28 February

So you know how the sand gets so hot that you have to run into the water to avoid burning your feet?? Yeah…that wasn’t such a good idea for me. On Tuesday when we went to Jaguaribe, I was looking down to be sure not to step on anything as I ran, and kinda missed the fact that there was a HUGE guarda-sol (the big umbrellas they put on the beach to cover you from the sun). one second I’m right behind Gilmara. The next, she turns around and sees me laughing down on the ground. I bounced off the umbrella like a rubber ball on pavement, except I didn’t bounce back up. But I didn’t let that stop me! I’m a survivor, lol. So I walked the rest of the way to the water and we rode the waves. It was fun till a jellyfish appeared, and I fled the water running. Apparently there are no jellyfish in salvador, but the day that I went to the beach, of course, one appeared.

That night we all piled into Raquel’s place, one of Gilmara’s friends, cooked pasta and chicken nuggets and had a movie marathon. It reminded me of home :o). How we fit 9 people into a room the size of a small dorm room, and how we all managed to find a position to sleep in, I don’t know. But here, you make things work, hehe. Gilmara and I left around 6AM and got to her house and slept for another couple hours. I met more of her family (most of which live in the same neighborhood) and we later went to the mall.

27 February

Monday, Hugo and I went to a churrascaria, Pituba for cappuccino (my first REAL cappucino, which quite frankly is the best I’ve ever had!), and Dique for frappe and chillin.

According to him, the reason I got sick the first week in Bahia was because "you’re so used to eating bad food in the States that when you eat good food, your body reacts badly to it" lol, well, that’s one way to look at it.

beautiful Bahia

cappucino

Orixa's on the water, Dique

26 February - Carnaval in Salvador

Carnaval in Salvador…
Let me try my best to explain: The entire city stops. Lots of famous music artists (Daniela Mercury, Ivete Sangalo, Timbalada, Chiclete com Banana, Ara Ketu, Badada Novo, Carlinhos Brown, Rapazzola, and MANY others) get on top of a big truck called a trio electrico. This truck has speakers attached on all sides and a stage on top. Each bloco (the trio and the people that follow it) leaves a certain point at a given time and then proceeds to drive throughout the streets (along a given route) until it gets back where it started. All in all, it’s about 8 kilometers…maybe 6 or 7 miles. Around each trio is a group of people who’s only job is to hold a rope. This rope divides those who pay to be inside the bloco and those who remain on the outside in the chaos of the streets. So basically, you buy a package to be able to be inside the rope. The package includes a shirt that must be worn, or else you can’t get in. these packages can cost up to R$1,000, depending on the artist.


Naiana happened to get a package from her job :o) . so I was lucky. These things cost a fortune! The one’s we got were for Timbalada, would have cost about 300-600 reais. 8 km, 11am-7pm. Exhausted. It was loads of fun for the first 3 hours, and then I just got tired. That one day was about all I could take of carnaval. Then just the sight of the festivities on TV made me tired. I didn’t go back to the center of the city till after carnaval.

Honestly, I think carnaval is what you make of it. It can be the biggest party in the world or a huge kissing fest. The propaganda that is in your face the entire time is for beer and condoms ("camisinha, não saia sem ela"…i.e. condom, don’t leave home without it). Personally though, that’s not my scene. For me, it was about getting the opportunity to travel for the two weeks we had no school and spend time with old friends.

Mind you, I’ve only described carnaval in Salvador. It’s completely different in SP and Rio de Janeiro. But I’ll save that for another time…

24-25 February

Friday we kicked off carnaval with an unofficial "bloco" that Nai’s dad is part of, along with many of his co-workers. "Os Dominados" – at home, their wives run the show. guys at home, learn from this! Lol.

Saturday I moved to Gilmara’s place. It was a completely different environment, but much more "homey". Her family gave me a warm welcome.

23 February - Jauá

Naiana and I spent the day at Jauá (one of the MANY beaches in Salvador) with her family. Adorei!

21 February

at work, preparing a sign for Carnaval

Today I went to work with Naiana and her dad and then met up with Hugo to explore the city.

We explored Pelourinho and got ice cream (which was a complete disaster, lol). We saw other places too except I don’t remember the names of anything. Campo Grande? The French place? (which had an AMAZING view of the bay). Needless to say, I started paying more attention and asking where I am more often so when people ask me "where did you go today?" I can say more than the name of the one place I remember. Anyway, Hugo took me back to Nai’s job and her family took me out to dinner to celebrate.

cidade baixa, cidade alta

Bahia de todos os santos

Carnaval prep in Pelourinho

Pelourinho

ice cream disaster

view from the French place

Wednesday, Gilmara and I got together and explored other parts of the city, this time, Ribeira – which is home to a famous ice cream place that has national and international recognition.

I don’t know whether it was something I ate, too much sun, the bumpy bus rides (which are more like roller-coaster rides), or a combination of everything, but for the next 3 days, the sight of food made me nauseous.

19 February - SALVADOR DA BAHIA!!!

Salvador…que saudades!

The two weeks in Bahia were quite possibly the best of my time in Brazil.
I flew into Salvador 19 of February around 1AM. Hugo and Naiana came to pick me up at the airport. Well…they tried…and then Hugo’s car broke down, so Naiana’s dad came to the rescue and we got to her dad’s place around 2:30AM (needless to say, no body got much sleep that night, least of all Hugo).

The first week I stayed at Naiana’s near Itapuã. They live in a condo-village. The place is supernice, with a beautiful view and swimming pool. The catch: it’s isolated from the city (30 min. driving) and the outside of the walls of the village are dangerous, so I’ve been told. Anyway, Carnaval didn’t start till Feb 23 (at least in Salvador), so Naiana and her dad still had to work…i.e. wake up at 6 to leave at 7 and get to work by 8. the first day, they let me sleep. I spent the day at the pool in the sun. maravilha!

Nai and I swimmin at night

18 February - Comitê Local de Juventude - SP

Today I showed up at the Baha'i center for a youth meeting to talk about interest in starting a youth committee…except upon arriving, soon found out it was the first committee meeting and I was elected secretary, hehe. Celso Jr (coordinator), Atussa (assistant coordinator), and Said Jr. are the other members. The comitê estadual showed up with a bunch of youth from Campinas and other surrounding neighborhoods. Among them, were Samareh, Anis, and Marcos, who I had already met. We consulted about how to consolidate the youth in area, i.e. provide activities (social, educational, and spiritual in nature) in order to foster fraternization among the youth in this area.

After the meeting, a bunch of us went to Michel and Romeu’s apartment. we hung around the house, checked email/orkut, played cards, chipped in $R 3 each ($US 1.50), and Angela went out shopping and made us a mad good meal (chicken stroganoff!!). There were nine of us all together. Later we went out to watch the rolling stones concert (free concert on Copacabana in Rio) on TV.

16 February - More Salsa!

today marked the 4th week in a row that I’ve gone salsa dancing, the 3rd week at CC. I’m now a regular and Delma, the bartender, gives me free water.

15 February - Birthday lunch & Museu de Crime

The Council took us out for a birthday lunch. Four of us have birthdays within this week and the next. Then we went to a museum. I invited Jefferson along, and after the group tour, he took me to the Museum of Crime. I was left speechless, with no appetite, felt nauseous. It was really interesting except for the fact that it was EXTREMELY graphic! with fotos of homicides, suicides, and wax models of heads, homicide wounds, crimes (murder, rape, gunshots), etc. The cadaver they had there might’ve been real. Let me just stop there because I really don’t want to remember the images at this museum. Aside from that, there were also exhibits on common drugs, abortion (with fetuses in glass jars), gambling, money laundering, etc.

Classes Postponed till after Carnaval - xtra week in Bahia!

So, classes were supposed to start 13 of February, but we were informed on Monday that classes wont be starting for another 3 weeks, at least till after Carnaval. PUC just fired 30% of their faculty because they were in a financial crisis and don’t have enough money to pay them. Classes are now scheduled to start March 2nd. But the first two weeks of classes are "trial" for CIEE students…we attend all possible classes we are interested in and at the end of 2 weeks we decide which 2 or 3 we are sticking with. THEN, at the end of march, we will finally be officially registered as PUC students.

SO, because of the change, and wanting to avoid a week of doing nothing, I called the travel agency that hooked me up with Bahia tickets to see how much it would be to change my outgoing flight for a week earlier. There was only a $R 40 fee, plus the difference in the flight cost, which wasn’t that much considering I made the change a week before my travels (this is me trying to justify the amount I spent for the trip). All in all, it ended up being about 400 US dollars for a round trip ticket to Bahia. That’s two weeks in Salvador, with lodging covered (since I’m staying one week at Naiana’s and the next at Gilmara’s). Not bad. (again, me justifying, hehe).

During this past week we’ve had meetings everyday with professors from different cursos to talk to us about the various classes offered in their specific area. i.e. this week has done nothing but confuse me. Now I have no idea what classes I will be taking during the semester, but luckily I don’t have to really worry about it till the beginning of March.

Lesson Learned - keep door closed

Sheila

My host mom always tells me to leave the door to my room closed because we have two dogs at home and they might leave little surprises in my room to mark their territory since I have a new smell. Well, I figured after a few weeks they’d be used to it and it’d be okay. Bad idea. A couple days ago my host mom and I were cleaning up after lunch and I saw her reach under the table and pick up a pair of my underwear. I looked up embarrassed as she said in Portuguese: "Leah, I forgot to mention the other reason you should keep your door closed. Lili [my host sister] lost 6 pairs last year because of these dogs…" It happened again a few days later. Lesson learned. Door stays closed.

Jane

Blah...blah...blah...oh really?

Sometime last week I was on the bus on the way home. The bus was crowded, so many people had to stand. Well, I ended up standing next to a guy that had an empty seat next to him, and after I involuntarily bumped into him several times due to the curvy turns the bus made, he slid over and let me sit. He was a well-fed, elderly business man, dressed in a gray suite…probably doesn’t ride the bus that often. He looked over at me and murmured something I didn’t understand, so I just smiled and looked away. Then he started talking…I couldn’t quite make out what he was saying, but it was clear that he was complaining about the traffic and public transportation (he pointed out the window at the streets with an angry face and hit the bus seat a couple times….those were my indications). The smile and look away strategy wasn’t working b/c he kept talking. So when I realized I couldn’t escape the conversation, I decided to play along. "é…..é….é….abandonado?...é....pois, que pode fazer?" (yeah….yeah….yeah…abandoned?…yeah….well, what can you do?") It was a loooong ride home. We had a 20 minute conversation and I don’t even know what we talked about.

8-11 February - Alonzo visits

Alonzo is a friend from Vanderbilt who’s doin the CIEE program in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He’s been here for a semester already and during his summer break went traveling throughout South America by bus. He stopped in SP for a few days before returning to BS. AS. For another semester.

final day of classes, 9th of February, half the group went to study in Bahia, we had a goodbye dinner at Terraça Italia, a very chique place…it cost $R 42 just for "tea and snacks"! it is one of the taller buildings in SP, like the Torre de Banespa, from which you can see the endless city of Sampa.

some of the monitores that welcomed us to SP the first 5 weeks

We went to Odoborogodo, a very small bar with live samba band. Learned to dance samba with a partner. Then we headed over to CC around the corner cuz I really wanted to dance salsa. Thursday is the day to go. Umberto, the guy that teaches salsa at CC, told me all his students come to practice on Thursdays. And these guys are no amateurs, let me tell you.

On the 10th, we had our eventful day at the policia federal. Upon arriving in Brazil, you have to register with the federal police within 30 days. So we met at 7:30AM at the metro, arrived to the police place around 9AM and then finally got out of there 6 hours later. Mind you, this is all waiting in line, and the second you lean against the wall and try to sit, a police officer comes by to tell you to stand up. The 6 hours of waiting in line wouldn’t have been so bad, but you cant sit! And if you do get a sit in one of the chairs across the room, you don’t hear your name get called, and there goes your chance of getting fingerprinted. Imagine all the people there with families and children. At least we were their in a group and we had each other to converse with. Everyone was grumpy by the end, but the Council took us to a Churrascaria to make us forget. By the middle of our meal, we were all laughing and the never-ending frustrating wait at the police station was a distant funny memory.

4-5 February - Weekend in Jundiaí – Samareh!

The night of dinner with the Nussbachers, Samareh called (after trying to be in touch since I arrived to SP).

Samareh and I met during a Baha’i youth project about 5 summers ago. We became instant friends and kept in touch throughout the years and now that I’m finally in São Paulo, I got the chance to see her again! She invited me to her home for the weekend, so I hopped on the bus at 8am the next day and arrived in Jundiai (a city right outside SP city) about an hour and a half later. It was sooo good to see her again! I met her family, we cooked lunch, hung out (watched cable tv!), looked through lots of photo albums, and watched her favorite novela, Almas Gêmias. That night we were invited by one of the two other Baha’i families in Jundiah to have dinner at their home. So around 8pm we headed over to the house of Soheil and Tetê. I had the night of my life. The other two Baha’is in the city came too as well as another Baha’i family from another city. We had pizza, kotlet (brazilian style), rode bikes around the neighborhood with the kids and played a serious game of Hokm, hehe.

The next day we woke up bright n early and left the house by 7:30AM for Mogí Guaçú, a city about 2 hours away, where Samareh’s family used to live.

We visited the Baha’i center there and then headed over to Campinas for a churrascaria and a community Reflection gathering (which is basically when Baha’is from all over the region get together to discuss activities that they’ve been up to, successes, challenges, etc.).

The house we went to was BEAUTIFUL, and the lunch was DELISH. Samareh introduced me to lots of Baha’i youth. After the meeting, we headed back to Jundiai, and I took the bus home to be back before dark.

3 February - Family Connections

My dad’s sister, Aunt Miriam, passed the name of family friends that live in SP. Amit and Lilian Nussbacher apparently lived in Baltimore for 4 years while Amit worked with my Uncle Gary (my Aunt’s husband’s (Uncle Jay) brother). So I called for the first time the other day and they invited me over for Shabbat dinner at Amit’s parent’s place. The family gave me a warm welcome and I thoroughly enjoyed the evening. It was interesting to hear Portuguese with a Hebrew accent (if you can imagine, hehe). The dinner was quite elegant with Matzo ball soup, and other yummy foods that definitely have a European touch (i.e. it was something other than rice and beans). The table was set with a white table cloth, fine china, and lots of silverware. I had to look around at everyone else to figure out what fork and spoon to use with what course. There was a great city view from their balcony, and it was sunset, to top it all off. A great evening!

1 February - Vinicius and Conexión Caribe

had dinner with Vinicius, another FIPSE-CAPSE student, then salsa at Conexión Caribe. Amazing salsa!! the best part: it's a 10 minute walk from my apartment :o)