random thought that has nothing to do with my exchange

someone told me a few days ago that I can't make a difference in the world.
I'd just like to say that I can, and I will.
so there.

In Itacare

We have been in Itacare for two days, now, and I still cannot figure out how to write apostrophes on Brazilian keyboards.
Itacare is beautiful. I had been here before, for the day with Kyle and his family, but this weekend I can see what living here is like. The streets look old, worn down, and poor, but they have this magical rustic quality that makes them seem rich with character. Houses are so colorful, even the church a few blocks away is bright blue.
But also, when I see people walking down the street, they have this stride that makes them look content. In the US and Europe, when people are barely making it, they look depressed. Probably because they are. They might resent their country, maybe blame it for getting them in their situation to begin with. But Brazilians are so culture proud. Even if they are poor, you see them walking down the street and they look happy! I cannot understand why. Maybe it is because the sun never goes out in Brazil, or that the coconuts and mangos and bananas have magical antideppressant properties. Who knows. It is nice, though, to be in a country where you see happy people wherever you go. Not very common for such a divided country as the USA. I think the rest of the world could learn a lot from the Brazilians.
We have been taken in for 4 days by Carolina, a Brazilian girl who went to Germany last year on exchange. I have been sleeping in her room. Three huge German flags are hung on the wall, German beer bottles are proudly displayed on shelves, a collection of plates from major cities in Europe sit on another shelf, and a big Brazilian flag signed by other exchange students watches over everything.
I am not able to post pictures, since I am using another computer and I do not want to upload my photos to it, but we (unfortunately) return to Itabuna on Sunday (domingo) or Monday (segunda feira), and I will tell you about our weekend in further detail then!

Sorry about this apostrophe thing, I know it is annoying.
Love,
Zoe

Porto Seguro

Starting a week ago, I contracted the flu and was horribly sick. Friday, I planned to stay
in and get better, but mid afternoon, I got a call from Kyle's family and was invited to Porto Seguro for the weekend.
That's the thing about being on exchange, you can't just plan to do nothing. It doesn't work like that. There's always something going on, whether you like it or not.
The other thing about being on exchange is that you can never say "no". If someone invites you somewhere, you say YES. "Yes, I would love to go to a vacation resort with you for the weekend", or "Yes, I will gladly stand in line at the bank with you". There's no difference. If you say no, you'll never get the chance to say yes again. Take that to heart, future exchange students!
I climbed into the back of the truck, 4 people to three seats, and we drove three hours to Porto Seguro, the oldest city in Brazil.
Porto Seguro is the site where Portuguese Pedro Alvares Cabral "discovered" Latin America while making his way to the East Indies on April 22, 1500. Here they built the first church in Brazil, which still stands open to the public.
The first night, we walked around downtown looking at all the touristy stores. Porto Seguro is a major tourist destination, so there were a lot of foreigners. It's also a great beach town where Southern Brazilians come up to party and such.

The Porto Seguro Library

Brazilian flowers outside of our hotel

Kyle's host parents took us to a lot of really touristy points. The first one we stopped at, I was speechless for a few minutes. Really, I had never seen anything like it. Giant statues of naked Indians opposite giant statues of Portuguese colonists planting a cross. The Indians looked primitive and helpless, while the Portugese looked like you would expect- white colonists coming in and making things their own in the name of God.


I was shocked. I always knew that in the US, at least, people had thought this way about Native Americans for as long as America has been around. And these statues, although I doubt they were there for this purpose, looked to me as if they were mocking the Indian people of Brazil. But the Indians that we saw (Porto Seguro is where most of the Bahia Indians live) were participating in this industry as much as the other Brazilians were. Kids were walking around in traditional costume selling jewelery, women were standing in booths ready to pose for pictures.
The US has treated its Native Americans no better. But they've always kind of dealt with it in the shadows, denying what they really did. While our textbooks sort of explain what happened to the Indians that met Columbus and his men, they stop there. There isn't a huge tourist industry revolving around the few Indians left. And in Brazil (I have no idea how Brazilian textbooks explain the colonization of Latin America by the Portuguese), it felt to me like they were exploiting Indian culture.
I'm not judging Brazil, everyone knows that I have great respect for this country. But visiting these tourist traps, I felt guilty. I've always felt guilty about the US' Native American history, but this pretty much summed it up for me. If the Portuguese hadn't colonized the way they did, there might still be 4 million Indians left in Brazil, instead of just 300,000.
Every story I hear or read comes from a non-Indian Brazilian (biased or not), which makes me wonder what the Brazilian Indians have to say about it, are they at all resentful towards Brazil, as many Native Americans are towards the USA.
But I think there's a point where you just have to recognize that Colonization was (is) a horrible thing, and that in this case, all you should really do is be sensitive about it and prevent it from happening again.

me and a real Indian!

Later we went to the beach and saw the point where the Portuguese landed, marked by a big cross.
We have some great photos of this memorial, but they're all on Kyle's camera.. I'll get them for you later, don't worry.

Big Brazilian Cross

Then we went to the oldest church in Brazil. Catholic.
Like the English colonists of North America, the Portuguese converted many Brazilian Indians to Catholicism, and here were more Indians selling things, posing for pictures, ect.

pretty brazilian coast!!

a dream catcher

Brazilian Indians
The taller little girl was looking at my hair, I think. I smiled at her and she grinned and didn't stop smiling until we left. cute.

And the entire weekend, I was in awe of this family's generosity! I'm not even their exchange student yet, and they've taken me with them on two trips already. They're so nice and friendly, it's beyond me how one family can be so generous. :)
So if you're reading this, OBRIGADA!!

.. and yes, I do have photos of me in Indian wear, but no, they are not going on the internet.
.. ever.

awesome awesome news

ok first, today is Nicole's (american nicole) birthday! hurrah!
and second, we got a new portuguese teacher! I liked our old one, too, but I wasn't learning much :/ and the new teacher seems like he might.. teach. go figure.

Well, I'll start on Tuesday, because nothing happened on Monday.
After I wrote the last entry, I met Sven at the Centro Cultural and there we waited for Kyle and Nokinha.
We sat in on a Judo Jitsu Samurai kinda thing (Sven takes Judo in germany- if he finds out I didn't remember the name of this class we saw, he'd be pissed). It was interesting, but I definitely don't want to do it. It's not even Brazilian... so I'm not going.. ever again..

It was actually pretty fun to watch. The teacher (or, sifu??) taught the students a new technique, and spent the rest of the class using it against them.
After watching one guy getting paid to beat up a bunch of kids, we went to Nokinha's apartment. Kyle's going to live there, so he was happy to see it. He lives on a really high floor of the building.

a really awesome moon that night

page separator page separator page separator page separator :3

Wednesday I walked to Kyle's house and hung out there, we wanted to watch Good Will Hunting with Matt Damon (it's on the list, people, check it out), but we ended up watching The Kingdom with Jennifer Garner. It was alright. Not good enough for the list.

OK, ok, I thought this was cute- luan and sven are wearing the white socks cause they're the athletic ones, and I'm not wearing anything cause I'm the hippie one (I'm not but this label has followed me to Brazil. I know, I know), and Kyle's wearing black socks because he's the emo one...? He would kill me if he saw this.

That night when Hellen's mom came home, I approached her and gave her the mini speech that I had been practicing for a solid five minutes in my head on the way there. I had been daydreaming about living with this family ever since I saw how freakin awesome they are, and I got the courage to ask Nokinha about it on Tuesday. And to my surprise, he said it was no problem with him! All I had to do was convince the family.. I was so nervous to ask them, but they said that fine, they'll put up with me for a few months.
I'm so happy, my best friends are going to be my siblings :)


And today.. nothing's happening either. I'm having the worst cramps, so I think I'll stay in and watch CNN...? maybe?
aww don't judge. What are you doing today? huh? studying? working? Yeah, I know you are. in your face.

just kidding, I love you all! :)
By the way, feel free to write any comments or questions you have below, and one of these days I'll get around to answering them!

One Month

Today is my one month anniversary! I've been eating strange food and stuttering a different language since August 16. And today, September 16, I celebrate!

Alright, that's a lie. I didn't celebrate. Today was just as normal as every other day. It isn't bad, I'm actually enjoying these normal days. I'm learning a lot of portuguese :)
The only interesting thing that has happened lately is on saturday night I fell asleep on Hellen and Luans' couch and woke up with like, 15 mosquito bites on my right foot.
No other part of my body was bitten though, tricky bastards.

Today I'm going over to the Centro Cultural (sort of like the YMCA) to sign up for a capoeira class with sven and kyle, and tomorrow we finally start portuguese class again with our new teacher. Friday I think we're all going to Itacare again, and all next week my class has vacation again.
I'm so sorry this is so boring for you to read, I really am!

Really though, writing in english just feels strange to me. Words aren't coming as easily to me anymore, and I end up forming sentences wrong all the time. It's pretty funny.
I'm definitely going to fail senior english! :P

2nd Week of September

This week started off okay. Every friday we have these interact meetings, with all the rotary people I know, and last friday we went to Ilheus to the yacht club. They pronounce it yachee clubee. pretty funny :P

waaater

the yachee clubee

That friday, I went with Hellen and Kyle and Luan's family to Itacare, a beach a few hours away. It was the most beautiful beach I've ever seen in my life, the water was perfectly clear, and the sand was so white and clean that it made little squeaky sounds when you walked on it the right way. Apparently Bahia has the beaches in the whole country. oh yeah, I scored.

Hellen with a coconut

When you're finished drinking out of it, they come and cut it in half, and you scoop out the coconut meat inside. It was weird.. I didn't much care for it.

So that was saturday.. or no, it was sunday. Yep definitely sunday, because my family was at church all day, and Sven had to go that night and I felt bad that I couldn't be there to keep him company. well I mean as bad as I could feel, we're talking church here.
But that monday, when I went to portuguese class, Nokinha (our counselor) was there, and told us some bad news, that our portuguese teacher (forget his name, he's a university student) had to quit because teaching us portuguese was too much stress on his soul.
he said he needed to study more. right. :P
So that night instead of having class, we went to get Acai, which is this berry smoothie energy thing that's delicious but also turns your lips blue.
it's not embarrassing or anything.

it comes with granola and banana stuff

Acai Point
The point at which to buy Acai

And the week went downhill from the berry energy smoothie things. The whole week the FEZs didn't have class (if people don't get that reference I'll be heartbroken) because our school had exams. It resulted in me being bored and homesick all week. On the bright side, though, I knitted two scarves in four days. It's a record.
But wait, there's more! Wednesday, Nokinha informed us that Jasmine was being sent home!! Which really really really sucks. Before, it was two girls and two guys, the perfect combination of exchange student POWER. But now I'm the only girl in Rotary, a primarily male organization. I mean a few nights ago we all went to a Rotary meeting, and I looked around, and there was one woman other than me in the room. Out of maybe 40 men, one woman. Don't get me wrong, I love Rotary with all my heart and appreciate what they've given me, but I do feel awkward around so many men without any women there. So it feels really weird without Jasmine there with me.
Anyway, a bunch of us gathered at her house that night to say goodbye. Jasmine was booked on a flight the very next day out of Ilheus.

Jasmine's dad has some crazy artwork in their house

I love this picture :P

All of us with Chadalla, Jasmine's sister's yappy little dog.

All 4 of us together for the last time :(

Thursday, Fatima (host mom) and I drove to the city where my Dad has been for the past month to see his project.
My host dad, David, is a physical therapist/candidate for mayor. He's building a new physical therapy center in a town about 45 minutes from Itabuna.

the not finished physical therapy place
fatima is standing there watching the constructionizers

constructionizin'

And now, for some random moments of excitement during my week:

there was a lizard climbing around on the wall of my house the other day.
I named it Iggy before my mom shooed it out of the door with a broomstick.

someone just left this cart hanging around the supermarket..

Disclaimer: we did not drink any of it!

sven with a parrot

I don't know what's going to happen next week. School finally starts again on Monday, that'll be a relief. Tuesday will be my one month anniversary.. it would've been Jasmine's too. :(
Nokinha was talking about going to Itacare again next weekend, too. Nothing's for certain, but that would be cool.
I don't know.
Life is starting to get boring again. It's kind of a relief, but at the same time I have this anxious feeling all the time, like I'm waiting for something and it's late. I'm starting to get impatient with my Portuguese, too, it's not perfect and I want it to be.
But that can't be the only reason that I'm so worried. I've never been perfect at Portuguese, so it's not like I'm missing something.
It's as if I should be stressed about something, but I'm not, so I'm stressed about not being stressed.
....?
oh whatever, I'll get over it soon enough. I need to practice piano.

The week in photos

These photos are from Sunday, August 31 to today, Friday Septemer 5.

Hellen has been spending the last week watching the US open. She won't even blink.
She stayed in this exact position for like, two and a half hours on tuesday. I love that girl :P





luan's doing the same thing
just not as much as hellen.
he stops to eat once in a while.


















minha aulaaaa

Rafaela

















Incense that I got on the street for like, a dollar. Buddha of Luck. :)

suerte= sorte













me and gustavo.. I don't have the patience to rotate the picture :)


































This is one of the horses that carry stuff around town . It was 'parked' when I almost walked into it the other day..

















There's this cat that hangs around our apartment, waiting for us to give her food. She's so sweet, and she's clean, so I usually say hello to her before going to school. Here she's eating some cake that my mom gave to her this morning :)
That's a neighbor in the picture, though, it's not my mom.








Indiana Motors.. a car dealership downtown!

good times :)

Last night, Svenski and I went to a rotary meeting. It was a formal one, a dinner with a bunch of rotarians :) One thing I love about hanging out with Sven is that we speak portuguese, even though he knows english.

Today, Fatima (my mom) drove me, Jasmine, and Kyle to Ilheus, a coastal city about an hour away, to Ilheus, a coastal city about an hour away, and spent the entire freaking day trying to get temporary ID cards for the city. We got them, but it took like four and half hours of sitting, waiting, walking across the street to two different federal buildings, and getting fingerprinted.
And tonight, we're all going to an evaluation thing. I guess they're just checking to make sure our family situations are ok. And mine is great, so no problems with me!

oh yeah, one more from last week that wilson wanted me to put up...

And I forgot to mention that 'McNellie's name was actually Macall. Like the bird. sorry about that!

Clumsy Week

Have you ever had the hiccups all day? Or a bad hair day or something? Then maybe you know what I'm talking about when I say that I've had a clumsy week.
I fell down Kyle's marble staircase twice, I tripped on his table and fell flat on my face, I mistook Luan for Sven and jumped three feet off the piano bench when I saw him, I stumbled on potholes, cracks in the sidewalk, fences, slipped on the street, I almost walked into a lamp post. And that was all in two days.
Today I stumbled over desks, slipped on some more sidewalks, mistook Luan for Kyle and jumped three feet off the piano bench when I saw him, and almost walked into a horse. Yeah that's right. A horse. And as I was explaining all this to Kyle today on our way to a portuguese class, I was almost run over by a bicycle.
What am I going to do? I'm losing my natural poise!

Praia De Forte

Last weekend was the Rotary Orientation in Salvador, the capital of the state of Bahia.
Friday night, Jasmine and I met Kyle, and our counselor, Noquina, at the Itabuna train station. Noquino gave us our tickets, but Sven (accompanied by another fez from Germany, hosted in another city) didn't show up until about five minutes later, so we missed our bus. I wasn't happy. It was 11 at night, and I knew that it was a 6 hour drive to Salvador, so I wanted to get going.
We were all just standing around waiting for something to happen when Willy, a brazilian kid, came rushing down the stairs and told us to hurry up- we rushed outside and saw Noquina in a panicked state. He grabbed our bags and threw them in the car, and pushed us in the back.
Brazilians drive crazy, I always knew that. But this was like nothing I had ever experienced, especially since I didn't even have my own seat at the time (jasmine's butt).. it was scary shit.
We sped down the street, dodging cars and pedestrians, and in a few minutes we passed a bus. Noquina took a sharp turn and parked in front of it, and the bus parked behind us, and the very annoyed bus driver opened up the doors for us.
Laughing, and so humiliated (sven especially, poor kid), we climbed on.
Basically the whole 6 hours was spent arguing with Kyle or sleeping on his shoulder.
I really hate it when people put down their seats to a maximum. It's like 'that's my lap that your giant chair is resting on, jackass'
*really boring, sorry! I'm getting somewhere with this, I promise!*
We arrived in Salvador the next morning, and met Kelsey, a girl from Iowa. Kelsey and I are the only Americans from the midwest.
And then we met some more Germans, some Danes (crazy danes!), a girl from Taiwan, some Canadians (they were hilarious), and a bunch more Americans.
The first day was basically hours and hours of orientation lecture that I fought very hard to stay awake through.

group photo of the exchange students and directors

Every couple hours, the main speaker would say 'ok... time for a fifteen minute break..' and we would all be too exhausted to get up immediately- so we would slink out of her seats and slowly make our way to the kitchen where there were cookies. But about 8 minutes later we would hear the same monotone voice, 'ok... time to come back..'
He was a good guy, though. I was just annoyed because only an hour ago had I gotten off a 7 hour bus trip in which I had barely slept.

Sven, me, and Canadian (?)
he's actually a really cool kid but I forget his name.. it was something weird, like McCaine or McNellie or something.
I don't know, it'll come to me at like four in the morning.

That night, we drove another hour on a bus to a hostel in Praia De Forte, a little town on the coast that was really really pretty :)

me and Mathilde (dane) rocking out in the hammock outside of our room

There, we went down to the beach. It wasn't cold, but it was really dark, so we didn't go in the water, but it was really fun. Lots of picture taking, crazy exchange students :P

that's all of us, Germany, the USA, canada, Denmark, and Taiwan.
Global friendship! :3

The next morning, we got up and went to the beach again, not to swim, but to a turtle conservation thing. preservation.. reservation.. I don't know. My english is getting so bad, it's not even funny. Tonight I couldn't remember the word 'compromise'. So if I come back to the US and end up playing a lot of charades just to get my point across, I'm really sorry guys.
Anyway I saw kittens. and turtles. Tropical baby turtles.

stray kitten!


sitting on a real plastic turtle


danes :)
they're my people

tortugas

baby turtles!
Duuuuude!

Later that day we went to the beach

sand
this was exciting for me, don't judge.

a coconut stand
For only a couple reias (very cheap), you can get a whole coconut with a straw coming out of it. The drink is just like sweetened water with a small coconut taste. It's kind of syrupy, but not in an unnatural way.

tasty leite de coco
I actually got mine in a plastic cup because it was cheaper and lighter, but Kelsey (Iowa) got hers from a coconut, and I thought you guys would appreciate this picture more.
See, I really do care.

*palm* tree hugger

We made our way to the shore, where we boarded a little boat and sped away to go whale watching! It was so much fun at first. It was the exchange students, a class of 10 year old Brazilian kids, and this one spanish couple on vacation.

Sven, Sofie (dane), and me at the front of the boat

the lovely girls that I hung out with on this trip...

and the plastic bags that I got seasick in.
it was good times.

But it wasn't so bad, I got to leave the boat first, with all the other sick people. It was basically me and a bunch of sick ten year olds.
And yes, we saw whales!! I didn't take any pictures, but if anyone else uploads them, I'll be sure to borrow *steal* them and show them to you, dear readers.

It was a really great weekend.
crazy patriotic germans and their flag. :P

That night, we all went our separate ways. Jasmine, Sven, Kyle, Leonie (I love that name, girl from Germany), Cami (Idaho), and Marieke (Germany) all boarded the same bus and spent the next 7 hours talking about music and eating cookies and watching V for Vendetta. The sound was in portuguese and I was too impatient to listen to it, so Sven was explaining the entire movie to us. I fell asleep though. I need to have him tell me the ending..