Imersão

Hello all. My apologies for keeping you all in the dark for so long. I've been in touch with a few of you, so this post didn't feel quite so urgent. But that isn't fair! It's been over two weeks and many of you haven't heard a thing. So without further ado, I will begin filling you in on how my life has been playing out here in Brazil.

Generally, my weekdays consist of school in the morning, riding the bus home for lunch, then afternoons spent at the house while my friends are all studying for the Vestibular, a huge test coming up that pretty much decides the next few years of their lives. You could say that I use my time to study Portuguese, but when am I not studying Portuguese? Whenever I'm telling my mom about my day, watching TV, listening to the radio, or reading my book (Harry Potter e a Ordem da Fênix), I'm learning more about this strange new language.

And let me tell you, it is certainly strange. There are all kinds of words and rules in Spanish that are not at all the same here. Every once in a while, I try to say something that I've translated from Spanish, and I just get confused looks. And the thing is, the more I learn to say, the more mistakes I make. But this is all part of the deal, I suppose. If my friends didn't all laugh at my mistakes, then I wouldn't know what to fix! Sometimes it's embarrassing to be so linguistically challenged, but I'm starting to get over that. I've found that the more I talk, the more fun I have, and the more I learn. I can put up with some jokes about my accent. Brazilians are very sarcastic and love to make fun of everyone, and it's all in good fun.

My brain is starting to work more in Portuguese, which is pretty cool. My dreams are not fluent Portuguese, but it is interesting to hear my friends and family from home talking to me in Portuguese, and my Brazilian friends blabbing away in English. To keep things straight, I'm not dreaming in pure Portuguese. As I described, it's a mess of English and Portuguese and I never know who is going to speak what. In any case, it's interesting.

Weekends here are always a blast. Brazilians consider a weekend without at least two or three parties to be a waste of free time. It seems like there's always a birthday, barbecue, or feijoada to attend. It doesn't really matter what event we're celebrating or what kind of food we're having, the parties are more or less the same. They all involve a lot of rowdy conversation, a mix of Brazilian and American music, lots of beer (I still can't get used to the legality of my friends' drinking!), and a ton of kissing. But kissing is different here in Brazil. I don't mean that people are making out in the corner. I mean that every time you say hello to someone (a girl), you kiss each other on the cheek and share a few words of formality. Guys don't usually kiss. Instead they shake hands and either slap each other's shoulders or give a quick hug. It's all very warm and friendly and people are always surprised when I say that we don't kiss and shake hands so much in the US. Jaws drop and the next question is always, "But what do you do???" They all think that a simple smile and a "hello" is just plain cold and, to tell the truth, I'm starting to think the same way. I prefer the Brazilian way of saying hello.

A couple of weeks ago, Sandra took me out to the country to celebrate her niece, Joyce's, birthday. Much of the extended family was there at the barbecue on their jointly owned estate. It wasn't quite a farm, but there was lots of space, five dogs, a few chickens, and at least twenty birds in what was literally a bird house. They had a sizeable shed to the side of the patio set aside for their vibrant collection of avifauna. They were all different sizes and colors and they were constantly calling to each other. There was even a little one hopping around on the ground because it hadn't learned to fly yet. However, their water basin was empty because apparently one had just drowned in it that morning. After that I stopped looking at the birds. It's not as cool when all I can picture is each one of them floating belly-up in their own drinking water. Sick.

Last weekend I went to Santos for my district's exchange student orientation. We all live within about two hours of each other, São Paulo City being the farthest interior, Santos on the coast, and my city between the two. All the presentations were pretty boring because it was stuff that I'd already heard before I left (the four Ds: no driving, no drinking, no drugs, and no dating), but hanging out with the other exchange students was SO fun. We had ten students from Mexico, five from Taiwan, two each from Canada, The US, and Denmark, and one each from Australia, Germany, Thailand, The Philippines, Japan, Australia, Ecuador, and Turkey. We all spoke English pretty much the whole weekend because we all had varying degrees of skill in Portuguese. But I figured out that speaking English here in Brazil makes me a lot more homesick, so I was relieved when the Rotex kids (Brazilians who were on exchange last year) showed up and I was able to get back in the groove with my Portuguese.

I made lots of friends in all the exchange students at the orientation. Something about being so far away from our own countries establishes a bond pretty quickly. My roommate, Sean, was from Japan, but I didn't believe him at first. His dad is Canadian, so his flawless English combined with his tall build somewhat clashed with my perception of the typical Japanese appearance. He met Clara while we were Skyping and she got to see how goofy he is. The next morning we woke up at the time that we were already supposed to be downstairs for the meeting and Sean said something to me that I didn't quite catch. I thought it was just because I wasn't quite awake yet, so all I could say was, "What?" He repeated what he said, but I still couldn't understand him. We went back and forth about four or five times before I woke up enough to ask, "Sean, are you even speaking English?" Then we laughed because he had been telling me it was already 9:30... in Japanese. Anyone who knows me knows how freaking cool I found that moment. Anyway, I got to be particularly good friends with him along with the German girl, the two Danish kids, and a Mexican who all live in Santos. I'll probably be visiting them occasionally on the weekends.

On Sunday, everyone went home. Except for Dora and me. Dora is a Taiwanese exchange who lives here in Santo André. Her host father Takehara, a member of my host Rotary Club, invited me to go along with them to Guarujá, an island near Santos well known for its beautiful beaches. I know. Beaches! We got there on Sunday evening after touring around the practically ancient and historical parts of Santos and neighboring São Vicente. São Vicente is where the Portuguese first landed in 1500, so the two cities have a lot of interesting background. But Guarujá has a lot of interesting sand and warm water. That's what a Brazilian beach is like, for those of you living in the Puget Sound area. Yes, here the beaches are long stretches of white sand coming together with blue water (okay, it was actually sort of greenish-blue, big deal) in the absence of all things rocky, pokey, crawly, or otherwise charactic of a beach in Washington State. I was in heaven. It was a Monday in the end of winter, so there weren't too many beach-goers, and everyone there thought I was nuts to go swimming in the frozen water. But for me, it was a really comfortable temperature. Dora didn't want to get too wet, so I played in the water by myself for at least an hour. I would wade out to where the water was about to my waste, and then ride in on one of the huge waves that, when I was lucky, would break over me. Then we took a long walk down to the end of the beach and back and the wind blew my hair into a sandy statue. I wasn't really self-contious until we walked into a restaurant for lunch. Oh, well. I'm sure they've seen much worse. Dora and Takehara were great and the beach was fantastic. I can't wait to go back with some of my friends from school.

Okay, I really must go. It's taken me long enough to write this entry. I was watching a Corinthians game at the same time, but it's over now. We tied 2-2 to São Caetano =(. There were a LOT of exciting fouls near the end, but no one scored. Meh. We should have beaten them.

Abraços!!

PS: I'll post some pictures soon. I really have to go!

Last Week: Vol. II

So I have a friend named Sabrina. She recently got back from an exchange in Germany and I usually see her at the Rotary meetings each Wednesday. She's nineteen, very smart, talkative, and amiable. Potentially, a very good friend (and nothing more!). The problem is, we've tried to hang out no less than four separate occasions and something always gets in the way. We just take turns misunderstanding each other and showing up places at the wrong time. Really frustrating.

Well, there's a girl that just happened to be standing next to us at the Rotary meeting last Wednesday when we were making plans to hang out on Friday. We invited her along because we didn't see why not. She and Sabrina kind of know each other and could walk together from their school to come meet me at mine. Well, needless to say, this plan failed. But Natasha (that other girl) called me the next day and invited me to hang out with them again. Cool! The plan was that we would go to a frutaria to hang out with some people. Then maybe go to someone's house. And then probably go to a barzinho or a balada.

She came to pick me up at about 3:30 in the afternoon. The first thing she said was, "Oh, Sabrina's not here. She's traveling with her family or something." Well, great. It's not even 4:00 in the afternoon and I have an entire night ahead of me with this girl that I don't really know or particularly like. But I braved my way through it. We went to meet her friends, none of whom really noticed that I was there. Ages ranged from 15 to 21, and they were virtually all smoking the whole time we were on the outdoor patio of the frutaria. Natasha told me not to tell her mom that she was smoking because she was only 16, and her mom didn't know that she smoked.

Charming.

The hours passed in this way, leading to my discovery of a very effective defense mechanism. In order to avoid being drawn into their lame conversation, I just pretended that I didn't understand anything they were saying. This wasn't entirely dishonest. I didn't understand every word of their senseless chatter. But it was slightly amusing to feign stupidity when they asked me if I had ever gotten as drunk as they had at that "awesome party" they went to last week.

However, this plan did backfire at one point. I was playing the What? I Didn't Understand game when Natasha asked me if I wanted to spend the night at her house with everyone. And even better! The next day, they were all gonna go hang out at the health club her dad owns, and it's really close to my house! I could hang out with them all night. And all morning. And much of the afternoon. Oh gosh, what have I gotten into?

Well, while I was trying to figure out a way to preserve my perfectly crafted façade while evading this most unfavorable proposal, Natasha just decided to call my mom and ask for me. Someone in the sky must have heard my panicky prayers because Sandra, who knew I wouldn't want to do anything of the sort, declined on my behalf. Thank you, Mai!

I wasn't entirely out of the woods though. I ended up going with them to their friend's birthday party, where everyone just smoked and drank the whole time. After a couple hours of bitter tolerance, I crashed on a hammock in the corner. Natasha woke me up at about midnight so we could take a cab home to her dad's house. I called Sandra to come pick me up there, and she met me outside the apartment complex about 20 minutes later. I was finally free! And I had learned a valuable lesson about saying "No!" to overly forward Brazilian girls.

It's all really interesting to me because as an exchange student, I want to say yes to every opportunity I have to hang out with people both to "see the culture" and to just have fun. This requires an open mind and can get old pretty quickly if you're hanging out with the wrong people. But, during the whole ordeal on Saturday, I found myself wondering if the situation itself was unenjoyable, or if I simply had a bad attitude about it all. Well, I ran some tests and the results are in: it was just plain unenjoyable. I just don't want anyone thinking that I'm spending my time here loathing the people and wishing I were with my friends back home. I'm not! I do miss all my friends, but nearly all the people I've spent time with down here have been seriously cool. Saturday was definitely a fluke, and I'll do all I can in the future to avoid something like that in the future. Trust me.

Sunday was much less eventful, but far more enjoyable. I caught up on some much-needed sleep, then headed to São Paulo to visit "the largest green space" in the city. Ibirapuera Park was another one of my highlights so far. It was the first time I had seen trees, grass, and water all at the same time since I arrived here in Brazil. We had a heck of a time parking the car because it was Brazil's Independence Day, which actually didn't appear to be that big of a deal. But apparently people like to go to the park to celebrate the occasion, because it was full of people. (Other than that and the Brazilian flag on Google's homepage, I found no indication at all that it was Independence Day. How weird, right?)

As we walked farther into the park, the masses thinned out. We walked around a lake that played host to angry geese, black swans, giant ducks, and gaping carp, all battling for the attention and breadcrumbs of the park's visitors. It was pretty warm, probably up to 85º F, so we stopped at one of the refreshment stands and ordered some coconut milk. I know, right? I'm so Brazilian.

The whole experience was really refreshing. Besides people, the things I miss most about home are English and trees. Sure, the trees weren't exactly the same as in The Evergreen State, but I'll swap a boring Washington pine for an interesting Brazilian Ipê Amarelo anyday. I wasn't quite in the rain forest, but there was definitely a tropical feel to the place. Sadly, I left my camera at home, so a photo I filched off the internet will have to satisfy your curiosity until I'm able to go back.

Since Sunday, my week has been as normal as a week in a foreign country can be. On Tuesday night, I read Maddy's Spain Blog and felt sincerely homesick for the first time since arriving in Brazil. But I went on Skype and found my good friend Otto, which was exactly what I needed. We couldn't talk for very long, but it was the perfect dose of home to last me quite some time. Thanks ol' buddy :)

Luckily, Natasha wasn't at the Rotary meeting last night, but neither was Sabrina. Meh, maybe I'll see her someday.... Tomorrow, I'm going to a birthday party for a friend from school. Then on Saturday, I'm going to another birthday party for a friend from the cursinho. Friday should be cool, but Saturday will be awesome! On Sunday, my family and I will head for the interior to spend the day at a ranch in the country. I think they picked up on how much I like green stuff.

I love you guys!

Até mais

Last Week: Vol. I

I'd like to start this blog post with a short language lesson.

Ahem.

In Portuguese, there are many contractions. Por exemplo, the preposition em (in) combines with the definite articles o or a (the, feminine or masculine) to form no or na, depending on the gender of the word. Another interesting point that will seem familiar to all you romance language speakers out there, is that the name of a country is often accompanied by a definite article. In English we might say "I really like Brazil." In Portuguese, we say "Eu gosto muito do Brasil" (I really like the Brazil). Weird, huh?

Well, to those of you who are wondering where I'm going with this, I can assure you that I have a distinct reason for bringing it up. If you would take a look at the title of my blog in the top-left corner of this webpage (I'll give you a moment to do so... okay, you've had long enough), you might-- or maybe you wouldn't-- notice that I have quite clearly made an alteration. It no longer reads "Um ano em Brasil," but "Um ano no Brasil." To put it simply, I was wrong. Then I fixed it. The trouble is I can't very easily change the URL of this web address without leaving many of my fans back home very lost and confused. (By the way, anyone who reads this blog will hereby be referred to as "my fan." If you've got a problem, take it up with my secretary.)

So, I have changed the title of the blog, but the grammatically incorrect web address will stand forever as a monument to my once extremely limited knowledge of the Portuguese language. I hope that, in weeks to come, I will be able to laugh at the mistake rather than cringe at my ignorance. Wow, this has gone on long enough. Let the story-telling begin!

My first week of school was full of learning, and my teachers had very little to do with it. I've been put in a 3rd year class, so all my classmates will be graduating in December. They're all as rowdy and anxious to move on as I was in the last months of my schooling in Anacortes. As a matter of fact, they are quite a bit more rowdy. For instance, whenever anyone in the class stands up to throw something away, use the restroom, etc., every student whistles and woops in a very how's-it-going-sexy? kind of way. I can't tell you how hilarious this is. At first I was slightly shocked at this mild form of harrassment. But after they did it to me, I realized that it is all in good fun, and now I'm able to participate just like all the other students. The teachers usually don't react at all, except maybe to throw in a whistle of their own.

The school day starts at 7:00 and ends at 12:40, so it's nice to have the whole afternoon to do what I like. However, it's difficult getting up at 6:00 in the morning when I know that all my friends in college are starting classes much later. But before school and during our breaks, the cantina sells fresh pastries and coffee which help us stay awake. Our breaks are just like recess, but without the monkey bars. After two fifty-minute classes, we have a twenty-minute break. Then two more classes, a break, two more classes, and we're done. Simple, né?

All my classes are interesting, but some of them only because they're in Portuguese. It feels really different than in the US because the students stay in the same classroom all day and the teachers move around when the bell rings. Every day is a different schedule of classes. The 3rd years all take English, physics, geography, biology, Portuguese literature, chemistry, Portuguese composition, world history, math, and Portuguese grammar. Lots of work! But the weird thing is, I don't have to do anything. Really. Nothing. The teachers wouldn't mind if I put my head down and slept. According to them, exchange students are here to learn the language, not to study and take tests.

Needless to say, this gets pretty boring, especially because every class is just a big lecture. We never get up to do labs or anything, and there's only so much I can handle listening quietly or passing notes with my friends. Much of the time, I pull out my notebook and take notes. In a few months, I'll look back at these and laugh at my awful Portuguese, but it is helping me learn the language. When the students have an in-class assignment, I try my best to do it along with them, even though I don't have to hand it in. It keeps things interesting. It's nice (nice? Hell, it's the best thing EVER) that I don't have to worry about due dates, grades, and maintaining a GPA.

Oh yeah, and I'm making friends. Most of the people in my class (we have about 50 students, which is normal for this type of high school) are eager to get to know me and hang out on the weekends. The hard part is sorting out the ones who really like me as a friend from the ones who just want to be friends with the new exchange student. It usually doesn't take long to figure out who is whom, though. The ones who just want to be friends with the American kid are usually much more annoying and difficult to have a conversation with. But regardless of my secret judgments, I stay friendly with everyone. As an exchange student (and a citizen of Planet Earth) it's unwise to do anything else.

I also had a very interesting weekend. I'll post more about that tomorrow, but I'll tell you now that it involved a visit to a very beautiful and strangely tropical city park in São Paulo, and a very annoying girl tricking me into going with her to a drunken party.

Cliffhanger!

Minha vida, minha história, meu amor- Corinthians

One week? Really? It's only been a week? I can't believe it! It feels like I've been here a month. Brazil is fantastic and I'm having a really difficult time deciding the best way to tell everyone about it. I guess I'll just do it chronologically...

The journey was long. The three flights combined took about eighteen hours, but I was not without adequate snacks (thanks Mom!). During my first flight, I sat between an intimidating teenager about my age and a really lame businessman who made a few pathetic attempts at chipper conversation. I don't much like plane-talk. I prefer to wait until the very end of the flight before I ask any personally invasive questions. But L.A. was the last place I had to worry about awkward small-talk because on the next two flights, I had three seats all to myself. Yeah, both flights. Weird, huh? Oh yeah, and in Lima I got to walk on the tarmac, just like in the movies. Way cool.

My resolution to speak only Portuguese didn't last long. Daniel, my host brother, speaks English really well and has spent the last week showing me around and introducing me to friends. He was my first and best Brazilian friend! I say "was" because he left Sunday night for Canada. Very sad, but I know how exciting (and scary!) it must be for him. Good luck to you, Bassani!

Sandra is my mom, and she is absolutely wonderful. I don't always know what's going on, but she does her best to explain everything to me. She speaks English pretty well, too. But we've mostly been speaking in Portuguese. She's a psychologist and she works from home. Paulina is my grandmother and she doesn't speak a word of English. We have a really difficult time understanding each other's accents, so we just end up laughing together a lot. She's particularly interested in all my "girl"friends at home. Every time I show her a photo with a girl in it, she asks, "É sua enamorada?" No Paulina. That isn't my girlfriend. But she usually doesn't believe me.

I live in what I think is a pretty typical house for Santo André. It's one story, has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room, a good-sized kitchen, a nice little courtyard, and a T.V. room out back. Our little dog, Snoopy, stays in the courtyard most of the time and when he misbehaves (usually by dashing between our legs into the kitchen) we put him up on the dryer as punishment. He doesn't seem to understand that he could jump down safely if he wanted to.

Last week was extremely busy. On Wednesday I went to the cursinho with Daniel to meet his friends. It's a school that exists to prepare high school graduates for the huge test they have to take in order to get into college. There are about 150 kids in each class, and it's all lecture style. However, some teachers are definitely more interesting than others. I met a lot of Daniel's friends and met some people he didn't even know. Everyone is pretty anxious to meet the American exchange student, and so far, everyone is extremely friendly and helpful. Brazil is a very warm and hospitable country.

That evening, Daniel and I went to his music conservatory to say goodbye to some of his friends there, and I had some of my first completely Portuguese conversations. Legal! Then we went to the Rotary meeting at a very upscale restaurant-- Restaurante Baby Beef. I know. I thought the same thing. "Baby Beef?" But the names of lots of stores and restaurants here are in English, and I'm getting used to some of the weird phrasing. Daniel and I were hoping to score a free dinner at the meeting, but they were only serving cocktails and h'ordeuvres. We were pretty starving when we returned home at about eleven, but Sandra made sure we were well taken care of. She and Paulina are GREAT cooks, and they always seem to have something ready to serve.

On Thursday morning, I went to school with Daniel again. Sandra suggested that I stay home to catch up on some sleep, but I hate to be at home sleeping when I could be making friends and bettering my Portuguese. Plus, the sixteen hours of sleep I got when I arrived seemed plenty enough to last me the next few days. When we got home, my exchange counselor called the house and told Sandra that he was going to pick me up at 7:00 in order to attend a very formal and exclusive party. The only jacket I had was my Rotary blazer (complete with dozens of pins from different countries, as is tradition), so I felt a little like a clown, but people were as friendly as always and it just served as a good conversation starter. It was a very fancy party with lots of important business people and elected officials. We "mingled" for a couple hours, then they presented some awards, and we had dinner. We left at about 1:30, just when people were getting out of their seats to start dancing to the Brazilian rock music. Overall, the whole party was difficult and pretty awkward, but very fun and great for my Portuguese skills.

Friday was the real party. Daniel's friends convinced him to throw a going away party in the cabana of his friend’s apartment complex, so Sandra bought us some pizza and drinks, and we had an all-night party with 30+ of Daniel's best friends. Hands down, this was the highlight of my Brazilian experience so far. I had some really great conversations in both English and Portuguese and formed a lot of meaningful friendships. One of the main topics of discussion was, of course, futebol. Here, everyone talks about soccer. It really is the national passion. When we have nothing to talk about in the United States, we talk about the weather. In Brazil, we talk about soccer. It's something that everyone has in common.

My friends had spent the week explaining all the different teams to me, and now they demanded I choose a side. I chose Corinthians (which sounds like "Corinchas" in Portuguese) becuase I knew they had the most supporters. Selfish, I know, but I'm trying to make as many friends as possible here! Corinthians recently moved down to the second division, so their loyal fans take a lot of crap, and their jerseys are black and white, so the players and fans are often referred to as gambás. Skunks. Apparently, lots of criminals support Corinthians because their fanbase is notoriously... well... in jail. A lot of people say that the safest time to be on the streets is during a Corinthians game. But every team here has it's quirks. I started supporting them out of necessity, but now I can honestly say I have a passion for the team, which is ridiculous because I haven't even seen them play before. Here in Brazil, a lot of people start conversations by asking me which team I support, and I either have to defend my opinion against endless trash talk (which I'm getting pretty good at dishing back) or people get all excited and start yelling their heads off. And when I say "people," I'm including myself.

So at the party, we talked (screamed) a lot about soccer and my friend Dino taught me one of the Corinthians team songs (so far it's been a great trick to perform in the middle of large groups of people). We also sat around and sang a bunch of songs to the guitar. A few were in English, but most were in Portuguese. I was completely lost most of the time, but it was still really fun. I learned some of the words and was able to sing along a little, to the great enjoyment of all my new friends. At about 4:30 in the morning, I fell asleep on a table and we all left about half an hour later. A perfect night.

The next couple of days I spent hanging out with Daniel and observing him cope with the prospect of doing exactly what I had done less than a week ago. All his family came on Saturday night and we had a really roudy dinner. It's hard to know which I liked more-- listening to Daniel's god father make jokes about Corinthians, or eavesdropping on all the old people talking about hospitals, doctors, and medication for two hours. Both were sources of great amusement.

Daniel's departure was a sad one for the whole family, but he called us when he arrived and said he made it okay and was doing well in Canada. So we've officially switched places, and neither one of us will see our home until next July. Weird? Yes. Exciting? YES!

I started high school yesterday. It's a little scarier without Daniel there to introduce me and help me with my Portuguese, but I've made a lot of friends already and I like school a lot. There is also another Rotary exchange student in my class named Isabel. She's been here for a month and speaks Portuguese really well, so I know there's hope for me!

So I'm going to go now, because I've been writing for a ridiciously long time. I hope you've all enjoyed hearing a little about my life here. I tried to make this post worth the wait. And thanks to all of you who have sent me e-mails and messages with good wishes. It really means a lot to me.

Thanks for tuning in!

Kevin

PS: Here are a few photos of my life here. The first couple are of my room, and the others are from the party. Enjoy!