I am Amazon Woman

First, I need to give a huge shout out to Daniel Gilbert. I was instant messaging him (while I was supposed to be researching) and I was bitching about how Brazil some times really puts me out. He set me straight by telling me that this is a great opportunity and I need to get over myself and focus on enjoying the remainder of my time here. So, I have been doing just that since our conversation.

This past weekend, the group traveled to the Ilha de Mare. This island is still considered a quilombo (run-away slave community) because the population is mostly black Africans and the island is very primitive (ie limited electricity, no doctors, no school, etc). The ocean more or less completely dictates life on the island. When it rains, water collects in the wells and water is available for use. When there are many fish caught, there is plenty of food and money. When few fish are caught, people go hungry. The island was beautiful despite the ugliness that lay closely beneath the surface. There are no cars and horses and donkeys either strolled alone or carried passengers and materials from the water's edge to the top of the hills near the banana fields. I felt like an Amazon woman running along the ocean in the cool morning, in what appeared to be total isolation and undeveloped, raw country paradise. My soul has been restored and I can now handle the remainder of my time in the big, bad city of Salvador.

At the island, we stayed with host families and had a health fair clinic on Friday. With the help of health workers, we set up stations for DST/AIDS, water, waste management, dengue, nutrition, etc. Many children came and to my and others dissapointments few adults attended. The island believes in traditional medical care and as a result, skin rashes are treated with coco de agua instead of anti-fungal creams. Women give birth to babies in canoes en route to hospitals in Salvador because the ambulance boat doesn't arrive fast enough. It was very eye opening to see such a lack of basic structure.

This week is our last week of classes. Soon we will be staying in a village study in Santo Antonio de Jesus and closely after that we will be doing our idependent research studies for the last month before returning home! I need to touch up my final research topic proposal before tomorrow. Wish me luck! Much love and I will try to touch base again soon.

The Robbery

The title says most of it, but here are the nitty gritty details of how the robbery went down. Alex, my Colombia U friend, and I were walking to school on our normal route at our normal time at 9 in the morning. The only unusual part about Thursday was that I was carrying two bags full of my personal belongings with the intentions of going away to a nearby island for the weekend, as we didn´t have class on Friday. I brought my camera, cash, credit card, debit card, running shoes, dresses, school books, personal journal, running clothes, swim suits, towel, jewelry, etc.

As Alex and I approached a fairly crowded bus stop near a small shopping center, three men came out from behind one of the many iron gates on the sides of the street. They began to tug at our bags. At first, I didn´t think much about it. Brazilian men have grabbed my hair and shoulders many times, but I just shrug them off and keep walking. These guys (mid-twenties) however, kept pulling on the bags. My eyes fixated on Alex´s- was this really what I thought it was? The robbers then informed us that yes, in fact, we were being robbed. One of them also informed us that he had a gun under his shirt. As the event unfolded, I tried to formulate Portuguese sentences in my head to make a deal with the robbers- take all my money but please leave my school books, notes, personal journal, or other things which would be worthless to them. In seconds, the robbers had gently taken our bags and easily ran down an alley and out of sight.

Being the slightly sheltered Montana girl who has never been robbed, I started to weep incessantly. I wept because of the robbery and because I haven´t released any other frustrations or confusions throughout this experience. Alex, the Boston native and now New York City girl, pouted for about a second before becoming impressively angry and released a long string of profanity. My favorite rebuttal- (Alex to me) "I hope the robbers are happy with our stuff, and I hope they have a fun time sticking all your tampons up their butts!"

After a long day at the police station and on the computer, I came back to my neighborhood to discover that many people I had never seen before knew I had been robbed and offered their condolences.

Then, yesterday, I came home to discover my backpack and Alex´s yellow bag on my bed! Apparently, a security guard had watched what happened and had chased and caught the robbers later that morning. One of the robbers did have a pistol and was not bluffing like I thought. I got a pair of shorts, my school books, personal journal, and Portuguese dictionary back. Alex got her swim suit and books back. There is good here!

Patience

Patience- it's the word of week. I am diligent and practice patience every day. Like right now, I am patiently waiting to register for classes. I have a Portuguese test in an hour. As I'm trying to navigate through people soft Vitor, my 6 year old host nephew, is sitting next to me asking what all the buttons on the computer are as well as showing and explaining everything in his room to me. Yes, thank you Vitor. I know what a frog is.



Home life is so great. My Portuguese is coming along and the more I understand, the more humor and meaning I find in my life here. EVERY morning, my Mom and sister complain about how hot it is outside. Every day- rain or shine. Also, my Mom will make some comment about how fat my host brother is, or how when Vitor is hungry he eats like a bicycle. Yesterday morning, my Mom was making some very rude hand gestures at the neighbor's house. She is very dramatic.



I was talking with a good friend of mine, Rachel, about Brazilian life yesterday while lounging in Campo Grande waiting for afternoon class to start. We have both noticed that Brazilians can be so ridiculous sometimes! Meus Dios (oh my god) is a favorite phrase here. Daisy, a host mom in my neighborhood, introduced me to capoeira and has taken me on a few adventures since then. When we are walking, we walk very slowly and every time she says something, she stops and uses big hand motions. It takes 30 minutes to walk 400 yards.

OK, this post was saved, but I have free Internet right now and need to post some different adventures.