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!