to apologize that I didn’t update the blog during my visit to the U.S. and that this is such a long entry. I didn’t have nearly the amount of spare time that I thought I would, but it was a good visit.

I arrived in Durham, NC just in time to be able to drive down to the memorial service for my former boss, who’d lost a long battle with cancer in May. It was nice to be able to share with his family some things that I admired about him, hear funny anecdotes about him and to see my former colleagues. While in NC, I also talked at my home church, went to lunch with some former colleagues and visited with friends, but as always, not as many as I would have liked. It’s very difficult to want to spend quality time with everybody within the short span of a few days, especially as lax as I’ve been about trying to schedule with people ahead of time. Natalie and her son, Christopher, were my gracious hosts in Durham.

My Durham hosts and family

Going to lunch with friends after church

From Durham I drove up to Lancaster, PA to spend four days with my family, which I enjoyed immensely. Unfortunately, my youngest brother was not able to make it. Logically, the focus changes when your group has small children; as opposed to tourist sites, we spent most of our time at the park behind the motel, at the motel pool or at restaurants. It was cute to watch my three older nieces and nephew play together now that they are old enough to really interact (2.5 – 5 years old). When her two Chicago-based cousins left, my DC-based niece was grief-stricken. Just a few hours later, I was astonished to find myself moved to tears after I left my family to drive to Richmond.

Playmates

My mom with all four of my nieces & nephews

I spent a total of nine nights with two different hosts in Richmond. For the first part of the week, I stayed with Cheryl, a.k.a. “Little One,” whose pastor had participated on a Volunteers in Mission (VIM) work team to Brazil last October. Pastor Rodney “Yours Truly” Hunter co-organized my visit to Richmond and was also responsible for providing me with the surprise opportunity to give my first-ever sermon. It was clarified for me on Saturday evening that my 8 AM Sunday morning talk would not include a slide show or questions and answers—just talking ten minutes or less for the “message.” My other host and co-organizer was Dot Ivey, who was the leader of the October VIM team. All-in-all, I talked at five different churches. Thankfully, I was also able to raise some support; initially I wasn’t sure how I was going to be able to pay my bills when I got back to Brazil. Highlights from Richmond included: patronizing the snow-cone stand (we experienced some very hot and humid days); lunches with “Yours Truly” and “Little One”; tutoring a student in General Chemistry; seeing members of the Randolph-Macon VIM team at three of my talks; visiting two fire stations in search of a toy firefighter’s hat; attending a dinner party before one of my talks; catching up with members from two different VIM teams who came over for ice cream; getting to speak Portuguese with Amado, a graduate student from Mozambique who was also staying at the Ivey residence; watching the Copa America soccer championship between Brazil and Argentina (Brazil won); getting together with a friend who I hadn’t seen in years and enjoying the wonderful hospitality of my hosts. On my way out of Richmond, I visited with the Mission and Global Outreach office of the United Methodist Church’s Virginia Conference.

Pastor Hunter and his 2nd mother

The Iveys and Amado

From there I drove to Washington DC, where I stayed for the last eight nights of my trip. While in the nation’s capital, I mostly visited with friends and family (in person and by phone) and shopped for the things I needed to bring back with me.

The trip back to Brazil was relatively smooth, considering the multiple possibilities for snags with flight delays, my visa (which is currently in the renewal process) and my abundant luggage. I actually had to buy an extra suitcase to bring back all of the yarn that people donated, and all three of my suitcases were pretty heavy. Although Delta Airlines did charge me for excess and overweight baggage, I was delightfully surprised when the agent for Gol Airlines in São Paulo told me that, as a courtesy, they wouldn’t be charging me for the extra bag. Originally when booking my flights, I was dismayed to have a four-hour layover in São Paulo, but it turned out to be a good thing to have that sizeable time-window between flights. The international airport in São Paulo (Guarulhos) was quite congested because flights had been re-routed from the domestic airport (Congonhas) where the crash recently occurred to Guarulhos. My last flight was delayed, but that worked out well because my international flight was also delayed.

On the way back to Belo Horizonte, a couple of different things made quite an impression on me. These are both good examples of something that I love about Brazilian society that is so difficult to put into words. First, on the last flight from São Paulo to Belo Horizonte, there was a young couple with a small baby that was screaming the last several minutes of the flight, probably due to the change in pressure affecting her ears. When we landed and everybody got up, people turned to look at the family, but not in disdain, like I would expect in the U.S. Instead, they ended up sympathizing with the parents, commenting on how cute the baby was, etc. The better example, though, is the following. Between landing in São Paulo and arriving at my final destination of Belo Horizonte, I ended up having brief exchanges with three different Brazilian families. It struck me how open the children in those families were in talking with me—a total stranger—and asking questions, and how all of the families bid me a friendly goodbye when we passed each other in parting at the Belo Horizonte airport. To be fair, though, I noticed how nice strangers were when I got to the U.S.—much nicer than I’d remembered, in fact. I’m sure that people acting/reacting positively has more than a little to do with what state you are in and what kind of vibes you’re giving off.

It’s funny how I thought I would have a lot of free time during my visit and brought four or five different books with me that I didn’t even open plus two different knitting projects that I rarely touched, even on the plane. Which brings me to something I included in my talks: how I’ve changed as a result of my experience in Brazil.

PERSONAL CHANGES

I’m finding myself concentrating less on material goods. I’m not so focused on trying to have the best music or book collection and rarely go out to eat or shopping for something other than groceries. My wardrobe is pretty simple here, and I usually wear jeans, a shirt and flat shoes. I haven’t worn a suit or pantyhose once since I’ve been here and rarely have the opportunity to wear skirts or dresses, although I like to do so. I wear very little jewelry and my shoe collection has significantly diminished. And I’m not withering away...

Out of necessity, my flexibility and patience have grown immensely. The minimum amount of both characteristics utilized in Brazilian society is significantly higher than in the U.S., which is probably why most Brazilians are so much more laid-back and easy-going. This also involves adjusting your expectations to fit your current situation. If, for example, I was expecting a bureaucratic procedure to be done on a North American time-scale, I would be wasting a lot of time and energy being frustrated when that did not transpire. In the Guarulhos airport, I noticed a woman waiting at the baggage claim, and I couldn’t decide if she was from the U.S. or Brazil. Then I saw her glancing at her watch several times, and on a hunch, I spoke to her in English. Bingo!

I’m now a fan of public transportation. Whereas a metro trip of one hour door-to-door was too long to even consider when I lived in Washington DC, now I don’t even flinch at the idea of taking public transportation for trips requiring more than 45 minutes and, in most cases, am happy to be able to leave the car behind. (I actually don't have a car in Brazil.)

Family and friends are more important to me. The Brazilian sense of family and social connection is contagious; since I have lived and worked in Brazil, I’ve been able to appreciate my family more and spend longer periods of time with them without tempers flaring.

When in Brazil, I’ve adapted somewhat to the Brazilian standards of personal appearance—ironing most things, always having my toenails painted if I’m wearing sandals, etc. It’s funny that when I went back to the U.S., I had no problem wearing somewhat wrinkly clothes because I blended in.

Now I am much more interactive and tolerant with strangers. Before I would usually view strangers trying to talk to me as an intrusion and an annoyance, but now I’m much more receptive to having conversations with people that I don’t know.

Although it hasn’t been easy for me, I’ve had to learn how to gracefully accept hospitality, because I have not been in a position to pay for hotel rooms since I quit my job. I previously prided myself on my independence, but now I see there’s value in learning to receive as well as to offer hospitality.

I have caught the “social impact” virus. Now that I’ve had a taste of working with projects that have a definite social impact, I measure all possible future endeavors by whether or not I think that they will make a difference.

BACK IN BRAZIL

The kids are on winter vacation from school until next week, and the projects aren’t running right now, so last week was a planning week for the upcoming semester. It was wonderful to receive such a warm welcome from my colleagues when I came back to the community center on Thursday.

This past weekend was the Adult Bible School in the Liberdade neighborhood. It was scheduled to allow working adults to participate, and there was a pretty good turnout. The staff was treated to a deluxe candlelight dinner on Saturday night (with fondue for dessert!) and an overnight stay at my supervisors’ country house, where the Bible School held its last day. Even though there were dire weather predictions for Sunday, everybody spent a lovely day outside. It was great fun to watch the teams compete in relay races and participate in activities based on a theme of peace.

In the heat of competition at the Adult Bible School

I’m not sure how well they were publicized in the U.S., but the Pan-American Games just ended in Rio. When watching the championship game for men’s volleyball on Saturday night (Brazil vs. U.S.), I noticed that the Brazilian team was wearing black armbands. I asked somebody who had died, and they said it was for the victims of the plane crash. Brazil won, which everyone delighted in reminding me the next day.

As the Bible School was drawing to a close, the temperature began to drop. I had two sweaters on, but it was pretty brisk with the wind. I was fortunate to catch a ride into the city, to catch a bus and walk another 15 minutes to my home, where I discovered that I was not in possession of my house keys. I looked through my entire backpack twice with no success. I began to call people to try to figure out where I left them, but I couldn’t reach the first few people I called. Thankfully, I reached my supervisor at home, and she located my spare keys. So I turned around and walked back to the bus stop, waited about 30 minutes for the bus, arriving at her apartment after another 30 minutes or so. It was great to get out of the cold, but I also got sucked into this television program where they choose a letter from an indigent family that moved to São Paulo from somewhere far away in the countryside and wants to return to their hometown. Then the producers pay for the family to move back, film the whole process (especially the family reunion) and furnish a residence for them. Multitudes migrate from poor towns/states with the idea that they will be able to work and become rich or at least comfortable in São Paulo (the commercial center of Brazil), but they almost always end up living in squalid slums, scraping to get by. When I was done crying over the family reunion, I splurged on taking a taxi to return home.

And finally, it’s time for an update on the latest developments in my visa renewal process. When I got back from the U.S., I had a letter from the Brazilian foreigner’s bureau that probably arrived on the day I left for the U.S., asking for: a) documents that have to be notarized at the Brazilian consulate where I originally applied (i.e. Miami) and b) something I don’t have with me—an official copy of my bachelor’s degree. I do, however, have a notarized copy of my graduate degree with me. I showed the letter to my supervisor, and she had some good ideas for how to get everything done before the deadline (90 days from when the letter was sent, but now I’m down to less than 60). We shall see...

Strike again

2007-06-25T14:56:00.000-04:00

I'll be keeping this brief due to the number of things I need to finish before leaving to visit the U.S. on Friday. That is, of course, if I am able to get out as planned because there is yet another strike of the air-traffic controllers. The international flights are not affected, but the domestic ones (i.e. the flight I have to take from Belo Horizonte to São Paulo) have been experiencing major delays.

I also was able to get to the Federal Police last week to get the magic letter explaining that I have the right to legally be in Brazil until my visa extension is either approved or denied. Hopefully that will prevent any problems like my Belgian friends experience on their recent trip. Outside the Federal Police building was hanging the same banner mentioning a strike that I saw the last time I went there in March. I asked the man who helped me if they were still on strike, and he said that the previous strike was for the police sector, and the current strike was a "paralyzation strike" in the administrative sector. He explained that currently on Tuesdays-Thursdays, only the boss is helping people who come in, so I was very happy that I was there on a Friday.

Thank goodness the metro strike was over last week and I could take the shorter trip to get to Liberdade. I was surprised to see the professional knitting results of some of the boys. It turns out that they used some type of contraption with nails that somebody's mother had around the house. They had a few different patterns telling you in what order to wrap the yarn around the various nails. The first thing that all three said about it was that it was much faster than knitting with needles. Whatever works!

Happily, the young man who was trying to participate in the international Methodist youth meeting in Minnesota was able to get his visa, although he missed the first few days because of the delay.

Brazil seems to have much more of a unified culture than the U.S. Almost everybody knows the same core group of songs, soap operas, celebrities (whether musicians, actors or athletes), etc. It's hard to miss when one person breaks into song and whoever is nearby quickly joins in. One day when the staff at São Gabriel, composed of individuals from various educational/socioeconomic levels and spanning an age range of about 35 years, watched a DVD of a pop star in performances with a variety of different singers over the past three decades, almost everybody recognized the majority of the guest singers as well as the songs. Culture in the U.S. is much more compartmentalized--different people who like country music are more likely to know the same songs, but chances are that a country music fan and an opera fan in the U.S. will not know the same songs. Moreover, soccer is clearly the endemic and dominant sport in Brazil, but I don't think that the U.S. could say the same of either football, basketball or baseball.

It's interesting to catch myself doing things in a way that deviates from the norm here. For example, one afternoon I answered the phone when somebody was calling to say that one of the patients in the physical therapy program at São Gabriel would not be able to make his appointment. Because I was getting ready to leave and the physical therapy interns had not arrived yet, I wrote a note and taped it to the door of the physical therapy room. As I was taping the note to the door, somebody asked me why I didn't leave a message verbally with one of my colleagues. The thought had never occurred to me. And if it did, normally I would be worried that they would forget to relay the message. But it turns out that the Brazilians I've encountered are generally excellent about remembering things like that.

When you have a health plan/health insurance, the Brazilian medical system is significantly better than the one in the U.S. I was already amazed at the amount of time the dermatologist took with me when I went for an appointment last year. Last week I went to a general practitioner for a checkup, and the doctor himself (!) took my vital signs and medical history. I did not have to pay a co-pay for either the office visit or the routine lab tests that were done. And you get all of this for a total cost of less than US$2,000 per year. The only exception is ambulances, which will arrive much faster in the U.S. than here in Brazil.

My wallet is feeling the affects of the falling dollar. When I first arrived, the exchange rate was 2.25 Brazilian reais to 1 U.S. dollar. Now, it's down to 1.93 reais to the dollar.

As I prepare for my trip to the U.S., I'm finding it very strange to be dealing with 7-digit phone numbers again after getting used to the 8-digit numbers here.

And that's enough for now...

Ramblings

2007-06-18T12:07:00.000-04:00

Thankfully I had told some people how I didn't know about the last metro strike, because somebody mentioned to me on Wednesday that there was another strike. They bascially run the metro during the morning rush hour and that's it. So you can get to work normally, but to get home, you have to be more creative. For me, this basically meant getting up at 5:30 and leaving home earlier to take the additional bus to get downtown to catch the 2nd bus at its starting point. I think that I have seen more sunrises in the past 12 months than in the previous 5 years. But on the positive side, at least my apartment windows face east so I can see the glorious sunrises over the mountains that surround Belo Horizonte.

I'd previously helped a colleague in Liberdade type her paper for college, so this week she asked me to help her both Thursday and Friday typing papers after the project was over. Late Thursday night, I realized with a moderate amount of panic that I had not yet purchased my plane ticket to get between Belo Horizonte and São Paulo for my upcoming trip to the U.S. Since I was in Liberdade on Friday without internet access, I called my colleague at São Gabriel to ask her to research whether or not I could now buy a ticket on the cheap airline (Gol, the Brazilian equivalent of Southwest Airlines) with an international credit card. (Previously you could only buy a ticket online with a Brazilian credit card and a Brazilian social security number.) If not, I was going to have to try to get to an airport to buy the ticket on Friday afternoon, because after Friday, once I would be less than two weeks before my departure, I expected the price to increase significantly.

In an unusual turn of events, my cell phone rang during the day on Friday, and it was a young man who was one of the two Brazilian participants chosen to participate in an international youth meeting of the United Methodist Church in the U.S. My supervisors are both out of town, and they had given him my name and number because he was having difficulty getting a visa. He had talked to the coordinator of the meeting in the U.S., but he wasn't quite sure what she said about her conversation with the American consulate in São Paulo, so he did an international conference call to have me speak with her. (We still don't know if he's going to get the visa or not, even though the meeting started this week.)

After finishing typing up the paper on Friday afternoon, I took the bus into downtown to catch my neighborhood bus and went straight to the internet cafe to try to buy my plane ticket to São Paulo. While I was in the internet cafe, my cell phone kept receiving blank text messages from what used to be my Canadian friend's cell phone. After the 5th blank message, I was worried that maybe she'd been kidnapped or something. I finally sent a message asking if it was her, and got a message that it was a Belgian/Canadian acquaintance to whom she'd given her cell phone. He was trying to get me to call his wife and sent their home number. After some difficulties with the airline website, I finally managed to get the ticket and went home to decompress. But first, I called the Belgian/Canadian woman, who had recently returned from a visit to Canada. She and her husband were in the same visa situation as me--their visas were in the process of renewal when they left the country--and they had considerable difficulty upon their return with immigration in São Paulo. That makes me a little nervous about trying to get back to Brazil, but at least I'll go to the Federal Police office to get a letter explaining that I am in the process of renewal.

Originally, I was supposed to go to my friend's house on Friday night to be able to leave early Saturday morning with her family for the church youth retreat on Saturday, but I was so exhausted that I asked if I could meet them on Saturday morning. So Saturday morning I was up again at the crack of dawn to be able to get to the church by 7:15, even though we didn't end up leaving the church until much later. We ended up going to a pretty nice retreat center on the outskirts of a nearby suburb. It had a couple of small swimming pools, a sand volleyball court, a grass soccer court (of course!) and a small orchard. The highlights of the retreat were the 10:00 PM treasure hunt (I told my friend that I didn't think that grown Americans would ever go for running around in the dark out in the country) on Saturday night, and a Bible trivia competition on Sunday morning that included whipped cream in the face for your team's incorrect answers or the correct answers of your opponents. We left there yesterday afternoon to come back to Belo Horizonte.

On Friday night, I remembered that I'd forgotten again about Father's Day on Sunday, so I planned to go by the community center in São Gabriel on my way home from the church retreat on Sunday to be able to call my father over the internet. I sent a text message to the caretaker at São Gabriel to ask him to leave the building door unlocked for me to get in on Sunday afternoon. When I didn't receive a reply for him, I called him on Sunday afternoon, and he said he would be there.

I was hoping that my ride from the retreat would drop me at the community center, but no such luck (although they did ask me if I wanted to leave anything with them to pick up next week at church), so I had to wait more than half an hour for a bus to take me to the community center. But while we were en route, the bus turned a different way, at which point I realized I'd gotten on the wrong bus. (There are two routes with the same number and name that go to the São Gabriel neighborhood, but they have little signs in the window to distinguish the one that I take that goes right by the community center from the other one.) This meant getting off at the next stop and retracing the route to walk the rest of the way to the community center. Thankfully, I only had one big backpack with wheels with me. Then when I was about a block away from the community center, I realized that I didn't have my other set of keys with me to open up the office (where I needed to use the computer). I was hoping that maybe the caretaker had a key. When I arrived and asked him about the key, he said that he didn't have one. To try to get from São Gabriel to my neighborhood and back on a Sunday (when the buses are least frequent) was not feasible in less than two hours, so I called the secretary who lives in São Gabriel and asked if I could go to her house to borrow her key. This meant walking about 15-20 minutes to her neighborhood and then taking the bus back (rather than walking back up the steep hill). I finally got back to the community center and was able to make the call over the internet, but nobody answered. I called my father's cell phone, too, but no luck. I left messages in both places and then called my sister to make sure that nothing bad had happened to my parents. She hadn't talked to them yet, but assured me that they were probably fine. It turned out that they were in the backyard with my brother's family, who'd driven down from Chicago to visit. I waited a good while for the bus to go home and was surprised at the number of people getting on at the stop across from a local university. Then I remembered that several universities held their entrance exams this weekend.

At 9:00 last night, I was already nodding off, so I went to bed. My parents did call me at 10:00, so I talked to them briefly and heard about their day. I'm still feeling a major lack of sleep, so hopefully I can catch up over the next few days.

And now for the knitting update...
The kids at the project in Liberdade are bringing their work to proudly show me (or to have me fix problems). I've asked them to bring their scarves this Thursday to take pictures. It turns out some of the boys have already sold theirs--quite the entrepreneurs. An additional positive result is that the kids are also beginning to teach their family and neighbors how to knit.

It seems like people let their kids use pacifiers much longer here. I frequently see children who are 3 or 4 with them and have even seen children as old as 6 or 7 still using pacifiers.

The programs that my supervisors run at the two locations here in Belo Horizonte clearly make a huge difference, not only in the life of children, but also employees and the community overall. I have seen former participants in the programs as well as former employees come back to visit the Community Center in São Gabriel, and they always mention how much that place positively affected their lives. This month alone, at least one former student and one former employee came back to visit.

And now it's time to figure out how to get to the doctor's office for my checkup this afternoon.

The week in review

2007-06-11T12:49:00.000-04:00

I'm looking forward to going to Liberdade this week to see what the kids have done with the skeins of yarn they received. I saw that the boys immediately started trading long pieces so they could make multicolored scarves.

We had a three-day weekend because we had a planning meeting on the Corpus Cristi holiday last Thursday and got Friday off instead. At first, I was a little nervous about having that much unscheduled time to spend alone, but it turned out to be okay. I rented a couple of good movies, cleaned the apartment and knit a bit, among other things.

The big event, however, was going to dance salsa on Friday night. Like I mentioned last week, I found out about a club that has a Latin band that plays salsa (and other music) every other Friday. The difficulty was staying awake until it was time to go out because I knew nothing would start before 11:00 pm. I was originally planning to take the bus, but opted for the safer but more expensive option of taking a taxi. I left my apartment a little after 11:00, and when I got to the club, the band had not started playing yet. (They started around midnight.) The music and the dancers were okay, but not terrific. Earlier in the day, I had been thinking how cool it would be to run into somebody I knew at the club who could give me a ride home, but then I thought, "Who would I possibly know here?". The best part was that it actually happened! I saw a man that looked familiar, and pretty soon figured out that he was the owner of a little restaurant close to the optical shop where I bought my glasses. When I first went to the optical shop, the guys working there asked me if I'd eaten lunch yet and insisted that I try the inexpensive restaurant in the same shopping plaza, so I ended up eating there a couple of times. When I got talking to the employees at the restaurant, it turned out that the owner lives on the same street as me. And that was the guy I saw at the salsa place. I decided to play it cool and see if he recognized me, and he did. He asked if I was there by myself, and when I said that I was, he said he would give me a ride home if I wanted. We left pretty early by Brazilian standards (a little after 2:00 am) when the band started to repeat songs they'd already played earlier. It was good that we live on the same street because I'd have no idea how to direct somebody to my neighborhood from the club. On the way home, I was telling him that I needed to get my glasses adjusted when the guy that knows what he's doing is there, and he said that guy would be working at the optical shop on Saturday. He even offered to swing by and pick me up on his way to the restaurant on Saturday morning, but I said I'd rather walk (and go later in the day). So on Saturday afternoon, I walked down to that neighborhood shopping area (about 30 minutes from my house), ate lunch at the restaurant and went to get my glasses adjusted. The guy in the glasses store invited me to sit and chat, so I did. I was thinking I would never spend two hours in the U.S. doing something that takes 5 minutes, but I felt very Brazilian, prioritizing people ahead of schedule--besides, I didn't have anything else to do.

After the optical shop, I walked to the mall to try to look for new, non-imported (i.e. cheap) perfume and a shirt. Salespeople here are more persistent (and usually get paid commission). I have to remind myself to be patient and let them help me even when I don't want their help. I already knew that trying to buy clothes here for myself is difficult, but there's something truly humiliating about the salespeople saying they have to go look in the back just to find a "large." It seems like the only sizes they display in the stores are "small" and "medium." The other thing was that the salespeople in every store automatically assumed that I was buying something for a husband/boyfriend because the Brazilian Valentine's Day (literally "Lovers' Day") is coming up.

Last night when I was coming home, I ran into the same guitarist who'd played in the park by my house, so I sang one song with him and listened to his friends singing (mostly shouting) for a little while before continuing home.

And now for the general observations...

People that are in serious relationships or engaged wear gold wedding bands on the ring finger of the right hand. Then when they get married, they can switch it over to the ring finger of the left hand. I think it's great that the men get "marked" too, unlike the American tradition of only the woman wearing an engagement ring.

It seems that several people here make and sell their own cleaning solutions. I would be concerned that people are mixing things that shouldn't be mixed, but people do buy these solutions, usually in 2-liter soda bottles.

Catalogue sales of makeup and toiletries are very popular here. Everywhere you go, somebody is selling Avon and/or Natura (a more upscale Brazilian brand).

I see a lot siblings here that have a larger age gap than you'd expect--on the order of five or more years. It's not that they're children of different marriages, so maybe it's more of an economic reason to wait until you can afford another child, or perhaps it's a cultural thing.

It seems like the majority of Brazilians who have legal jobs get paid monthly at the beginning of the month. This makes for long lines at banks and even stores, as people shop more when they have money to spend at the beginning of the month.

I was showing the kids some pictures of my family and friends, and one of the kids remarked on the lack of walls around the houses, saying "If we didn't have walls, we wouldn't have anything left in our house!" I don't have any statistics to know whether or not crime is really that much more prevalent here. I have the feeling that in non-touristic cities like Belo Horizonte, it's not too different from the level of crime in the U.S., but I could be wrong.

We've had some unseasonably warm weather lately--warm enough to be outside in short sleeves or no sleeves even at night without a jacket. For me, that's a welcome change. It's really nice that there's always something in bloom here, no matter what time of year it is.

Tricotando

2007-06-04T13:04:00.000-04:00

"Tricotando" means "knitting" in Portuguese, but it also means "chatting." This week I distributed skeins of yarn to the kids so they could make scarves. We were inside rather than our usual garden spot because of the cold, but even so, many of the kids were wearing shorts and sleeveless shirts. I checked to make sure that it wasn’t because they didn’t own warmer clothes. I finally remembered to bring my camera to take pictures of the knitters.

Matheus is a particularly avid knitter.

This group turned out to be all boys just by accident.

On Thursday, I went to a free concert downtown to hear a band play music from several Latin American countries. It was cool that not only was I able to find out about a club where I might be able to dance salsa every other weekend, but also that I was able to run and catch the bus afterwards because it was pretty cold outside to be waiting 30 minutes or more for the next one.

A very nice practice that I’ve seen on buses and the metro is people who are seated offering to hold the bags/books/etc. of people who are standing near them. I try to remember to ask people if I can hold something for them, but it’s not automatic yet. I can’t imagine people doing that in the U.S. because you’d be too paranoid that somebody would try to rob you.

Just as I was giving up hope for the foreigners’ get-together, we had the biggest turnout yet on Friday. I learned something very interesting about how the Portuguese with less resources who couldn’t afford real molds used to make the terra cotta roof tiles by shaping them on their thigh, so there are a few words/phrases in the language with respect to the thigh that mean to approximate something. There was also another example of “it’s a small world.” One couple invited their Brazilian friend, who had lived in the U.S. and was fluent in English. When I said that I was a volunteer for the Methodist church, he said, “Oh, really? My ex-girlfriend is Methodist. She was studying in Spain.” and I knew immediately who he was talking about because it’s the daughter of my former roommate, Márcia.

One thing that frequently pops into my mind when I’m navigating the hilly streets of Belo Horizonte is “what goes down must come up.” It would be really helpful to have a map that would indicate where there are steep hills so you could plan the least strenuous route.

There are two different types of washing machines—the cheap ones that are called "suggar" that only centrifuge the water out of clothes you've washed by hand, and regular washing machines, which are much more expensive. I haven’t yet seen liquid detergent here, but there are many brands of powdered detergent.

The most common rolls here (“salt bread”) are interesting because when they are fresh, they are hard on the outside and soft on the inside, but the next day, the bread gets softer, not harder. The yogurt I’ve encountered here is thinner than the yogurt in the U.S. and is basically drinkable.

I was surprised to find out what the phrase “vide bula” meant because it’s the name of a popular brand of clothing. Can you imagine a line of clothing in the U.S. called “see the insert”? “Vide bula” is the phrase on the side of pharmaceutical boxes to tell you to see the insert for complete details.

You see a lot of tattoos here, like in the U.S., but I saw a young man on the metro who had quite a unique tattoo—a UPC bar code on the back of his neck.

Something quite popular here in stores is using announcers/entertainers with microphones to get people’s attention. When I walk to the metro on Sunday mornings, I can usually hear the guy who promotes the grocery store two blocks away. I’ve frequently seen people in costumes standing in front of stores. Once, I even saw two young women dancing rather suggestively in the window of a department store (something like Sears) to grab the attention of potential customers. I resolved right then never to buy anything from that store.

I finally asked about the lack of soap at the sink in some families’ bathrooms and was repulsed to find out that they wash their hands only with water after using the bathroom (especially since I have eaten in these homes). What can you do?

Just recently, I learned that the Catholic version of the Lord’s Prayer (at least in Portuguese) doesn’t add “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever.” I looked it up in the Bible and realized that Jesus didn’t say that last phrase. I guess the Protestants just got a little fancy...

Rulers are an indispensable here because they are used not only for making straight lines but also for tearing paper.

It’s so common to meet other people with your first name (or the opposite gender version of it, for example a Fernanda meeting a Fernando) that there’s a special word in Portuguese to call somebody that has the same name as you--chará.

Finally, thanks to my friend Shanta for recommending neem oil as a natural remedy for getting rid of lice. It’s commonly used in India for that and many other purposes, and, with a little persistence, I was able to find a source of it here. With my new neem shampoo once a week, the lice seem to be staying away, thank God.

Firsts

2007-05-28T09:53:00.000-04:00

I finally caved in and brought a small, no-stick frying pan to be able to make grilled cheese sandwiches now that it’s getting colder. Originally I was thinking that I would not buy any pots and pans until I had spare money, because that would encourage me to spend more money on food. In any event, I had to go to a special store to find sandwich bread because my local market doesn’t carry it. I also couldn’t find a plastic spatula in my market, so I bought the next best thing, a plastic slotted spoon. Well, the spoon wasn’t the greatest idea, as my first grilled cheese sandwich ended up a little overdone and on the floor (yes, I ate it anyway).

I’m not sure why I’d never given much thought to watching DVDs on my laptop (I don’t have a TV or a DVD player), but this weekend I finally signed up for a membership at the local video rental store and watched a couple of movies. It’s funny that during non-peak times, the store gives you these drawstring pouches where you can carry your videos. But when I went back during a busier time the following day, I only got a regular plastic bag. The good thing about watching the movies by myself is that I could use English subtitles to better understand what was being said. I was amazed at the number of different languages available for subtitles; that’s technology and globalization for you.

On Saturday, I needed to get out of the house after spending all morning cleaning, so I walked from my apartment all the way downtown for the first time. That direction is much easier as it is mostly downhill. I explored the municipal park for the first time, and it was teeming with activity. I knew that they had some gardens and some rides for kids, but I didn’t know they had tennis courts, basketball courts and a couple of ponds. It was the first time I’d seen Brazilians playing basketball. If you didn’t hear them yelling in Portuguese, you would have thought you were watching a pick-up game in the U.S. It made me reminiscent of the Saturdays we used to spend watching my dad play basketball. After the park, I walked up to Praça da Liberdade (“Freedom Plaza”) to people-watch for a bit before catching the bus back home.

I experienced another notable first this weekend. When I was crossing the bridge into downtown, there were several pedestrians on both sides, spaced apart, but hardly any cars. I saw a well-dressed man coming towards me, and from a distance, it looked like he was holding something in front of his pants. It’s quite common to see men scratching or, ummm, making adjustments in public. As he got closer, I realized much to my horror that he was holding something that should have been IN his pants. I couldn’t cross to the other side, and I momentarily panicked. I decided to ignore him and kept on going, looking straight ahead as he slowed down to pass me and said “Have a look!”. I guess it’s good that I made it this far in life without running into an exhibitionist until now...

On Tuesday when I was planning to return to work after being at home sick on Monday, I decided to take the metro because: a) it’s a shorter walk, b) I hadn’t eaten much in the previous 36 hours and was feeling weak and c) I had to carry my laptop in my backpack (heavy!). So I walk the 8 ½ blocks downhill to the metro, and...the gate across the entrance was closed. There was a small sign on the gate stating that the metro workers were on strike Tuesday and Wednesday. There was a security guard inside, and I asked him if the strike was for the buses too or just the metro, and he answered that it was just the metro. Here was a moment when I was wishing I had a TV and had watched the news or had read a newspaper so I would have known in advance about the strike. Back up the hill I go, sweating all the way. I decided to sit and rest a minute in the little park/garden down the street from my house, and then I continued on 20 minutes in the other direction to get to the bus stop.

I was thinking about the perfect country, and my idea of the perfect country would have the infrastructure (particularly the openness, green spaces, central heating and hot water heaters) of the U.S., weather from the mid-Atlantic U.S., the health care and educational systems of Canada and the social/familial structure of Brazil. I learned a little about the Canadian educational and health care systems from my Canadian friend who just moved to Peru, and I was teasing her that if they could just do something about the weather, I would be happy to live in Canada.

It made an impression on me the other day when a colleague mentioned with dismay that it had been 15 days since she had seen her brother because she had been so busy. Then yesterday, a child from church asked me if I liked living alone, and when answering her, I was able to articulate something I’d been feeling but couldn’t put into words. Americans live during the week, focusing on their work, and catch up on weekends. Brazilians live for the weekends, when they spend their time with family and friends. When you don’t have family and have few friends, the weekends can be quite long and lonely. Thankfully, I don’t have a problem doing things by myself, like walking downtown, and I spend Sundays with a family from church.

Most apartment buildings here have individual electric meters but a joint water meter, so you have to pay a monthly condominium fee to cover the water bill, pay for the woman who cleans the hallways, etc. twice a week and pay for the hallway and outside lights. As I am the only apartment with less than four people living in it, I am less than thrilled to be paying for everybody else’s two showers a day, doing laundry, etc. especially since the fee has gone up 30% since I moved in. Each apartment building has a superintendent of sorts who is responsible for collecting the condominium fees, paying the bills and arranging for repairs to the public areas of the building. My superintendent is, shall we say, less than efficient. I asked her in January for a copy of the apartment building rules, I asked her in writing in April, and here it is almost June, and still no rules. As a matter of fact, I had to go to my neighbors to ask who the superintendent was after I moved in because she never introduced herself. Anyway, she’s been complaining about astronomical water bills that started before I moved in, and since I met her in January, she said she needed to have a plumber come in and look at everybody’s apartment to see if there are leaks or other problems. The plumber finally came in this month. I heard from my neighbor that he didn’t find anything, but the superintendent never told everybody the results. I talked to my neighbors, and we talked about having a tenant meeting, so I requested a meeting in writing last week to have her tell everybody at the same time the results of the plumber’s inspection, to look over the water bills from the past 12 months (her body language when she talks about the increase looks to me like she’s lying), and to talk about the broken security grating in the garage (something my neighbor mentioned). I ran into my neighbor the other day and asked him what we can do if she doesn’t announce a meeting, and he asked me how long it had been since I posted my request. I told him it had been about four days, and he suggested we wait a little longer. I had to laugh at myself because I forgot that a four-day wait is nothing on a Brazilian time scale. We’ll see if there is any resolution or not.

The weather has been a little crazy. It was pretty good for a while because after the first windstorm, it warmed up and I didn’t need a jacket, even at night. We’ve had a few more days recently where a cold front has come in and it’s quite chilly. Yesterday morning, for example, I wore a turtle neck and a sweater and was comfortable, and then within a matter of hours, it was warm enough to wear just a short-sleeved shirt and raining. This morning, the mountains that I normally see out my window were completely obscured by fog. Another good thing about getting out of the apartment on Saturday was that it was about 10 degrees warmer outside than inside. When it’s that cold inside, the only place where you are truly warm is in bed, so it is tempting to go to bed before your normal bedtime and difficult to get out of bed in the morning.

Something that I think could have a major impact on the Brazilian economy would be to implement a massive student loan program like Sallie Mae in the U.S. There are so many people here that want to study, are unable to get into the top/free universities, and can’t afford the private universities. The government bank offers very few student loans, and the private banks don’t offer any that I’ve heard about. Assuming that there are enough “white collar” jobs for these prospective students, it would help an entire generation to increase their economic stability. The Methodist Foundation was recently able to partner with the private Methodist university here to offer 40 full scholarships to students who are socially involved and active in volunteering with their communities. While this was a ray of hope to several struggling individuals who already started studying there, the university’s stipulation that they first pay off their existing debt puts the scholarship just beyond their reach.

This week is another gathering for foreigners living in Belo Horizonte. We’ll see if anybody shows up, because none of the three people who came last month is in the country.

I’m going to see about trying to do more freelance translation here. The general rule is that it’s better to translate into your native language, so I do Portuguese to English translations.

It’s one month until my next visit to the U.S. I haven’t been back since September of last year. As the time draws near, the requests are coming in to bring people various items from the U.S. For example, I’ve shared “Extra” brand gum with many people, but now they want more. I’m looking forward to seeing my family and friends, and especially meeting my new nephew.

Back to your regularly scheduled program

2007-05-22T10:46:00.000-04:00

I’m writing this from home and not feeling too well, so we’ll see if it gets posted on Monday or Tuesday.

Both of my supervisors were finally back from their trip to the U.S. last week. It’s amazing how many individual lives they touch. As always after a prolonged absence, there were many people waiting to seek their help in resolving problems.

One of the cool things that I don’t think I’ll find anywhere else is such a beautiful work environment. Both of the projects where I work have lovely gardens, and I really enjoy sitting outside to appreciate them.

There are a couple of bus routes that I’ve been tempted to take just because of their names—“Blue Heaven” and “Happiness.” Who would guess that you could get to happiness for under US$1.50? :)

A couple of general observations...it’s interesting how we collectively decide as a society which animals/insects are scary and which aren’t. Clearly one guideline is something that can harm you should be considered scary. But why, for example, are we delighted by butterflies but disgusted by cockroaches? There are several things that, although I know they can’t hurt me, I do not like (e.g., the little lizards that are omnipresent at both projects). The other thing I was thinking about recently was how many cultures use the name of some type of female animal to insult women, but to insult men, you say something bad about their mothers.

On trash collection days, you always see people with varying levels of resources collecting recyclables to sell. For example, the most basic level is people who put things in plastic grocery store bags, then there are those that drag a huge bag behind them, and finally you work your way up to having a cart that you pull. Downtown there is a huge cooperative for buying recyclables, and there are smaller places in the neighborhoods that buy them as well.

And the official trash collectors are very interesting to watch. Trash collecting here is like a sport. The collectors spend most of their time running behind or in front of the garbage truck. They also enjoy playing around and yelling back and forth, so it’s quite entertaining to watch.

Burning season is upon us once again, when there always seems to be something, somewhere burning, whether by accident or on purpose. When it hasn’t rained in weeks, it’s very easy for cigarettes thrown out the window to start fires that are usually allowed to burn out. Because it hasn’t rained in so long (and also probably because of the smoke) there is a noticeable haze hanging over the city.

Brazilians are very provincial, and there is a lot of competition between the various states. There are a few commonly held stereotypes for people from different states. For example, the people from my state (Minas Gerais) are known for being more quiet, kind of country bumpkinish (particularly the ones from rural areas), not quick to make decisions and very family oriented.

I have previously mentioned some of the things that women do here in the name of beauty, but for the first time, I saw a woman dressed up to go out wearing shoes that were at least two sizes too small, and her feet were hanging off the back. Another first was seeing a shirt from my alma mater, Texas A&M University.

One interesting thing I pass on my neighborhood bus route is the residence of someone I have dubbed “the medal man.” The medal man has a room on the first floor where the window is almost always open with the light almost always on. He has an entire wall covered with medals and pictures of him participating in various athletic events. I have occasionally seen him in that room, admiring his medals and photos, perhaps reliving his glory days.

May is family month, and family has been the theme at both of the projects. On Saturday, it was Family Day at Liberdade, where the parents were invited to participate in the project to get a taste of what their kids experience. It was specifically stated that the kids were not to come because they didn’t want the adults to be distracted. The event was supposed to start at 2:00, but people were showing up as late as 3:00. Each child was invited to send up to two adult family members. There were mostly mothers, but also one step-father, one grandmother, a few older sisters and an aunt. There were three workshops—in art, literature, and mine was English. The participants were divided into three groups, and after 35 minutes, the groups rotated so everybody got to participate in all three workshops. Then all of the groups convened for a “recreation” workshop where groups of 4 had to throw a ball over a net using a sheet and the other group had to catch it in their sheet. Finally, they went to the cafeteria to have snack just like the kids do at the end of their time at the project. It was a fun afternoon, and I think the parents really enjoyed it, but by 5:00 I was exhausted.

At the end of the afternoon, I noticed that I had a headache and felt strange, which continued on and off through today. We’ll see if staying home clears it up or not. I definitely think twice about venturing out and taking the bus or metro when I’m not feeling well...if I get worse and need to go home, I have to walk, wait for the bus/metro and walk some more to get home.

What's going on

2007-05-14T16:31:00.000-04:00

Irony of the week
I had occasionally heard what sounded like someone throwing pebbles at my bedroom window before, but last week in the middle of the night, it kept happening over and over, to the point where I got up and looked out from the balcony to see if somebody was outside. The thing I couldn't understand was that most of the window is covered by a grate, and the sound was something hitting the glass, not the metal grate. I couldn't imagine that somebody had sufficient aim to consistently hit that little part of the window that isn't covered by the grate. Only after 10-15 minutes of consternation did I realize that I had stuffed the curtains into the upper part of the window to secure them, and perhaps something on the top part of the curtain that was hanging out the window was making the noise. Sure enough, it turned out to be little curtain hooks I'd never noticed before that were sewn into the curtain. I got some scissors and cut all of the hooks off, put the top part of the curtain out the horizontal window and shut it and tried to go back to sleep. On one hand, I was proud of myself for figuring out what was making the noise, and on the other hand, I was aggravated by having been awakened in the middle of the night, and embarassed at the extent of my paranoia.

For the first time in my life this past week, I saw someone walking a pet bird. The owner was walking along holding his birdcage and singing something that sounded like "lassie" plus various obscure vowel sounds--I'm guessing that was his way of singing in English...

There is a common saying in Brazil that I thought I'd share: "If you run, the beast will get you and if you stay put, it will eat you."

I never understood the appeal of duty free shops in the airport because they all seemed to have equal or higher prices than the regular stores in the U.S. Then my perfume ran out and I went to see if a perfume store carried it, and they do, at double the cost (more than US$100). Perfume must be in the category of goods to which they add a 100% import tax.

The street that runs in front of my metro station has been closed for a while now while they are slowly doing some major construction. The pedestrian route through the area is constantly changing and not very convenient or safe, although it is always clearly marked. The route this week is like a beginner's obstacle course for mountain biking, with various bumps thrown in and a few thin pieces of plywood on top of some thin logs that is supposed to serve as a pedestrian brige over the ditch. One thing about which I am curious is the cultural differences that result in following or breaking rules. All kinds of people and children walk right through the middle of the construction site (i.e. next to the bulldozer) even though the pedestrian route is clearly marked. The workers have used orange netting and stakes around most of the perimeter of the site, but in some areas, they use black and yellow "don't cross this line" tape. I noticed the other day that the tape had been broken in many different places and retied. I'm guessing that's where people cut through (figuratively and literally). It's not that people are in a hurry...I noticed the same thing with people jaywalking across busy intersections. They aren't in a hurry to get anywhere; it's just that there's something that drives them to risk their lives and put their body in front of oncoming traffic. That being said, I have to admit that I've jaywalked, too, but never when cars are close by.

It seems that most people rarely do what they say they are going to do when they say they are going to do it. It's annoying if you're counting on them, but on the flip side, that's what contributes to the extreme social flexibility here and the more laid-back atmosphere that is healthier for living, I think.

I was on a bus Saturday afternoon and realized--you know you're in trouble when the pedestrians are going faster than your vehicle. There was a big traffic jam (it took about 45 minutes to go less than 2 miles) and I was waiting to see if it was caused by an accident or construction. It turned out to be neither; it was the traffic backed up from people trying to get into the mall parking lot to buy a present for Mother's Day.

It's ironic that the beauty standard for a particular place is often the opposite of people's natural features. Here where most people have naturally curly or wavy hair, the height of fashion is straightened hair. It's such a popular procedure to blow dry hair completely straight that in the salons they have these interesting moveable contraptions to hold the blowdryers.

Nicknames are so common here that it's not uncommon when people don't know each other's real names. Several nicknames are based on physical characteristics, but meant in a non-offensive way, for example "fatso" if you're overweight, "big black guy" if you're tall and Black, "little Black girl" if you're a black woman, etc. I have been called "little ant" on a number of occasion because of my sweet tooth.

I'm trying to get back to equilibrium so I can see the glass as half-full again rather than half-empty. I did see a free movie on Friday, and on Saturday, my Canadian friend called me and said they had an extra ticket to a concert if I wanted to go. I quickly researched how to get there, and thankfully, my neighborhood bus went through the area where the restaurant was. It turned out to be a belly dancing performance with live music, which was quite entertaining. I took a taxi home rather than risk waiting an hour for the bus to show up, and it turned out the driver was a Baptist minister. He was talking to me for 15-20 minutes after we got to my apartment building. When he asked me if I was going to stay here, I told him that I'm in a period of discernment. He said something very wise and helpful, but I can't remember what it was...

And finally, I thought I'd end with this image, which is what I see on Sunday mornings when I'm waiting for the metro. I realized one day that some of the shadows are sharply focused and others quite blurry. That made me think about life in general--how somethings are clear and settled and other things are blurry and unknown, but you never have it all perfectly in focus at the same time.

In the neighborhood

2007-05-07T16:54:00.000-04:00

This week, I thought I'd mention a few of the people who seem to be permanent fixtures in my neighborhood. First there's the chess/fake-CD-DVD man, who sets up a table on the sidewalk outside the supermarket and right across the street from the real video rental store. He always has a chess board and is either selling his wares, playing chess or studying chess moves in a book. Diagonally across from him (also outside the supermarket, which has a cafe selling snacks) is the kabob man. He has a gas grill that he sets up most evenings and even provides plastic stools for people to sit and eat their kabobs. Neither the kabob man nor the chess man work on Sundays, but most other nights, they seem to show up. There's a hot dog lady who stations her cart outside the internet/videogame cafe at night. It's also right across the street from a bar where they sell snacks. There are two things about these vendors that puzzle me. The first thing is their proximity to the competition. They all are located right next to their competitors. In my thinking, I would try for an "unsaturated market." The second thing is how any single one of them can make enough money to survive. There are so many people in Brazil that sell things for a living, especially "ambulatory" salespeople, and I have no idea how they survive with the amount of competition out there. I previously mentioned the large number of bars in my neighborhood, but now I've also noticed the plethora of beauty salons. Even though the majority of Brazilian women seem to make regular visits to the beauty salon, I still don't see how any of the smaller salons in my neighborhood makes enough money to survive. One last neighborhood thing--I keep meaning to mention the amusing name of one of the bars on my daily route to the bus stop: the Jaguar's Bad Breath Bar.

They are starting experiments here with full-time public school. Previously, all public (and most private) schools would offer 4-hour sessions for three different groups of kids--one in the morning, one in the afternoon and one at night (usually teenagers). What they are doing to fill the extra time is adding in extra-curricular things that previously kids did not experience at school. It will be interesting to see if the idea of all-day public school takes off or not. Some of the kids who were participating in Shade and Fresh Water programs are now going to school all day, but there are always plenty more kids on the waiting list to take their places.

Yesterday afternoon was the final match in the Minas Gerais state soccer championship between the biggest rivals in Belo Horizonte. The blue team had to beat the black and white team by at least 4-0, so even though they won the game 2-0, the blue team lost the championship. I was so fortunate as to be in transit immediately after the game and subjected to the war-like atmosphere of loud fireworks going off at every corner, people honking and screaming, etc. One thing that's different here is that fireworks are largely used to make celebratory noise, not necessarily for the visual display. Many people use them at all hours throughout the day, when they're barely visible.

I'm noticing that MP3 players and earphones are becoming more common in public here, and especially on public transportation. The other morning when I was leaving my apartment building, I heard two women speaking loudly a while before I saw them, and it turned out that the mother and daughter were getting their exercise walking together, but both had on earphones while they were conversing. I hope that the earphone popularity doesn't negatively affect the public friendliness and warmth that I find so refreshing here.

On the holiday on Tuesday, I went with a family from church to the zoo. It turns out that admission is the most expensive on holidays. I was surprised at first at the huge number of families who were sitting on the grass on picnic blankets, but then I realized that grassy areas are not that common here, so it's probably a special treat.

For the first time, somebody I know has contracted dengue. A young woman from church was feeling quite ill last Sunday, and when she went to the clinic on Monday, the diagnosis was dengue. Apparently you have a high fever and a lot of pain. It's caused by a mosquito bite (a type of mosquito that only bites during the day, I think). A few weeks ago, I noticed when I was waiting in the morning for the metro that I got a couple of mosquito bites. Because that happened during the day, I was sure I would come down with dengue, but thank God, that was not the case.

Even though the Liberdade neighborhood isn't by any means the fashion center of Belo Horizonte, the kids have no problem criticizing my wardrobe. One day, they asked if my close-toed shoes with buckles were men's shoes. Last week, one of them poked me in the stomach when he was joking around, hesitated, and then poked me again for confirmation before remarking on his surprise that my jeans came up to my waist. Then several of the kids started to say how "country folk" wear their pants that high and do imitations. Is this just payback for how mercilessly we used to ridicule our father about the level of his waistband? :) When I had to leave Liberdade early on Friday, I said my goodbyes and started to head for the bus stop when the cook came after me. She realized that I was leaving early and was worried that I was fleeing from exasperation. I assured her that I had an appointment and everything was fine, but it felt good to know that somebody was looking out for me.

One of my colleagues asked me about holidays in the U.S., so I thought I'd draw a comparison of the federal holidays in Brazil and the U.S. The dates in parentheses are the dates on which the holiday falls in 2007.

U.S.
New Year's Day (January 1)
Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15)
Washington’s Birthday (February 19)
Memorial Day (May 28)
Independence Day (July 4)
Labor Day (September 3)
Columbus Day (October 8)
Veterans Day (November 12)
Thanksgiving Day (November 22)
Christmas Day (December 25)

Brazil
New Year's Day/World Peace Day (January 1)
Carnaval (February 19-20)
Ash Wednesday (February 21)
Good Friday (April 6)
Tiradentes Day (April 21)
Work Day (May 1)
Corpus Christi (June 7)
Independence Day (September 7)
Nossa Senhora Aparecida (October 12)
Day of the Dead (November 2)
Proclamation of the Republic (November 15)
Christmas (December 25)

Then the Brazilian states throw in some additional holidays for patron saints, etc.

One last thing about bank accounts. I didn't really want to bother with a Brazilian bank account, but it turns out that I'm not even qualified to open one. To open a bank account here, you have to show proof of your salary, not a minimum deposit.

Time to go see the chess man and the kabob man as I'll stop at the supermarket on the way home.

Hodgepodge

2007-04-30T15:57:00.000-04:00

I thought I'd post a picture of the cashew fruit, which I'd never seen in the U.S. The cashew nut is inside the curved green appendage on the outside of the fruit. Luckily, I did not try to extract the nut, as I now have read that there is a substance inside the green part that causes a skin rash. Here people eat the fruit in addition to the nuts and also drink the juice.

This past week the rest of the kids at Liberdade received their own knitting needles. By the way, I’d like to officially thank Carol at Shuttles, Needles and Hooks in Cary, NC for the discount she gave me on knitting supplies for the kids when I was there last year. It was rewarding not only to have the kids stay after their snack to ask for help with their knitting, but also to visit one home on Thursday evening (I stayed overnight in Liberdade to teach an English workshop to the teenagers/young adults on Thursday night) and see the youngest boy sitting in the kitchen, concentrating on his knitting, not sitting in front of the TV, like he usually would be doing. I think we have an opportunity to use needlework to reach the kids in a new way, help them build up self-esteem, etc. and because of this potential, I think, I am experiencing more difficulties.

Last week I went to see the film “The Pursuit of Happyness” with Will Smith. I was rushing to get to the theater on time because I’d stopped downtown to try to get my haircut and ended up spending two hours in the salon. Thankfully, I ran into my friend exiting the same metro train at the mall, and we had a few minutes to spare before the film started. I think that I perceived that story differently than I previously would have because of my Brazilian experience...I found it quite tragic that the protagonist didn’t get any substantial help from family or friends. With the interconnectedness and interdependency of individuals and families in Brazilian society, I was thinking such a story would be rare here, but then I realized that there are homeless people here, despite this interconnectedness.

In a discussion this past week, I made a brief reference to the Bible story of Abraham and Isaac to a colleague who soon amazed me by recounting in great detail the entire story up to the sacrifice. (This woman had not previously demonstrated a major knowledge of the Bible.) At this point another colleague said, “I don’t know that part because that’s when I fell asleep.” I was trying to understand if she meant she feel asleep during church or what, and then finally I realized they were talking about a movie version that is frequently shown on television here. When it's faithful to the true story, what a great way to get the message out.

Hopefully with repeated treatments and my new haircut, the lice are history. I forgot to mention previously that the difference between the American & Brazilian instructions for combating lice is a typical example of cultural and stylistic differences between the two countries. The Brazilian instructions say use the fine-tooth comb, apply the medicated lotion to your scalp, and soak all your hairbrushes and things in very hot water for several minutes. I looked up some instructions from a few American web sites, and they were much more extreme (probably unnecessarily so): wash in hot water all bedsheets and clothes used within two days before you started the treatment and dry on high heat, soak all combs/brushes in alcohol, vacuum the floor and furniture, etc.

Starting the Saturday-before-last, the shower in my apartment was leaking a lot, so much so that I had to turn off the bathroom water valve after each use of the water in the bathroom. I spent a lot of time and experienced a lot of frustration last week waiting for the handyman. He’s such a nice, efficient, cheap source of assistance that it’s impossible to be aggravated once he finally shows up, even though he may have failed to show up for one or more scheduled visits without calling to cancel. I finally got the major leak in the shower fixed on Saturday, thank goodness.

Lesson of the week: If somebody says to you “This is probably not the best time to tell you this...” take them at their word and ask them to tell you at another time. I was already very upset and sharing my pain with a colleague when that particular phrase was uttered. What followed did, indeed, only make matters worse. One of the hardest things for me to deal with here is feeling misinterpreted or misunderstood, which, unfortunately, when you’re a stranger trying to live and work in a foreign land, is bound to happen somewhat regularly. It reminds me of my confusion when I was first exposed to "Black" society as a young adult and felt I was being judged on a mysterious set of rules that I hadn't learned.

I know that my foreign friends and colleagues in the U.S. complained about how Americans would often issue meaningless, vague invitations--“We should do lunch sometime.” and would never follow-up on it. I feel like I am missing a critical link in the friendship chain here, but I’m not sure how much is cultural and how much is just me. People are super-friendly, even giving their phone numbers but not making specific plans or invitations. I guess my expectation here (perhaps unrealistic, but one cultural guidebook agrees with me) is that if somebody really wants to do something, they will issue a specific invitation. I don’t know how much of what I perceive as missing is me not feeling comfortable inviting myself to somebody’s house (I have done it a few times, though).

I’m trying to discern what I should do next year, and was hit by the revelation that I would need to begin all over again even if I returned to the U.S.--having to address the needs of shelter, clothing and transportation in addition to a job. I’m not sure why that was such a surprise, but I guess I hadn’t really spent any major time in the U.S. with my new limited amount of possessions (other than the 4 months I was waiting for my visa). Here in Brazil it’s different to live with very few possessions because this was not previously my “reality,” but I have a feeling in the U.S., should I return next year, it will be quite a different experience.

Today was a planning meeting for the "educators" at both projects, and it went pretty well. One of the exercises was to tell who you pretended (or wanted) to be when you were a kid and then dress up as that character (using a few costumes that were made available). I chose Jeanie from I Dream of Jeanie, and my colleagues were various superheroes and some other characters with whom I was not familiar.

By the way, I am very glad to be getting over a cold. I was happy to be able to spend some time with a Canadian acquaintance here, who, unfortunately, is moving next month. She has also lent me several good books in English that I've enjoyed reading.

Tomorrow is a holiday, and I'm scheduled to go with some of my churchmates to the zoo, which I've never visited here. Also, this Friday is another attempt to have a gathering of foreigners here in Belo Horizonte. We'll see how it goes.

Indian Day

2007-04-23T13:11:00.000-04:00

The biggest excitement here this past week was the slated arrival of a group of indigenous guests that were going to be participating in a cultural program last week at the Methodist school, Izabela Hendrix, and sleeping at São Gabriel. April 19th is officially "Indian Day" in Brazil, and the group was supposed to arrive on the afternoon of Tuesday the 17th from the neighboring state of Bahia. The staff and children here at São Gabriel were very excited and anxious to meet the guests, but none moreso than Daniel. Daniel is currently working mornings at São Gabriel and leaving after lunch, but on the day the group was slated to arrive, he showed up at São Gabriel in the late afternoon with a flimsy excuse for skipping his nightschool classes and spent the night waiting with Valdener (the caretaker) for the guests. A few of us stayed after work to greet them but gave up around 9:00 PM. The group finally arrived at 2:30 a.m. because their van broke down on the highway.

The next morning, the group was off to their engagement downtown before most of us had arrived at São Gabriel. Daniel spent all of his time Wednesday telling people about the group, what they looked like, what they did when they arrived, etc. Wednesday night, I ended up staying after work waiting to let the group back in, and although somebody had called from downtown at 5:30 saying the group was on their way back, they didn't arrive until a little after 8:00. I opened the dormitory for them, told them about the food waiting for them in the kitchen and asked if I could take a few pictures because Silene had asked me to take some with her camera. They all spoke Portuguese, and the only obvious difference was that they have body and facial tattoos. I asked one of the girls what the name of their tribe meant, and she didn't know. One of the little boys (in the last photo below) came up to me when I was sitting outside and asked me if I knew how to tie shoes. When I replied "Yes," much to my amusement, he then put his tennis shoe on, shoved it in my face and said "tie it."

On Friday, the group returned a little earlier from the school downtown and had a chance to interact with the Shade and Fresh Water kids at São Gabriel. Although I wasn't there because I was at Liberdade, Silene took photos and was kind enough to let me use the photos from her camera. The temporary coordinator here remarked that it's funny that the kids here are so accustomed to receiving foreign visitors that they no longer even bat an eye, but when a group of Brazilian indians arrives, everybody is in a frenzy.

Two boys in the group of indigenous guests at São Gabriel

Making crafts

Making crafts (cont.)

I found it interesting that this guy's feet were tatooed as well

Thanks to Silene for the following pictures:

Kids at São Gabriel on Indian Day

Some of the indigenous guests with the São Gabriel kids on Friday

Guess which one is the "indian"...the one on the right, who was the one that had me tie his shoes

Thursday at Liberdade, I handed out knitting needles and yarn for the first group of kids to be able to take home. They were very excited, especially when I showed them a pattern book that had hundreds of swatches of various geometric designs that you can knit. I explained that with the stitches I would teach them, they could make many of those designs. Several of the kids were saying, "I want to make this one and this one and that one...", but I was really impressed when one of the boys said, "If my mother tells me we need a present for Cousin John and we don't have any money, I will tell her, 'I will make one' and if we need a present for baby Kathy, I will say 'I can make one'", etc. For the knitting classes, I split the kids up into mini-groups so I won't have more than 6 or 7 at a time, so each mini-group has a knitting class every two weeks. The kids that didn't have their class last week (and therefore didn't get their needles yet) were pestering me "PLEASE let me have my needles now. I can't wait a whole week. PLEASE!". It's good to see them so motivated about something.

But it's never completely smooth sailing for very long. The very next day, the coordinator at Liberdade had to go to a doctor's appointment and left after reviewing the behavior rules for the project with them and saying that the teacher of a particular class is the authority for them at that time. All of this went out the window less than five minutes after she left. The first group I had was difficult but bearable, and we got through the theater exercises I had spontaneously come up with when I knew we, the two remaining teachers, would each have to each take one big group (and therefore I wouldn't teach English like I normally would on Friday). The second group was horrible, and even the kids that are normally well-behaved didn't stop throwing gravel the entire time (my "classroom" is the garden in back), and finally after several attempts to get them back on track, I consulted with the other teacher and dismissed them without their snack (which I already knew was only koolaid and cookies that day).

By some miracle, the afternoon kids on Friday were well-behaved (they are normally the most difficult ones), and I was so grateful that I sang to them during their snack time to thank them for their good behavior.

I had already planned a "Me and Jesus" date for Friday night after work because the Cultural Center downtown was offering a free Scandanavian film. [I often use the phrase "Me and Jesus" to describe situations where I'm alone.] I stopped at a luncheonette to get a small pastry to eat for dinner and waited to be let into the area where they were showing the film. Although I knew nothing about it other than the Portuguese title and the name of the director, it was actually pretty good, and I enjoyed it. Afterward, I only had to go around the corner to catch the bus to my neighborhood. When I got back to my neighborhood, I was walking towards the small park/plaza down the street from my building when I heard a guitar playing. I saw several people sitting, chatting and listening to the guitarist, so I stopped and sat with them. It turns out that everybody is from the neighborhood and that the guitarist likes to play there every once in a while for a "serenade." When he started to play "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," I said that it was an American song, and then he asked me if I could sing it. So I ended up sitting there and singing various American and Brazilian songs with the group for more than an hour before finally leaving for my apartment. It was really nice to have such a nice evening after being down for a while.

And a final word about music. I'm not sure why only recently, I began to think more about the lyrics to various sacred songs and about the intensity of the emotions the composers must have experienced. I've long known the lyrics to many hymns, but for some reason have just now started to stop and imagine what the composers felt to inspire such music.

Near relapse

2007-04-16T10:58:00.000-04:00

Since my first discovery of lice a couple of weeks ago, I've been combing my hair twice a day with the fine-tooth comb and only finding a few tiny eggs. Just in case, I used another over-the-counter anti-lice lotion on last Tuesday or so. Imagine my dismay to find one huge louse in my hair on Thursday after returning from working with the kids at Liberdade. At least I was pretty sure that it came from one of the kids and that I got it before it had a chance to reproduce. When I talked to the other teachers about it on Friday, they had a pretty good idea that it came from one child known to frequently have lice, but she wasn't at the project on Friday. They mentioned something about sending out a note, but I don't think anything was ever done. When I saw that child on Sunday, I lifted her hair, and sure enough, underneath was completely full of nits (lice eggs). This is one of the children that loves to hug everybody, so what is one to do without constantly catching lice? As I mentioned before, it seems that the adults here (except for me) are immune. Somebody mentioned a prescription medicine that you can take to become immune, so I'll have to see if that's a feasibility. I felt bad because I know this child's mother, and, not coincidentally, she is rarely at home taking care of her kids. In one of my conversations with the mother when I first arrived here, she spoke about her desire to go to the U.S. to work and live, even if it meant leaving her six children behind.

On a brighter note, Sunday I went to the Methodist church in the neighboring town of Betim to help out with the Liberdade group as they performed their Easter cantata and played recorders during the Sunday school time. The group was fairly well-behaved, and it was great that the church went to collect the kids who live in a neighboring rural area from their own Shade and Fresh Water project, "To Live and to Grow," to watch the performance. Here are some pictures from Sunday.

Waiting for their pre- performance snack

Jesus, the disciples and the children

The crucifixion

The whole cast

Playing recorders

The children of "To Live and to Grow" project in Betim

This weekend I was thinking how grateful I am for the laptop that my church gave me and the digital camera that my parents gave me for my work here. When I first found out that Volunteers in Mission recommends that individual volunteers bring a laptop and a digital camera, I panicked because I owned neither at the time. I have used them both extensively and can't imagine what my life here would be like without them.

The high point of my weekend was when one of the discipline-challenged kids from Liberdade showed me on Sunday morning a wristband that he had knit and sewed all by himself. I asked him where he got needles, and he said that he used barbecue skewers. What creativity! And the worksmanship wasn't bad for someone who's only had a few knitting lessons.

Saturday, I went downtown to a craft store that had large quantities of knitting needles and would take credit cards to buy more knitting needles and yarn so I could give them to the kids in Liberdade to take home. They'd already been bugging me about taking the needles and yarn home to continue their work, and I'd promised that whoever wanted to continue with the knitting class would get their own needles and yarn. I was able to bargain the price down a bit, and I'm hoping that by returning with a photo of the kids and thank you notes from them that I might be able to get a donation from the store next time.

Over the past couple of weeks, the weather has changed and it's getting colder. The last weeks before the temperature shift, the jasmine trees were going out with a bang and blooming full force. Walking home at night from the bus stop was intoxicating.

I had an attack of consumerism this weekend, with a strong urge to go shopping either at the mega-store (similar to K-Mart) or at the Hippie Fair on Sunday. The only thing I succumbed to was to buy the knitting supplies on Saturday. It's only slightly easier to resist the temptation to go shopping when you don't have any money...

Friday night was another of the monthly meetings for English-speaking foreigners that I've been trying to organize here in Belo Horizonte. It's been an uphill battle trying to get a critical mass of people. They're here, but I don't know if we just chose an inconvenient time/day/place (the people who helped me set the time and location have never attended, for example) or if people aren't interested or what. This time, three people eventually showed up who were all from a local language school, and none of whom were native English speakers (two weren't foreigners). So we spoke Portuguese the whole time. Not what I'd been hoping for.

When discussing TV programs here, I'm finding it difficult to be honest about which programs are spin-offs of things from the U.S. without making it seem like everything is an imitation of American TV. I've tried to emphasize the uniquely Brazilian shows--the Brazilian soap opera, for example. Some of the U.S. reality TV shows are broadcast on free television here such as Trading Spouses, Big Brother, etc.

I started thinking about nursing homes now that I've seen a wheel-chair-bound, elderly neighbor across the street being pushed around the neighborhood by a nurse. Nursing homes exist here but are not nearly as prevalent as they are in the U.S., which I think is a good thing. Elders generally live with family until they die. Yet another positive thing to learn from Brazilian culture.

Traditions and culture

2007-04-09T16:34:00.000-04:00

Before I get into the deep thoughts, here are some pictures from the Easter Musical at the two projects where I work. The Liberdade performance was on Wednesday night, and the Sao Gabriel one was on Thursday night. After spending two days hearing those songs all day in rehearsals and the performances, the first part of the weekend, I kept catching myself humming parts of the musical.

LIBERDADE

Constructing a stage
I never cease to be amazed at how much is pulled together within a short time.

Valquiria and the crown of thorns
Brazilian creativity never ceases...cover rolled-up newspaper with cloth, insert toothpicks, and presto!

Most of the cast and some of the choir

Standing-room only

SÃO GABRIEL

The disciples

The crucifixion scene

Leia (the music/Christian Education teacher) congratulating the kids

The choir's moment of glory on the stage afterwards

So the big thing I've been thinking about as I've now experienced the two biggest Christian holidays (Christmas and Easter) in Brazil is what makes up your culture and how much of it can be successfully replaced with something else.

During Easter, I was interested to see what the Brazilian traditions would be, but it's very difficult to differentiate what is a particular family's traditions, what is a particular religious denomination's traditions (more on that in a minute) and what is a country-wide tradition. One thing that is very cool is that Portuguese uses the same word for Passover and Easter, "Pascoa," differentiating Passover by calling it "Pascoa Judia." This leaves no ambiguity from whence the Easter holiday arises. The most wide-spread Easter tradition that I noticed across-the-board was the purchasing and giving of elaborately wrapped chocolate Easter eggs. I was happy to receive one on Thursday along with the rest of the staff of the two projects after our staff Easter lunch of salted codfish.

It seems that the larger holiday in Brazil is Good Friday (called "Holy Friday," it is a national holiday), where families tend to gather and eat salted codfish or some other type of fish. I went to the Good Friday service in the morning at the Central Methodist Church downtown. The mood was not as sombre as I was used to, and I was surprised that the bishop even focused on the resurrection in part of his sermon. (I'm more accustomed to a sad, introspective Good Friday service where you concentrate on the crucifixion.) Easter Sunday, I went to an early Sunday school (it really was a mini-worship service) followed by a breakfast. I recognized a couple of the traditional Easter songs from the U.S. and heard a few catchy new ones. People were not more dressed up than usual, unlike in the U.S., which is probably a good thing. In my travels around the city on Sunday, it didn't seem any different from a normal Sunday. I was blessed to spend both Good Friday and Easter with a family from my church that has jokingly adopted me as another "daughter."

Although it's been interesting to see what Christmas and Easter are like in Brazil, I've found myself missing my own culture and traditions. I'm not sure what is more significant--the particular traditions of my family or of the general cultural traditions in the U.S. (I suspect the former). Logically, it has been much easier to adapt to things that were new to me such as the Juninha festivals (country bumpkin festivals in June/July) and Carnaval; I've found it much harder to adapt to the holidays for which I already had my cultural point of reference.

The interesting thing about being connected to the Brazilian Methodist Church is that it is very different than the Methodist Church in the U.S. Perhaps because Protestants are the distinct minority in Brazil, the Brazilian Methodist Church tries to avoid things that might be considered Catholic, such as candles, icons/images and liturgies. Also, because it was founded by conservative Southern missionaries from the U.S., the Methodist Church officially bans drinking and smoking (and sometimes dancing, depending on the pastor), although there are many jokes about Methodists drinking clandestinely.

I had an interesting discussion with my supervisor, Teca, before she left to travel to the U.S., and she explained that the Catholic church's style tended to reach the masses here because of the liturgies, repetitions, etc. in which everybody can participate--including those who can't read. The Protestant church tends to focus on reading the Bible, which automatically eliminates people that are partially literate or illiterate.

Despite meeting wonderful people, having interesting experiences and seeing much beauty, these cultural longings make me wonder if I could ever live here permanently. For the first real time, I'm having my doubts.

Photos of Palmital project

2007-04-03T10:29:00.000-04:00

As promised...

Fine-tooth comb

2007-04-02T12:56:00.000-04:00

Cooties!
I wish this was an April Fools joke, but it's not...
Imagine my surprise when I discovered this morning that my itchy scalp was not merely the result of sweating in the hot weather or, perhaps, dandruff, but rather, my very first lice infestation. Gross! Thankfully, I actually had some cash and a phone book and could call the pharmacy, who delivered the lotion and fine-tooth comb that the pharmacist recommended. (This is, of course, after I had to look up the Portuguese word for lice in the dictionary.) I'm kind of a queasy person, so I was barely able to extract the little buggers from my head without throwing up or passing out, but by the grace of God, I managed. I also made sure to call both of the projects where I work so they could check the kids. Apparently, head lice is even more common here than in the U.S. because of the tropical climate. When I arrived at São Gabriel and was joking with my colleagues about it, it seemed that everybody had experienced head lice at least once as a child. I also mentioned my bout with self-pity this morning that being single and living alone, it took me longer to realize what the problem was and that it was harder to treat because I can't see the parts of my head where the lice love to hang out--behind the ears and at the nape of the neck. My colleague, Fernanda, joked that she was thinking another option if I had a spouse would be to have someone to whom I could pass the lice and who could have a worse infestation than me. But nobody here has experienced it as an adult. I must be special (and perhaps lacking some immunity?)... In any case, I'm now paranoid and imagining that every slight itch, drip of sweat, etc. is a louse that I somehow missed in my hour with the fine-tooth comb this morning.

The weekend
This weekend was very busy and afforded little-to-no relaxation. Saturday I came to São Gabriel to finish editing the PowerPoint presentation and flyer for my supervisors to take with them on their month-long trip to the U.S. and also to take pictures of the Shade and Fresh Water training meeting. It was impressive that not only were the volunteer trainers for the Shade and Fresh Water program working on Saturday, but also the kitchen staff (who worked extra Friday night through Sunday afternoon to cook for the training); two of the teachers from the project who were preparing the background scenes for the Easter cantata; some young volunteers from a local college that were working on getting the computers in the computer lab in good working order; and my supervisors, who were getting ready to leave on their month-long trip the following morning. One of the teachers is even going to college at night now, and Saturday and Sunday are her only "free" days to study, clean, etc.

Saturday evening, I wanted to go home, but I'd been told about a birthday worship service/party for one of the teenagers in my church and ended up going to that. I was actually leaving São Gabriel around 7:00 and about to walk to the bus stop to catch the bus home when I ran into three young women from church walking to the party, so I figured it was a sign that I should go. It was a pretty good hike from the community center to the church, especially with my laptop in my backpack. Nobody told me it was for her 15th birthday (which, seen as a passage to adulthood, is a very big deal here), otherwise I would not have gone in my blue jeans. Although I was underdressed and hadn't showered that evening (unlike everybody else), nobody seemed to pay attention to my clothes or treat me any differently, which was nice. Before the event was over, one friend from church walked me to the nearby metro station to catch the last or next-to-last train home, and I arrived around 11:00 pm.

Sunday morning, I got up early to catch the bus to the neighboring town of Santa Luzia (~30 minute ride) to visit a Shade and Fresh Water project that only meets on Sundays in the Palmital neighborhood. Thankfully, the coordinator was at the bus stop to meet me, and he walked me around the town a little to see the fair that was in the town center. In some ways it resembled a smaller version of the "producer's" or "hippie" fair that they have every Sunday morning in downtown Belo Horizonte. One major difference that this fair sold a lot of used things (electronics, plumbing and hardware supplies, etc.) in addition to produce, new clothes and jewelry. On my journey to that neighborhood, I'd noticed several people with various types of plants in their hands, and finally it hit me that it was Palm Sunday.

In theory the project starts at 9:00, but it takes a little while for the majority of the kids to wander in. I took lots of pictures of the kids, their various activities and their modest facilities. They meet on a property abandoned by the school system, and there's a lot of possibility for structural improvement (crumbling walls, missing windows, etc.). There are no kitchen facilities, and only one room has electricity, so the volunteers had to prepare the snacks for the kids at their homes and transport them to the project. After the project ended at 11:30, the coordinator walked me back to the bus stop, where I was fortunate to immediately catch the bus back to Belo Horizonte (the wait for a bus on Sundays can seem eternal...).

Rather than going all the way home, I got off about halfway to go to house of friends from church to eat lunch and give an English class to the two sisters and one of their cousins. If I experienced the desire to take a Sunday nap when I lived in the U.S., the temptation is at least double here where the lunches are more substantial and the houses lack air conditioning. We managed to stay awake the whole afternoon and left to go to church at 6 something. Originally, I was thinking that I would not go to church on Sunday because I couldn't go in the morning, but then when I realized that it was Palm Sunday plus Communion Sunday, I resolved to go, even though that would mean another late-night arrival to my apartment. (It's funny how one's definition of "late-night" changes as one gets older...)

I was curious to see what the Brazilian Methodist Palm Sunday would look like, but other than having the choir sing and the dance group perform (neither of which happens every Sunday), there was no substantial difference. I'm not sure how much of that is the Brazilian Methodist way and how much is the style of the individual church.

Poetry in motion
It's interesting how popular poetry is here, across all social classes. I was surprised to hear about it twice on Saturday evening--first when the church custodian mentioned that she loved to write poetry and had a whole notebook filled with poems, and second when the aunt of the birthday girl read a poem during the special birthday worship service (and the person next to me mentioned that the aunt loves to compose poetry for every special occasion)--and again the very next day, when I saw a very moving booklet of poems written by the birthday girl herself.

By design
Another amazing form of creativity here is sewing. In the U.S., if you want to sew something, you go to the fabric store, look through the pattern books, buy a pattern and the material and cut them out to make the garment. Here, if you want to sew a garment (or more likely, have a garment sewn for you), you go to the fabric store, talk to them about what kind of garment you want, buy material, and they will draw a picture of the garment, which you can then take to the seamstress, who will design her own pattern (often in her head, without actually making a paper pattern), cut the material and sew the garment.

Can you see me now?
On Wednesday morning, I went to see an opthalmologist recommended by the optical shop close to my neighborhood. My glasses haven't been doing too well (lenses occasionally popping out) since I took a volleyball in the face in January, and I hadn't had a check-up in two years. As the guys at the optical shop said, she was super-friendly, even wanting to invite me to her church or to her home when she found out I was Protestant. I told her I had scheduled to visit the Palmital project on Sunday, and she said the next Sunday she would be traveling to visit her family in another state. We will see if she calls after Easter. I didn't expect to get my pupils dilated, and I left the office right before lunch unable to focus and blinded by the mid-day sun. Somehow, I managed to catch the right bus to get back to São Gabriel and take refuge from the sun.

My generation
Something quite enviable in Brazilian society is the almost complete lack of a generation gap. I think I've previously mentioned how you'll often see several generations of a family socializing together. I'm trying to study how this is achieved because it's definitely worth replicating.

Tent-making time
It's tent-making time again as I am almost out of savings from when I was able to work in the U.S. last year while waiting for my visa. I am sure that God will provide me with opportunities to "make tents" and use my skills to be able to raise some revenue. I was able to do one scientific translation last week, and might also eventually be teaching English lessons to that student. One particular focus right now is my next round-trip ticket between the U.S. and Brazil. I have the return trip from my last round-trip ticket scheduled to visit the U.S. at the end of June. I was planning to book a frequent-flyer ticket to return to Brazil at the end of July and come back to the U.S. to visit for Christmas, but that's not looking too likely at the moment. First, the airline dramatically increased the number of miles required for flying between the U.S. and Brazil. I asked my home church in the U.S. if anybody might be able to donate miles to me, and one friend will donate the maximum possible (15,000 miles). I could buy the remaining 5,000 miles required for the lowest-level frequent flyer ticket (60,000 miles), but when I looked at the online reservation system, I saw that the only seats available for going to Brazil in July are those requiring 100,000 miles (right now I just have 40,000). I was warned that because of school vacations in Brazil during the month of July, travel is difficult. So right now, the two options seem to be to wait for a fairy godmother to appear with a round-trip frequent-flyer ticket or to buy the next round-trip ticket with my credit card and hope that the money will arrive to eventually pay for it.

Ironies of the week
There are two for this week:
1. In the display case at a newsstand, I saw a DVD of Pope John Paul II right above the latest issue of Playboy magazine.
2. People seem to like to have small, grassy areas here both on public and private property, but lawnmowers are extremely rare. You will usually see people cutting them with weed-whackers.

I'll have to post some pictures tomorrow because I forgot the cable to download pictures from my camera.

Ups and downs

2007-03-27T13:33:00.000-04:00

Had I actually been able to write this update last night, my tone would have been completely different. I just spent a good bit of time this morning receiving some constructive feedback from one of my supervisors. It was very difficult to receive for two reasons--first because I have a general difficulty receiving criticism, and second because it seems like my efforts to interact with my colleagues and the children at the projects have not yielded the results I'd hoped they would and thought they had. That's not to say that everything is terrible and nobody likes me, because that's definitely not the case.

Yesterday I was feeling some signs of hope like I might foresee a near future with a decent social life and was feeling pretty good, but then learning that I'm being perceived in some rather negative ways was a pretty big downer today. My initial reaction is to want to pack up and go home (what does "home" mean, anyway?), but I know that I need to wait, calm down and see what I need to change and how I can better adapt. That's one thing that really is difficult about living in another culture is that you are the one who has to do almost 100% of the adapting. Everybody else just goes about their business, but you have to watch every word out of your mouth, every gesture, every greeting or lack thereof, etc.

Earlier, I'd come to realize that whatever small things I might be "accomplishing" here are not the focal point, but, rather, what God is accomplishing within me. I thought that I was presenting the heart of a servant, but apparently my "servant's heart" needs a lot of fine tuning. One thing that came up in the discussion this morning that another friend had mentioned recently was not being so hard on myself. I didn't think that I am that hard on myself, but if it keeps coming up, it must be an issue. More fodder for endless self-analysis...

One big blessing in all of this was when I arrived belatedly in the kitchen to get some lunch, and the women there noticed my puffy eyes and asked if I was sick. I explained that I had been crying because of receiving some criticism, and then when I was eating, one of them began to read the Upper Room devotional for today about past mistakes, which I'd already read while eating breakfast but seemed to hold a special significance now.

Enough of the therapy and onto the usual observations.

One cool thing is that I pass a bakery on my way to the bus stop most mornings, and I was looking for Italian or French style bread to make my sandwiches. I talked to the owner, and she said she had a recipe for Italian bread, so she made some for me a few days later. It turned out to be ciabatta, which was great for my sandwiches. She actually wrote down my cell phone number and is now calling me whenever she makes some so I can go by and pick some up.

Junk mail here isn't delivered by the mailman, but rather in person by individuals hired by the respective businesses who are advertising. They walk around with stacks of flyers and put them into the mailboxes.

As someone who is lactose intolerant, I'm surprised and thankful about how easy it is to find soy milk here. Even the smaller grocery stores seem to carry it.

I see so many people smoking here that it seems like non-smokers are the minority. By law, cigaratte packs and display racks have ghastly pictures of various medical conditions caused by smoking (premature infants, mouth cancer, etc.), but the cheap price of cigarettes (US$1 for a pack of 20!) keeps them coming back. I'm guessing that the medical community here hasn't yet sued the tobacco companies to get them to help pay for the medical care necessitated by people consuming their products.

Last week I was looking for a used travel guide as a present for my former roommate's birthday (a new one would cost about 1/4 of my monthly rent) and called around several used bookstores to find something; the only option was a 1995 guide to Rome. I went to pick it up, and imagine my surprise when I arrived at a long, narrow store that has a counter all the way across the front to keep the customers away from most of the books. You tell one of the employees what you're looking for, and they go digging around and come back to you with whatever they find. I finally got the guy to let me in to browse through whatever few novels they had in English--nothing worth buying, though. I thought that the point of bookstores (especially used ones) was to browse.

Words that don't mean what you'd expect
You run across several seemingly familiar words that mean something completely different from their English meaning. For example:
"colegio" - college? no, primary/secondary school
"academia" - academy? no, gym (the place you go to exercise)
"pretender" - pretend? no, intend

I thought that "inflamavel" in Portuguese meaning "can be burned" was strange, but when looking up how to spell inflammable in English, I just found out that both "flammable" and "inflammable" mean "can be burned" in English. Who knew?

Irony of the Week
Well there are a couple to choose from...
First is the "Open English School" in the Sao Gabriel neighborhood which I don't think I have ever seen actually open. I've also noticed that even deaf Brazilians "talk" all at the same time in sign language.

Pictures
On last Wednesday, I went with my supervisors and three visitors to the "Salão do Encontro" or "Meeting Hall" project in nearby Betim. Originally founded in 1970 with the goal of preserving cultural traditions and folklore, it has expanded to a huge social project in a forest-like setting with training (and selling products) for adults and children in woodworking, pottery, weaving, dried flower arrangments, basketweaving and rag dolls; a school; a day care center; and much more. Here are a few pictures from our visit to the project.

The kids learn make the paint they use from various clays. These kids were taking their jobs very seriously.

Step 2 in the paint-making.

Using the paint

Learning to weave together

Two dreamers--missionary Gordon (one of my supervisors) and Dona Noemi (one of the founders of the project)

Dog days of summer

2007-03-19T15:22:00.000-04:00

Greetings
I'd like to send two personal shout-outs this week. First to my faithful reader, Lisa W. Thanks for your interest and support! Second to Travis, who helped me get a temporary solution to be able to use my laptop again. Wahoo! Thanks a million.

Some like it hot
This is my first time to be in Belo Horizonte during the end of summer because I was not here last March. It is HOT (90-95 F). Not as bad as it might get in the Amazon or in the northeast, but hot enough when most places don't have air-conditioning. I really think that the sun is stronger here. Just walking around during the peak hours can wipe you out. I went out Saturday morning to run a couple of errands, and by the time I got back home (before 11 AM), I was drenched with sweat. Saturday night, I was already falling asleep at 9 PM.

It's funny because when you see people waiting outside (e.g. for the bus), they seem to be in very strange locations/configurations until you realize that they are standing in whatever piece of shade exists. Normally I like to walk on the side of the street against traffic, but these days, I've come to value more walking on the shady side of the street.

Prayers still needed
We're still having some difficulties with the children at Liberdade. It turns out that one of the new girls has become the girlfriend of one of the boys who's been in the project for a while, and I'm not sure if that is the main thing that is causing the other girls to gang up on her outside of the project. In any case, the situation had most of the kids super-agitated on Friday, and even the kids in the morning were horrible for me. One of the male "educators" in the projects was so nonchalant as to say that we don't have to deal with what happens outside of the project, but all of these little and big conflicts so clearly contaminate everything we try to do.

Get on the bus
Being the nerd that I am, I am learning all kinds of things about the bus system here. Each bus has a turnstile, and there are a few seats in the front of the bus for passengers that don't need to pass through the turnstile. You've got two different categories of people in the front--those who need to pay and those who don't. (You've also get people that aren't supposed to be in that section sitting there; the faretaker is supposed to ask them to move when the seats are needed by people who have the right to sit there.) Pregnant or obese people and people with certain disabilities can sit in the front but need to pay. Senior citizens 65 or older, children under 5 and bus company employees don't need to pay. Some people with disabilities get a special bus pass to use and go to the back, and sometimes they even get the right to use it for a companion to accompany them. Police in uniform don't pay or pass through the turnstile; they enter and exit through the back door. Candy vendors try to get the busdrivers to let them in the back door, sell to people in the bus, and get out after a few stops. Sometimes you even see people asking for money--occasionally in exchange for a small trinket that they're selling "to make a living." These people have a well-rehearsed speech, and I'm always surprised how many people give money.

My uncompleted quest, however, is to find out the original logic behind the numbering system of the bus routes. I've heard rumors that there was originally a logic to the three or four different digits in the route numbers as well as the colors of the buses. You, too, gentle reader, will know as soon as I do.

Pajama party
Sunday morning I went to Sunday school and found out that the young people's class was going to drive out to a country house to have their class and lunch with the kids, who'd spent Saturday night there in what was called "Pajama Night" (the equivalent of a lock-in). I got a ride with somebody, and we arrived within 30 minutes. I was surprised to see that even though it was chilly and raining (a cold front moved through Saturday night) the kids were swimming. Sunday school was much more difficult to understand with children from 2 to 12 running around, but it was nice to see the kids having a good time. It was also an excellent example of what a small church with almost no resources can do to involve the children and youth.

Sick and tired
It seems like many people here show up to work when they are sick, and it prompted me to ask about the general sick policy of most employers here. It turns out that if you are sick and missing work, you have to go to the doctor and bring a note with you when you come back to work. I asked what you do when you need to go to the dentist, go for a check-up or when your kids are sick. It largely depends on your boss. Some will ask that you only make appointments during your lunch break or before/after work, and others will let you go during work hours. If your company provides a health plan, a lot of times, their doctors will be much more conservative with your excused leave. If you have some condition that an unaffiliated doctor would usually give one week leave, the company health plan's doctor is likely to give you only 2-3 days. For a society that has so much anarchy, this seems very controlling and paternalistic.

Schooldays
One morning I ran into a child in Liberdade who'd been "liberated" from school that day because something happened with his teacher. I was surprised to find out that a school would send one class of children home and not the whole school, but then it turns out that the public schools here don't have substitute teachers. If a teacher knows that s/he needs to be out, s/he can ask a friend to watch their class for them and/or prepare special activities for their class to do. When I was sharing with my Canadian friend my shock at public schools sending home kids without advance notice, she astutely pointed out that children here spend much more time out of school than in school here, so it's not that big of a deal to parents.

Twins?
Since the first day I arrived in Belo Horizonte, people have been telling me how much I resemble Chirley ("Shirley"). I've been going to Chirley's church since October, and her extended family is very involved with the various projects here. I'm including a couple of pictures below so you can judge for yourself.

with our glasses

without our glasses

And so it goes

2007-03-12T15:36:00.000-04:00

Highs and lows of the week
Tuesday at São Gabriel, we celebrated International Women's Day early, and all of the women received a chocolate bonbon and a rose. On Tuesday night, a borrowed bedframe was delivered to my apartment and assembled by the handyman. No more mattress on the floor!

Thursday morning, I almost got run over by a horse and cart that were turning from a side street when I was walking from the bus stop to the community center in Liberdade. How many of you can boast that?

The kids at Liberdade were agitated and fighting on Thursday before they even entered the project, but I was able to have good knitting classes in the morning and afternoon. Thankfully, the weather was good so we could sit outside in the garden; otherwise, we would not have had a separate space. We broke them up into small groups, so I only had 5 or 6 kids at a time. Much more manageable.

Thursday night when I was returning from Liberdade and walking to my bus stop downtown, I was noticing how many women had received little gifts in honor of Women's Day and thinking about noting on the blog how Brazilians seem to be more observant of designated days like Women's Day, Earth Day, etc. UNTIL I ran into the traffic jam...

At my bus stop, I noticed that the traffic was backing up and not moving at all, so after waiting a while, I figured I'd be better off walking to the next bus stop further up so I'd have a better chance of getting a seat and would be able to wait out the traffic jam sitting inside the bus rather than standing at the bus stop. After a little while at that bus stop, the traffic was backing up there, too, and not moving at all. So I waited a while longer and finally walked to the next bus stop, continuing to head in a direction further away from downtown and also from my neighborhood. There, I encountered a number of military police, so I asked one of them if he knew what was going on. He told me there were two different demonstrations, one for Women's Day, and the other for homeless people, and that the women were just about to march down the street where we were. I waited a little while at that bus stop, watched the women march down and then walked up to a higher one, where I waited another 45 minutes or more. One of my buses passed by during that time without stopping because it was cram-packed full of passengers. The one that eventually stopped was also crammed, but the upside was the much-needed comic relief of a little girl (3 or 4 years old) who was flirting with the faretaker the whole way home. All-in-all, it took me an extra two hours to get home. My colleague who'd also returned from Liberdade with me but went to a different bus stop downtown eventually walked home.

It made me think about demonstrations. Obviously rush hour is the best time to get everybody's attention, but it's not necessarily going to be positive attention when you purposely impede people's journeys home. I'm still torn on that one.

Friday was much worse in terms of behavior at Liberdade. I'm sure a lot of it had to do with being one teacher short (it was the day when they took turns going to the bank downtown to cash their paychecks). In the morning, the kids pushed me to the point of tears (which is one of the few things that seems to get their attention). Friday afternoon was even more stressful (the afternoon kids are always more agitated for some reason).

They were supposed to watch a movie in one big group, but we had to separate out some of the rowdier kids, who I took down to the library. When snack time finally arrived at the end of the afternoon, there was a small dispute between one of the girl bullies and a skinny, effeminate boy who had earlier been cursing the other teacher who'd expelled him from the movie. [Normally, he brings flowers for the teachers everyday from his grandmother's garden.] The boy got up to look for his baseball cap when somebody took it and the girl was told by the other teacher to move and sit at that table. She sat in his seat, and when he came back, he asked/told her to move. Now I'd already learned from previous experience that this girl is one of the most stubborn in the bunch, so I and the other teacher were talking and pleading with her to move, and to my surprise, she eventually did, but threatening to beat the boy up after they left the project. And sure enough, when everybody left the project (late because of all the behavior issues), she got him outside the gate and was squeezing his arm so hard with both hands that I thought it might break. I was also well-aware that this girl bully is the same one whose family always comes to her defense and tries to fight everybody. I was trying to leave and catch my bus, and the other teacher and I were pleading with her to let him go, but she just continued to squeeze harder. I tried to reason with her and find out why she was so angry at him, and she said because he was gay (I responded, "That has nothing to do with you"), he'd taken her seat (which was really his seat to begin with and she knew it) and he'd made fun of her earlier on the street (bingo). Eventually, when it became clear she was not going to let him go, the other teacher went to call the boy's family to come escort him home, and I pried her hands loose, all the while imagining her entire family storming the project to burn me at the stake. [Note: I was surprised and disappointed to see that as much as I pray, I still forget to pray WHILE I'm in precarious situations.] It made me so sad to see how violent that girl is and to know that she has learned it at home.

I finally got to the bus stop, completely depressed and exhausted, only to hear from a passing friend that a young man I know in the neighborhood is not only drinking excessively (which I'd seen the previous day) but also using cocaine. He's had a hard life--both of his parents are dead, I'm not sure he finished high school and he's never taken to holding a job.

On Saturday, I was able to recuperate and spend a lovely day in the countryside at a luncheon for my former roommate's birthday. Sunday morning, I went to Sunday school, where the most exciting event was when the man who came to spray against dengue fainted in the driveway because he hadn't eaten breakfast. When I was returning to the metro station, I passed a man leaning in a doorway who said, "Passing right now is the daughter-in-law my mother asked for." Pretty catchy, but the beer in his hand before lunch killed any remote possibility there. :)

The rest of Sunday was spent grocery shopping, cleaning and reading. And so we arrive at Monday.

The apartment
In terms of furnishings, my current apartment is the simplest that I've ever lived in, although it's pretty large for one person. I have:

MAIN BEDROOM
a twin mattress, a borrowed bed frame, a pillow and borrowed linens
a small, plastic chest of drawers that serves as my nightstand
a tiny, weak reading lamp
an armoire built into the wall that came with the apartment
kitchen curtains left by the previous owner closed in the top of the window (they are too short to hang from the ceiling)

SECOND BEDROOM
one chair that unfolds to become a narrow foam mattress
a plastic stool
my little MP3 player and travel speakers

KITCHEN
a small refrigerator (shorter than me), stove and propane tank that I bought
a plastic table, table cloth and two chairs (all borrowed)
4 plants that the previous owner left (in various rooms)

LIVINGROOM
my empty suitcases lined up

And I'm here to tell you that it's not about the stuff. I'm perfectly happy now that I don't have to get up from my mattress on the floor anymore. I'm waiting until I can earn some more money to buy pots/pans, a blender, curtains, and maybe, eventually, a sofa. I don't normally cook too much in the summer, so I've just been making sandwiches.

General observations
Brazil's relationship to the rest of South America is a lot like the United States' relationship to the rest of North America in terms of size (both are geographically dominant on their respective continents), economy (strongest on their respective continents) and culture (both countries are barely influenced by their geographic neighbors). I had somewhat expected to find here the solidarity and cultural cross-pollination that I'd seen among various Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America, but like the U.S., Brazil is more a big island, with few of its inhabitants actually living close to other countries. I don't hear hardly any music from neighboring countries, for example. I'm sure the fact that Brazil speaks Portuguese rather than Spanish also contributes significantly.

After living in Brazil for one year, I can better understand my German friend's frustration at the lower quality of almost every product and service in the U.S. compared to Germany. Most products (and definitely the customer service) are of lower quality in Brazil than in the U.S. A million examples come to mind: scissors, tape, push pins, safety pins, plastic disposable cups, pots and pans, knives, paper towels, napkins, cars, etc. But just like in the U.S., that does not mean that you can't find higher quality goods if you spend enough time and money. Basically "luxury" quality here usually compares to "everyday" quality in the U.S. Because the average standard of living is much lower here, there is less of a market not only for luxury quality items but also for items that are generally considered luxuries by the lower classes (books, authentic CDs and DVDs, computers, napkins, tissues).

Time to go catch a bus...

Belated irony of the week

2007-03-06T16:15:00.000-05:00

The only name anybody here knows for these beautiful trees is "cat pee," referring to the smell of the liquid contained in little pods. I've done a little internet research but, so far, have been unable to find the real name of the tree.

And here comes March

2007-03-05T15:17:00.000-05:00

One thing I realized today is that I really enjoy just sitting and talking with the kids in the projects, but there isn't a whole lot of time to do that because they have their project "workshops," their snack, and then they leave. I'll have to see if maybe I can arrange a few extra minutes just to chat. They are very curious and have lots of questions. There are quite a few new kids at both of the projects, and it's funny to watch the returning kids who've already been in the projects explain authoritatively to the newbies, as though I were part of show-and-tell: "She speaks ENGLISH! She's not from here. She's from the United States."

It's quite amusing to watch myself gradually become what I would normally call a "hippie." I just finished reading a book about changing the world (you know, something light). The book wasn't that great, but at least it got me thinking about changing my mentality and how to work toward a sustainable world where everybody has enough. A few of my friends have already been moving in that direction for some time, now (and I used to think that they were just "hippies" of sorts--now I'm thinking they're pretty smart). I'd already realized from an environmental project I'd worked on at my last job that the climate is in much more trouble than I, even as a former scientist, realized. The final report was just launched--if you're interested, see www.confrontingclimatechange.org for more info. The book talked about a mentality of enough for all versus a mentality of scarcity, where more for you means less for me. I would say the majority of people I encounter here have the scarcity mentality.

The first time I officially thought about this duality was when my sister mentioned her husband's observation that some people think that the "pie" is limited and therefore whatever you get limits the size of their piece, and other people have a vision of unlimited pie. It's devastating to see the effects of scarcity mentality, but it's really cool to see what can happen when you come at people with an abundance mentality, making them re-think their assumptions. The book also mentioned that at least rich people know that money won't solve their problems, but poor people still dream that it will. I definitely have a hard time convincing poor folks here that having a lot more money and possessions is not the answer, but having enough is.

I still struggle with people seeing me as a bank or source of interesting (and cheap) imported goods. I enjoy sharing what I have and receive with my colleagues (toiletries and gum from a recent care package, for example) but feel conflicted when people start to request or even demand more.

I forgot to mention last week that should there be any doubt about the influence of the American media here, the Academy Awards were broadcast (live, I believe) on the major non-cable television network here. Can you imagine NBC, CBS or ABC broadcasting an awards program from Europe or Japan?

I was startled when my upstairs neighbor came and told me somebody had called her apartment looking to leave a message for me to call her back. Then I remembered that the phone book here is listed by name but also address, so you can see all of the people living on a particular street and their addresses, if they have a regular phone. It's actually very useful to have the businesses listed that way, especially when the phone book also lists the address of each cross-street. It turned out to be the secretary from the insurance agent where I'd called to update my address, but she found out I had to update it myself directly with my health plan.

On Friday, I went downtown for another occurrence of the monthly meeting for foreigners that I've been trying to organize. Not only was I not the only one to show up (bonus!), but there were two new long-termers from Australia whose husbands work for a mining company plus a Texan who'd shown up before. We had a good chat, and I was excited to learn of a store where I could supposedly buy imported American peanut butter and taco shells. I'd already heard a little bit about this store (kind of like a Whole Foods), so I took the bus on Saturday afternoon to check it out. They were actually out of American peanut butter, but I brought the Brazilian kind (which I'd never seen in other stores). Brazilian peanut butter, as it turns out, tastes like peanut butter cookie dough lacking flour.

In that store it was quite intriguing to see gadgets imported from the U.S. and other countries. Gadgets in Brazil are pretty rudimentary (e.g. can-openers), and while I recognized gadgets from the U.S., I saw things I never knew existed, especially from Japan and Germany. I realized that the level of a country's economy determines how many fancy products you have to design and convince people that they "need" for their "convenience."

Saturday I had also planned to go downtown in the morning to a large crafts store to try to get more knitting needles and yarn for the classes I'll be teaching at the projects. On my way to the bus stop, I actually found a little neighborhood variety store that was going out of business, so I got a really good deal on all of the needles and most of the yarn that the guy had.

You know how people often will mentally label you when they meet you, and then regurgitate all data or anecdotes they have stored in their brain regarding that label? Normally when I meet people here, they will label me as "American" and will instantly mention anyone they know who has lived or is living in the U.S., if they've traveled there, etc. For the first time a few weeks ago, I met a Brazilian who labeled me as "Black American" and began to download all of his anecdotes regarding Black Americans, including a warm reception that his delegation received in a Black church in the U.S. "even though we were White." It was strange because color isn't as prominent here as it is in the U.S. By the way, I didn't have the heart to tell him that in the U.S., he's not considered White.

There seems to be quite a prominent double-standard here regarding beauty. Women are expected to spend inordinate amounts of time and money on their physical appearance--even moreso than in the U.S.--and as far as I can tell the men don't do a whole heck of a lot. Some guys might go to the gym and maybe dye their hair, but women do all kinds of waxing, dyeing, tanning, special hairstyles, manicures/pedicures, dieting and surgery. You see the same thing that you see in the U.S. where a woman will be in a nice dress and heels, and her companion will be in tennis shoes, jeans and a t-shirt.

There are several variety-type TV shows with various acts singing, dancing, etc. and most or all of them have a squad of cheerleader-type women who are scantily dressed and doing some choreographed dance routine. I was trying to figure out why I disliked those dance routines so much and why they appeared so awkward to me, and I finally realized it was because they are dressed like prostitutes (always with super-high heels), and it seems so out of place to me. I was joking about it with some friends yesterday, and the men admitted that having those women dancing in the background gets them to watch something they normally wouldn't. I don't get it because men here watch the soap operas, which occasionally have a scantily clad or semi-nude woman, but not entire squadrons of them gyrating around. I'd noticed similar dancing girls on the Spanish-language variety programs that are broadcast in the U.S.

Joys
#1 The rainy season seems to be over!
#2 I went to the Federal Police this morning and found out that, indeed, I can renew my visa here in Belo Horizonte and don't need to do it from the U.S.

I'm thinking that's enough for now. Until next time...

Who turned the lights out?

2007-02-27T17:48:00.000-05:00

I found out just by accident last Friday at the grocery store that Saturday night was the end of daylight savings time in our area. Technically, summer doesn't end until next month, so it is very strange to have the sun setting at 6:30. Different regions of the country do different things, so some places are still on daylight savings time.

I got an e-mail message from my dad announcing that my sister gave birth to her son last night. Welcome to our world, Mark Anthony!! I regret that I won't be able to visit right away, but hopefully I can meet him in July when I go back to the U.S. to visit.

I've been trying to figure out what I can do to be able to use my laptop (other than replacing the motherboard at a cost close to the original price of the laptop) after a second opinion confirmed the same problem with the power. I think I may have found a workable solution to bypass the problem and just use battery power, using a battery recharger that's available only in the U.S. Because there's a 60% import tax to ship most things into Brazil from other countries, the only viable solution was to find somebody that can bring me the part from the U.S. Today I finally learned of somebody headed this way from the U.S., but he's leaving on Friday morning, so this afternoon I was rushing around trying to confirm that I was ordering the right stuff and trying to place an order that would get to the guy by Thursday. We'll see if it gets there in time or not. Then if it does, there's still the matter of getting it from another state in Brazil to here, which is much easier to do, relatively speaking.

We're still working out the schedule for the new semester at the projects, so thus far I know that I'll be teaching an optional knitting class to the Shade and Fresh Water kids at Liberdade and something to the older kids (15-18) at São Gabriel.

Yesterday morning, the real estate agency called wanting to come look at my apartment to confirm the corrections to the apartment inspection that I turned in the first week of January. I arranged for the inspector to come by that morning. Some of the problems on my list I'd already fixed (or paid to have fixed), which he duly noted (but that does not mean I'll get reimbursed--I won't). I couldn't believe that I had five days after signing the rental contract to turn in my corrections to the inspection and then they get two months (or more) to come and check it out. At least he showed up on time and didn't take too long. And I learned something...the same word that means "mirror" also means "faceplate for the door handle" or whatever official name that has in English. Who knew?

Perhaps the author of the Harry Potter books traveled to Brazil before penning her famous stories. Why, you may ask? Because here they have these bright green, roundish, hovering flies that I've never seen anywhere else, and they remind me of the "Golden Snitch" used to play quidditch in those books/movies.

Brazilians seem to have a thing about rearranging the furniture in their workplaces and homes. For example, the furniture in the office at São Gabriel has been moved around at least four times since I've been here. Sometimes it might be to improve functionality, but oftentimes it's just aesthetics. Maybe because there are so many things outside one's control here that people jump at the chance to be able to control something.

Somebody here came up with a t-shirt design that has become wildly popular and even spawned imitations. The slogan is "I love BH radically" [BH stands for Belo Horizonte]. I've now seen the same design used to support a local soccer team ("I love Galo radically") and Jesus ("I love Jesus radically").

Houses here frequently have tiled areas in front where people park their car(s). These areas are particularly striking when the tiles are white or beige. In the mornings, I see people using a lot of water and detergent to clean those areas (especially the light-colored tiles). I was thinking that perhaps the white tile parking areas here are the equivalent of the perfect green lawns of the U.S.--something that doesn't actually make a lot of sense in terms of stewardship of our planet, but they look cool.

Although I've long been an independent woman, at times I feel more vulnerable in this culture where women are generally accompanied by husbands, boyfriends, fathers, brothers, or at last other female friends.

I had a busy weekend. Saturday, I spent a great day with my old roommate, including lunch, pedicures, watching a video and going to meet some other folks at a teriffic dance performance downtown. Sunday I went to the church annual meeting in the morning and then out to Liberdade in the afternoon for a birthday party. It was a nice gathering with live music. One weird thing, though--I seemed to be the only one who noticed or cared that a 13-year-old was drinking.

And finally, the irony of the week...I saw my first Brazilian Elvis impersonator downtown last week (complete with red satin jumpsuit and shades, but no guitar). Ironically, he was singing one of Little Richard's hits in a very I-don't-have-any-idea-what-the-words-really-are kind of way.

2007-02-19T16:48:00.001-05:00

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.

Promised photos

2007-02-15T07:46:00.000-05:00

My neighborhood has several quaresmeira trees, which are named for their tendency to bloom around Lent.

I don't think the photos quite capture the intensity of this purple.

There is a hibiscus tree in front of our building.

A view of the full moon from my window

Do you hear what I hear?

2007-02-12T16:40:00.001-05:00

Over the days and weeks, I'm becoming accustomed to the sounds of my new neighborhood. There are the things you'd expect to hear in any city in the U.S.--kids, birds, dogs, cats, cars, buses, motorcycles, the occasional train--and then there are the neighborhood sounds that I've only encountered in Brazil--roosters; screaming soccer fans (and firecrackers and car horns belonging to the same); ambulating salesmen (a truck broadcasting music to sell cylinders of natural gas, a bakery guy with big baskets on his bicycle and a bike horn, and somebody I haven't seen yet who sounds a cowbell); a loudspeaker driving around announcing the specials at the grocery store; and the unique sounds of Brazilian building reformation. It's good that the dwellings here don't burn because they aren't made of wood, but anytime you want to reform a building, there's the constant pounding of mallets breaking through tiles and concrete walls.

[Note to Hillary: I saw my first real Brazilian firetruck at the pre-Carnaval festival downtown this Saturday. It looked just like an American firetruck (and might even have been manufactured int he U.S.).]

Last week was the kids' first week back to the two Shade and Fresh Water Projects since before Christmas. It's disturbing to me that I forgot a lot of their names after just 7 weeks. At least I usually remembered the first letter of their names, for some reason. The kids are very curious and eager to learn new things (as long as it doesn't involve reading or writing). They are very affectionate and sweet on an individual basis; it's just a real challenge interacting with them in groups, where a minimum of 50% seem to be acting up at any given time. Last week and this week, we're doing a different schedule of activities at São Gabriel and Liberdade. I'm teaching music workshops in Liberdade. We're repeating a lot of the same activities we used for the vacation Bible school in Nova Almeida. I'm teaching the "Boogaloo Song" in Portuguese, and it's a big hit. It's interesting because I can usually guess children's ages in the U.S., but here, (at least at the projects) the children are much smaller. I'm not sure how much is genetics and how much is poor nutrition. The average Brazilian adult is smaller than the average American adult, but the difference between the children of the same age is much more prominent.

My laptop is still out of commission, so the administrative work to do for the Methodist Foundation is piling up. I've received a pretty high quote to fix it at a different shop, so we'll see if they fix it or not.

We had four or so lovely, sunny days--a welcome respite from the constant rain, until today, when it was back to precipitating. I tried without too much success to find people to hang out with and things to do this weekend, so I spent a lot of time finishing a bad book (I agree with your assessment, Pearson!) and knitting. The aforementioned pre-Carnaval festival on Saturday turned out to be the gay Carnaval in Belo Horizonte. There were all kinds of people there and lots of, um, interesting things to look at. Basically, though, it consisted of groups of friends hanging out, getting drunk and listening/dancing to different types of extremely loud music that was slowly driving by on three huge floating stages. I walked up and down a bit, drank a soda and took the bus home after about an hour.

Saturday, I thankfully found out in advance, was also the biggest annual soccer game in Belo Horizonte, between the two archrival teams here. I say "thankfully" because otherwise, I would have completely freaked out on the bus heading downtown when we passed a very loud firecracker at very close range. The faretaker on the bus had a little portable radio and was listening to the game. When a fellow passenger heard the telltale "GOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!", he jumped up to ask the faretaker which team had scored and ended up standing at the turnstile for the rest of his journey to listen to the game.

When I walked to find a hardware store on Saturday morning, I saw two men in the street in front of a house that repeatedly pulled a rope into the middle of the street and then walked back with it, and I couldn't figure out what on earth they were doing. As I got closer, I could see that several men were constructing walls on the second floor, and the rope was attached to a pulley to lift up big buckets full of cement to the second floor. From my recent wall-building experience with the work team at Betânia, I know exactly how heavy those buckets can be and completely understood why it took two men to hoist each full bucket to the second floor.

It's interesting how things that are supposed to benefit you often can work against you. For example, employers here are required to pay for your public transportation, but there is quite a bit of discrimination against people who live more than one bus/metro ride away (and would cost more). A very capable young woman in the Liberdade neighborhood who successfully completed a training program was not hired because she lived two buses away (and the second bus is quite expensive).

And speaking of the two buses to get to Liberdade, last week I walked to the busstop after teaching at Liberdade, and, thank God, I listened to the little voice in my head asking if I had my keys, because I didn't. Thankfully, I was able to only walk up the hill to get them and avoid having to either take four extra bus rides back and forth between Liberdade or two 15-minute walks + two bus rides to get to my supervisors' house because they have my spare key.

I had two different experiences this evening in my neighborhood where people unexpectedly called me by name (people I didn't expect to know/remember my name). For a brief moment, I began to wonder if I'm starring in the Brazilian version of "The Truman Show."

I've been trying to take some pictures of beautiful scenes in my neighborhood to help keep myself out of the dumps, and I'll upload a few on Wednesday when I am at São Gabriel. Weekends were difficult for me in the U.S., too, but here, in such a linked society where the average Brazilian seems to have such a large network of family and friends, two days spent on my own are particularly challenging. I keep saying that I'm going to take/am taking steps to build a social life, but no major results thus far. I'm hoping that will change soon. [Just a little bit of reality for those who are imagining that I'm living this glamorous life in Brazil... :) ]

Simple pleasures

2007-02-05T16:10:00.000-05:00

I'm overjoyed to be able to report that today I was able to pick up my clean, ironed laundry from a lady in the neighborhood who does laundry for people, and unlike the last neighborhood person, she didn't try to rip me off. I also am the proud owner of a new hanging drying rack (more about that later) and can wash some easy things (underwear and socks) myself and hang them to dry inside the apartment in the laundry area.

I'm trying to memorize the street grid in my neighborhood because the street signs are often missing. I have also noticed in the process that no two maps here are alike, nor is any one 100% accurate.

January in Belo Horizonte was great because the city was empty--everybody that can goes out of town on vacation. Not only was traffic much lighter, but also lines everywhere were much shorter and the overall environment was much more pleasant. But, alas, it's February and they're all back as school is starting up again.

I've noted a few ironies with respect to the warm climate here. First of all, hot synthetic fabrics such as polyester and acrylic seem to be much more popular here than cotton. I've also been looking for cotton yarn in the many knitting/craft stores here, and the only cotton yarn I can really find is the very fine stuff used for crocheting doilies and the like. As I noticed my first time in Brazil 10 years ago, long hair is very popular for women here. Personally, I can hardly stand to wear my hair down on sunny days this time of year because of the river of sweat that so quickly forms on the back of my neck.

Today was an interesting return to the Shade and Fresh Water Project in Liberdade. In these first two weeks of the term (before Carnaval) we'll have special activities for the kids at the two projects. Today was just the welcome and a snack, but it was significantly more chaotic than usual because...

Well, last year, the town of Riberão das Neves rented one of the rooms at Liberdade and paid for administrative and cleaning staff to have one classroom of 5-year-olds housed at the project due to serious overcrowding in the city's schools. At the end of the year, the town approached my supervisors about increasing the number of students by 3- or 4-fold in 2007. There was no way they could take over all of the facilities because it wouldn't leave any room for the Shade and Fresh Water program. In the original discussions, the town said all or nothing--that they wanted to have all of the students there or none, so it seemed that the school was going elsewhere. However, a couple of weeks ago, they came back asking to just double the enrollment at Liberdade and use one more classroom. They wanted to do that plus rent an empty house in the neighborhood to house the other classroom and staff. When I arrived today, many things had been moved around (e.g. the library, which has now become the additional classroom), but there were many extra school employees around, and, I found when I went upstairs in the other building, a third classroom of schoolkids was meeting there because the house the city had rented wasn't ready yet.

I had kind of a blah weekend, but church was very uplifting last night, and the message about waiting was very timely as I had spent two hours that morning waiting for the handyman to arrive and three more hours for him to finish hooking up my gas stove, fixing the leak in the water valve, and installing the drying rack that hangs from the ceiling.

One other pick-me-up was briefly seeing my old roommate on Saturday morning and hearing that her daughter's precious two-year-old nephew, during his recent visit to her apartment, immediately went to my old room, looked around and asked where I went.

I've noticed that many trucks here have slogans painted on the back of them. They range from the expected "Keep your distance" to "Thanks--Hosanna--Lord!", "Everything with Jesus", "Enlighten me Lord!", and "Read the Bible." I'm not sure if people really feel that strongly about the religious slogans or if they're more talismans to ward off trouble. You also see religious slogans on all kinds of businesses here, too.

I'm really at my limit of listening to American rap music and young people yelling at each other as they're playing games at my local internet cafe.

Hopefully, if my laptop can be fixed, I can get internet in my apartment. Finally, I want to send an ALOHA shout-out to my parents, who are in Hawaii (and, I hope, having a good time).

Nova Almeida (Part 2)

2007-01-31T06:18:00.000-05:00

OK, a power glitch here just wiped out my draft update, so let's try this again (saving it every few minutes)...

Yesterday after our staff planning meeting here at São Gabriel, I wanted to update the blog, but by the time I thought about it, I had to leave to get to the computer repair shop to pick up my not-fixed laptop before they closed. Thankfully, they didn't charge me for the stuff the guy did that didn't fix anything, although the laptop is significantly dirtier and the carrying case was stained with hot glue or something. Next, my supervisors' son will take a look at it to see if he can diagnose and/or fix it.

The group from Randolph-Macon College brought a lot of craft supplies with them and quickly planned to do skits and music centering on five different Bible stories. They wrote up plain-language narrations, which I got help translating and then we read aloud to the kids while the group acted it out. The Randolph-Macon team divided up to work with the team from Belo Horizonte to do workshops in crafts, music and recreation. At the end of each session, there was a "gincana" team competition of relay races, obstacle courses, etc.

I helped with the music workshops, and we sang songs with the kids in Portuguese and English. The big hit was the "Boogaloo Song," which I'd never heard before. The leader shouts "Let me see you boogaloo!" and the group replies "What did you say?". After several iterations of this, the everybody recites a caveman-like chant and does a dance resembling the Pony. For the subsequent verses, the leader substitutes an action that the group has to pantomime while doing the caveman-like chant (e.g. "Let me see you climb a tree!"). A retired missionary couple in the area came to assist, and the wife was particularly helpful with providing resources (puppets, costumes, musical instruments and a CD with children's music in English). At any given time, part of the group would be working with the kids and the other part on the manual labor (yardwork and painting).

Overall, people were very good-natured considering the hardships they had to face: insect bites, rashes, intestinal disturbances, sun poisoning and a brief power outage. The boys immediately noticed that their accommodations in the old dormitory were quite inferior to the girls' accommodations in the new dormitory, which had ceiling fans in every room and screens on the windows. The fans really did keep the mosquitoes from pestering you all night (only when on high speed). Although I was trying to keep covered in insect repellent the whole time (thanks, Dot!), I still managed to get quite a few bites that are just now healing.

The group liked to sit around in the evening playing games (Uno and CatchPhrase) and sing with the guitar. They even composed a few songs--"Yeah, Brazil" and "G-O-R-D-O-N" in tribute to one of my supervisors. I will not miss, however, people trying to learn to play Tom Petty's "Freefalling" ad infinitum.

The group actually invited me to travel to Rio de Janeiro with them to help my supervisor, so I went with her by plane to Rio and waited in the airport there for the group to arrive on their later flight. I have the feeling that people didn't believe us about how dangerous Rio is; thank God nothing bad happened other than a couple of people losing a little money. We had good weather and the group was able to go to both Corcovado and Sugarloaf to see the city from above, and several even decided to try hangliding. We all went to the airport Sunday afternoon, and my supervisor and I got home in the wee hours of the morning on Sunday night/Monday morning.

It was weird to come home to my new, mostly-empty apartment. I must admit that although I'd lived by myself before for about 8 years without problems, I'm finding myself much lonelier here. Probably lack of TV and Internet don't help, although I don't really watch that much TV. Brazil is much more of a communal society, so I'm definitely feeling the lack of companionship. In this apartment, I feel much more like I'm "roughing it," but I do have a mattress and a chair and a stool and nicer accommodations than many of my colleagues, albeit unfurnished.

The next challenge is to figure out how and where to get my clothes washed because the handyman hasn't installed the drying rack on the ceiling in my apartment, and the place I'd previously found in the neighborhood that does laundry no longer has the sign out front.

Here are a few pictures from the Randolph-Macon group and the summer camp:

Some of the Belo Horizonte team relaxing in the Shade

The kids from the summer camp

The team from Randolph-Macon College

The team performing at the summer camp closing party

Back to your regularly scheduled program

2007-01-29T14:56:00.000-05:00

Sorry that I was unable to post to the blog last week. I was pretty busy helping with the Volunteers in Mission group from Randolph-Macon College and the radio internet connection at the Methodist Camp in Nova Almeida was extremely slow--when it was working. I hope to be able to post a few pictures of the group and the summer camp we hosted for the kids in the Nova Almeida Shade and Fresh Water Project, but I first have to install software at the community center to be able to directly download pictures from my camera (my laptop is in the shop for repairs).

This group was the largest Volunteers-in-Mission group that I've helped with to date (24 students, 2 professors and 1 parent), and they were unique in that the students were participating in a class on service. Although their university is Methodist, not all of the students were Methodist or even necessarily Christian. They were coming to help host the annual summer camp for the kids in Nova Almeida plus do some yardwork (clearing overgrowth) and paint the new dormitory (where we were staying).

The team of 10 people (including me) from Belo Horizonte that was traveling to help with the summer camp left Sunday the 14th on the overnight bus to Nova Almeida. We arrived the next morning, and several of us proceeded to walk to the camp, which was about 3/4 mile away. The others with really heavy luggage without wheels waited for the caretaker of the Methodist camp to come pick them up in his car.

You may recall that I mentioned earlier on this blog how the human courier system is very important in Brazil for getting things from one place to another. This trip was no different. Our group was carrying frozen entrees as well as computer equipment to be delivered to Nova Almeida, and the American group was carrying computer equipment, suitcases to be returned to Belo Horizonte, stuff a former volunteer was sending to the folks in Belo Horizonte and stuff my parents were sending to me for Christmas.

The critical phase of the dormitory construction was completed only a few hours before the group arrived, and my supervisor and others were running around trying to clean it up and get everything ready in time. The students arrived Monday night, planning and registration for the summer camp was on Tuesday and the kids started participating on Wednesday. Nova Almeida is a sleepy beach town that wakes up a bit during the summer high season, but it generally does not receive a lot of foreign visitors (especially not Americans) so the group attracted a lot of notice everywhere they went. The residents of Nova Almeida were generally very friendly and curious, asking where the group was from, why they were there, etc.

We were not the only people in town from Belo Horizonte, however, because two large families from my church were renting houses for their vacation. That especially came in handy when we were walking with the group into "downtown" and I had a wardrobe malfunction after pulling on a loose thread in my halter-top. Thankfully, I was able to borrow a top from my friends as we passed their vacation house and re-join the group. The families also came over to the camp to play soccer with everybody a couple of times.

I'm torn at this point because I'm pretty hungry (and have no food at home and need to stop by the grocery store), so I want to keep this brief. I'm thinking I'll post Part Two tomorrow. To be continued...

For all the saints

2007-01-10T11:25:00.000-05:00

The title of this week’s blog is inspired by my new neighborhood, Sagrada Familia, or “Sacred Family.” Most of the street names here are names of various saints, including my street. It’s a little bit lower class than where I was before, and you won’t find any bookstores, movie theaters or chic cafes here (you can find those things in the upscale parts of downtown, for example). There are some small bars and restaurants and small businesses and a nice grocery store just a few blocks away. I’m going to try out the internet cafe tonight to try to post this update. I still need to find a laundromat because I didn’t buy a washing machine. Although it’s a bit further from transportation than before, I am very happy with the location. Now I can choose between taking buses or the metro system. The apartment and the neighborhood in general have beautiful views because there are more houses than high-rise apartment buildings.

This week I’ve spent two whole days waiting for deliveries. I wasn’t sure from the paperwork if the appliances might not show up on Tuesday, so in the morning I walked to the mattress store, bought a mattress, and went on to wait at the apartment. In theory, everything (mattress, refrigerator and stove) was originally scheduled to arrive on Wednesday, but after multiple phone calls, only the mattress showed up, and only at 6:15 pm. While I was waiting, my old roommate’s maid, Cleuzinha, and I cleaned the apartment, which was pretty dirty after being empty for a while and having paint and plaster work done. I bought one of the terra cotta water filters that are very popular here, and I thought it was funny that Cleuzinha told me it leaks because it’s new—she was totally unfamiliar with the concept that if something is brand new, it should be functioning perfectly—for good reason, because that is often not the case here.

Wednesday night, my old roommate, Márcia, helped me translate my addendum to the real estate agency’s inspection of the apartment (I think their inspector came before the painters did). On Thursday, I spent most of the day at the federal university helping a masters student edit and format his article in English for submission to a journal, then went to the real estate office to drop off the inspection addendum just on the last admissible day.

I rescheduled the appliance delivery for Friday (I asked for morning, and the manager promised morning, but they showed up at 3 pm). Thankfully, the afternoon delivery left me enough time to go to the party store to buy a helium balloon, go home, shower and change clothes, and head back out to the monthly meeting of English-speaking foreigners that we’re trying to start. Last month, I was the only one to show up (and perhaps people didn’t see my little table-top sign), so this month I wanted to bring a balloon to make it easier to find each other. Thankfully, the participation increased by 100% even though the Canadian friend I’d already met was still out of town. A guy showed up who’s from Texas and is living here with his Brazilian wife and children. We had a good chat, and I shared my plans to try to better publicize the gathering. When I got home Friday night, I packed one load of things (mostly lighter stuff) into my suitcases plus a couple I borrowed from Márcia. Saturday morning, we loaded up her car to bring the first load of stuff to my new apartment, and I emptied the suitcases haphazardly to bring them back and pack up the remaining things. Thankfully I’d already scheduled with Eliezer, a friend from church, to come help me with the second load after lunch because my roommate was unexpectedly hosting guests from out of town that arrived Saturday at lunchtime. I was remarking to Eliezer about all of the different things that the renter has to pay here that renters in the U.S. don’t have to pay (condominium fee, taxes, maintenance, etc.), and he astutely pointed out that all of those additional costs are probably included in the rent in the U.S., even if you don’t explicitly see them. I unpacked and waited for the handyman to show up at 4:00 to connect my electronically heated showerhead; he called to reschedule for Sunday morning due to car problems.

Actually, I had to do quite a bit of waiting for the handyman—he was more than one hour late, and when he showed up, he didn’t have any of the supplies he needed to connect my stove or shower, so then I gave him the money for that and he disappeared for more than 1 ½ hours. Part of me was envisioning him stopping off at the bar with his friends to enjoy a couple of beers, but the realist in me thought he was probably just going from store to store trying to find a place open on Sunday morning that sold hardware stuff. Thankfully, the realist was right! I thought the natural gas was channeled through the building but found out it wasn’t, in which case I’d need my own little gas tank. My neighbor invited me in to use her phone and gave me the number of the gas place, asking if I was married to the handyman and announcing a few different times that she had two sons. To my surprise, the gas places are open on Sundays and they delivered; it’s very scary for me to watch the motorcycle delivery guys with three or more little gas cylinders strapped to their motorcyles... The gas place didn’t have the security valve I needed, so I told the handyman I’d buy it and scheduled for him to come back. Despite the waiting and confusion, it was worth it because he connected the shower heater, connected the stove to the wall outlet (that I learned doesn’t provide gas), and repaired the dripping kitchen sink, all for a labor of 25 reais, or about 12 dollars. Because doing handyman stuff is only his moonlighting job, he only can do stuff on weekends or nights, so he’s scheduled to come back tonight to connect the stove to my new gas tank with the new security valve that I finally found in the 4th store I went to on Sunday afternoon.

Although I love my independence and having my own space, I also miss the company of Márcia and Cleuzinha as well as the high-speed internet connection. It’s definitely less comfortable in my empty new apartment. I bought a plastic stool to be able to reach things, but it also turns out to be the only place to sit in the apartment besides on my mattress (I don’t yet have a bed frame). Before when I’d moved from place to place, I always had some hand-me-down appliances and furniture from my family and friends; this time, I did borrow some things from my roommate (e.g. towels and sheets) but I declined to take her 2nd TV because I will not have cable here and wouldn’t particularly spend a lot of time watching the Brazilian soap operas or the news. I might break down and get an Internet connection in my apartment, though.

I’m getting ready to head to Nova Almeida to help with the incoming work team of students from Virginia. Originally, rumor had it that we were leaving Wednesday night, but that appears to have changed and I have not yet received official word.

Sorry for the delay. I came to the computer place yesterday evening to try to post this before the handyman was scheduled to show up, but their internet was out (probably due to the rain). Now I think we're leaving on Thursday night or maybe Friday night for Nova Almeida. I was walking quite a bit this morning to run errands, and I was thinking about how much I'm looking forward to walking around in FLAT Nova Almeida. :)

Will write tomorrow...

2007-01-08T13:06:00.000-05:00

I've just moved to my new apartment and don't have internet access at home anymore, so I'll post the weekly update tomorrow during the day.

Happy New Year/Adventures in Brazilian Bureaucracy

2007-01-01T19:39:00.001-05:00

Happy 2007 to you and yours! This holiday-on-Monday thing is really throwing me off as far as the blog goes, but I wanted to write about my experience finding an aparment. It's hard to believe it's only been a week since I last wrote--it feels like at least two weeks. When I explain what I've been doing, perhaps you'll understand why.

On one hand, it was a surprise to find out recently that I should be moving out of my current apartment around this time. On the other hand, it's actually been good to be on "vacation" when the children's projects aren't operating and we don't have any meetings planned, because there's no way I could be getting all of this apartment stuff done and do my regular stuff, too.

Just to catch up, on Thursday the 21st I saw an apartment that I liked in a lower-middle class neighborhood close to where I live now (but a little bit closer to downtown). I told the real estate agency that I liked it and received the application forms for me and two co-signers to fill out. My roommate and my supervisors offered to be my co-signers, but it ended up being my roommate and my supervisors' son. Not only do the co-signers have to fill out the forms, but also they have to provide photocopies of their identity and social security cards, their paycheck receipts for the past three months, marriage/divorce certificates (married couples in Brazil count as one person), a recent bill as proof of address, the property tax receipt from the past year and a notarized copy of the deed to the property that they own. I gathered all of that stuff and brought it to the real estate agency on Tuesday the 26th. The actual deed could not be easily located for my supervisors' son, so we had another document that showed the property value, etc. That didn't count, but my supervisor, who went with me, asked them if it was really necessary to have two co-signers for such a low-rent apartment, and they admitted if I could get all of the documents approved for at least one co-signer, I'd probably be good-to-go. They looked at the deed from my roommate, but they didn't accept it because it didn't have her name on it. I called her to explain what the problem was, and she located the proper document that night.

On Wednesday the 27th, I returned to the real estate agency with the proper deed for my roommate's co-signing application. I got there when the one person who could evaluate the documents and approve my application was at lunch. I asked about the different things that would need to be notarized, but the representative I was dealing with encouraged me to wait until I got the approval before trying to get anything notarized. I was trying to be efficient...hah! She said she'd call me as soon as they had an answer, and that I could also call them. I did return back downtown and got a cell phone, which I'll definitely need in my new place because I won't get a land-line.

Then came the thunderstorm (thankfully, while I was inside signing up for the cell phone account). Figuring that I'd be making a lot of two-bus trips to the real estate office and various other locations, I went to the bus pass office and added money to my pass. (Normally the Methodist Foundation provides my bus pass, and I use it just to get to and from work. However, using the bus pass you get a discount on the 2nd bus that you don't get if you pay cash.) After that, I decided to go home and call the real estate agency from there, but was unable to get through for the rest of the afternoon because the storm wiped out their phone line.

Thursday the 28th, I called first thing in the morning and was told my application was approved, and that I could come and pick up the contract to be signed later in the day. I took my daily trip to the real estate agency (by this time, I'm a PRO with the bus routes to get there...) and get the contract. I ask about what needs to be notarized (particularly about the signatures of the co-signers) and am told that only I need to go to the notary. Actually, what she meant was only I need to be there in person, but I have to find out at what notary my two co-signers have their respective signatures registered to get them verified, and that I needed to register my signature at a notary so they could verify my signature, too. What I already knew was that I'd need to go to the Registry of Real Estate Deeds where my roommate's apartment is registered and get an official, notarized copy to complete my application documents.

First, I did a little research on the deed office that I needed to go to get an official, notarized copy of my roommate's deed. It was a good thing because the office had moved to a completely different neighborhood. I called to find out how much it costs and how long it takes to get a notarized copy of a deed, and it turns out it's pretty cheap (12 reais) and that office gets you your copy within a few minutes. I researched what buses I needed to take to get there and then to go on to the real estate office, and headed out. At the 4th Registry of Real Estate Deeds, I ordered and received a copy of my roommate's deed and also asked about in which Registry I could find the deed for my supervisors' son's apartment. The second deed wouldn't be crucial for my application, but I figured I could get the family a copy to keep for next time they might need it. Good thing it wasn't crucial for my application because the 5th Registry of Real Estate Deeds, which, thankfully, happened to be right around the corner from the 4th Registry, only provides the documents after five business days (another 12 reais). Then it was on to my daily trip to the real estate agency to give them the official copy of my roommate's deed and get the rental contract to be signed by me and my two co-signers.

I called my supervisors to ask if their son would be traveling for the holidays to figure out when I could get him to sign the contract. It turned out that his office was less than three blocks away from my favorite real estate agency, so I called him on his cell phone (now that I had a cell phone!) and dropped by his office to get his signature. Woo-hoo! I accomplished two things in a row and was feeling back to my efficient, American self. (I didn't know yet about the "verification" process required for the signatures...) I then go over the contract with my roommate that night, and she signs it. Along with the contract was an inspection report, which also needed to be signed by the three of us. My roommate told me that I would need to go to the notary office where she has her signature registered and get it authenticated. I called my supervisors to ask where their son had his signature authenticated, but they didn't know.

On Friday the 29th, my roommate took me to the notary office where her signature is registered, and asked them if my other co-signer's signature happened to be registered there, too. They said yes, and she gave me a high five. I wasn't celebratory just yet, and it turned out that they said the other guy's signature didn't match what they had on file, so they could just authenticate my and my roommate's signatures. At two copies each of the contract and inspection report and two signatures on each to be verified, that added up to 25 reais. I called my supervisor to ask about his son's signature, and called the son on his cell phone and at home without success (he is a famous sleeper). No luck. Finally, I went to meet my supervisor at their apartment, where we woke up his son (actually, he was just getting up on his own). He showed me his documents and that his signature was the same as it was on his identity card, etc. and wasn't sure what the problem was. In any event, we dragged him off to the notary. When we got there, he remembered that he'd been there many years before as an adolescent (which explains why his signature was different), and he officially updated his signature and they verified it on my contracts, to the tune of another 13 reais. And I forgot--one reason why I was trying to very the signatures early on in the day was because I would need my passport later to leave at the real estate agency in exchange for the keys so we could inspect the apartment.

[I'm already tired of writing about this...are you tired of reading about it?? But the truth must be known!!]

The idea was that I wanted my supervisor to help me go over the inspection report at the apartment to know before I turned it in whether or not it was accurate or if they left anything out. It's ludicrous that they have such detailed inspections because they owner will never fix anything; it's only purpose is to hold tenants responsible for any additional damage that wasn't on the inspection report. So my supervisor and I head up for my daily visit to the real estate agency with the idea of getting the keys to the place to go over it with a fine-tooth comb to make sure there isn't any additional damage not included in the report. However, when we get there, the lady says we can't get the keys because I'm already in the process of signing the contract, and now the only way they can give me the keys is in exchange for the signed contract (and paying the fire insurance). Hmmm...but at least she says I have five days to argue any additional damage that wasn't on the report. So I turn in the contract, pay the fire insurance (111 reais) and receive 13 keys (at least some of which are duplicates). The real estate agency calls the electric company, who, thank God, says that the power is already turned on. If it wasn't, I'd have to sit in the apartment for two working days (without power) waiting for them to show up and turn it on. And to think that people complain about having to wait during a four-hour period for the cable guy...

So my supervisor and I head over to the apartment, skipping lunch, with the idea to do the inspection in time to get to the community center for my English tutoring appointment at 3:00. At first, it doesn't appear that the power is actually on, but we head down to the garage, where we find a meter and a fuse box with my apartment number on them. With just a flip of the two fuses, we're in business.

After more than an hour, we're not even half-way through the three page report, and we have found several things that were not included. The problem is that even with a dictionary, I'm not going to understand the vocabulary of buildings and residences. At 2:30 we call it a wash and go through the Habib's (one of McDonald's biggest competitors here) drive-through and he drops me off at Sao Gabriel. My student is late, so I do have a minute to eat. When she shows up, we have about a 30-minute chat and then a two-hour class. Then, we stop by to visit a former employee of the community center who is visiting family with her newborn. When I finally get home, I am d-e-a-d.

My first priority on Saturday the 30th is to get the locks changed in the new apartment; before that happens, I don't want to put anything there because anybody could have made a copy of the keys when they got them from the real estate agency to look at the place. I look in the phone book and find a locksmith who will come out and do it that morning. I was also hoping to have somebody come help me clean the apartment, but that didn't work out. I walk over to the apartment (it's about a 30-minute walk from my current apartment) to finish the inspection and wait for the locksmith. I figure by myself, I can at least find every single thing wrong with the place and take pictures of the problems, and then I can go over the report when I have help later. The guy is late (~45 minutes) but pretty quickly pops the three locks out to ride his motorcycle back to the shop and change the inside of the locks and make two new keys for each one. It's pretty cheap (50 reais--much cheaper than in the U.S.), but like a lot of services here, he doesn't do a 100% job. I feel like a dork but run around and test all 6 keys in the locks before I pay him and he leaves, but then the second he's out of the building, I try to close the front door and it won't close properly because one screw is sticking out too far. And, of course, I don't have any tools. I manage to lock one of the locks on the bottom and then finish the inspection. In a 25-year-old building, there are lots of little (and big) things wrong, and when their report talks about missing screws in light plates, my counter-offensive has to be just as thorough.

I think about walking directly home but decide to go out of my way to stop by a bed store, which happened to be closed. Then I thought briefly about catching the bus for the last 3 stops to my apartment (90% uphill) and end up walking. I get back in time to catch the end of a family luncheon for members of my roommate's ex-husband's family who are visiting from the U.S. I don't think I left the house again on Saturday, but it's all a blur.

Yesterday, the 31st, I went downtown to the "Hippie Fair" to look for a few household items. Then I came back from that, ate lunch, and reluctantly followed my original plan to go to the mall and look for appliances and household items. I'd already researched used and new appliances online and in the newspaper, and decided because of energy efficiency, it would probably be worth it to buy a newer refrigerator. The cheapest appliance store also happened to be the only one open, and I ended up bargaining with the salesman to get a better price for buying both a refrigerator and a stove (1150 reais for both). I call my supervisors to verify that it truly is a good deal and that it's not a dumb thing to do (amazingly, the store lets you call for free, even though this call was long distance). Then it was on to the 24-hour megastore (like KMart) to buy a few basic necessities (trash cans, cleaning supplies, etc.) and take a taxi to leave all of the bags at the new apartment and return to my old apartment.

Then I had about an hour to eat and relax(?!) before it was time to take a shower and head out to the 10:00 PM New Year's church service. I decided I really didn't want to miss it since, a) I really missed not going to church at Christmas, and b) it would be the first time I was ever at church at midnight. A word to the wise for you pastors unexperienced with midnight services--keep the prayers short! I was having a hard time staying awake during the prayers, and from the snores coming from across the sanctuary, somebody else lost that battle. One funny thing is that the pastor taught his toddler son to chant for his favorite soccer team, but now his son likes to holler it out at various times throughout the service. :) It was about 12:15 when the service ended, and I called a taxi to return home to the old apartment.

In addition to the apartment stuff, I've recently started tutoring English again and am editing/formating a scientific manuscript for a student in the Chemistry department at the local federal university. Tomorrow, I'm headed over to wait for the appliance delivery in case they show up. The salesman said it wouldn't be until Wednesday, but then on the order, he wrote Tuesday. I doubt they'll show up, but I don't want to risk not being there. At some point, I need to buy a bed and move my stuff.

Conclusions? Getting an apartment here is not for sissies! It's been an incredibly drawn-out process compared to renting in the U.S., and I'm actually not getting the sympathy I've been seeking because people here are used to it and don't realize exactly how much of a shock this has been to my system. Especially doing this mostly on my own and adding in the complication of having to run all over the place using the bus system. Thankfully, the bus system here is pretty efficient, I am able-bodied, and people have been nice about helping me and occasionally giving me a ride, but every time I've gone to the real estate agency on the bus, that's another 6.50 (reais) out of my pocket and 2-3 hours out of my day. I don't know how people from efficient/organized countries like Germany survive here, because you can feel like a real failure when you run around all day and only get one thing accomplished, if that.

And here's your bonus for making it all the way through this--like staying through the credits of the movie and seeing some additional footage--my new view:

ALL that being said, it has been only by the grace of God that all of the apartment stuff has worked out and I now have a nice, new place to live. The goal is to get completely moved in before January 12th, when I'm off to Nova Almeida (the beach town with the Methodist camp that I visited before) to help with a large group of American volunteers.

Wishing you a blessed 2007!

Feliz Natal/Merry Christmas!

2006-12-25T18:24:00.000-05:00

I almost forgot again that it's Monday. This was my first Christmas in summer weather, and it was strange but good. I'm a big fan of summer.

Christmas here is celebrated on Christmas Eve. Late yesterday afternoon, I went to my supervisors' country house to spend the holiday with their family. They invited a few people that didn't have family here, so there was one other non-family-member there in addition to me. She and I actually bumped into each other at the bus stop yesterday afternoon on the way there. It's a beautiful place about 45 minutes outside the city, with gorgeous landscaping and lots of wildlife. It was a very peaceful place to spend the holiday, and one special touch was that they were playing English Christmas songs on the stereo when we arrived. We ate Christmas dinner at 9:00 at night, and then some played games and others watched movies until midnight, when everybody gathered around the artifical Christmas tree and exchanged hugs and then opened presents. I actually didn't stay up much later than that, and we were warned not to be up and moving around before 10 the next morning, which was not a problem for me.

Other than my family, the one thing that was really missing from Christmas for me was church. That was largely due to laziness on my part--I could have gone by myself to a service at my roommate's church downtown on Sunday morning or gone to the evening service at my church, but it would have caused me to be waiting a long time for a bus downtown in the dark. My parents called me today, so I got to catch up with them and hear how they're spending the holiday. Pretty much everybody I've heard from in North America (including Canada) has remarked on their lack of snow and higher temperatures than normal.

Yesterday afternoon, I went with my roommate and her daughter and son-in-law to eat lunch at her family's house nearby. It was one of the "unofficial" events for their multi-day holiday celebrations. I got to see her two brothers and one sister from out-of-town and a few of her other relatives. Because it wasn't one of the "official" gatherings, only a small fraction of the huge family was present. I also was the object of teasing when one of the great-nephews started to imitate me ordering a pizza over the phone from the family pizza business last week. Apparently, my grammar wasn't exactly correct (the word "pizza" is feminine, not masculine--who knew??).

Saturday morning, I went downtown to the Central Market to buy the ingredients for a fruit basket to take to my supervisors' house. Talk about crowded! Lots of people doing lots of last-minute shopping...this is, after all, a last-minute country.

Friday night was our employee Christmas party for the projects in Liberdade and São Gabriel. Due to limited funds this year, it was held in the party room of my supervisors' apartment building. My secret assignment was to take individual photos of each employee and volunteer over the past few weeks. When I was the first to arrive at 7:45 (and to think that I was worried about being late; it was supposed to start at 7:00...), I went up to her apartment to mount the pictures in the magnetic picture frames she bought and put them in special gift bags. As I've previously mentioned on the blog, wrapping and presentation are a VERY big deal here. By the time I finished that task and returned to the party room, most of my colleagues had arrived. We had a very nice dinner and a gift exchange, and everybody received their framed picture and a pannettone (Italian fruit cake), which seems to be a popular gift here.

Thursday morning on a hunch, I called a real estate agency again that had advertised a nice looking, inexpensive apartment on the internet. When I'd called them about the apartment the first time, they told me it was already rented. I thought I'd call back to confirm, and this time they said it was available again. I made an appointment to see it that afternoon, but it turns out that just means you go to the real estate office and leave your identity document in exchange for getting the keys to the place you want to see, then you take yourself there and back. I was hoping (ha!) that a real estate agent would accompany me and drive me there, but instead, I had to take the two buses to the real estate office, one taxi and one bus to get to the apartment, two more buses to get back to the real estate office, and two more buses to get home. Whew!

I'm catching myself getting very culturally agravated at the non-user-friendliness of the Brazilian rental economy. To sign an apartment lease, you have to produce an inane amount of documentation (e.g. proof that you earn a salary at least three times the rent, proof of previous residency, etc.) for yourself and two co-signers, who are financially responsible if you don't pay your rent. That's if you don't qualify for one of the other rental mechanisms--leaving a huge deposit or using property that you already own as collateral and leaving a smaller deposit. "Unfurnished" apartments really mean COMPLETELY unfurnished--no appliances, toilet seats, lightbulbs, curtains, etc. I'm lucky that this place has cupboards in the bedroom and kitchen. I'm going tomorrow with one of my supervisors to try to sign the contract, so we'll see if it works out.

Last year, I missed out on summer, but this year, I'm experiencing my first Belo Horizonte summer. Now I understand why Brazilians take so many showers every day. If the sun is shining, you walk outside and immediately start to sweat (that's before walking up and down any of the monstrous hills). It's one thing to experience 95 degree weather when you are moving from one air-conditioned environment to another, but without the air-conditioning, it can get a little steamy.

Time to get this posted before the laptop juice runs out. Wishing you all the best of holidays and a great 2007! Thanks again for all of your support.

Time flies...

2006-12-19T17:15:00.000-05:00

when you're planning to, in the process of and recuperating from hanging out with 600 kids (as well as looking for an apartment). Because I spent yesterday walking around looking at the neighborhoods that had apartments available for rent, I forgot it was Monday and didn't post on the blog.

First things first, some photos from the Belo Horizonte Shade and Fresh Water Christmas party. It went pretty smoothly considering how many kids traveled in buses to arrive at the Central Methodist Church and were in the sanctuary for three hours. I rode on one of the buses with the group from São Gabriel, and I once again noticed how nobody counts the kids or takes role before setting out on the voyage. Somehow, that system works for them, but it still makes me very nervous.

Most of the groups at the Christmas party had a little performance to share (singing, dancing, etc.) and there was a ventriloquist as well as two clowns (one of whom became Spiderman). The groups processed with their respective banners, and everybody sang some of the songs from the Shade and Fresh Water CD. The idea was to hand out their gift bags and snacks on their way out so they wouldn't be eating (and littering) on the church property, but that didn't work out perfectly because of traffic limitations bringing the buses back to pick them up. All in all, the kids seemed to have a good time, and no one got hurt. Bonus!

Banners from the different Shade and Fresh Water Projects

Streamers and stars were distributed to all of the kids

A view from the top

Kids from the Betim project

Kids from the Betânia project

Kids from the Taquaril, Alto Vera Cruz and União projects

Kids from the PTO project

I spent most of Sunday researching apartments before going to church at night, and I decided to call some of the promising ads first thing Monday and walk to see the locations. In a city of 2.5 million people, it's mind-boggling to me that there are only two pages of apartment rentals in the main newspaper here. I've also been looking on the internet, but there aren't that many apartments listed online either. I walked for three hours Monday; thankfully it wasn't raining, although it was quite warm. By the time I got home for lunchtime and called a few of the places about making an appointment to see them inside, they were already rented. In the afternoon, I decided to try a different tactic and went to a real estate office in my neighborhood that had several interesting listings online. I figured I'd go to the source and then they could show me the places the same afternoon. It turns out that branch of the real estate firm was only for buying/selling, but they patched me through on the phone to their rental branch, and the interesting apartments they had listed online were already rented and they didn't have anything else. It's one thing to try to learn the real estate vocabulary and the bazillion different neighborhoods and try to set some criteria for what type of apartment and where, but it's something completely different to beat your eight million competitors to finding the place. All that being said, I am not panicking or super-duper stressed because I know God will come through with something wonderful--I just have to do my part. My supervisor has helped me enlist somebody to drive me around the day after Christmas, and hopefully I can find something.

Today was the first day of our two-day year-end staff evaluation and planning meeting for Liberdade and São Gabriel. Once again, I'm experiencing the cultural differences as some of the things I'm proud to be in my culture (independent, gets things done) are not necessarily seen as good things in Brazilian culture. For example, it was driving me crazy that after Daniel decided to mow the grass and "plugged in" the electric lawnmower (i.e. he put the two wires directly into the outlet), a fuse blew and the lights went out in two different rooms, including where the teachers were assembling the hundreds of stars for the Christmas party. Nobody seemed to be interested in seeing if we could get the lights back on; they just said "oh, the fluorescent bulbs here never last very long." When I asked about the two rooms losing lights at the same time and the likelihood of a fuse problem, one person said "oh, I looked, but I didn't see anything." When I returned two days later, the star production had been moved to another room because the lights still weren't on. I finally bugged people to discover where the fuse box might be, tracked down the key, and flipped a fuse that seemed to be partially off, and that did the trick. To me it seemed much easier than moving all of the star stuff to a different building. However, one "needs improvement" thing that my colleagues wrote on my evaluation was "authoritarian." They also wrote, much to the amusement of my friends, I'm sure, that I need to talk MORE. I find myself doing a lot more listening here just trying to figure out what on earth people are saying.

One last thing...

It's mango season, and mangoes are one of my favorite fruits. People with fruit trees are very generous about sharing the fruit. Our household received some from my roommate's brother, and then the neighbor lady next to São Gabriel called to have the project come get another couple of buckets full. (She'd already given us some a couple of weeks earlier.) Here they don't "eat" whole mangoes and oranges, they "suck on" them leaving a lot of the stringy pulp behind. The oranges here are different, and actually aren't that tasty if you try to eat them like you would a navel orange in the U.S.

I almost forgot to show you a picture of this particular flowering tree that I'd never noticed before, but it just started blooming within the last couple of weeks. I haven't discovered the name of it yet, but it reminds me of fireworks.

On the street where you live

2006-12-11T18:31:00.000-05:00

Horizontal street banners made out of white cloth are very popular here, and they carry a variety of interesting messages, from "Happy Birthday!" to "Congratulations, you passed the college entrance exam!" to "Lost dog" to "Detour" and even "Baby, come back to me"...

I was noticing that I haven't been sick nearly as often as I was last year, and I wasn't sure if I'd slowly picked up immunity or what, but now I've got the cold that's been going around at the community center.

At São Gabriel today, we learned that the older brother of two of the kids in the Shade and Fresh Water program there was murdered over the weekend. It seems he was about 18 years old, and his death was probably related to drug trafficking.

We are still working on the decorations for the big Christmas party on Friday for the 600 kids in Shade and Fresh Water projects in Belo Horizonte. I also have a secret assignment from my coordinator to complete before the employee Christmas party on Friday the 22nd.

Because I'm exhausted today, I'll just mention a few things before heading off to bed a couple of hours early. Almost everything here has some kind of cover. I guess when you constantly have your windows open with no screens, you get a whole lot more dust and dirt inside. But oftentimes, the covers aren't necessarily super-functional but more decorational, as in case of the crocheted doily that covers our computer monitor.

Something cool about the language is that Portuguese has one word for both "to hope" and "to wait," which seems to me that the two concepts are more linked in this society.

When in the U.S., I was not in favor of talking on the cell phone while driving, but here where everybody drives a stick-shift, it's really a scary (and, unfortunately, all too common) sight.

I've seen several stores here that I find amusing. One is the diaper store, that carries only diapers, infant to adult sizes; it even has more than one location. Another is the store called "Just Laptops" that has a sign in the window explaining that they don't actually sell any laptops.

Finally, a note about songs. You can never predict which American songs will be wildly popular in other countries. I remember, in the Republic of Georgia, for example, everybody knew and loved "Hello, Dolly." Here, two songs that seem to be quite popular are "Say You, Say Me" and "I Say a Little Prayer for You."

And with that, I'll say thanks and good night.

Here comes the rain again

2006-12-04T18:21:00.000-05:00

We are once again entering into the rainy season as it is cloudy and/or raining most of the time. Today was a delightful exception. The conflict of man vs. nature is much stronger here in Brazil as huge holes can open up in the roads, walls collapse and other construction disasters occur when we experience heavy rains, as we did last Thursday. It's hard to dress for this weather because if the sun is out, it's pretty hot, and if it's raining hard, it can be quite chilly.

Friday, we had another joint capacity-building/planning meeting for the staff at both projects where I work. These meetings really make me feel like I'm from outer space. First of all, the cultural style of meetings is different here, and then when we have group exercises, my thoughts and opinions are always way out in left field compared to those of my colleagues. I've always prided myself in being an independent thinker, but this is quite extreme. For example, one exercise was to meet in progressively larger groups and decide what things were essential for your survival. Me, being trained as a scientist, said "food, clothing, shelter" and then I threw in "faith, love and music" for good measure. By the time we got to groups of 4 or more, my colleagues were discussing things such as respect, work, friendship, family, understanding, peace, wisdom, etc. Perhaps I'm just too much of a literalist...

An interesting thing about working with people in the "lower class" here is that the majority of them have been downtrodden for so long, they have a defeatist attitude--but not 100%. It's hard to accurately explain. They expect things to go wrong and aren't particularly active about trying to resolve some things. They constantly experience a sense of powerlessness and passivity, but whenever they have an opportunity to speak with somebody who seems to be higher up in the chain than themselves, they grasp at the chance. It's for this reason that my coordinators are usually inundated with people trying to talk to them whenever they are at the projects. Even if people have problems that they know my coordinators can't solve, they still want to talk to them about it. It reminds me of how busy Moses was in the Old Testament before they appointed the judges over smaller groups of people.

Something I found very strange on the news here was that they sometimes make suspects re-enact their crimes for the police, and the news crews film and broadcast the process.

Friday night, I went by myself to try to meet up with other English-speaking foreigners at a cafe downtown. We'd advertised the new gathering on several websites for foreigners in Brazil. None of the English-speaking acquaintances I've already met here in Belo Horizonte could go, so I could only bring a little sign to put on my table. I also spoke to the manager and my waitress asking if there were any groups already there speaking English or if any foreigners were sitting by themselves because we were trying to start a new group but nobody would recognize each other. At least during my 90 minutes of waiting, they had a nice jazz guitarist and it wasn't raining too hard on the outdoor tables. I never did encounter other foreigners there--I'll have to bring a helium balloon next time and someone with whom to speak English so people can find us. I might also try posting a notice in the American school here as well as the British and Canadian consulates here.

At all of the Shade and Fresh Water projects in the area, we're preparing for a massive joint Christmas celebration December 15th. We're talking 600 kids in one location--pray for us! Part of the preparation is to make a shiny star glued to a popsicle stick for each child that will participate and to make enough extra shiny stars to decorate two Christmas trees. Most of the teachers and some of the other staff have been staying late each day to make these stars, and we even worked on Saturday. I went for a few hours on Saturday before going to check out a new neighborhood that has furnished rooms for rent.

After perusing the neighborhood, I took another bus downtown to the Central Methodist Church to help with the performance of the kids from the Liberdade project during the Christmas/anniversary celebration of this region of the Brazilian Methodist Church. The kids were having a hard time sitting still waiting for their time to perform. A particularly respected retired minister was giving a retrospective of his entire pastoral career, starting in the 1960s, I think. He finally worked his way up to the 1980s and then said something about "Thank goodness for that day in 1940" (I think in reference to his conversion) and the kids were all saying “Hey, he just went BACKWARDS to the 1940s?”. They were finally able to play their recorders and leave to go home. The service had already lasted 2 hours and was still going...

Today I went by myself back to visit a project in the PTO slum to take pictures and get an update to send to their sponsoring church in the U.S. I'd visited the same project last year with a colleague, and, frankly, was a little nervous about returning alone, but it worked out just fine. That slum has no ventilation because the buildings are built so close together, and the rooms where they hold the project are about 10-15 degrees warmer than the outside temperature. Despite the heat, the kids were very friendly, and many of them remembered me from last year.

Last week I was pretty down-in-the-dumps, so I took some pictures of beautiful things in my neighborhood to remind me of the beauty all around me. I had to do a little bit of research to positively identify these trees.

Sibipiruna tree

Flamboyant tree

Chuva-de-ouro or Golden Rain Tree

Signing out until next week...

Stuck in the middle

2006-11-27T18:12:00.000-05:00

I've noticed it's even more difficult to finish things here in Brazil than in the U.S. And that can range from a conversation (being interrupted is quite common) to a project. I've always enjoyed telling long, drawn-out stories (that prompt the listeners to prod me to the conclusion after I've branched out on several tangents). Here I have to radically condense what I want to say into a soundbite that will fit into the brief uninterrupted space I can grab in a conversation. Finishing things has never been my strong suit, so it's even more of a challenge now. I haven't gotten too terribly Brazilian in my work schedule yet; the typical schedule here seems to include a mid-morning coffee break, lunch, a brief rest after lunch and a mid-afternoon coffee break. When I was trying to get something done last Friday afternoon, I had to joke with my colleagues to explain that I wanted to accomplish something on Friday afternoon because of my American work habits.

I'm still in the "initial" phases of looking for a new place to live. "Initial" meaning I haven't actually seen any places, but I need to try to move next month. I was surprised to see how few places are listed for rent compared to for sale in the newspapers here. I have yet to officially consult a local real estate person.

Here in Brazil, it's easier for me to avoid the holiday craziness because it doesn't "feel" like Christmas to me. I don't usually do much shopping here, so I haven't been too exposed to gaudy store displays and muzak Christmas carols. Also, in my mind, Christmas has always been cold, so when it's 80-90 degrees, it doesn't feel like Christmas. Just like last year, the fake Christmas tree got assembled in our apartment in mid-November. I do notice the sales advertisements (you can pay over 12 months with no interest, etc.) and people on the buses with large packages. When I was living in the U.S., my family had already started to draw names so you just buy presents (under a certain limit) for that one person, and we might be switching over to just buy them for the kids. Now because I have the excuses that, a) I'm poor and b) I'm not going back to the U.S. for Christmas this year and shipping would be prohibitively expensive, I haven't done any Christmas shopping at all. Here's the graphic I put together with pictures from the kids in the various Shade and Fresh Water projects that I've visited.

This past weekend, I helped with the women's Walk to Emmaus retreat that was held at the São Gabriel community center Thursday evening through Sunday afternoon. A lot of the components were familiar to me from having experienced the retreat last year in North Carolina, but other elements (particularly in the planning) were radically different. I know that in the U.S., the details are often planned way in advance, but here, we were still moving beds into rooms at 7:30 when the participants were scheduled to arrive at 8:00. The no-show rate seemed pretty high to me (9 out of 25) but the team members said that was about normal. A lot of the small things that are usually prepared in advance and donated by other groups were prepared on site during the retreat. I think these differences can be attributed to both a) a more spontaneous culture and b) a smaller Emmaus network to work with. It still seemed to be a powerful experience for the participants, and I was glad to work with the team members from various Methodist churches around the city.

I've met a few foreigners here in Belo Horizonte through the Internet, and we're trying to organize a monthly social event for foreigners here since there doesn't seem to be any established network. The other large cities in Brazil, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, have well-organized networks of expatriates. But now it looks like at least two of us may be too busy to attend.

Finally, when I happened to watch TV last week, I saw a movie for the Consciousness of the Black Race Day called Uma Onda no Ar. In English, it literally means "A Wave on the Air," but the English title of the movie is "Something in the Air." It was based on the true story of Rádio Favela, which started as a pirate radio station in a slum and eventually became a legal community radio station. This was particularly interesting to me because I used to be a volunteer DJ in Durham, North Carolina, and it turns out this radio station is here in Belo Horizonte. Also, I was excited to see on their web site that they have information on their web site about a program called "Ciência na Favela" or "Science in the Slum." I hope to be able to visit the station and find out more, especially about the science program, to know if we can reproduce it at the Shade and Fresh Water projects.

This week's musings

2006-11-20T19:23:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking a lot about all of the machines and gadgets that we have in the U.S. to "simplify our lives" and "save time" that aren't in general use here by the average person, like dishwashers, clothes dryers and microwaves, and I don't think they add to one's quality of life like the manufacturers would like you to think that they do. Even though the majority of people I encounter here spend a much larger fraction of each day accomplishing basic tasks (buying bread, taking the bus, preparing food from scratch) I think people here have a higher quality of life than the average person in the U.S. People are always singing and often smiling and laughing.

Consistency does not seem to be too big of a concern here. Maybe that's due to everybody's extreme flexibility. For example, when I buy the same brand of the same type of granola at the same store, it will have different ingredients in it depending on when I bought it. I see the same thing in the newspapers--they will often misspell names of foreigners, but not consistently, just once or twice in the article.

I am a literalist, and getting correct information here can be quite a challenge. For example, I needed to buy special paper and other office supplies to print up Christmas cards for the Methodist Foundation, so I asked several of my colleagues where was a "paper store" (they have a specific word for this type of store). They told me there was one just a few blocks away in the neighborhood. I asked if they would carry printer labels and envelopes, and I was told, "Oh yes, they have that." We went there, and they did have a few different types of paper, so I was able to buy the special paper, but they didn't have the right envelopes and never carry printer labels. Then today, I asked my colleagues where there was a paper store downtown. They told me the name of a store where the project has bought things in the past and gave me directions how to get there. When I arrived at the store with the name they mentioned, I saw a toy store. I asked the woman standing at the front "Is this a paper store?" and she said, "No, it's a toy store." (Doh!) I pointed to the sign and asked if that was the same store written on the sign, and she said yes. I was trying to figure out why my colleagues sent me to a toy store, and she finally said, "Oh, we have some paper in the back." I went to the back and saw a small area selling school supplies. They had the envelopes I needed, but not the paper, and they never carry printer labels. I asked them if they knew of a paper store downtown or a place where I could buy printer labels, and they mentioned a store around the corner. I got to that store, which was finally, officially, a paper store, and they had everything I needed. I think part of the problem is a language thing and part of it is working with people who are not accustomed to buying printer labels.

Something funny for me to see is postal workers taking the city buses to get to their delivery routes. In the U.S., almost every mail delivery person would have their own vehicle. I'm not sure if I don't like the system here better.

Now that the weather is really beginning to warm up, I'm seeing a lot of men airing their beer bellies. It's common to see men and boys walking around the neighborhoods (but not so much downtown) without shirts, but it's very funny to see men with their shirts pulled up just over their beer bellies, as if that particular part of their anatomy needed to breathe or something. I'm not sure why they don't just take their shirts off.

There are still a few cultural things I haven't gotten used to--and for these particular things, I'm not sure I ever will. I think these things are probably all related to class, too. One thing is having to put used toilet paper in a wastebasket in most places rather than flushing it down the toilet. The first place I ever encountered that concept was in the Republic of Georgia, and unfortunately, nobody told us about it until we'd clogged up their toilets several times. I'm not sure why the plumbing in many areas can handle solid waste but not paper. Maybe it's a density thing. Another thing I have a hard time adjusting to is rinsing used cups and glasses just with water before re-use by a different person. I'd occasionally seen that in the U.S., but here it's quite common. The final thing is spitting on the street.

Last week, I learned that I should be trying to move to a new apartment earlier than I was previously thinking--hopefully by the end of the year. Now that I've started to do research, it's abudantly clear why the majority of people live with their parents until they get married and sometimes after--absolute financial necessity. Regular, unfurnished apartments here come with nothing--empty rooms, bathroom(s) and built-in armoires for storage if you're lucky (there are no closets here). Most importantly, the kitchen is empty, so you have to provide your own refrigerator and stove in addition to a bed and any other furniture. I understand it's like that in other parts, if not most of, Latin America. As far as furnished apartments, there are a lot of "business" type short-term residences (often called apart-hotels) with prices that assume your company is paying for it. I inquired this morning about the monthly rate at the apart-hotel in my neighborhood, which I thought might be reasonable since it's not that close to downtown...more than US$1000/month! Sometimes you can find an individual, furnished apartment, but it's less common and significantly more expensive than an unfurnished one. If you are renting either a furnished or unfurnished apartment, you usually have to pay the condominium fee and a local tax on top of the rent, which can double the cost. I'm trying to put out the word to see if people in my extended network (i.e. my roommate's and coordinator's networks) know of any possibilities. Tonight I learned of a residence with several furnished, tiny rooms, and it sounded promising, so we'll see if I can get on the waiting list if it turns out to be suitable.

It's funny how when I used to read stories in the Bible, I was amazed at how the Israelites always forgot the amazing things God had done for them, but now I realize how much I do it in my own life. When I got the news about needing to move next month if possible, I began to panic. Slowly I remembered that God has brought me thus far and there's no point in panicking, because as a verse I read yesterday said, "Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful." (Hebrews 10:23, NIV)

Monday, Monday

2006-11-13T16:28:00.000-05:00

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...

Speaking of which...

2006-11-06T19:48:00.000-05:00

Because I already posted a lot of pictures and information about my trip on Thursday, I just wanted to record a few observations for the usual Monday post.

The first thing is that Brazilians tend to speak all at the same time, so any conversation will likely have two or more people speaking at once. I'm not sure how this affects one's listening ability, but it makes it quite difficult for a foreigner to understand sometimes, particularly if people are joking and laughing and voices are raised. It seems to be kind of a contest at first--the one who speaks the loudest and the longest wins so that the other one eventually stops talking and listens, or at least stops talking. Coming from a culture where we generally wait until the other person is finished talking, this is quite an adjustment for me.

The second thing I've noticed on multiple occasions is how Brazilians will be sitting down to a good meal and will have a whole conversation on other food that they have previously enjoyed or like to eat.

When an American visitor asked me about what types of jobs are common here, I began to think about Brazilian businesses that we don't have in the U.S. For example, I haven't ever encountered motorcycle couriers or businesses that only repair tires in the U.S., but here, both are quite common. Then there are other businesses that we also have in the U.S. but that play a much bigger part here in Brazil, such as bus lines, paint and construction material stores, recycling, bakeries, car washes and test preparation companies.

And speaking of Americans, my colleague, David, who has been volunteering in Brazil (in Belo Horizonte, Manaus, and most recently Rio) is getting ready to return to the U.S. after several months here. When he was in Belo Horizonte, he helped us with the English classes and helped Chris re-format the computers at São Gabriel. Now he'll head back home to finish up college and go to medical school.

On Sunday, I returned to Betânia Methodist Church, where the recent Volunteers in Mission team was working. I was suprised to see how much progress has been made on the retaining wall (I'll try to take pictures later in the week so the team can see for themselves). As requested by the team members, I conveyed their greetings, hugs, etc. and told the church how much the team is missing being here. Everyone there echoed their "saudades" for the group (how much they are missing having them here).

Finally, for those who know Daniel in São Gabriel, today he had a little mishap that was hilarious, although he did not find it funny at the time. After lunch, he was in the kitchen drinking some kool-aid, and he suddenly began to hop up and down, screaming and crying. Teresa, who was working in the kitchen, was frightened and unable to understand what had happened. Finally, Daniel was able to say "BEE!". It turned out that, unbeknownst to him, a bee was in the kool-aid, and it stung the inside of his bottom lip when he tried to drink it. When I came upon the scene, he was still hopping up and down and crying, but at least Teresa could tell me why. I went to prepare my mom's old remedy of baking soda paste to put on his lip, but he was too distracted to keep it there more than a couple of minutes. Later in the afternoon when it was time for him to go to school, I found him trying to cover up his fat lip with gauze so his classmates wouldn't tease him. I tried to explain that I thought the gauze would call more attention to his injury, but he was determined, so we used some small bandaids to secure gauze over his bottom lip, and off he went. Tomorrow, Daniel will accompany David and I to visit the favela close to the center in São Gabriel before David leaves.

There are two more things that I keep forgetting. First, my colleague's husband died the Thursday before I was headed to Brasilia. He had been in the hospital for almost three months. Creides' (I think her name means "believer") faith in the face of loss has been a true testimony to the Christian spirit. Their family is Baptist, and they had a 24-hour vigil with the body on Friday, which another colleague and I dropped by, and then we went to Creides' house because her family hadn't been at the church. The funeral was on Saturday, and several colleagues from both projects attended.

The other thing is that we finally have switched to "summer time" or daylight savings time, moving our clocks ahead one hour this weekend. We are now three hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time in the U.S. The original date to change the clocks was mid-October, but because there was a run-off presidential election and the election folks didn't want to have to re-set the time on all of the voting machines across the country, they post-poned daylight savings time for the whole country by three weeks until after the election. By the way, the run-off election was the Sunday-before-last, and Lula da Silva was re-elected.

My camera runneth over

2006-11-02T15:37:00.000-05:00

I arrived back home in Belo Horizonte early this morning after an all-night bus ride from Nova Almeida. This bus didn't have air conditioning, which was actually a bonus. I've been trying to sort through the hundreds (almost 400) pictures I took during my trip to choose a few to post here. And the winners are:

The youth group Saude é Vida ("Health is Life") in Nova Almeida

This was the group's annual excursion to the beach, for which they spend months raising the funds. I led one group discussion based on questions from the Would You Rather...? book (thanks, Polly!), and it was interesting to see how culture played a part in their answers. For example, every single one of them would rather earn a high salary over a year than win a smaller amount in the lottery. Also, everybody would rather be considered arrogant than a wimp.

The beautiful grounds of the Methodist Camp in Nova Almeida

The camp is about a 20-minute walk from the beach in the sleepy town of Nova Almeida. The caretakers have done a great job, and the grounds are very nice, with lots of plants, flowers and trees, in addition to a spacious soccer field, a sand volleyball court and a swingset/jungle gym. Mosquitoes provide the only interruption to an otherwise idyllic experience because the town is at the junction of a river and the ocean. Thanks to Linda for leaving her insect repellent for me!

After the youth group left on Sunday afternoon to head back to Belo Horizonte, I stayed on to visit the various Methodist projects in the area, starting with the Shade and Fresh Water program that meets at the camp Monday-Thursday. Run as a partnership between the Methodist Church of Nova Almeida and the Methodist Foundation for Social and Cultural Action (which also has an office in the state of Espírito Santo), the project serves 120 children from 6 to 14 years old.

Some of the kids and teachers from the Shade and Fresh Water project in Nova Almeida

Storytime for a small group at the Shade and Fresh Water project

The street in front of the camp was just recently paved; most of the residential streets in Nova Almeida are still dirt or grass. It was a big change to be in a town that only has one bus line (greater Belo Horizonte has more than 100). The town is pretty flat, and bicycle seems to be the primary mode of transportation. You see all kinds of acrobatic feats with two or more adults/children and assorted packages being balanced on a bicycle. I even saw a young man on a bicycle leading a horse down the street by the reins. I got a chance to borrow one (I got the good one that had working brakes just in the front) and ride around the neighborhood to take pictures. It was my first time on a bike in 2 or 3 years, and not unlike an experience I had growing up, this bike was too big for me, so I was more than a little nervous. Thankfully, I did not crash, although I came close... :)

The younger sister of one of the kids in the Shade and Fresh Water project at her house in Nova Almeida. She's using their customary means of entering the property--climbing the fence.

After spending one-and-a-half days observing the Shade and Fresh Water project, I was taken on Tuesday afternoon to visit the Mirim Halfway House for children in the care of Social Services and the Adult Homeless Shelter, both located close to the state's capital, Vitória.

Kids at the Mirim Halfway House

The Mirim Halfway House was just recovering from an outbreak of chicken pox, so several of the children were covered with pock marks. The modest facility takes care of up to 25 children who are sent their by the courts or social services until they are able to return to their families, be adopted, etc. It was founded in 1998, and the Methodist Foundation became a partner in 2003. Although the kids were sucked into TV when we arrived, it was their light and excitement that made it really hard to leave. As a side note, I found that these visits to projects were much easier because I could speak for myself.

My helpful guide, Viviane, and I then walked to the Homeless Shelter. It houses up to 14 clients, most of whom suffer from mental illness. It was founded in 2001, and the Methodist Foundation became a partner in 2003. The goal is to help them with their basic needs and psychological treatment (including medication, if necessary) until they are lucid enough to give information that allows the staff to locate their families.

Some of the clients at the Homeless Shelter

It was striking for me to find out by accident that the woman on the far right is the same age as me, born in the same month, although she looks closer to 55 or 60.

Wednesday, I was driven by Charles and Edinea to visit two different Methodist projects. First we went to one of the two locations for "The Young People" project. That location serves 150 adolescents from 15-18 years old with extra-curricular activities, job training and snacks, with the provision that the participants have to be going to school.

Max, a 16-year-old participant in the project

Max, pictured above, has been participating in the project for a year now. Originally, he'd dropped out of school and was hanging out at home and on the streets for three years without working before he joined the project. When I asked him what activities he like best, he mentioned the recent poetry recitation, which was his first-ever exposure to poetry. The facilities are very modest, but there are a lot of activities going on as far as literature (discussion groups and presentations to the local school), theater (performances on the roof), citizenship, sports/recreation, environment, health, drug addiction and other topics. I didn't get to visit the other location but learned that they serve an additional 175 adolescents.

The last place I visited on Wednesday was AMART, a home for drug and alcohol rehabilitation. It was founded in 1996 by the local Methodist church and serves up to 16 adult male clients at a time, who are encouraged to stay for a 6-month period. The grounds and facilities were well-kept and quite tranquil. The clients are the ones who do the cleaning, cooking, gardening, etc. I got an opportunity to interview three different clients, two of whom had been there since June, and one who'd arrived this week. Two were there because of crack cocaine and the other because of alcohol.

Some of the clients at the AMART rehabiliation home

I saw my first jack fruit tree on the grounds of the rehab home

for those who've never seen a mango tree, also at AMART

Although I was originally planning to take another bus to visit two more Shade and Fresh Water projects in the same state, it turned out that today (Thursday) was a holiday, so the projects weren't going to be operating, so I came back early. The trip was great, and it was nice to be able to visit the various projects. As usual, the Brazilian hospitality was outstanding, especially considering the fact that noone was expecting me.

Time to sign out and get some dinner...

You are here...

2006-10-30T16:50:00.000-05:00

City: Nova Almeida
State: Espírito Santo

look for the red star

This seaside area is beautiful. One of the first things I noticed when we were in the general area at the end of our voyage was the coffee fields terraced on the hillsides, like the one shown below.

I enjoyed the time I spent with the teenagers. They were much better behaved than a similar sized group of American teens, although there were still greatly concerned with the opposite sex and looking cool. They left Sunday afternoon to head back to Belo Horizonte, and I spent today with the Shade and Fresh Water project that is based here at the Methodist camp.

Today they had a special day of beauty because October is Children's month. There were volunteer barbers cutting hair (with previous authorization from the parents) as well as teens and teachers doing fancy hairstyles and manicures. Tomorrow, I should get to see some of the other projects close by; it might take two days to see them all. Then I'll be off to visit two more projects that are longer bus rides away.

I will keep this very short and post many more details and lots of photos when I get home because I'm using dial-up internet access right now.

Whirlwind visit of Brasilia

2006-10-23T21:36:00.000-04:00

I am too tired to think of a catchy title, so I'll just call it what this past weekend was--a whirlwind tour of Brazil's capital, Brasilia. On Friday night, I went with my roommate, three of her sisters and three of her cousins on the overnight bus to Brasilia to celebrate their uncle's 80th birthday. My roommate had found out about a "touristic" bus that offered a good round-trip fare plus fewer stops and a shorter overall trip than the traditional bus, so everybody bought tickets to go Friday night and return on Sunday night. We gathered at the touristic bus hub downtown (not the regular bus station), and thus began our adventure. Six hours after we boarded the bus, we still hadn't gotten further than a one-hour's journey from Belo Horizonte. Why, you may ask? The bus broke down 15 minutes into our voyage, so we drove to a bus mechanic, where we sat for a couple of hours while they worked on the bus. Apparently, this bus company did not have a spare bus to send us on our way.

Peppered all along this adventure, notably, is a noticeable lack of information being given to the passengers. After the bus is fixed, we get back on the highway and after another 30 minutes or so, pull over at the highway police checkpoint, where we proceed to sit for a good three hours before the actual police board the bus and tell us what is going on. The people "helping out" the bus company, meanwhile, have counted the passengers several times and collected our identity cards. It turns out that the touristic bus company is supposed to have a list to give the highway police of all the passengers and their identity numbers, and this list apparently was not correct. This list is critical for insurance purposes, but also because that company is not licensed to just be selling bus passages between Belo Horizonte and Brasilia, which they actually were doing. The highway police gave the bus company a chance to come up with their own spare bus (we already knew THAT wasn't going to work!) and then comandeered another bus from another bus company to take us the rest of the way, at the expense of the first company. The second bus didn't arrive until just before 3:00 AM, and then the new driver informed us that we'd be making a few stops that the other bus would not have. We were supposed to arrive in plenty of time for the big family birthday breakfast on Saturday, but, instead, made it in time for lunch.

Only on the return trip did it become clear to me what the bus company was doing. They were not licensed to sell individual bus tickets--only "touristic" round-trip group tickets, so they would make up fake lists to make it look like their passengers were all going together on one day and returning the next, but we weren't. The group on the Sunday return bus had a few of the same passengers from Friday's trip, but also some different ones. It turns out that the company wasn't able to get a license to sell regular bus tickets, so they were trying to get around it, at the expense of the passengers. Just a word to the wise, never deal with the company Rota Mineira, and use great caution when with other "touristic" bus companies unless you are contracting them to exclusively transport your group. And this is where my American side came out, thinking, "they'd NEVER get away with this in the U.S. without providing at least a partial refund or some other concession to the passengers, and here they're getting away scot free!"

Oh well, at least the trip went safely, and I really enjoyed meeting yet another branch of my roommate's huge family. It still never ceases to amaze me how accepting and welcoming everybody is of me, an outsider. Despite the hectic schedule trying to visit several people and attend group events while we were there, two carloads of people took me on a whirlwind tour of Brasilia on Sunday to see the famous modern architecture of Brazil's capital. I'm posting a few photos below.

And Wednesday, I'm off to help chaperone the Liberdade youth group trip to the Methodist camp in Nova Almeida, in the neighboring state of Espirito Santo, where I'll also be visiting some of the local Shade and Fresh Water projects.

Coming full circle

2006-10-18T17:44:00.000-04:00

It was exactly one year ago this week when I arrived in Belo Horizonte to start volunteering and immediately went to stay with a Volunteers in Mission work team that was here from Georgia, and this week I was staying with a work team from Virginia. This time, however, I had much more responsibility as the primary translator on the work site.

This recent team of 13 came from different churches in the Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church and was the most diverse team I'd seen yet. They were painting (including a Shade and Fresh Water mural) and building a retaining wall at Betânia Methodist Church. It was a really neat experience to once again watch how the Brazilian hosts show so much love through their hospitality and how the American teams show their love through their labor and in relating to the people (and especially the children) they encounter.

It was a good but very busy time, and I enjoyed staying home today to re-charge. I had never before spent the night in the São Gabriel neighborhood, so staying with the team at the Community Center there involved listening to a different set of background noises, including a variety of roosters that crow throughout the day and night, dogs barking all night long and a local church that seemed to be having a midnight revival blasting throughout the neigbhorhood several nights in a row. Hopefully, I won't ever forget my earplugs again. The staff that had to get to the Community Center super early to make breakfast for the team was cheerful and efficient, in spite of their extra-long work days. The work team was also good natured about the accommodations, and, thankfully, this time the city did not cut the water off.

Some "serious" pastors from a previous work team will find it amusing that one of the members of this week's team initially thought I was very efficient and stern/serious. She thankfully revised her opinion as the week progressed, as I was informed when the group shared personal affirmations of me and two other staff members from the center who helped host them. The team members were very generous in sharing their histories, their time, their financial support and their love, in addition to some very neat and helpful things that they left with me. They are currently touring Rio and should be leaving tomorrow or the next day to return to the U.S.

Here are a few photos from the past several days.

The October Volunteers in Mission team from Virginia

Playing with the kids

Some team members practicing tai-chi in the garden

Faces of some of the girls from Betânia Methodist Church

I also went one afternoon to Planalto Methodist Church to take pictures of the Women's handicraft group

Now it's time to catch up and get ready for another busy stretch as I'll journey Friday night by bus to Brasilia, the nation's capital, for an 80th birthday celebration in my roommate's family, coming back Sunday night, and get back on another bus on Wednesday to accompany the youth group from Liberdade to the Methodist camp at Nova Almeida in the neighboring state of Espirito Santo.

Still here

2006-10-10T21:22:00.000-04:00

I just wanted to put out an apology for missing my usual Monday post. We are currently finding many opportunities to keep occupied with the Volunteers in Mission team that is currently here from Virginia, working at Bethany (Betânia) Methodist Church in the São Gabriel neighborhood. I´ll be back into cyberspace with more news and commentary after the 17th of October. Thanks for your prayers and support.

Media madness

2006-10-02T17:50:00.000-04:00

The past week has been a media frenzy as Brazil experienced its largest plane crash to date on Friday and the presidential election yesterday.

Friday afternoon, a commercial plane carrying 155 people from Manaus to Brasilia crashed in the jungle, possibly after colliding with a small, private plane which landed safely. There do not appear to be any survivors, and the news channels here were running special coverage of the crash and the search for survivors all weekend. Everywhere I went, people were talking about the tragedy (and the elections).

Sunday, I witnessed my first Brazilian election when I went with my roommate to watch her vote--the election officials actually wouldn't let me watch while she was voting, although they did let me look at the voting machine.

The political system, as expected, is significantly different from the U.S. system. First of all, it is mandated by law that all Brazilian citizens from 18 to 70 years of age must vote. You can start voting as early as 16 and continue to vote until you die (the news coverage of the election showed people more than 100 years old going to vote). Voters receive a little slip of paper to prove that they voted, and you need to show this paper in order to accomplish any number of bureaucratic tasks here.

Voting has been completely computerized since 2000; Brazil was the first country to adopt a nationwide electronic voting system that integrates voter registration, the casting of votes and the regional/national tallying of votes (Posner, 2006). The machines are basically composed of a 10-key number pad as well as buttons to confirm, correct and to submit a blank vote for a particular office. For each vacancy, you punch in the number of your candidate, which brings up the name, picture and political party on the screen. You then have a chance to correct it or confirm it.

The major downside I saw was that they post the list of candidates outside the actual room where you vote, so if you forget the candidate's number and didn't write it down, you can't leave to go look it up. My roommate's daughter did call on her cell phone from the polling place to ask for the number of one candidate. They didn't used to let you bring in a cheat sheet with you, but now they do. Supposedly they don't put the list of candidates and their numbers inside the actual room to not have people to dally at the machine.

Another point of interest--alphabetization in Brazil is usually done by first name. As a matter of fact, many of the candidates only went by their first name. Can you imagine in the U.S. "Jim for President" or "Shirley for Senator?"

There are now more than 15 political parties here, although there were originally just two after the military dictatorship ended in 1985. By law, the parties get free airtime on TV during the campaign season in the allotted time slot for political announcements, so one party's segment may include 10-20 different candidates.

In this election, each person could cast one vote for each of the five vacancies--president, governor, senator, federal deputy and state deputy. Each of the 26 states plus the Federal District elected a governor and a senator. In total, 513 "federal deputies" were elected (53 of them in my state, Minas Gerais) and 77 "state deputies" in Minas Gerais.

For the offices of president and governor, the candidates who receive more votes than the sum of all their competitors win the election in the first round. If that criteria is not met, there is a run-off election where the majority rules. For senator, whoever receives the most votes wins the office. For the federal and state deputies, the top X number of candidates win the X number of vacancies, so the 77 candidates for state deputy receiving the highest number of votes were elected to the office. There is a HUGE number of candidates compared to the U.S.; for federal deputy, for example, there were more than 500 candidates from which to choose.

The incumbent president, Lula da Silva, was initially favored to win the presidential election in the first round, but the well-timed "breaking" of an odd scandal and his decision to skip the nationally televised debate for presedential candidates helped him lose his lead. As far as I can understand, people from Lula's party supposedly tried to buy a dossier of dirt tying their rival party to an ambulance scandal. Lula says he didn't know anything about it. Now that part that I really don't understand is that his party supposedly bought this dossier from guys who were already in prison for the ambulance scandal, so I'm thinking if they are already convicted, isn't the evidence public? In any event, there will be a presidential run-off election at the end of this month.

People campaigned by radio/TV/newspaper ads, pamphlets that are now littering the entire city, painting walls with their names/parties/candidate numbers, hiring trucks with loudspeakers to drive around blasting propaganda (which almost always included a catchy song) and hiring people to wave their flags at busy intersections.

Interestingly, during election coverage tonight the national news quoted newspapers from other countries, mostly from the U.S. I don't think I've ever seen the U.S. TV news quote international coverage of a particularly story/issue, but I admittedly don't usually watch the news.

It's been interesting to learn about the electoral process here, but it's also a bit overwhelming with literally everybody talking about it wherever you go. I'm ready for it to be over, but I guess that's just part of how Brazil is a nation of observers, as I mentioned before. Not just observers but also commentators.

Preparations are in full-swing for another work team that will be arriving from the U.S. next weekend. I will be staying with them at the community center in São Gabriel, so I'm sure that will be interesting.

So what have I been doing? Well, I've been doing some PR, trying to prepare a display for a campaign the local Methodist churches to raise support for the Shade and Fresh Water Projects for Christmas; trying to figure out which printers are and are not working and how to optimize where they are being used in São Gabriel (this is especially where I'm feeling the absence of Chris, the other volunteer who was handling the computer stuff but has now, sniff, left us); painting with the other teachers; trying to find out whether or not I'll be doing English classes as the two projects (I will definitely start back teaching at Liberdade this week); helping to host potential volunteers; helping the two kids with their American penpals (now, ironically, it's bugging them to write back after they asked me to bug the Americans to find out why they hadn't written); hugging and helping with the kids (I haven't forgotten that this is the crucial part) and growing my patience. It is amazing how many times you can say that you need something done, purchased, etc. and nothing happens. I guess because the unexpected so often hinders what you are planning to do here that nobody puts too much stake in what you say you're going to do until it actually happens.

Today I was quite surprised by the reaction of the older (afternoon) kids when I showed them a multicolored autumn leaf I brought back from Minnesota. They actually paid attention and asked questions. That gives me an idea of how to change the format for English class to make it more interesting for them.

And finally, I must have jinxed us when I said before that the water was cut off in the poorer neighborhoods during this huge construction project but not in our neighborhood, because it appears the water was off for a few hours today, including when I got home. Thankfully, it seems to be back on.

Planes, trains, automobiles...and RVs

2006-09-25T20:10:00.000-04:00

I have a lot of catching up to do. When I was traveling in the U.S., I did not have an opportunity to update the blog.

The first notable thing was that two colleagues from São Gabriel took me to the airport when I was leaving Belo Horizonte. (I asked Robert for a ride, but he was so scared at how much luggage I might have, he asked Daniel, to come along.) Daniel grew up in the São Gabriel project and had never been to the airport or seen an airplane on the ground, so it was an exciting event for him. After I checked in my bags, we were going up to the observation deck to see the planes. Robert and I headed up the escalator and then turned around to see Daniel still at the bottom, looking quite apprehensive. Apparently, he’d never been on an escalator, so we had to coax him into stepping on it.

Daniel seeing his first plane up-close

My trip to the U.S. was a long but short, starting in St. Paul, Minnesota to see friends I’ve known for more than 20 years, then to New Hampshire to visit with my youngest brother (and my parents, who were also visiting him), then to Maine to spend a couple of days with some friends at their lakehouse, then briefly back to Massachusetts, where I first caught a ride in my parents’ RV with them and the dog, who my mother loves to refer to as “your other sister.” My parents had generously offered to transport me to Virginia, where we visited my (real) sister’s family and celebrated my niece’s second birthday, and then to drop me off in North Carolina, where I got to visit with my church family and to finish shopping for items my Brazilian friends and colleagues requested that I bring back from the U.S.

That tells you where I was, but now some highlights from those places. Visiting in St. Paul was nice because this was the first time I was around the youngest child when he was old enough to be actively conversing. The three kids have such a joie de vivre and spontaneously gave me some memorable compliments.

Members of the Bowland family

I hadn’t seen my youngest brother in more than one year, so it was good to meet his new girlfriend and his very friendly neighbors and let him show me his new car. We also celebrated his birthday with a cookout at the RV camp and invited people from the neighboring RVs.

The birthday barbecue

This was my first RV experience ever and my first camping-type experience in more than 25 years. In order to understand how many repairs you can be doing on an RV, you have to combine the number of repairs you have to do on your house with the number of repairs you have to do on your car. I quickly realized that the best RV parks have electric, water and sewer hookups in addition to free wireless internet access (the RV park in Massachusetts got top prize).

I took a brief train ride to get from Massachusetts to Maine to hang out with friends I hadn’t seen since their wedding two years ago. I got to kayak for the 2nd time and play Boggle, and my parents drove up to pick me up at their house in Massachusetts after we returned from the lake house.

Lisa & Jeff in Maine

On the journey from Massachusetts to Virginia, we stopped in New Jersey, met for dinner some friends from our old church in East Orange and spent the night in the church parking lot. It was the first time I’d seen that town in about 15 years, so it was surreal to drive past our old house, my elementary school, the library, the park, etc.

Part of the East Orange gang

The primary reason to go to Virginia was to be there for my niece's 2nd birthday. She is very funny; she has finally learned to jump and jumps everywhere. She talks quite a bit in English and Spanish (her nanny speaks Spanish).

The Birthday Girl and Family

While in Virginia, I was able to go give a presentation at Harmony UMC in Hamilton, where the assistant pastor was a member from the most recent mission team we that hosted in Belo Horizonte. I was delighted to also get to visit with two couples who were part of that same mission team and drove quite a distance to be there.

Joan and me in front of Harmony UMC

Also during my time in Virginia, I was also able to go into Washington DC to buy some English-as-a-Second-Language textbooks and meet a friend for lunch.

In Durham (NC), I was happy to have my visit coincide with the meeting of our church’s women’s group and also to be able to visit with friends from church and my former job. I was able to drive to another town about one hour away to visit with my friends who’d moved from Durham a few years ago, meet their newest family member and catch up with her older brothers and parents (oh yes, oh yes!).

Five Frankos + one Piggee

It was my first time to attend a worship service in our new location, which actually used to be a church. After years of worshiping in a school gymnasium, it was very different to be in a real sanctuary. The day I was returning to Brazil, I spent a little time weeding at a friend’s house that has been empty for quite a while and now will be sold.

I had a sizeable layover in Miami, and the big entertainment there was watching a mouse dart out further and further from its home inside the wall out to waiting area in broad daylight. Quite a few of us were watching it, and, surprisingly, nobody shrieked in terror. I guess I also was more brave than usual because of the other people there--normally I'd be running from a mouse.

Doing yard work seemed to be the recipe for sleeping on the long flight from Miami to São Paulo (I almost never sleep more than 2-3 hours on those flights). When I woke up, I was even scared that I had missed breakfast. It turned out that the attendants were just very late serving it, and they were hurrying to collect the trays as we were about to touch down on the runway.

It was great to arrive back in Brazil, the land of free luggage carts, and I was pleasantly shocked to encounter the shortest line I’ve ever seen in Brazilian customs. I was surprised to find out with my temporary visa that I am now considered a resident of Brazil; I still went through the line for foreigners. I had quite a bit of time to hang out in the São Paulo airport and walked around it a few times. It was very strange to see the formerly booming Varig section of that airport as a ghost town now that the Brazilian airline is about to go out of business.

It was a relief to get picked up at the airport Belo Horizonte with all of my heavy luggage last Tuesday afternoon. It actually felt like coming home. On Wednesday and Thursday, I returned to the two different projects, and received a hero’s welcome from the children at both places. Since I have never been very good at sports, it is probably the closest I'll ever get to the elation you feel when you score the winning point and your teammates mob you.

The weather here has changed, and the dry season is officially over as spring has sprung. We are having almost daily sudden downpours that usually last for 30 minutes or less and then clear up. When the storm is almost over, it's very strange to see so much water coming down while the sun is shining. I remember loving "sunshowers" as a kid, but these are more like "sun cloudbursts." Another cool thing is that there seem to be some trees flowering during each season, even during the dry winter.

One funny thing was that I was preparing some information to distribute to incoming volunteer teams from the U.S., so some colleagues and I were having a discussion about cultural no-nos that visitors have committed in the past. For example, I had no idea that Brazilians find it absolutely disgusting to brush your teeth in the kitchen sink. I might even have done it here before...

I am coming full-circle as I end my first year as a Volunteer in Mission, although almost half that time was spent in the U.S. waiting for my visa. It's hard to believe it was only a year ago that I quit my job, sold my stuff and headed for parts unknown. I have learned so much about myself and others, and I'm sure the learning will continue.

I'll fly away

2006-08-28T17:25:00.000-04:00

Suddenly as people here realize that I'll be flying to the U.S. in a couple of days, the requests are beginning to pour in for things to bring back to Brazil for them, from deoderant to electronics. The other times that I've visited Brazil, I only knew one Brazilian couple well enough to bring stuff from the U.S. for them. Now, I have quite a few colleagues here that are hoping to be able to take advantage of the cheaper prices and greater availability of certain items in the U.S.

I'll be mostly visiting family and my home church in North Carolina, in addition to giving talks in other churches. Most of the journey will be with my parents in their motorhome, which will be a new experience for me. After seeing Brazilian urban traffic on a daily basis, seeing U.S. traffic should be relaxing (even if my dad, a.k.a. Mario Andretti, will be driving...:).

Two of the pastors that were on the recent Volunteers in Mission work team from the Virginia conference talked to me about the possibility of attending seminary. I explained that I'd tossed around the idea before, but that the idea of more formal schooling, particularly in the area of theology, is not particularly appealing to me. But, I added, I would think about it. Living in North Carolina was also not particularly appealing to me when I interviewed for the job there almost five years ago, but it was where I needed to be. So now I'm adding the seminary possibility to my previous option of applying to become an actual missionary.

It was good to interact with the Virginia conference team during their stay here. I was particularly impressed by their lack of complaining, even when they had good reason. For example, the water got shut off in that part of the city for a whole day, so they were able to only take limited showers, etc. until the city restored the water late that night. (It was the first time I'd ever heard the phrase, "If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down.") That is why everybody seems to have "water boxes" on top of their houses. They are not cisterns to catch rainwater as I originally thought, but they receive water pumped in by the city so that whenever the city water goes out, you have some reserves. One thing I've noticed is that the water has gone out twice in the São Gabriel neighborhood since I've been here because of a major construction project, but never in my nearby middle class neighborhood, which is currently experiencing the same construction. Coincidence? I think not...

The team also showed remarkable spirit when they spent several days painting a mural in the cafeteria, only to accidentally cover it with a non-transparent sealant early on their last work day. Once the mistake was realized, everybody pitched in and started all over again, finishing in one day what had previously taken several days to complete.

This was the first time that a team was hosted in the community center itself, so this was the most interaction that the Brazilian staff at São Gabriel had ever had with a work team, and they really enjoyed getting to know the various team members. When people were sitting around at lunch today, they were remembering the team and remarking how much they missed having them here.

My big accomplishment for the day was obtaining a Brazilian social security number (CPF). I want to buy a health plan here, which is much cheaper than the health insurance I purchased last year in the U.S., but you need to have a CPF. You also need a CPF if you want to buy: real estate, a cell phone, an airticket online, etc. I only found out on Friday that I would need one to get the health plan, so I immediately went into panic-mode trying to figure out how I could get one. In some of my online research, it looked like you'd need to present your birth certificate or other original document with your parents' names on it, and I realized that the birth certificate that I have in my possession does not list my parents' names. Then I realized that my parents probably still have the original with their names on it, but they are currently on the road in their motorhome. After much prayer and a few phone calls, it seemed that I might not need the birth certificate and that I needed to start the process at a Bank of Brazil branch, so I went to the one in our neighborhood. Once I went to stand in line, I saw the sign that said they only do CPF stuff on Tuesday through Thursday, and, of course, it happened to be Friday. Thankfully, like many rules in Brazil, it was not strictly enforced, so after waiting in line a little bit and asking the guy who just went on break, I was able to go to the inner offices, help the guy fill out the computer form, and go upstairs to pay the fee (a little more than US$2). That was the first step, and you can only complete the second step on the next business day. This afternoon, I went to the Finance Ministry office and stood in a surprisingly short/quick line to get the number and code to wait for the actual person who could help me, and that went surprisingly fast, too. As a matter of fact, the woman spent more time slyly eyeing her colleagues and text-messaging on her cell phone than actually helping me, but it's all water under the bridge when I was able to leave there in less than 45 minutes with the prized CPF number. Record timing for any Brazilian bureaucratic procedure!

The kids are back at the projects after a short recess marking the end of the folklore festival. We were discussing today what to do with the English classes, and the newest volunteer, David, opted not to teach them by himself while I am away, so the classes will resume when I return in September. The other volunteer, Chris, is about to take off to do his originally planned travel through Brazil.

When I was talking to the educational coordinator at São Gabriel today, she mentioned that the program always has to keep a few slots open for children who are placed by a government program for kids who were working illegally (when they were too young). I asked if any of the kids were currently from that program and was given a few examples. I was imagining that the kids might be forced to be street vendors, but the teachers said a few of them had actually been doing very difficult jobs (e.g. mason's apprentice). Apparently this is a significant problem here in Brazil because there was also a rally at the Sunday street market downtown against child labor.

I was able to see my first films in Brazil this weekend, thanks the free independent film festival. I actually got to see "Born into Brothels," which I'd been wanting to see since it was released in the U.S. I really enjoyed it, and it was especially interesting to be watching it with a Brazilian audience, who reacted audibly to a few things familiar to them--kids flying kites, waiting in bureaucratic lines, etc. I could completely relate to the narrator's attempts to equip the prostitutes' children with the tools and opportunities to be able to improve their lives and escape poverty, because it's a hope we experience everyday for the children in the Shade and Fresh Water programs.

Photos

2006-08-21T22:14:00.000-04:00

I'm pretty tired, so I'll just post some photos of the past week's activities with the work team from Virginia.

Group photo

Painting at São Gabriel

A music class at the Saturday Bible school the team hosted for the children of both the São Gabriel and Liberdade projects

The team took a day trip to the local colonial town of Ouro Preto

Another shot of Ouro Preto

A group of teenagers giving an impromptu singing/dancing show in the main plaza in Ouro Preto

He who is able to keep me from falling

2006-08-14T19:26:00.000-04:00

It's funny how that particular phrase (based on Jude verse 24) is running through my head as I'm walking along through the hills, valleys and potholes (even the sidewalks can be quite hazardous) of Belo Horizonte. As those who know me well are aware, I am particularly prone to sprained ankles, and I find it absolutely a blessing that I have not yet seriously sprained an ankle. The most serious ankle injury I've sustained to date was absolutely fine within 2-3 days. I wonder if the training of walking up and down steep inclines helped my ankle to heal faster. Whatever the case, I am extremely thankful. I was also excited that my legs were in good enough shape that they didn't hurt after taking a trial two-hour flamenco class last Saturday.

My dad likes to describe the opportunities I've had to earn money to support my stay in Brazil as my "tentmaking," in reference to Paul in the Bible making tents along the way to support his ministry. It looks like it's time for some more tentmaking, to be able to support my living expenses for the next several months. I will try to see if I can offer services at the local federal university to translate some scientific abstracts. Another option is to teach private English lessons, but this requires a lot more time and preparation and might take away from the time I am able to spend at the projects.

The work team from Virginia arrived today at lunchtime. The people are from different churches and cities in Virginia and haven't met each other before. They start painting and light construction at the São Gabriel community center tomorrow. I will be going to the airport tomorrow to pick up the final couple from the team that's arriving in the morning.

It turned out I was able to do a few things to help prepare for the team's arrival such as cutting out bedspreads to send to the seamstress over the weekend. It's really amazing how the whole network of program alumni is mobilized to provide services for these teams. For example, the guy that has his own mini-bus company used to be a kid in the project many years ago, and several of the masons, plumbers and handymen were also in the project as kids. I want at some point to record the history of some of these "success stories."

Even though I'm not working directly with the children this week, it still warms my heart when they greet me by name and come over for a hug. I particularly enjoyed having a relatively long conversation today (more than 5 minutes) with one of the more "active" boys who has some relational and disciplinary issues. He was asking lots of questions about the group that was arriving. It's cool that these kids who would not normally have contact with foreigners along the course of their lives get to expand their horizons a bit, if only by trying to greet somebody in another language and ask questions about the place where they live.

I've been trying to get out and take "expedition" walks of about one hour to get to different destinations on the weekends, both for the exercise and also to see various neighborhoods. Yesterday, I walked over to a mega-church, Lagoinha Baptist Church, that offers an English-language service on Sunday evenings. I'm not really sure why they do that since there are not that many foreigners here in Belo Horizonte (in fact, almost all of the people at the service were Brazilians, except for me and maybe one other person besides the missionary pastor, out of about 30). Before I set out from the apartment, I checked my route out with my roommate, who indicated that I needed to take two buses to come back since it would be dark and not so great to be walking through certain neighborhoods at that time. She also double-checked with me if I was prepared to walk up and down the many hills between here and there. I assured her that I was looking forward to the exercise. After about the 3rd major (San Francisco-style) hill, I was laughing at myself and wondering how many more hills there would be before I reached the church.

I'd already been told about this kind of church that is very focused on financial contributions and "vertical theology," as one of my coordinators likes to call it, talking mostly about you and God and not a whole lot about your neighbors, and that was what I found. This was the first time in Brazil I'd seen paid security guards at a church (and only the second time in my life). The service was held in one of their auxiliary buildings in a very nice, air-conditioned (very rare here) auditorium. It was lead by a Welsh missionary. They had more than 30 minutes of standing and singing "praise music" from the U.S., which is currently very popular here in many of the churches. After such an arduous walk, I was ready to (and did) sit down after about 20 minutes. I admire that the Brazilian musician team is willing and able to learn songs in English (and the praise team leader was even evangelizing in English between songs). Then they had the offering, followed by introduction of first-time visitors. Then the kids left for Sunday school, and then a Brazilian woman got up to read the Bible and preach a sermon. One part I did not like was insisting that each person would be looking at a Bible when she read the scripture and actually trying to orchestrate who was sitting where and asking me specifically if I had a Bible. As my parents pointed out during our conversation tonight, at least that service gave me more of an appreciation for the Brazilian Methodist church services that I have already experienced.

It's interesting that one idea that I, too, had about the causes of poverty here turns out to be incorrect. The general idea in the U.S. (and perhaps other parts of the "developed" world) is that poverty in Latin America is caused largely by overpopulation, particularly because of lack of birth control due to the influence of the Catholic church. In reality, overpopulation is not the issue--the problem is severe inequality in distribution of and access to resources. Brazil is only slightly smaller in size than the U.S. and has a population of about 200 million, compared to the 300 million population of the U.S. And it's not about a lack of resources--Brazil is a country rich in natural resources.The very few percent who are in control of the vast majority of resources in this country are quite adept at maintaining and increasing their advantage. We have the same problem in the U.S., but here it's a little more extreme.

There are several people here who need your prayers for physical healing, marital problems and financial difficulties, so please continue to lift up this community in prayer. Time to call it a night because I'm going to need all the rest I can get this week.

They're back...

2006-08-07T18:30:00.000-04:00

Today was the kids' first day back at both of the projects, and it was a long day for me in São Gabriel. It's amazing how much more energy it takes just to be around the kids, and I wasn't even responsible for teaching anything today. It was nice that another volunteer, Chris, made a CD of the pictures we took at the country bumpkin festival last month and had them printed up at the mall so we could display them on the bulletin boards. The kids really enjoyed seeing the pictures of themselves.

I'm helping two of the kids write to American penpals, so that means translating the letters and helping them sit down and write letters that I basically translate into English and e-mail. I was also able to take pictures to send digitally to their penpals. It's such a funny contrast to the days of old when I got a penpal from the "Big Blue Marble" television program and sent correspondence through the postal mail.

For the month of August, both projects are having special activities revolving around folklore because there's a national Folklore Day on August 22nd. Brazil is a country rich in folklore, with all kinds of legends, dances, music, crafts, etc. One of the most popular folklore characters is an Afro-Brazilian, one-legged smurf with a red hat and a pipe called Saci-Pererê. According to a couple of sites I found, he lost his leg in a capoeira (Afro-Brazilian martial arts) match.

The kids at São Gabriel have been divided into teams, and each team has been assigned a specific region of the country. Today they were supposed to construct their team flag for their particular region. If they finished that in time (which nobody did), they were then supposed to work on their team song/chant. The teams will then be researching their respective regions and the folklore of those regions to teach the rest of the group. From what I've seen of the group dynamics thus far, it should be "very interesting."

One side note--it's striking how obsessed the kids are with using rulers (even when the results are not that perfect) and copying/tracing things. At least amongst the kids in the projects, individual creativity has not yet been nourished to fruition. It could also be more of a cultural thing, but I don't have enough data yet to say.

Preparations are in full-swing for a work team (17 people!) from Virginia that is slated to arrive next week. I feel bad because if this were the U.S., I could be much more helpful with the planning, but here, there's not a whole lot I can do other than help translate and work with them once there are here.

I finally took a couple of concrete steps this weekend towards getting a social life. On Saturday, I took the bus to the other side of town to one of the dance studios that offers flamenco lessons. I signed up to take a free trial class next weekend. It was good to be back in the dance environment, so if I can find a way to afford to take lessons on Saturdays, that will be cool. One weird thing was that you have to buzz to get let into the dance studio property and get buzzed out as well because the gate is always locked (like most things here). It was funny and typically Brazilian that the classes that I saw on Saturday seem to stop in the middle for a coffee break.

I walked back across town from the flamenco place to try to get the monthly schedule of events from the cultural center, but they were closed. I did manage, however, to find out about a free concert in one of the nice plazas downtown and went to that yesterday evening. It was billed as Brazilian guitar music, but was actually jazz performed by two guitars and a trumpet, which was fine. I was surprised that they appeared to have started on time (I got there about five minutes late). Getting there was easy (I could catch a bus at my regular bus stop close to the apartment and it was still light) but I have to work on the getting home part because the place I walked to in order to catch the bus home was less-than-optimum, especially in the dark. It's funny that I often plan for hours before an actual outing to figure out what bus to take to get there, where to get off the bus, how to walk from the bus stop to the destination, what bus to take to get home, what bus stop to walk to in order to get home, etc. While that is a lot of work, at this point I definitely prefer taking the bus to the idea of trying to drive here (and those of you who've ridden with me know that I'm no pansy behind the wheel).

I had an interesting discussion with my roommate yesterday because I heard another person say that Brazil's biggest problem was teenage pregnancy, and I asked her opinion. My roommate thinks, and I agree, that Brazil's biggest problem is the distribution of resources and the huge economic inequality that seems to largely affect those of African descent (among others). It's interesting that things that would be racial stereotypes in the U.S. are more class stereotypes here.

And since I've already written more than anyone other than my parents will read, I'll call it quits for now... :)

The never-ending festival

2006-08-01T14:33:00.000-04:00

I'm a little late with this posting because of traveling to visit my friends followed by a full schedule of celebrations for the family of my roommate when I returned to Belo Horizonte.

Here's a family portrait of my friends in São Carlos:

It was interesting because this visit was the first time we've communicated mostly in Portuguese. I'm slowly becoming more used to the long (6-12 hour) bus rides to get to other regions. I'm still not able to get a lot of sleep on the buses, but at least I don't feel like I need to "be productive" and read or knit while I'm not sleeping.

As far as the never-ending family festival, my roommate comes from a large family (originally 10 children), most of whom live in this area. Her oldest brother was turning 70, so folks gathered from near and far (a sizeable contingent even took the bus from Brasilia, the nation's capital) to celebrate his birthday in addition to the 40th wedding anniversary of one of her sisters and some other birthdays. As someone who grew up without much of an extended family, and especially not in the same town, it blows my mind that in the total of five months that I've lived here, I've already met all eight of my roommate's surviving siblings in addition to a multitude of nephews, nieces, cousins, etc.

Another cool thing is that many of the people who have gotten divorced are still on friendly terms with their ex-spouses, and the ex-spouses still participate in the family events. What that means for me is trying to learn the names of a bazillion people, but with a family that is so open and welcoming (they've invited me to every one of their gatherings since I've lived here), it's a nice problem to have. It's amazing to me how intergenerational their gatherings are and how close people are. For example, can you imagine an American adolescent male willingly going to a family gathering rather than hanging out with his friends? And then on top of that, walking around and hugging people, talking to everybody, and volunteering to play games with the "fun" aunt? I couldn't believe how many of the kids immediately came up to me, hugging me and talking to me.

So far, they had activities on Friday (when I was traveling back from São Carlos), all day Saturday, all day Sunday, lunch and dinner yesterday (Monday), and some folks are coming to our house tonight for dinner. I also went to my first serenade when a small, intergenerational group of the family went to one young woman's apartment at midnight to sing songs to her for her birthday. I noticed that everybody already knew where this particular family lived and nobody needed to ask for directions, etc. Maybe people in the U.S. that have large families and have lived in the same place for decades experience the same thing, but this is definitely new for me.

Many members of this family are amateur musicians, so their gatherings are filled with guitar-accompanied sing-alongs. Even though I'm pretty familiar with Brazilian Popular Music (MPB), I was hearing a lot of songs I'd never heard because this state is known for its fondness of country-style music. They even have a country version of the birthday song. Normally, Brazilians use the same "Happy Birthday to You" tune that we use with Portuguese words, but this tune was more Brazilian. It's funny that that last night when we were waiting for the pizza to arrive for dinner, it felt empty to me with just 10-12 people there.

And now for more of my gratuitous observations about Brazilian society...

One thing different here is that most phone numbers are eight digits long instead of seven. I wonder if we'll need to go to that soon in the U.S. Even though most everybody has cell phones (irrespective of age or income), hardly anybody uses answering machines, call waiting, etc.

I'm not sure when it was, but at some point, there was a very effective dental hygiene campaign here because people (again, of all ages and income levels) are fanatical about brushing and flossing their teeth. I even remember seeing the dental hygiene station for the children at one of the day care centers in a local slum. Now if the same people who did that campaign could do something to combat littering, that would be great.

I'm constantly amazed at what people accomplish here with the most rudimentary of tools. I suppose that I'm spoiled by the resources that we have in the U.S. such as a specific tool for everything, but it's really odd for me to see people cleaning leaves and spent flowers off of grassy areas with brooms rather than rakes. Another place where I notice a different level of tools being used is in the major road construction project in our neighborhood. I can't believe how quickly they are building a ramp, new sidewalks, etc. with the most basic (mostly non-power) tools. I can't imagine what they could accomplish if they had the same equipment that a typical construction crew in the U.S. is using.

That's enough for now. Time to double-check the Methodist Foundation's web site, which I finally finished updating. See http://www.fundacaometodista.org.br for more information about the Foundation and its projects.

Night of a thousand stars

2006-07-23T21:31:00.000-04:00

Last night I traveled by bus for about 11 hours to get to my friends' house in the neighboring state. There's not a whole lot you can do on these nighttime journeys without disturbing your fellow passengers. After knitting for a little while, I turned off the light and looked out the window and could see a bazillion stars because we were already in the countryside. I have to preserve that thought for when I'm experiencing the aches and pains of being cramped up for so long. Eventually I tried to sleep, but I've never had great success sleeping in planes, buses and automobiles. When I arrived early this morning, I called my friends to come pick me up at the bus station. It was cool that I already had a phone card to use in the public phone, and I'm slowly coming to realize that a lot of problems I experience that I think are a consequence of me being a foreigner and not knowing how things work are actually pretty typical failures. For example, I had to try three different public phones before I could find one that completed the call successfully. After I got to my friends' house, we ate breakfast, I took a shower, and then we hopped in the car to visit the husband's family. Although I saw this family just a few months ago, it was different this time because this was my first time there after his father died. We spent the day there, eating, visiting with the family and eating more.

I'm writing this on Sunday, by the way, because word has it we're getting back in the car tomorrow to travel to a different town to visit somebody who will be moving out of the country. There are a couple of interesting things I'm noticing this trip to São Carlos. This is the first time that I've picked up on the local accent. Also, I'm looking at the smaller town with new, more appreciative eyes after living in a much more crowded, polluted city for a while. It's more fun to be with my friends' 21-month-old daughter now that she has quite an extensive vocabulary, and I can actually understand some of the things she's saying.

The national Methodist Church conference that my coordinators went to was actually more important than an Annual Conference because they set church policy for the next several years. Unfortunately, a more conservative group got the Methodist Church in Brazil to withdraw from ecumenical (non-denominational) activities, which has been one of its foremost characteristics.

Many Brazilians have asked me what people in the U.S. eat on a daily basis. It's hard to explain because I don't think there's a real standard other than people eat more at dinner than at lunch (the reverse is true here). I'm finding it challenging here to eat what I think is a balanced diet. The number and quality of fruits here is amazing. But the selection of vegetables leaves something to be desired. You see rice and beans nearly everywhere (the type of beans will vary depending on where you are within the country) and there are many starch choices--rice, potatoes, manioc, squash, yucca and other roots. You also see salad (usually lettuce and tomatoes), but not too many other vegetables on a regular basis.

As I'd mentioned a while ago, birthdays are very big here, and my friends and colleagues did a great job of recognizing mine last week. On the actual day, I awoke to a nice birthday note from my roommate; we had ice cream at one of the projects that afternoon; I talked to my parents for free on the Internet (if you don't know about Skype and similar programs, it's worth looking into); the next day we went to dinner at a restaurant with live music; and then there was a party on Thursday afternoon at the other project for me and Chris, another American volunteer whose birthday was Thursday. I got lots of phone calls and e-mails from here and the U.S., so that was really nice.

Both projects are on recess for a few weeks; last week the teachers had planning and organizing and this week we have vacation (which is why I can visit my friends, who are university professors and also are on vacation). Time to try to catch up on some sleep.

Come and listen to a story about a man named Jed...

2006-07-17T19:22:00.000-04:00

As promised last week, here are some pictures from the two Junina Festivals (see last week's post for an explanation of these "country bumpkin" festivals) at the two projects where I volunteer. The festival at São Gabriel was Friday afternoon and just for the kids in the Shade and Fresh Water program there. The Liberdade project had their festival Sunday night on the street for the whole neighborhood.

Girls dressed up for the São Gabriel festival

The bride and groom for the São Gabriel square dancing

Square dancing at the São Gabriel festival

Liberdade before the festival

Two American country bumpkins (another volunteer, Chris, and me)

The fishing game at Liberdade

Square dancing at the Liberdade festival

One of the coolest things about these festivals was that most of the kids wanted to dance and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was particularly impressed when I was reviewing the photos I'd taken and noticed that even the children that don't normally smile were grinning the whole time while they were dancing. I guess the point was that they were getting to be children but also to participate in a popular cultural ritual. I'm constantly surprised when I see the children here do things that American kids would think weren't cool. That's a part of the Brazilian culture that's really great--a little less of the adolescent aloofness, rebellion and age gap.

I danced in both of the square dances at the Liberdade Festival last night. The first time was with Chris, another American volunteer (see photo above), and the second time was with the husband of one of the teachers, who was sober when he was introduced to me at the beginning of the festival but managed to be drunk by the time we had to perform. Then there was the official town drunk at the performance dancing next to the children (he had to be asked to dance outside the circle) and the neighborhood dogs, who were wandering around and kept getting in the way of the dancers. It made for quite an entertaining evening...

On Saturday, I went to my first Brazilian wedding. It was outside at a beautiful "country" location in the city. I don't quite understand why, but apparently it's quite popular to have outdoor weddings even in the winter. Woman were wearing sleeveless, formal dresses, and I was freezing with a blazer on top of my dress. Most of the elements of the ceremony were the same as weddings in the U.S. However, a few things I'd never experienced before at a wedding included fireworks, part of the bridal party processing to "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and the bride recessing to "I Say a Little Prayer for You." Apparently that song is quite popular here, so I heard the "opera" version performed by the singers, violin, trumpet and keyboard for the recessional and then the band played played a more traditional version at the reception. Not only were glow-in-the-dark souvenirs (bracelets, blinking necklaces & rings) distributed during the reception, but there was also a novelty photographer there with various funny hats, wigs and boas to take photos of the guests and print them out on paper pre-printed with the image of the bride and groom for everybody to take home. The bride comes from a musical family, and she serenaded her groom as a surprise, and later, her father sang several numbers with the band. The ceremony was supposed to start at 4 and started closer to 5, and when we left the reception at 10:30 or so, it was just winding down. The experience made me wonder who originally came up with the wedding traditions that we use in the U.S.

And finally, last week I forgot to mention a soccer analogy that occurred to me when I was watching the World Cup games. It's much easier to see what's going on when the game is shown from above; that might be what God's perspective is, that He can see everything and how it's all interacting. On the other hand, when they show the view from the players' perspective, it's very confusing to see exactly who is where and what is going on. That's more like the human perspective, where you can't see in more than one direction or beyond a certain limited field of vision. And like life, it may look like nothing is happening during part of the game, and then, all of a sudden, events coincide to permit a goal, which might be interpreted in life as a success or a big change.

The time of the year for...square-dancing

2006-07-10T17:53:00.000-04:00

When I was here in Brazil from October to December, I remember seeing pictures of children at one of the projects dressed up as country bumpkins, and I was told about some festival in June, but I had no idea of the extent of these "Festas Juninas" or "Junina Parties." It turns out that the whole country has a series of country-bumpkin parties in June (but also July) whose origins are a combination of an homage to St. John (as well as Sts. Peter & Anthony) and a pagan solstice festival.

Some typical elements of these parties include:

people dressing up as country-bumpkins, specifically including a bride and groom and wedding attendents
bonfires
typical foods such as barbecue meat on sticks, corn-on-the-cob, fried pork rinds, stews, cotton candy, and hot drinks
"forro" music (sounds like a fast country two-step or quick-step)
a Brazilian type of square-dancing called "quadrilha"

I went to my first Festa Junina on Saturday night outdoors at somebody's country house, and I was surprised how inter-generational the party was. In addition, I have been practicing with the children at the Liberdade Project to dance quadrilha in their festival this coming weekend, and I have borrowed a rather large country-bumpkin dress to wear. (Stay tuned next week for photos...) For the past several weekends, I've seen children dressed as bumpkins going to and from these festivals in practically every neighborhood I've passed. I haven't found any logical explanation yet of why these "June" festivals are happening well into July, but that's very Brazilian.

I forgot to mention last week that I had an opportunity to visit a privately run home for chidren with major disabilities (mostly severe motor disorders) and senior citizens here in Belo Horizonte called "Caminhos para Deus" or "Ways/Paths to God." I was a little worried about what I might see there when I was told about a previous international visitor who was upset to be visiting the place, but my fears were soon relieved. It was unbelievably clean, calm and caring for the more than 300 residents that lived there. We visited nearly all of the "children" (some of whom were close to 40 years old), and out of this group, only one young woman could talk, and she immediately started to yell out when we got to the room where she was "Hey, over here!" over and over. :) She also could sing a children's song that my coordinator recognized.

Last week I had my first Brazilian doctor's appointment (don't worry, Mom, it was just a dermatologist). Just like in the U.S., many practices can be so full that you can't get an appointment as a new patient for months. Thankfully, I have connections (my roommate) who helped me to get worked into the busy schedule. My coordinator went with me to help translate. As I was leaving the apartment, I thought to ask if doctor's offices here in Brazil accept credit cards, and it was a good thing that I did, because they don't. Although credit cards are generally accepted nearly everywhere in the U.S. as a consumer convenience, here they are not due to the extra fees that banks and credit card companies impose. A lot of times if credit cards are accepted, the businesses will past on this additional cost to the consumer. But I digress...

One cool thing was that the doctor's office had a digital fingerprint recognition machine, which I had never seen. I think that was for people on certain insurance plans, because I didn't need to use it. I was surprised that they asked for the full name of both of my parents, but it turns out that is a routine thing to do here because you have many more people with the same name. Because we borrow first names from around the world in the U.S., it is not so often that you know three or more people with the same first name, but here it is very common. For example, I already know at least four different "Fernandas."

Like busy doctor's offices in the U.S., we waited for an hour before getting to see the doctor. Her examination was much more thorough that anything I'd experienced in the U.S., and true to Brazilian style, there was more chatting than you would normally have with a doctor in the U.S.; she even told me to be sure to convey a hug to my roommate. (People here are always virtually sending hugs and kisses if they don't have a chance to do the real thing in person.) Another nice surprise was the bill at the pharmacy. The doctor prescribed four different things, and the total bill for all four was less than US$35. The doctor's appointment cost about US$70.

Today things went surprisingly well for the two English classes. One thing I constantly have to remember is to show the children an excited, loving face. The other American volunteers currently here, Chris and David, in addition to helping with the English classes, are working on getting the computers into shape, reconfiguring some, building a new one from parts, etc. I'm also trying to update and finish translating the Methodist Foundation's website. (I'll post a link when I'm done.) My coordinators and most of the local Methodist pastors are off to the national Brazilian Methodist Annual Conference this week in the neighboring state.

I found out today that the music/Christian education teacher is still out, so I'll be substituting again for her at both projects. This should be the last week of children at the two projects where I work before their school vacation (although some schools have already finished the term). Next week, the teachers and administrators will meet to plan out the activities for the coming semester, and then the week after that is vacation for us. I'm hoping to visit my friends in São Carlos in the neighboring state of São Paulo. In addition, I'm already making a list of things to bring back from the U.S. when I visit in September because there is an odd assortment of things that are either unavailable or ridiculously expensive here (e.g. sunscreen).

And it was very un-Brazilian of me to almost forget to mention the World Cup finals. We watched the second half of the runner-up game on Saturday between Germany and Portugal and all of the final game yesterday between France and Italy. Even though Brazil wasn't in the finals, many stores that would normally be open on Sunday afternoon closed early for the game. It's very funny for me to realize how much new soccer knowledge I have absorbed in these past few weeks. Now I can recognize the coaches and star players from a handful of countries, as well as having a better grasp on the rules (e.g., at which stage in the tournament there is overtime). We were happy to see Italy beat France, and, apparently, so were most of our neighbors. It's very interesting how emotionally involved and entertaining the Brazilian commentators are. In the U.S., if I have to watch sports, I generally try to do it without sound so I don't have to listen to the commentators, but here, it wasn't bad (it probably didn't hurt that I can only understand about 40-50% of what they're saying...). So now Brazil has another four years to re-group and try to re-claim its title as soccer world champion.

You win some, you lose some

2006-07-03T18:58:00.000-04:00

At first, I was going to say that Brazilians have been pretty gracious losers after France beat Brazil 1-0 in the World Cup playoffs on Saturday; most of the reactions I heard at first were things like "France deserved to win because they played much better than we did." Then today I heard grumblings even from the children at the project that the game had been fixed. In any event, things were very quiet around town yesterday as the country seemed to be in mourning. I watched the game on Saturday at a birthday/game-watching party (see the picture below) before heading back to our apartment for another birthday party in the recreation room downstairs. Almost all of the people at the game-watching/birthday party were family. With such huge extended families, who needs friends? (This picture represents only about 50% of the number of people at the party...)

Once again, I'm sick with what appears to be a cold. I'm not sure how much of it is living in a new country, adjusting to winter when there's no heat in the buildings here, simply a side-effect of working with children, being in a society that is always hugging and kissing, or a combination of the above. The other volunteer, Chris, also seems to be getting sick more often than he did at home, and many of my Brazilian colleagues have been catching colds, so at least I'm not alone.

I continue to be amazed with people's flexibility and resistance. People that have traveled on a bus overnight and were unable to sleep or who have been out of town for several days arrive and continue to host not one but two-and-a-half days of birthday festivities and visits and overnight guests. I know in the U.S. I would be tempted to cancel the events or at the very least, call somebody else to take my place. I had a very tiring weekend with the parties and guests, but it was a very welcome relief to spend time at my coordinator's house last night eating fondue for the first time, conversing in English and playing Skip-Bo (a card game a tiny bit like Uno).

The cultural safety standards are different here. For example, most people do not have working seatbelts in their back seats, and some people don't use seatbelts in the front seats. A lot of people will release their seatbelts as they get close to (but not yet arriving at) their destinations. Almost nobody seems to use carseats for babies, even in the middle/upper class. Rarely do you see somebody doing a job with all of the safety equipment they'd be using in the U.S. I think part of the reason for these different safety standards is due to lower economic resources, but I think the other part is that they don't have an "I'm going to sue you" culture here like there is in the U.S., which is refreshing.

Last week I helped write a small grant application for a U.S. funding program we learned of less than one week before the application deadline. I guess that I passed the test because my coordinator (she doesn't like being called my "boss") has given me more applications for which we can help various projects apply.

I'm going through some predictable difficulties that I'd seen international people in the U.S. experience, but now I'm going through it up-close and personal. It's not anything extreme as a major depression or an "I hate everything here" or even an "I'm so homesick" thing. It's just more of a compilation of little things that build up to make me get the blues and feel like: I can't really communicate with folks and nobody really understands me (although I know it's not that extreme--I can actually manage okay most of the time); I'm all alone in the midst of all of these people because nobody speaks my language (but in reality, there are several English-speakers here and several people are watching out for me); I'm tired of the seemingly herculean effort necessary to do something that would normally be effortless for me in the U.S. like buy a specific item or get a haircut (it's usually not that bad once I get off my butt and take the first step); I'm sad that I don't have friends here to hang out with (there actually are a few people who've invited me to do things--I've mostly been too lazy to follow-up or take the initiative); I'm sad that church services here so far aren't fulfilling for me (I've been meaning to visit other churches but haven't yet gotten around to it), etc.

It's interesting because I knew from seeing the experiences of my many international friends in the U.S. that the first six months are especially difficult in adjusting to a new country, language and culture. I was reminded of that today when I talked to my coordinator about my blues. I actually used to get a little annoyed with international people's tendency to only hang out with other people from their country, but now I understand it a little better. Even though being a fellow countryman in no way guarantees that someone will be a nice person or a suitable friend, it does allow you the comfort of having, more or less, the same cultural mores. It's nice to be able to talk to somebody and not sound like a 5-year-old. And this too, shall pass...

Finally, I feel like my personality is once again "under construction" and going through God-directed improvements, but I am currently struggling in the uncomfortable, unresolved state of seeing what the issue/problem is but not yet having overcome it. I feel like I'm a pretty generous person and that I was able to give up most of my connection to material goods to come and volunteer here, but I've been shown multiple times over the past six months how I'm still attached to things in that I get very annoyed when people use my stuff without permission. But it's not just "people" but particularly people that I deem are somehow "undeserving" that really prompt this strong, knee-jerk revulsion. This includes spoiled children and people that are experts at procuring and using other people's resources but who don't give in return. I find it much easier to ignore or overlook things that "nice" people inadvertently do. This is just another facet of the judgementalism that has been firmly rooted in my brain from a very early age. I guess it boils down to feeling like selfishness or self-centeredness is something I find it extremely difficult to tolerate, although I don't have a problem being assertive about my own interests or doing things for myself from time-to-time. So now the point is to find the will and the means to extend Christian love and hospitality to these people, who are certainly considered my "neighbors" in the Biblical sense.

The official and the unofficial

2006-06-26T16:59:00.000-04:00

One of the most interesting things about Brazil is the existence of official and unofficial versions of many different things. And when I say "unofficial," that usually means "illegal but widely overlooked."

Here are a few examples:

taxis
Like most places, you have official taxis (here they are white with a "taxi" sign on top) and people driving their own cars as unofficial taxis, trying to pick people up at the bus station or airports. Here you also have the "perueiros" who drive along some of the bus routes in cars and vans picking up people who are waiting for the bus (usually charging the same price as the bus and even accepting the paper bus vouchers that some people receive from their jobs).

lottery
There are official lottery offices that sell government-sponsored lottery tickets, and there is the unofficial "numbers" game that uses different animal symbols and is very popular.

real estate
There is land that you officially buy and sell, and then there is land that people squat on. If the squatters are successful, they can even "sell" it back to the government if the slum needs to be torn down.

CDs, videos and software
Because of the extremely high prices of the genuine items compared to the average salary, pirated (illegal copies of) CDs, videos and software are often easier to find than the legitimate versions.

vendors
You've got people who apply for permits to sell things at local market fairs (e.g. there is a huge crafts fair downtown every Sunday morning), and you have the people who just walk around selling food, drinks and other items. Several people carry boxes or coolers around their necks, and the more sophisticated ones have shopping carts.

churches
There are local branches of many widely recognized churches such as Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Assembly of God, but then are a lot of tiny churches that spring up overnight with no affiliation and a pastoral staff with no particular qualifications.

bus routes
On less-crowded buses in smaller neighborhoods, the driver will often want to veer from the regular route and skip some stops. The driver or the fare-collector will ask you where you want to go, and it's very difficult to negotiate these unplanned changes when you're less-than-fluent in Portuguese. There are also "official" changes in bus routes of which you may not be aware. For example, one bus I take went down a different street one Sunday, and only later did I find out why. There is a street fair and a lot of traffic on the regular street on the 28th of every month because the church is named for a particular saint whose "day" is on the 28th of October, but there is generally a celebration on the 28th of every month.

The team from Valdosta, Georgia flew back to the U.S. yesterday, and I spent the day with them before they left, going to the artisan's fair downtown, Sunday school, lunch, hanging out and then out to the airport. The church where they worked all last week gave them a royal send-off, and I hope they had an easy trip home.

tor · cer (v) to cheer and support one's team

2006-06-19T17:25:00.000-04:00

Any proper update must start with news of the World Cup since that is the preeminent happening in Brazil. So far, I have watched both Brazilian games at people's houses (fairly low-key environments). Brazil has won both of its games so far (beating Croatia 1-0 and Australia 2-0) but Brazilian fans are aggravated that the victories haven't been more pronounced, as they fully expected them to be. That, however, does not stop people from setting off firecrackers and having parades and parties during and after the games. Other than the plazas set up with giant-screen TVs for public viewing, the streets are completely empty during the games. It seems that only 1% of the population isn't watching because they choose not to--everybody else that isn't working is someplace with a television (and many people who have to work have access to televisions during the games). Some of the other visiting Americans and I were trying to make a comparison to a similar event in the U.S., but there isn't one. The Super Bowl is about as close as it gets, and that does not involve a national team, and a significant fraction of the population doesn't watch it.

I think it was Wednesday when we visited one of the Shade and Fresh Water projects in the neighboring community of Betim because that was the project that our visitor's church was sponsoring. Even though the project wasn't actually functioning that day, several children and volunteers turned up to greet us. This rural area had mostly dirt roads, and it is located out past the "Industrial City" section of Belo Horizonte. The project serves about 50 children in two shifts, and the local women also do embroidering and other handicrafts to raise money. I'm including some photos that I took at this project.

Some of the kids examining the paper they made from recycled paper

A couple of shy little boys in Betim

Little feet

I have survived my first experience as the only guide for an incoming group from Georgia. Last Thursday, I took a bus (6.5 hours, which is starting to not be such a long bus ride for me) to Rio with the American visitor who was staying in our apartment. She'd never seen Rio, so she went with me to meet the work team and spend the day touring with them on Friday before heading up to meet the EvangeMed boat in Manaus. I knew that a bus driver would be picking me up at the hotel to take me to meet the team at the airport, but he arrived almost two hours early. Marcelo, the driver, was a funny guy, and I had lots of time to hear his interesting stories.

The team from Park Avenue UMC in Valdosta, Georgia arrived at the international airport in Rio late Thursday night. I was a little nervous because all of the flights above theirs on the display board said "delayed" or "canceled," and I thought there must be some issue with fog or something that was preventing planes from coming in. Marcelo pointed out that all of those flights were with Varig, the failing Brazilian airline. Before the team exited customs, I asked Marcelo if the currency exchanges were, as they appeared to be, closed. He went to investigate and came back with two alternate "unofficial" places we could have the team exchange money. It turns out the unassuming little man dressed like a porter who'd been standing by the door runs his own unofficial currency exchange, and he was able to immediately change some money for everybody. The bus driver spotted the team right away in their yellow t-shirts. He and I were both surprised at the amount of luggage they had with them--it turns out that they'd received several requests to carry stuff with them to deliver to folks here. The van we had was a 15-seater, but after some skillful packing, we were able to get all 11 of us and all of the suitcases in the van.

Guiding the team was pretty easy because they actually followed the suggested rules (e.g. not going out alone, flashing money around, etc.). Thankfully, there were no major incidents. We went to Corcovado (Jesus statue on the mountain) in the morning and Sugarloaf (mountain with two cable cars up to the top) in the afternoon, and both places were crowded compared to my previous visit in May. It turns out there was a special promotion for locals to be able to go for 1/2 price that day. The weather held out just long enough for us to come down from Sugarloaf, at which point it started to rain. We then drove back to the hotel via several beaches, including one where many hangliders land, and we got to see two hangliders and one parachuter land right there. The team's flight to Belo Horizonte was moved to a flight early Saturday morning, so everybody was ready to leave the hotel at 7 AM to head back to the airport. Thankfully, again, there weren't any problems with them getting checked in and boarding their flight. My big accomplishment was finding and catching the right bus to take me back into town (after passing by the bus station, the other airport, and several other neighborhoods) and getting off at the right place to walk to my hotel. When I talked to the work team later, it turns out that a large group from their host church met them with banners and great fanfare at the airport in Belo Horizonte. I got to fly back to Belo Horizonte later on Saturday afternoon because my boss was able to find a really cheap flight.

Probably the hardest translation I had to do for the group was in Sunday school yesterday morning at the church where they'll be working this week. Thankfully, by the afternoon meeting to plan their work and the evening worship service, more qualified translators were there to help. It seems right now that translating English into Portuguese is harder for me than Portuguese into English.

More than meets the eye

2006-06-12T16:50:00.000-04:00

Last week I mentioned the kites are popping up everywhere. The teachers at São Gabriel had already mentioned to me that many kids play hooky and instead of going to the project go fly kites, but this week I learned of a new twist. For those who have read The Kite Runner, this will sound familiar, but I was quite shocked to find out they have the same game here, too. It turns out that some of the kids will glue crushed glass onto their kite's string with the aim of cutting the opponent's kite, just like the Afghanistani game in the aforementioned book. This became such a problem here with motorcyclists and others who were getting their throats sliced that the government outlawed it, but in a place where basic traffic laws are rarely enforced, there's no way you're going to get police out doing kite inspections. Ironically, I sliced my finger on a kite string that was not covered with glass last week when I was helping a child unravel the knotted string.

In the first week of the World Cup, many neighborhoods and establishments have been transformed into a riot of green, yellow and blue (the colors of the Brazilian flag). Tomorrow is Brazil's first game, and many businesses will be shutting down so everybody can go watch the game. There are even several large screens posted at plazas throughout the city for people to watch outdoors. This afternoon, we borrowed an antenna to watch the U.S. play the Czech Republic (and lose 3-0) at the community center. Before the game started, the Brazilian sports network was interviewing people on the street in New York city in awe that noone knew that the World Cup was going on, let alone that the U.S. was playing today. This past weekend, you could hear people throughout the city cheering against their least favorite neighbors, Argentina.

One thing that immediately caught my attention and continues to get on my nerves is the lack of brown people accurately represented in the media. Although Brazilians are constantly citing the fact that their country has the most people of African descent other than Nigeria, you'd never know it from looking at a newspaper, TV or magazine. I'll be the first to admit that the U.S. still has a problem with disproportionately representing Blacks and Latinos as criminals, etc. but this is really quite extreme. When I (try to) read the Estado do Minas newspaper or the Brazilian version of Time magazine to which my roommate subscribes, you'd never know that there were brown people living here other than criminals, abandoned children, entertainers and soccer players. Advertisements in all forms of the media are pretty much aimed toward Euro-Brazilian families. One noteable exception was the commercial I saw that was trying to convince maids/cooks that they needed to buy a certain brand of rice for the families that employ them. When the lay pastor who teaches music and Christian education at two of the projects was preparing a bulletin board display with pictures of families, I pointed out to her that none of the families looked like the kids in the project (i.e. brown). She spent the next hour looking unsuccesfully for a picture of a brown family in her magazines. All she could find was one picture of a father and daughter.

Hot water heaters are extremely rare here, so people have electrically heated shower heads that you can adjust to two or three different settings, and you can also regulate the temperature via the water flow. Above a minimum flow, a higher water pressure means a lower temperature. I still remember the my first experience with these shower heads during my first trip to Brazil, and I electrocuted myself trying to change the settings while the water was running.

Another interesting thing about "winter" here is that very few places have central heating (or air conditioning, for that matter). When buildings are built from concrete, they can get pretty cool, so if it's 55 F outside in the morning or evening, it can easily be 45 F inside the community center buildings. Thankfully, our apartment is much warmer.

The majority of people graduating from high school do not pass the entrance exam for the free, public univerisities, so if they want higher education, they often have to pay for it at the private universities. (Ironically, the private universities here are much lower in quality that the public ones.) That means they usually have to work full time and go to school at night. Many of the people I know here go to university from 7 PM to 10:30 PM or later, and the ones that live in faraway places such as Liberdade don't get home until 11:30 or later every weeknight. I don't know when they find time to study. Another interesting thing about these students is that nobody has hardcover books. People might have spiral-bound copies of books or, more frequently, photocopies or downloads of reading material. Book prices here seem to be at least double what they are in the U.S., so I can totally understand why students are not buying $300-500 books for their classes.

Finally, this is one flesh-eating people. There are about 20 different cuts of beef alone, and butcher shops and sections at the supermarket are quite popular. The middle and upper class seem to eat beef almost exclusively, with an occasional foray into chicken, fish or pork. The lower class have to stick much more to cuts of chicken and pork that are used more for flavoring. The middle and upper class have barbecues or go to barbecue restaurants ("churrascarias") almost every weekend. The barbecue restaurants are all-you-can-eat where they come around with different types of meat on a skewer and cut it directly onto your plate. It is beyond a doubt the best meat I have ever tasted.

I think that's probably enough for this week. I still need to figure out our plans for watching the first Brazilian game tomorrow because we have an American guest staying with us for a few days to visit my bosses and some of the local children's projects. Later this week, I'm headed back to Rio to meet another work team that's arriving from Georgia. This should be a big test since I will be the only translator. Stay tuned for next week's update.