New memory dump

I haven’t written a blog in a really long time. I tried, but after a while it became something daunting instead of something fun. But I’m here now starting because I’m trying to watch videos on my computer and my internet keeps shutting off. This has left me extremely frustrated. First world problems, I know.

 Anyways, Luciana is an English language cat now. She thinks her name is kitty. She’s in her hunting/playing stages of growth so she “attacks” everything that moves. And things that don’t move. Someone told me that she’s supposed to kill the “baratas” a.k.a. roaches, but she doesn’t. She just wants to play with them. Priscilla is teaching Michol and I Portuguese grammar. It’s really helpful because grammatically correct Portuguese (which I learned at school) sounds nothing like spoken language. Alessandra is also teaching Michol and I how to drive stick. We both bought international driver’s licenses (yes, we’re legal) and we’re doing pretty good as far as I’m concerned. As I mentioned before, Araguaina is a clay/sand-covered city of hills so reversing into a two-point turn up a sandy slope on my first day was victory in my eyes,lol.

 Another student of ours, Glau, mentioned that she was taking guitar lessons for free at the city’s cultural space (that’s literally what it translates to) and that she would talk to the guy about seeing if we could take some too. So, she invited us to her class and we start on Monday! It just so happened that yesterday was his students’ recital so he invited us back to hear everyone else play. I really enjoyed it and I’m excited. Maybe one day before we leave that could be us up there :) Doña Esmeralda has started teaching me how to embroider. She told me she’s been embroidering since she was 12 back in the days before they made fabric with the holes already in it. Naturally she can move up and down and left to right without thinking about it. I on the other hand have to put meticulous effort into figuring out which next move will not only complete my x but leave the thread in the position I need it to successfully change directions. The other day she told me that something is only hard when you don’t know how to do it. I mean it made sense to me,lol.

 “Com tempo” That’s my new catch phrase. I also successfully made a pot of rice yesterday. For some people this may seem like a trivial feat. I on the other hand am just now learning to cook and cooking a pot of non-sticky rice was step one of a long, creative process of survival skill acquisition. So there you have it. Progress update on some of my Araguaina life goals. Um beijo.

When the Rain Stops

Welp, I think its safe to say that Summer is officially starting. In Araguaina, there are two seasons. Rain season and sun season. Luckily, you have security guards at UFT whose only purposes in campus life seem to be to turn on the Air Conditioning and open the door to the supply closet at night. It could be expected that we as ETAs would have some similar experiences with big things but after reading fellow blogs I think its the little commonalities like Air Guards that make me smile the most.

Like it seems as though we're not the only people who ant watch. Yesterday, Michol and I and our program director spent a good deal of time looking at a group of ants carry a piece of cat food out of the house and back to their living space. It was really interesting. There were ants everywhere but no one else bothered to help or switch. They started with about 12 ants but by the time they finished only 5 were still carrying it. They carried it meters and up 100% vertical cracks and when they finally got there we saw that was the second piece of food they'd pilfered. Good and bad it kinda reminded us of of how people work. But this post isn't about ants.lol.

So... this week. Atlas Academia. Academia = gym. After a month of looking at all the different academias here we finally joined a gym last month. It's definitely been one of the more positive additions to my travel experience. Michol and I both have fitness goals. She'd like to lose thirty pounds. She's already lost ten this month so she's well on her way. I want to be able to run on the treadmill for an hour straight. I go three times a week and each time I go I run a minute more than the day before. Tomorrow will be 23 minutes. It's air-conditioned which was/is a necessity and the staff/personal trainers are super friendly and helpful.

 One day I was running and I saw by the pool what I thought was a raccoon due to its striped tail. Then I realized where I was and looked again,lol. It was an iguana!! My mom always tells me to keep my camera with me cause I never know what I'm gonna see and she's right but with it raining everyday I'd feel obliged to carry an umbrella and it's just easier and probably safer to not. Anyways, Atlas is super advanced. It uses fingerprint technology to get in so you don't have to bring a card and no one can pretend to be you. They also have treadmills that speed up and slow down when you hold your hand over the censor. Pretty cool. And they have these fitness classes. I didn't really realize how weak I was until I tried to do leg lifts with ankle weights on. All bad. But this is good. I'm gonna be Super fit when I get home!

(view from the tredmill) Also, new this week. Driving lessons. As with most of the world the cars here are stick. As with most of the U.S. I don't drive stick. Thus, after careful consideration of who would be the least likely to get mad at me for killing their clutch or a least the least likely to express it,lol, I decided to ask Elisa for driving lessons. She agreed before she realized that most people in the states don't know the first thing about manual cars but seemed to enjoy the experience/opportunity to laugh. Michol went first. She did really well considering Araguaina is a city of hills. I haven't had my lesson yet but I'm very excited.

This is one of the hills we ride up on the way home from university. There are two up and two down each way so it makes for a pretty even overall riding experience. Except the hill by the university. Everyday I ride my bike I sing in my head to myself "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming" (It's a reference to the film Finding Nemo in case you were lost). It convinces me to keep pedaling when at that point it's actually faster to walk the bike. I've been amused at times by people walking past me as I'm pedaling up the subtle inclines. I was talking to Elisa's mother and she's like "Araguaina isn't that hilly" I just looked at her and she's like But then again I've never gotten around by bike" Like the ride to the gym is downhill which means after a workout its uphill back home. Sometimes we make it, sometimes we don't. In any case it's all part of the experience and I'm happy to have it.

Speaking of university, the poster you see is an ad for our workshops. That one happens to have the date crossed out in pen because quarta-feira(Wednesday) was a nacional paralisacao for federal university teachers. It's not a strike but more like a we're not teaching today to show you that we're not scared to go on strike kinda thing. So we did our workshop on Friday(sexta-feira. Well, that's all for now folks.

Cachoeira veu de noiva

Today we took our third trip outside of the city. Yay! I told you the weekends are dead until Sunday night when folks meet up in the plaza. That’s cuz everybody around here is either at a chacara (remember that word?) or one of the waterfalls. Today’s adventure comes from the second. We drove about 45 mins on dirt road through the floresta tropical (tropical forest, I guess) to get to the falls. The we in this story is Michol and I, Marilia, Priscilla, and her boyfriend, Elton. It costs about $5.80 to get in but all the cool functions are half-off with a student ID. We’ve been trying to get Brazilian ones but so far our U.S. ones have worked just fine.

 We went to Campelo to buy food because the food they sell there is pretty expensive. The line for meat was really long because today is a holiday (Tiradentes or Teethpuller). He led this revolutionary movement to try to free Brazil from Portugal and was killed. So we got our meat from a store off the street. Brazilian barbeque is literally the best meat I’ve ever tasted. We live in one of the boi grande (large cow) capitals so maybe the meat in my region just tastes better because of that. In any case, the meat/seasoning here is so tasty I literally chew the fat and suck the bones when I’m done for the flavor.

Carne is probably going to be my financial demise. There is a university barbeque cart on campus where you can get a plate of beans and manioc for a dollar. The kabobs are like $1.50 and they’re small but they’re so good. They could probably charge a lot more for them and I would still eat them. More sporadically, but I’d find a way. Now the falls. It is a water park made from natural water and amazingly beautiful. They say everyone jumps in the first time they visit. So we did. It was definitely scary not necessarily because of the height but because it is natural the rocks have moss and stuff. Thus, they are extremely slippery. But we jumped anyway. And survived,lol. Yay!

As we were going to buy popsicles and coconut water we heard this loud scream. It turned out to be a squawk. The restaurant has lots of parrots hanging from the ceiling. One of them started to move. I’m like is that a real bird?? Yep. I’m definitely from the Odyssey Fun World age and because he moved so robotic-like, I assumed he was mechanical. He was not.

So that was the surprise of the day. My mom’s class asked me to take a picture of a toucan. I’ll be on the lookout, but at least now I’ve got something to show :)

One without me in it

part of the park and the beautiful floresta tropical

don't you just love group shots where only one person is looking at the right camera?

Out

This post is simply titled "out" because it is a quick summary of the things I've done outside of my house. The first "out" event we had was at AABB. Edson (the president of the club) had a book release there. He's written a book of poetry and is apparently the president of some poetry association around here but I have to look into that one. In any case it was a nice introduction to Araguaina culture. People took turns all night reading selections from the book and at the end of the night (for us) his daughters sang. He looked so proud.

We had chambari which is a typical Tocantins dish. I'm told chambari is oxen ankle meat. The food was prepared in literally the largest pots I've ever seen in person. I wasn't there so I don't know, but I imagine they were similar to pots used to feed plantation quantities of slaves or maybe some communal village. We stood in line for food and I went to buy a lata (bottle) of guarana. Here, at restaurants they keep beer in rotation. Like before you even order they bring a huge beer to the table in a huge beer sleeve and start pourin glasses. Every six minutes or so the waiter comes and shakes the bottle. It's usually just as full as it was the last time yet he then brings another. If you don't drink it, they don't take it back. It just sits there and gets hot until you leave. Not gonna guess what they do with it after that.

After a night of book release fun

(note the bracelets. Made from golden grass. It doesn't grow everywhere here but artisans/vendors have suppliers where they go get it. The bracelets were welcome gifts for us. These are actually Michol's. Mine are bright colors which I love but hers matched my outfit)

Our second time out came in the form of Calourada. It's like a Welcome Back party at the school. I thought it was just a welcome to college party for the freshman since that's who asked us to come and calouro literally translates to freshman or first year but when we got their we were first spotted by our seniors. In fact we spent half the night talking with them. They all have Saturday 7:30 am class. Yikes. So they went home early. After they left we went to immerse ourselves in the crowd. It was good for both of us as I like to dance and Michol likes to watch live music. They had a Sertanejo band that sang as everyone paired off to dance forro. Sertanejo is like pop country music and from the tv commercials seems to be a male duet kinda thing. Forro, like Samba, is a popular Brazilian dance. As UFT is an outdoor university the party was in the parking lot. There were people working the gate i guess so randoms couldn't just walk in.

With two of our students

Though the party was far from over we left at about 1:30. It's pretty difficult to catch a taxi at night and they're more expensive in the evenings. Granted that's expensive by Araguaina terms. As I already explained services here are way cheaper than they could be. In fact the taxis don't even have meters. You just know how much it's supposed to cost to get you from one place to another. And we have a guy. Michol thinks he's the kingpin of the taxi industry here cuz whenever we need a taxi we call him and when he cant come he has guys. One of which seems to be his right hand because he's the most consistent fill-in. In one case I tried to ask one of the drivers for his own number and he simply referred me back to our kingpin man.

Now quickly Avenida Filidelfia. The street has all the cool bars and food on it. We've experimented with a couple of the pizza places on the street but have much more to explore. Another cool place to be is Neblinas. Picturesque landscape it looks like what you'd probably imagine if you thought of Brazil minus the beach of course. This is where everybody that doesn't pay to go to an academia (gym) goes to exercise. Included on this street is Labaredas. Its a joint dance hall and restaurant. Michol and I ate there for Good Friday. They had all types of tasty fish.

We went to the dance hall that Saturday. I thought it was for a Christian concert. It was not,lol. They charged to get in (which I didn't mind when I thought it was a live Christian concert,lol) and they played their music so loudly it was simply not enjoyable. Now Brazilians BLAST their music, graduation included, plus they advertise for stuff by hiring trucks wired with concert speakers to play through the streets. In their defense, I think that's a south of the U.S. American custom in general. I first encountered the loud speaker trucks living in Mexico. They scared the... well, you know out of me. I feel bad for the future of the people who drive those trucks. That was my explanatory way of saying, Michol and I decided we wouldn't be back. But it was good to go once and see. I'll let you know how more of our out experiences go as they come.

A Via Sacra

The Sacred Way. So, Good Friday is celebrated in Brazil and in the States with Passion of the Christ plays. Here though they seem to be on another level. I learned from my Catholic roommate and director that within every Catholic church are the 10 steps of Jesus' death and resurrection. Cool. So, the Catholic church here put on a play and everybody that was left in the city was there. It reminded me of going to watch 4th of July fireworks complete with vendors, balloons, glow sticks, etc. It started at 8pm. There was an hour of praise and worship and the play began at 9. It lasted about 2 hours.

What was different about this play for me was that it didn't just take place on stage. It moved throughout the football field sized space we were in and used the extras as human ropes to block people from bombarding the main characters. Super elaborate, the character of Jesus ascended into the air on a electric lift. They really "hung" the character from a cross next to two other men (I assume they had small footrests). A man playing Judas near Sao Paulo almost died after accidentally hanging himself for real but I hope he's ok now. In any case I feel like my pictures though dark could probably describe it better than I could so here you go...

The Narrator

Palm Sunday

On trial

Also, not that this has anything to do with anything but just thought I'd mention that I took a shirt out of my cabinet. It was all sticky and I couldn't figure out why. A cough drop melted under it.

If Hogwarts Had Graduation at Fashion Week

Now before I start this blog post I just want to say, don't be mad. In fact, you don't have to be mad because I was mad at myself for you. All evening. I tried really hard not to be though. Valeria invited Michol and I to UFT's graduation. It was the craziest (in a good way) graduation I've ever been to. I left my camera on the bed. Sigh.

For starters, there were students from four departments: History, Geography, Math, and Letters (my department). They reminded me of the four houses in the Harry Potter series. Their robes were black and wizard cape like and were lined with the colors of their departments (red, green, blue, and lilac). Each robe had a bow and sash with its corresponding color. They had three professional photo booths set up for the graduates and the entire ballroom was configured around a long runway with faculty heads on one end and graduates on the other. While waiting for the graduation to start we listened to club music and enjoyed the smoke machines and laser light show. When it was time to start the lasers did a countdown and then a curtain opened and there were all the graduates.

Each graduate had their name called and they danced/club pointed down to runway to receive their diplomas which were in the department color's cylinders so it looked like a traditional scroll. The best part,however, was that the lasers flashed their names the entire time they got their diplomas so you could never forget who was walking down. At many graduations I've attended they always want you to be quiet till the end because there are so many people, but here there were only maybe 60 or so graduates so not only was cheering allowed but it seemed like it was a contest to see whose family could cheer the loudest. During their long walk there and back people popped balloons, blew fog horns, broke confetti over the graduates heads, put babies on the runway to hand their mom flowers, terrorist fist gabbbed,lol. It was a real party. As it should be.

I was thinking to myself, I couldn't have had a graduation like that cuz I'd have thought I was Tyra Banks and acted a plum fool but they had fun and we did too. When they weren't banging U.S. songs in techno style the music was epic. I mean epic. Like back to the future walking toward your destiny kinda serious. But it is serious. Anybody who's ever graduated from anywhere knows the work that goes into that moment. Now there was still your share of boring speeches at the end but regardless this was hands down the most spirited graduation I've ever been to. I came home exhausted as it didn't start till 8:30 p.m. People ask me about my nightlife here. It's pretty much non-existent in large part because the party doesn't start till 1 a.m. and anyone who knows me knows I'm well sleep by then,lol.

Me after a night of graduation fun

(People also ask me often why I don't know what size I wear. It's cuz I've more or less worn the same size since middle school. I wore this dress to my freshman homecoming when I was 13.)

My Introduction Post, Part 2

First off, I mentioned that I would let you know how the towel/squeegee mopping combo went but never did. Well, it definitely makes the floor look better but I still end up on my hands and knees getting up what the broom missed. Cleaning now takes longer than it did before but I know its cleaner so it's okay.

I'm also taking this time to go back to the beginning as I realized I kinda started my blog in the middle of my experience here. Plus, I recognize that some people might not actually know what I'm doing here. On February 24th, I along with 30 other ETAs (English Teaching Assistants) took off for orientation in Sao Paulo.

The group plus the program heads

View from the hotel window

We spent four days getting to know each other, our program/program heads, and the city. Most importantly, we learned methods for teaching. We spent one of those days learning about the standardized language test students need to apply to U.S. schools. Not really gonna go into my feelings about the industry that is standardized testing but it was nice to be educated on the topic. I also became a Sao Paulo pizza connoisseur. By happenstance, I ended up eating pizza three of the four nights we spent in the city each with its own style and taste. The first pizza place I have to say was my favorite. Why??? Well, here pizza isn't eaten with the bare hand. Each setting is equipped with its own Michael Jackson glove. More realistically it's like a beauty supply glove for putting in perms but it was still very cool and very necessary. I picked up my slice before I knew what the glove was for or why everyone was wearing one and the waiter kindly showed me that it was under my plate, assuming the only reason I wouldn't be using it was because I couldn't find it. In any case it was one of the many enjoyable experiences I had with the group that weekend. This starts my second round of introductions. First up is...

Hilary. ETA from Milwaukee. My roommate from PDO (Stands for Pre-Departure Orientation. Held in Washington D.C. June of last year, PDO was our chance to meet each other and have some of our and mainly other people's questions answered about the program). Hilary graduated from UChicago and currently lives on the north side (excluding Brazil of course). We kept in contact over the gap and even spent NYE together. Glad to say I think we'll be in contact for decades.

Hilary, Jesse, and I

(Jesse is one of 3 program heads. A past Fulbrighter himself, he now works for the program. The others are Patricia and Luana. Patricia is the one in charge of everything and Luana is her assistant. Luana's very accomplished for our age and just in general and all three of them are the sweetest.

Elisa. Vice-director of the UFT Fulbright project, Elisa teaches English language courses and an internship class. Her husband Edson was instrumental in getting us our bikes and they're always down to help us out. She's very nice and a good example of a full-time career woman/full-time mother looks like.

Alessandra. Third of the three professors we work with until we start teaching in May for Elisangela (director of the indigenous student group on campus. She arranges trips to reservations and has invited us to tag along. Cool peoples and probably the fastest talking Brazilian I've met thus far). But this is Alessandra's description. So, Alessandra is definitely the funny one of the group. She loves her family very much and speaks of them often She's simply a nice person to be around.

Rosy. The first and realist friend I've made since our move to Araguaina. Rosy and I met during one of my many trips to the bank. (My card was shut off within an hour of my arrival to Brazil) She works there and has shown me life from where to get a milkshake to get a $7 manicure/$14 mani/pedi. She's taken me to my first chacara (like a forest preserve/ranch) for a company chuhascaria (barbeque) where I had my first chicken heart. I must say she made the transition here a lot more enjoyable.

And finally... the students. I maintain a professional distance from all but a handful of the students. For quick reference, Khalyl is a first year. He invited Michol and I to his house for lunch one day and we met his family. That was probably my first taste of real Brazilian hospitality. Lastly, Marilia and Priscilla are sisters who've spent time in the U.S. and speak great English. I went to their church for Easter evening service and a group of their friends from church came to dinner after.

(Khalyl, Rosy, Michol, and I at Michol's bday dinner)

So there you have it. Day 2 of my memory dump and some past reflections. Enjoy!