immersed.

Oi amigos y familia!

The past week i have really gotten to know to Afro-brazilian culture in Salvador. It really funny because what we are covering in class is directly relating to my life in Salvador... super crazy and weird. In class we are learning about Candomblé (religion consisting of many different gods) , Capoeria and everything involving afro-brazilian culture.. we even had a paper due on Tuesday that was about the service jobs in Salvador. The prompt was to simply answer this question: Who performs the service jobs in todays society? and then we had to relate it back to the material covered in class. My host family's maid, Zileeta, is the one in my household who does all the laundry and cleaning and cooking and she was a large part of my paper. But whats great is that i spent all day sunday with her!

She has the day off work on sundays, and it made me feel so great when she asked to spend the day with me! Of course it was a little difficult to communicate with her, but it was so fun! We spent the day at her daughters apartment ( i got the sense that she was housesitting while her daughter is out of town..) I used the gym and went swimming there. And then she made the both of us lunch, we watched TV together, got ice cream and then i went back home! It was so great to be around her outside of the environment where she "works" for me.

Today ( wednesday) after class our EAP leader and her husband took us to his home neighborhood, ( a favela). There we got to sit in on a Capoeria class! ahhh it was amazing! the first class was a bunch of little kids ages 2-7 and they were all so cute! after the kids class was the more advanced class and it had adults and younger teenagers! it was so amazing to watch! everyone was so good and the room was full of energy!

If you dont know what capoeira is, it is related to Candomblé and a huge part of the Afro-Brazilian culture. Capoeira is a mixture of dance, martial arts and like an extreme dance battle fight. Everyone in the class was so great at it, they were doing flips and kicking everywhere. At the end of class, the capoeria students grabbed a bunch of us to "battle" and to give it a try. I gave it a try and i may have failed... it was really fun though! now i really want to get in to it more and start taking a Capoeria class!

Spending the day with Zileeta and watching everyone play capoeria really immersed me into the Afro-Brazilian culture. Living with an upper middle class "white" Brazilian family i am not really exposed to the afro-brazilian culture that salvador has to offer! But this past week it was been so great to be a part of it, i feel so welcome and i am so anxious to learn more!!

ALSO this weekend i'm off to Praia de Forte, about 2 hours out of salvador.. it a beautiful beach were sea turtles hatch! I AM SO EXCITED! and then also a group of us booked out flights to RIO for the end of october!

AMOR!


this is me attempting Capoeira!

Updates!

Salvador is officially my home, i feel really comfortable here.. i love it! This past week has been filled with fun parties, exploring the city and hanging out with my host family!

At the end of last week our professor took our class out of the classroom and took it to the streets! we went to Pelourinho and walked around and went into different museums as our professor "lectured". I am living in the State of Bahia which is known for its afro-brazilian culture and influence. Way back when, the majority of slavery took place in Bahia, more specifically in Salvador. which is why today the majority of the population in Salvador is black... and the history of slavery/identity/culture in Bahia is what one of my classes is about. So in taking the class out to Pelourinho our professor tried to connect it all together to present day. Pelourino was once the site where slaves were disciplined... but now it is the heart of the city and has the most exciting night life! it was great to finally get there and walk about during the day and see all the beauty that area of salvador has to offer.... by this point i had only been to Pelourinho at night.

Since the weekend, my host family has had a LOT of visitors. on Friday one of my host families old students they hosted from 2 years before came to visit with a friend. the two girls are studying in Rio for a semester and had a long weekend and pasted through salvador! It was great to finally speak a little english with people in my house. The two girls came out that night with me and my friends from my program and we all went to a forro. Forro is a brazilian dance, and its with a partner and its to a folk band that has an Accordion, i didnt really give it that big of a chance, so i hope to test my forro skills many more times while i am here. Also the next night we went to this bar that was free if you came before 9pm... so of course my group got there around 8:30. It was so great to go to a place that didnt have a cover charge. but anyways this place was great because for the first 2 hours we were there they played american music! Ah i have missed it so much, it was so fun to be able to dance and sing along to songs that i knew! they played lady gaga, madonna and like Nelly Furtado... ahhh it was so great!! and then they had a band who came on and sang cover songs that were american and brazilian. it was so fun!!!

On sunday I went with my host family to one of their friends house for lunch. It was probably the first time i felt completely out of my element... i was surround by about 20 brazilians and i had NO idea what they were talking about. usually with my host family i can communicate pretty well, Mary will speak in portuspanglish with me and roberto and leo usually speak very slowly so i can follow. But at lunch everyone was around old friends and the convo was flowing and i could not keep up!! one of the couples there just got back from vacation in California and they kept trying to talk to me about california and one of the guys there was an engineer so he kept asking me questions and it was crazy. Hopefully they didnt think i was some retarded american who couldnt speak. but it was fun to be completely immersed in the culture and be with brazilians outside of my host family!
my host moms parents came into town sunday night and they have been here ever since. Its been great getting to know them even though the language barrier is tough... usually Mary, RObert or Leo end up interpreting what i am trying to say to them. ok kinda weird, but it is customary to not to flush toilet paper in the toilet, but ever since my brazilian grandparents have been here... the grandpa has not even been flushing the toliet. I share a bathroom with the grandparents while they are here and every time i go in the bathroom they seat is up and it is not flushed! really strange.. maybe he is trying to conserve water? its just really weird and i cant really say anything because thats super awkward. Also, there are 6 people sleeping in the apartment but definitely not enough beds... i have no idea where leo is sleeping! haha

I have my first test tomorrow in my Portuguese class... pretty exciting! school really hasnt been difficult, so im excited that things are moving faster now! Also, me and a couple of friends are starting to plan a trip to Rio for our next 5 days weekend!!! Pretty exciting!!

After being gone for a month, i am REALLY starting to miss american food. I feel like ive been eating a ton of meat and potatoes and rice. I will kill for vegetables or something that has a little more flavor!!

Tchau!!

Morro de Sao Paulo

HI! sorry familia that i haven't updated in a while, i was gone all weekend (friday-tuesday) at a beautiful island!

On Friday morning 29 of us from EAP left from Salvador headed to Morro de Sao Paula. it was absolutely gorgeous! Its a tad rough to get there, first its about an hour ferry ride to this one island which i forget the name of... and on the way there it was such a bumpy ride because it was a little rainy. Once on the island we took a giant van to Valencia which was one the other side of the island to catch another boat. Once to Valencia we took our own boat all the way to Morro! thankfully Chris ( UCEAP director at acbeu) organized all of our travels for us so we had a guide come with us all the way to Valencia and then as soon as we got off the boat in morro de Sao Paulo we had a couple waiting for us with a sign saying "universidad de california". so it was really comforting to have everything already taken care of the first time traveling outside of Salvador. We stayed at this tiny pousada (hostel)... and honestly it was way more expensive and shitty than anything i experienced in Chile. haha but its part of the experience, it was a holiday weekend and there was a huge music festival going on at the beach which is why the prices were so high. The beds were not too great and there wasn't any hot water in my bathroom for showering... but the guy running the place was very cool and let us kinda destroy the place haha.

The island is beyond beautiful! for being the end of winter, it was beautiful and sunny! We spent 4 days lying on the beach! i had my first acai bowl, ( lindsey, so much better here than in Hawaii) and it was delicious! there were tons of guys walking on the beach with menus from restaurants along the boardwalk, so you could order and eat acai, crepes and smoothies right on the beach! After the first day the people in my hostel ( about 15ish of us) decided to start cooking family dinners to save money.. and also our food was delicious! It was so great to travel with people from my program because i feel that i came back from the island with stronger friendships!

Unfortunately on saturday night i came down with some weird sickness and was kinda out of it until yesterday... still not really sure what was up with me. But im thinking i just didnt have enough water for how much i was in the sun or maybe i ate something funny... but i had a fever and the chills for about 2 nights but i slept it all off! It was a bummer to get sick while on the island and i definitely missed out on a lot of fun the nightlife on the island had to offer, but i still made sure to hit the beach during the day! I also had some difficulties with my debit card, it was put on hold because the bank thought there was some fraud activity... i kinda worried my mom a lot. but when i got back home to Salvador we figured it all out and thankfully some great friends on my program lent me some money since i couldn't get any out!

Since we didnt have class on monday or tuesday, we only have a class 2 days this week!!! SO much more beach time to come! So far everything down here has been absolutely fantastic, although getting sick did make me a bit homesick! And this past week all my davis roommates moved in to our new apartment and i so wish i could have been there to help... i love and miss everyone!

the past couple days...

Oi!

I feel like i haven been in Brazil forever, but as i look at my calendar it hasn't even been a week! I think this is a very good sign, im starting to feel very comfortable!!!

Monday was the first day of class, but it was more like 2 hours of a get to know your professors and what to expect in the program. We were done with class by 12pm, so everyone returned home for lunch with our host family, then we hit the beach! In Salvador it is winter right now, but the beach was warm and wonderful and packed with tons of people! I cant wait till it even gets warmer and i can work on my tan :) Everyone in my program is so friendly and wonderful and everyone is just looking to make friends and have a wonderful time, so the beach was really fun, there were probably about 30 of us there total! After the first day of "class" I already had homework assignment due the next day, to read a 75 page excerpt and analyze it to find the authors thesis and all that junk... definitely a bit out of my element but it will be great!

Since class has started i have a definite routine, i have class from 10-12 then go back home for lunch and then i have class again usually around 1:30 or 2pm.. but whats weird is that lately ive been eating a lot of meals by myself. If my host parents don't make it back in time from work before i go back to school i miss them, and since dinner isnt a big thing usually i eat dinner by myself. buts its all good because usually leo is watching tv nearby so im not completely alone!!

Last night (tuesday) one of the girls from my program had a birthday so EVERYONE from EAP (all 38? of us) met up and went to Pelourinho. Pelourindo would be the equivalent to the "downtown" area... it is the historic center of Salvador and it is gorgeous! If you googled Salvador, with out a doubt majority of the pictures (besides ones from the beach) would be of Pelourindo. Tuesday nights is a big thing in Pelourindo, there were guys playing african drums all around and people were dancing, it was so fun to watch! I really felt like i was immersed into South America! all 38 of us went to the same bar where there was salsa dancing! I am definitely not the greatest, but i am hoping by december i will be like a salsa dancing master. I had a little trouble communicating my plans to my host dad, so i resorted to google translate... i typed in what i wanted to say and he read the translation on my computer, kinda lame and awkward but we figured it out! thank god for google!!!

Today after class me and a couple other people went on an adventure to the mall... it was my first time taking the buses in salvador! I was a little worried, but it wasn't bad at all. I was thinking it would be super crowded and i would have to really watch my back. but we went at like 3:30 in the afternoon so it was perfectly safe (dont worry mom and dad). My goal at the mall was to get my phone working. My host parents gave me one of their old cell phone to borrow, which is great! theres no need to have a fancy phone that only draws attention and this way i dont have to buy one! but what i needed to do was buy a sim card and then charge it with credit. No phones in south america work on a plan like they do in the US, everyone puts a certain amount of money on their chip and then calls and text cost a certain amount.... but of course when i got to the phone store i needed to show them my passport which is didn't have, so the phone adventure will have to be another day!

So instead we decided to go check out some brazilian bikinis. At the beach on monday, all the girls in my program were the only ones in normal sized swim suits! brazilians sure like to flaunt it and unfortunately none seemed to fit me... but there will definitely be some bikini somewhere that is calling my name!

this weekend acbeu has a 5 day weekend!!!! yaya! tuesday is Brazils independence day, which of course means monday is a holiday too. So theres going to be a group of us from EAP who are going to go to a neighboring island, Morro de São Paulo. I've heard that this island is so beautiful and the beaches are gorgeous, so that is what i will be doing all weekend, laying on the beach and working on my tan!!!

Im loving Brasil!