Language and an early exit

Obviously, one of the most important things about my time in Brazil has been learning Portuguese and how it's used in everyday speech. A few weeks ago I was asked what my favorite word in Portuguese so far was. And I had trouble coming up with just one, but some of the words like the most are the ones that are exactly the same in English. Because the pronunciations are completely different. So, rock (pronounces "hockey"), reggae ("heggie"), and shorts ("shorchies") are all good examples of those.

Then there are the English words that are adapted that have different meanings than they do in English. So an underscore (_) is called an "underline". And others that I wish I could remember right now.

As for the Portuguese language itself, there are a couple of really interesting things to me. First, people rarely use the word for "we" that is normally taught in Portuguese textbooks ("nós"). Instead, they use the words "a gente", which otherwise means "the people". So, a common phrase meaning "We're leaving" is "A gente vai embora". Just think it's an interesting way to refer to a group of people. And people also use the word to mean "people" so it's a bit strange to me.

Another interesting this is the way that people respond to questions. I learned early on that "yes" and "no" are pretty uncommon when somebody asks if you've done something or if you have something. So, if someone asked me if I had a book, for example, ("Tem o livro?"), the most appropriate way for me to respond would be to say, simple "I have" ("Tenho"), the book kind of going unmentioned. Or, maybe my host mom asked me if I went to class ("Foi à aula?"). Instead of saying yes, the most common way to respond would be to say, simply, "I went" ("Fui"). Not that we don't do this in English, I just rarely heard any Brazilian respond "yes" or "no" to these kinds of questions. It's weirder when people are asking if you have objects, I guess.

One of the words that people often comment about when they talk about Portuguese is "saudades". Wikipedia even has a page on it! So I'll just steal from them. It's more or less a feeling of nostalgia or of missing something, but not necessarily in a sad way. More of in the way of remembering the good things about the person/place/thing that once was with you and the hope that it will be once again. I like the phrase "the love that stays" to describe it. From the Wikipedia page: "Saudade is the recollection of feelings, experiences, places or events that once brought excitement, pleasure, well-being, which now triggers the senses and makes one live again".

I kind of stop agreeing with the entry after that. It really isn't an empty feeling, but more of a fullness that one gets from remembering what they no longer have. So it's missing, but in a nostalgic and happy way. So yeah, it doesn't really translate well.

Anyways, it's an appropriate point to end on because unfortunately I've had to make an early exit from SIT and Brazil to address to medical issues at home. Nothing very serious, but I did have to miss our last trip to the South of Pará to visit with the MST, the largest social movement in Latin America. So maybe if my friends back in Belém keep me well updated and I search my brain I'll have more things to post on but otherwise this is it! I had a wonderful time in Brazil and it was a heartbreaking having to leave, but things happen beyond our control sometimes, so I'm back in Pittsburgh for the next couple of months until spring semester starts in January.

Thanks to all of you folks who read! I hope it was at least minimally informative! And not entirely boring...

Be well!

White People Like to Study Abroad!

But I've already noted that. If you're interested in finding out more things that white people like you might want to check out the appropriately-titled website "Stuff White People Like". Mostly it's a collection that describes a "...stereotype of affluent, environmentally and socially conscious, anti-corporate white North Americans, who typically hold a degree in the liberal arts". Like the authors of the blog themselves. Considering a solid portion of my SIT group fits this bill--I know that I do--we can have a lot of fun thinking of all of the things we've been doing here that white people like!

I think that most of us (at least I did) paid attention to how Brazil did in this summer's World Cup (#133) in South Africa. Even though they lost to the Netherlands, it didn't stop me (or anyone else) from liking the idea of soccer (#80). So it was good preparation for studying abroad (#72) in a soccer-loving country like Brazil. (I guess that "traveling", #19, works here too).

And being here leads to so many other things that we like! I think that everybody was genuinely excited upon arriving, and we might have been a little bit anxious but everyone was prepared for a great semester. And what better way to start than promising to learn a new language (#115)? It really is an asset in a lot of different ways, and it definitely leads to greater awareness (#18). In Brazil especially, historically a very ethnically and racially mixed society, speaking Portuguese increases one's chances of being the only white person around (#71). Then when we go back home we can share all of the things we learned with the Brazilians we know and be the experts on their culture (#20). Part of which, like I said, is soccer. And during our one-week orientation at a farm outside of the city, we played a lot of co-ed soccer (#65).

We also got to pick our own fruit there (#132) which was most definitely organic (#6). Meanwhile, during the rural homestay, one of the first things that I did was drink the coffee (#1) offered to us upon arrival. In most of Brazil, especially in rural areas, coffee is consumed throughout the day, especially during breakfast and between all meals. But my host family in Pau D'Arco were great hosts and made me three different kinds of tea (#13), one of which was even made from the bark of a tree! And these beverages were just supplementing the bottled water (#76) that we had (and have to) drink. Unfortunately, the city reservoir in Belém is in the same watershed as the sewage dump...so, yeah. That's not good.

And like I wrote before, the diversity (#7) here, particularly in terms of food, is astounding. In every place we've visited--Belém, Manaus, Santarém, the Trombetas and Tapajós rivers, and the waterfalls--we've been living by bodies of water (#51). At Ver-o-Peso, in a way the city's huge farmer's market (#5), I bought a natural medicine (#59) to help with some pain I was having in my foot. And it worked incredibly well. Thankfully I haven't come down with anything more serious, and hopefully my new layer of bug bites won't lead to malaria or dengue fever...

We've spent extended periods of time without televisions (#28), especially during orientation week and on the boat, and have visited a number of cool non-profit organizations (#12), doing a lot of different things in the region. On the other hand, like I wrote before, we also visited the largest bauxite mine in the world, which gave us all a chance to express hatred for corporations (#82). But through it all we've been able to maintain a lot of our interests that aren't as common here, frisbee sports (#110) and indie music (#41) being among them. And I'm typing this on my Apple computer (#40), with Facebook (#106) open in another window. And despite the warnings of many, I've maintained my vegetarian diet (#32), and this weekend even found the tahini that I need to make hummus (#112).

So, it seems like this has been a really good place to be for "left-leaning, city-dwelling white folk". I've certainly found a lot of things that I like.

That was really tedious. But in all seriousness it helped explain our time here a little better than I normally can? Anyways, visit the site and feel free to ask me questions about anything!

And here's a photo of (in order) my host sister, Amanda, host mother, Maria Clara, me, my other "host" sister, Cynthia (who has her own house), and the student she's hosting, Amanda.

It's All About the Manioc, Baby.

It's everywhere. And in everything. Okay not everything, but it's in a lot of stuff. Manioc here comes in all sorts of different forms and is delicious in just about everyone of them. Like I wrote before, one of my favorite foods here has been farinha, a yellow crumbly substance which people here put on top of just about everything they eat. I guess the flavor is close to that of the manioc itself but it's really hard to pinpoint. And actually, during our rural homestays in the Trombetas region two weeks ago I spent one morning peeling manioc in order to make farinha. Because it's a three-day-long process and there's no industrial technique used to make farinha, it's all made in little farinha kitchens like the one I was in. The picture I've added is of the last step in the process, toasting.



But the past few weeks have introduced me to an abundance of other uses for the plant. In the kitchen itself where the farinha is made, at least three other foods or beverages are made from the different types of manioc here. One that people even in the states will be familiar with is tapioca. There's also pajiroba, a (possibly alcoholic) drink made from a type of manioc that people in rural communities, like the one I'd stayed in, drink throughout the day to keep their energy up. And then there's the manioc itself, a type of which can be cut up and cooked/eaten more or less like a more fibrous potato. Here it's called macaxeira, but in the U.S. you can find it in the supermarket under the name "yuca". Then there was beiju, an extremely hard cracker-like treat that everyone there eat with breakfast lunch and dinner.

Back in the city, manioc is just as present, though maybe in less obvious ways. One of the most popular dishes consumed during the Círio de Nossa Senhora de Nazaré festival, which happened on Sunday, is maniçoba. It's made with the leaf of the manioc plant and must be cooked for about a week to remove the toxins from the leaves. I abstained on account of the meat but we had it here at my homestay and apparently it's delicious. And I can't forget tapioca flavored ice cream! People here--or maybe just students from the U.S. searching for comfort food--love ice cream. And popsicles. And I swear that the "crackers" that people eat for breakfast are actually cookies.

But speaking of the Círio procession, I'm happy to say that I walked with it through downtown on Sunday and survived the mass of (literally) millions who I walked with. Wikipedia is much better at describing things than I am, but suffice it to say that the whole day was very moving, and that I'd never before witnessed so many people with so much faith. Here you can see a photo of the image being taken to the plaza in front of the basilica, where mass was held at the end of the procession.

In an attempt to avoid the crowded city, we headed to Salinas, a beach about a three-hour drive from Belém. It was a great couple of days relaxing with the homestay family before we got back to classes today. And we ate ice cream, literally dozens of popsicles, and farinha.

And I was almost eaten by a giant crab.
Yeah.

Back in Belém!

And just in time for Círio de Nossa Senhora de Nazaré, considered by some to be the largest manifestation of religiousness in the world. But more on that later. The last two weeks, after we left Manaus, were filled with plenty of interesting meetings and events worth mentioning. Our first two days were spent on the boat, the Barão do Mar III, making our way to the Trombetas River. One of the first stops was at the "meeting of the waters" in Manaus, where the Rio Negro and Amazonas rivers meet. It was an awesome sight, and we even got to swim back and forth between the rivers for a bit. And across the border between Amazonas and Pará states a couple of my friends and I actually got to drive the boat for a bit (if our incredibly supervised steering can be called "driving").After reaching the Trombetas, we visited two really interesting places. The first was Main Coé, a quilombo of well under 100 people who lived largely outside of the view of the Brazilian state until recently. It was only after bauxite was discovered in the area and mining companies began to explore there that this community and others--very few of which engage in any commercial activity, but rely primarily instead on fishing, hunting, and gathering to survive--were even recognized as existing. Because the area was later declared a National Forest, the activities of the communities have been limited and they are legally not allowed to engage in commercial activities. Oh, and technically they're living there illegally.

The other large actor in this scenario is the bauxite mine itself, run by a company called Mineração Rio do Norte. As the largest bauxite mine in the world, MRN extracts about 17 million tons of bauxite per year. The company plans to strip-mine the area for 30 years, when all of the bauxite is expected to be removed.

After those visits we moved onto Juruti Velho, a municipality a bit downriver from Trombetas. The communities of the region have been fighting for several years now against ALCOA because of--yes--their bauxite mine there (a different one than the mine in Trombetas). Their organization, ACORJUVE, has succeeded in being the only community or communities in Brazil (and possibly the world) that have forced a mining company to reimburse local communities for the negative environmental and other effects of the mine. It was in these communities that we had our first "rural homestays," in which we lived with families for three days to learn about riberinho life there. More or less these are communities of the descendants of Indians and Portuguese colonists who have survived for several hundred years thanks to an incredibly deep knowledge of both the rivers and lakes and the forest.

We also spent October 3rd, election day, in Juruti Novo (the town where the ALCOA port is located) to talk to people about what was going on and about the political process here. The two most important elections here (for governor and president) are both entering a runoff and will be decided on October 31st.


From there we moved onto Santarém, where we relaxed a bit before heading to Monte Alegre where there are 11,000+ year-old cave paintings and--you guessed it--bauxite deposits that may begin to be exploited in the next several years. We also got the see the "meeting of the waters" in Santarém, which was much less impressive than the one in Manaus. But we were still able to witness amazing sunsets almost every night, which were absolutely beautiful. It was a busy three weeks and things show no signs of letting up as Círio is tomorrow and then I'll be off to the (ocean) beach tomorrow!

Going Downriver...

Tonight is our last night and Manaus, and tomorrow morning we leave by boat to (eventually) make our way to Santarém. It'll take just over a week to get there because we'll be making various stops along the way, one of which is a three day "rural homestay" in which we'll all stay with different families living in small communities along the river. One of the main attractions in Manaus, which we'll be able to see tomorrow morning, is called the "meeting of the waters". What happens is the brown-colored Solimões (the local name for the Amazon River) meets with the black-colored Rio Negro. Because the two have drastically different minerals, they meet but don't combine for a while, dividing the river into two distinct colors. Though they eventually do mix completely, the phenomenon is repeated again in Santarém when the Tapajós River meets the Amazon. So, we'll be lucky enough to see both.

The past few days have been packed with lectures and other things, but I've been able to visit an art gallery just a few blocks away from our hotel featuring the work of a local artist and explore the downtown area and market a little bit. And at the Permaculture Institute I was also able to eat heart of palm (freshly cut) and was able to try (for the second time) the Miracle Fruit. It pretty much makes anything you eat after it taste sweet...even limes, which we were eating it with. Don't know why I forgot to mention those. I also visited a local store that sells books and handicrafts made by nearby indigenous populations. Interestingly enough, they had the Portuguese version of one of our required readings this semester -- "Rainforest Cities," written by Prof. Brian Godfrey of Vassar! I took his class on Brazil last spring and learned an incredible amount about this exciting country, and I'm now getting the chance to experience so much of that learning.

Today we had a little bit more of a relaxing day. We drove to a nearby town, Presidente Figueiredo, about two hours north of Manaus. There we visited a private hotel/preserve area that had some beautiful waterfalls. We spent the whole morning there so after some exploration I set up next to the water and took a nice nap under the trees. We had a lecture later about "community-based ecotourism," then came back to Manaus for the night. So, time to gather together all of the goodies I've accumulated and get ready for a few days of living on the Amazon River!

Food! And Manaus!

One of the best things so far about being in the Amazon has been the amazing diversity of local foods available. During our orientation week I tried I don't know how many different juices, many of which came from fruits only available regionally. One yummy fruit which we've had in ice cream and juice form is cupuaçu; we've also had it as a jelly inside of chocolate. Mmm. We've also had watermelon, pineapple, avocado, and other juices here that are available in the U.S.--but they're usually fresh and much better here.

Then there's açai, which I've had several times with my homestay family. The way it's consumed here is not at all like in the U.S. Instead of drinking it as a sweet juice it's eaten, as a thick, cold soupy dish. It has a bitter, almost grassy taste and is often eaten with farinha, another amazing local food. The coconut water that I've had a few times has also been different than what I've had in the U.S. I usually can't stand the taste of coconuts, in any form, but the coconut water here (which people drink from cold coconuts purchased from any number of street vendors) tastes mostly like water but also a little bit like watermelon. I also really like the mangoes here (but not usually at home), and they and the bananas are much smaller but more full of flavor than in the U.S.

A local dish that I tried just the other day was tacacá. It's essentially a soup made from the broth of a small yellow fruit (tucupi) with a leafy green (called jambu, it leaves your mouth feeling tingly) and shrimp (which I abstained from). Other interesting things about local food: fast food (i.e. McDonald's, Pizza Hut, and Subway) is super expensive and considered a luxury; people eat everything they order at restaurants with forks and knives (including sandwiches, burgers, and pizza); people here love to put ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise on just about anything; peanut butter is (unfortunately) not very popular and actually pretty expensive; breakfast is usually light (bread and butter or cheese, or crackers and maybe fruit) and lunch is the largest, most important meal of the day.

But in addition to experimenting with food, we've (since yesterday) been in Manaus. Located 800 miles upriver from Belém, Manaus was first heavily settled at the end of the 1800s during the rubber boom in Brazil. It was the money from this trade that paid for an opera house to be built in France and assembled here. It was restored in the 1970s and is now the Teatro Amazonas--we went there tonight for a free music festival. Manaus fell on hard times after the first decade of the 1990s, and after WWII the Brazilian government set it up as a free trade zone within the country. Pretty much what that meant was that industries could set up shop here, assembly things manufactured in other states, and not have to pay many taxes. So the population grew starting in the 1970s and it now has about 2 million people (in a state, Amazonas--the largest in Brazil--with about 4-5 million people).

So today we visited the Permaculture Institute of Amazonia, a local NGO working to develop agricultural alternatives to slash and burn, industrial monoculture, and other agriculture techniques. It was an awesome visit, and I even got to buy some honey produced by the bees that they keep there (which, unlike European or African bees, don't sting)!

We're spending the next few days in and around Manaus, and on Friday we set sail down the Amazon for the Trombetas River!