Getting rid of cultural misconceptions.

Being a middle school teacher has never been on my plans. The thought that comes along withboys and girls all together in the same room at the time in which their puberty is expellinghormones and drama has been enough to make me disregard that career option completely.Still, I thought it would be interesting to volunteer and teach Spanish for a day, especiallybecause that meant me having the opportunity to visit a new city called Tijucas, have free mealsworth 20 reales instead of the 6 reales meals I am accustomed to, free transportation and hotel, and did I mention being worshipped by kids because you are a foreigner?

I know that last one may win most people over, some people really find it appealing to be idolized by 12 to 15 year olds and then having your facebook invaded by numerous friend requests and making it necessary to block your wall due to the constant postings from them. But that was not the reason why I loved volunteering at a middle school. No, I am not that conceited... although I am mentioning it in here so maybe I am just a little. Instead, the reason why I loved volunteering so much was because it gave me the chance to learn about the kid's perspective on foreign cultures and learn about their own culture as well by listening to their everyday issues. It was interesting to understand their concept of Americans and Mexicans and how they are not that closed minded about what goes on outside Brazil. In fact, I was a little bit embarrassed when I realized that the 13 year-olds were actually more knowledgeable about political, economic and cultural issues in the US compared to what I knew about Brazil's issues before I came here, maybe the tremendous and constant influence that American media has here makes it harder to avoid them, but then again they seemed to have lost all stereotypical judgements about Americans and simply got informed about these issues and were genuinely interested in these.

It was a great experience to talk with Brazilian kids about how they see their own country and to just be able to talk to them about anything they wanted to without having any formal barrier in between our conversations. And I was shocked when I was being asked questions about sex and drugs and the teacher would just say, "It's fine, they're just curious and so am I," again... these kids were 12-15 years old and some of these answers I learned a year ago.

In conclusion, the bus ride was very comfortable, food was amazing, the hotel experience was horrifying, but in the end all that I brought back with me was knowing that I was able to inform kids about the world they don't know or have experienced, but what I do know for sure is that I learned a whole lot more from these kids than from my Brazilian culture class here. Which is why I am doing it again this weekend at a city called Rio do Sul. I realized that if I want to learn about this country, I am going to have to do it on my own by talking to people and traveling and not so much siting in my classroom being taught anthropology by a teacher that can barely speak English and misses class every other day.

I may not want to become a full time teacher, but I sure do want to volunteer a whole lot more and hopefully in different countries so I can loose my own misconceptions about foreign cultures and attempt to get rid of cultural barriers. Because if there is something I have learned in my two month stay here is that by knowing the places and people of another culture you learnt to loose all stereotypes and cultural misconceptions. The world is bigger than we believe it is and there are different people from us with different world views and all of them are right in their own way and when trying to change something into something that is not the solution to create a neighborly world becomes harder to attain.

All I did today was lay on a hammock, listen to music and think about life.

Sunset in Floripa

We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.

Still clueless and curious

It is really hard for me to analyze relationships and dating here. Hell! I am not the greatest at relationships, so it's hard for me to analyze relationships anywhere I am, but for some reason I am very intrigued by Brazilian's dating life and will continue to study some of the complex answers I get from casual interviews I have made and understand some of the things I observe.
Again, the things I'm posting are the glimpse of the start of my research project, meaning that they aren't very serious remarks or observations, although they are building up to become them... hopefully.

Last week, I was having a conversation with one of my gay friends. We were sitting on a bench below a huge tree watching people walk by and then he just asked me,"what would've you done if a guy asked you out and then just talked to your friend the entire night?" Then he continued to say that this guy was never disrespectful or a jerk, he was just very into the conversation with his friend, and at the end of the night when his friend left, the guy continued the conversation with him, still enthusiastic and interested in him, but by this time my friends was mad and ended up leaving. Normally, my dating advice is not the most reliable and I am not ashamed to admit it, I think my relationships work because I don't take anything seriously and if I get mad about something I will just tell it to the person's face and leave. Maybe not the best way to deal with things, but then again I usually don't find myself in these cat and mouse games. But after meditating and considering the possibilities of why Brazilians in general act so alive and forward, I came to realize that maybe they are so honest with their feelings that they seem bipolar at times. They seem to act just as they are feeling at the moment, putting their reactions out there for everyone to see and expressing their feelings so freely that Americans are usually scared to take part in this emotion parade and interpret them as a betrayal, falseness or hypocrisy.

To make this a little bit clearer. What I've come to see and know about Brazilians has mostly been through comparisons with Americans. I know for a fact, that Americans take longer to get used to a person they are dating and can even take a year before they say the gargantuan three words of I love you. But a Brazilian can say I love you the second time he or she sees you because they just feel like that at that moment, it might not mean he or she wants to spend the rest of his or her life with you, it just means that in that moment that person really does love you and is not scared to say it, but at the same time they are never too serious when it comes to relationships. So far all of the guys I have met below the age of 25 have had less than two girlfriend but have lost count of the n umber of girls they've kissed and they all seem to be scared of commitment because everyone here is so free when it comes to meeting new people and the possibility of falling in love that they feel scared to commit to just one person, they give of the impression that they want to be in love all the time with everyone and they are not able to put all of those emotions into just one person. As to Americans, most of my guy friends have had several girlfriends or are actively looking for one, most of them have never said I love you and a lot of them are afraid of commitment but for other reasons. In my opinion, I think it is the fear of getting hurt or predisposition to the relationship's failure. I might be generalizing a lot here, but the core observation that I have made here is that everyone here is so in love with the idea of falling in love and they will do anything to attain it even if it means being with a different girl every week.

In the end, my friend agreed with me. He was so enlightened by the idea that for some reason honesty can seem as hypocrisy when we are dealing with our feelings. And although, he said he understood the guy better when he saw him through his cultural customs instead of his actions, he still said he wasn't into it and that he considers himself more reserved to the expression of his feelings to handle so much freedom with another person's feeling. I don't think they talk anymore. I always thought dealing with the rules of dating was a burden, but now I know for a fact that cross-cultural dating is even worse.

 Comment if you agree or disagree or think I am generalizing a lot... I need help with me research paper!

Breathtaking Day

Dalton and I had a mission. To find the waterfall we saw a picture of on a website. 

The Sun came out and we decided it was time to go on the search of the trail that would lead us to a beautiful waterfall surrounded by vegetation and fresh water. Brendolyn and Mike came along without any idea of what this trail was about. Again, it was something Dalton and I needed to check off our list before we left Brazil. We got on a bus and got off on its last stop and with no idea of where the trail started we started walking up a hill that was not leading us to where we wanted to go. This hill was not just any hill, this hill makes small mountain seem childish. So we paused the torture of climbing and asked a local where the hell we where and with my little knowledge of portuguese obtained new directions to this wonderful place. Minutes later, we were lost again... walking in the middle of a neighborhood with apartment buildings and elementary schools made us feel like we were never going to find the trail. So here I go again, ask another local and he ended up leading us all the way to the street we needed to go to, without this man we would have been doomed. 

As we reached the end of the road there was a sign indicating the beginning of it all and so we began. Trees and trees, all I saw is green, a little brown here and there, but everything was so natural and clean. Then, I start hearing water rushing near me, only to find a river that needed to be crossed. But there is one problem: we need to get our feet wet because there are no rocks to step on to cross it. So we all crossed the small gap barefoot feeling nothing but cold, fresh water caressing our skin. And then proceeded to climb, jump, and walk. After twenty minutes of walking through green and transparent fresh water we saw the breathtaking waterfall. 

Here comes the sun

Argentina gave us a break today and I saw the sun for the first time in a week. Waking up at 6 in the morning to go on a field trip is worth doing when you wake up to a soft ray of sunlight playing on your face rather than an alarm clock.  As soon as I got off the bus in downtown, it seemed that Brazil had woken up, pampered itself and presented itself as the place I was waiting to meet and it showed me more than I was expecting.
First, there is no better feeling than being on top of a hill watching a breath taking view at 9 a.m., except maybe standing still in the middle of a deserted beach with nothing on the horizon but a fisherman's boat and blue waters. And maybe it shouldn't be a big deal to be at a beach when I live in sunny San Diego, but it's kind of a big deal when you're getting over a cold you got from the continuous rainy weather the Argentinians' blew to our side of the continent and the beaches I visit are from a Utopian dream; deserted, calm and blue.
After spending some time at school, an hour of portuguese class and lovely weather. I felt motivated enough to do something about my medium level portuguese and turn it into an additional language on my list. Currently with two portuguese essays on my hands, a novel by Jorge Amaro and all of my host family communicating with me in portuguese only... I think I might just be able to squeeze this language onto my list.
Tomorrow, will be yet another sunny day. I will buy my plane ticket to Salvador, Bahia, the largest city on the Northeast of Brazil or also known as the Capital of happiness, mostly because of the laid-back lifestyle and rich Afro-brazilian culture. Also, I will be booking my two night stay on a city called Blumenau for the festivities of Oktoberfest in Brazil- A maior festa alema das Americas. Considered to be one of the biggest german parties in the America's and sometimes even pondered to be at the same level as Germany's Oktoberfest.
With two more days until my one month anniversary in Brazil, doors have been opening for me. I already have a volunteer job to teach english and spanish to high school students on another city with all expenses paid, I have yet 5 more Brazilian cities to visit and maybe Buenos Aires, my portuguese is only improving and time is only going by faster. Soon it will be over and my life will be back to normal and I will have this adventure imprinted in my memory. But as for now, I still have three more months of enjoying the Brazilian lifestyle and having saudade of my mom's cooking, father's cuddles and my boyfriend's loving.

Irish pub in Brazil

Beginning my project.

To write about what you think you know is hard to do, especially when it involves an alien subject that I've been exposed to for less than a month. As I mentioned on my first post, my intention was to understand this foreign country at the best of my ability and to open my mind while loosing all prejudice and stereotypical characteristics I came to gather before coming here.

At first, my project consisted of comparing feminism in the Brazilian and American culture, but then I became more interested in the subject of religion affecting sexual education in Brazil, considering that Brazil is one of the most HIV/AIDS infected populations, I thought this would be an interesting subject to touch in as well.

I've always found it interesting how religion would sometimes prefer to not educate it's followers on taboo subjects such as sex and give them a false feeling of purity and innocence by keeping them ignorant instead of giving them the knowledge and awareness to make them make responsible decisions that could protect them from sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies. To me it seems that Catholicism, Brazil's and Latin America's leading religion, prefers to keep it's followers pure of mind or in silence rather than knowledgeable and speaking of taboo subjects such as sex. And I've always found this to be a real concern for young boys and girls that are trapped in a world were they don't want to commit a sinful act, but naturally their biology is giving them inevitable sexual urges. With no official studies, interviews or detailed observations I do not feel qualified to comment on the way sexual education works here and what they do to prevent sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies. But what I've noticed is that Brazil's erotic lifestyle is stressed upon human instinct and affection towards the significant other seems to be a need rather than a want, whereas in my culture it is a slower procedure were you don't want to get close to the person until you know what his or her intentions are and the erotic lifestyle is based more upon the object of sex or a sort of reward rather than a need. This being said, Brazil is still one of the countries with the most HIV/AIDS recordings, but then again it has one of the strongest and most effective government prevention and treatment services due to the high recordings.

I still need to research all the aspects that surround the sexual education spectrum. I still need to figure out why it is that the percentage of sexually transmitted diseases are so high here; if it has to do with religion, low sexual education overall; including public and religious education, cultural customs and behaviors making them more instinctively sexual rather than being more cautious and aware of the dangers. Or then again, maybe I am jumping into conclusions... I've only been here more a month after all.

Outro dia no Brasil

For a gloomy, rainy day... today was a good day.

7:10 a.m. I am having a dream were I have a hunch something horrible is about to happen.

7:30 a.m. My alarm clock beeps.

7:45 a.m I am still in bed. Acknowledging that it will rain all day, my shoes are still wet from yesterday and that my bed is really warm is not the best way to motivate yourself and get up and go to a class you're not very interested in attending.

8:05 a.m. Eating bread with jelly... again and off I go.

8:30 a.m. Bus got here on time! But as I am waiting for it to make a complete stop, the driver decides to make an awkward maneuver to successfully get the puddle of water in front of me on my already wet shoes.

9:10 a.m I am late to class and I don't know why... the bus only takes 10 minutes to get to downtown and it's only a 10 minute walk from the bus stop to campus. I guess I am just one of those people that will never be able to witness what it feels to be on time.

9:20 a.m. I can barely open my eyes.

12:00 p.m. Class is over!

12:30 p.m. Booked my plane ticket to Rio de Janeiro for October. After this happened my day became another day. Birds started singing and stopped flying at 100 mph towards my face, a stray dog followed me all the way to campus and I named him Bobby and my ipod was playing pretty good songs on shuffle, oh and did I mention I am going to Rio?

1:00 p.m. I almost fell asleep at the couch at my program's office. I just find sleeping on the Brazilian flag very relaxing, but then I decided to do some homework and call my mom. Just talking to her for an hour made me feel homesick. I miss her food !

4:00 p.m. I got home and took a nap.

5:00 p.m. Dinner.

6:00 p.m. Took another nap. The weird thing is that I used to hate naps, but now I don't think I'll ever be able to go back to that obscure world with no nap time or 2 nap times.

7:00 p.m. Looking for cheap hostels for Rio. I am seriously considering staying at a surfer hostel located at the beach, sleeping on a hammock, and getting 15 dollar surf lessons for 21 dollars a night. Downside is that one review mention something about seeing a cockroach... other than that everyone else loved it. But I do hate cockroaches.

10:00 p.m. I don't know what I did in three hours, but I probably got way too into wasting time on the internet and talking to my roommate about stupid stuff.

10:15 p.m. Took a shower. And bragged about it to my roommate because my water was delicious and warm, on the other hand, she swears a tear came out when she got into the shower and encounter hot water for 30 seconds and by the time she grabbed the loofa there was nothing but ice cold water for the rest of the shower.

11:00 p.m. Writing to the people that follow my blog and are interested in my trip. I miss you all and thank you for reading.

School and juice

Estudando a lingua portuguesa

Drinking Juice, that's what I do best.

Where's Ana???

My family

My brother, Murilo

Good old Freddy

Family reunion

The lovely couple

Mom and Dad

My host mom.

This is my host mom, Marize, modeling for us before she goes off to her college reunion. She is the sweetest person I've ever met and has the sweetest voice in the world. And I am not just saying that because she bought tortillas for me.

The bread parade

When my host dad said, "I am going to the supermarket to buy bread." I never expected him to buy 10 bags worth of bread. And when I say 10 bags, I mean 10 bags with doughnuts, cakes, banana breads, loafs of bread and other types of bread. Once he got home the table had mountains of bread and all I could hear was: "eat more bread it's good, don't you like bread?" I of course, was polite and ate one of every type of bread... or at least most of them. I mean bread is good, especially when it has powdered sugar surrounding it.

Anyways, if there is one thing I've learned from Brazilians is that they love bread. And when I say love, I mean that there could very possibly be a secluded religion here in Brazil I don't know of that worships bread.

I wish I could've taken pictures of the bread parade happening at the table.

At Praia Mole, the best beach so far.

On my way to the beach, walking up the hill, everything is normal until this goat starts eating something an inch away from my foot. You have to love Latin America.

Why I love Brazil

For a few days now I've been trying to come up with reasons why I love this place so much. The first thing that came to mind was that it was the polar opposite of what I have at home, but that's not it because I love home and while it is very different when you're walking down the street and all you see are buildings painted in vivid colors and you find yourself dodging stray dogs, pigeons that fly at 100 mph heading towards your face and cars, you still feel very safe and Brazil managed to make me feel at home right away. And I don't know if it is because my host family treats me like I am part of the family, with my mom kissing me all the time calling me sweetheart and my brother coming down to chill in our living room to tell us about his day and why he decided to quit his job, but once again these people managed to make me feel at home right away.

The food is great! At first I hated it because all I eat here is bread and potatoes, but now that I found this great shack that sells the best natural juices I have ever tried for a dollar and eating all these starches is actually making me lose weight( don't ask me why, I figured that if I eat like a Brazilian maybe I'll get the chance to look like a Brazilian) I feel amazing. My hair and skin have never looked better and maybe it's paranoia but I think my butt is transforming into the Brazilian butt (a small version of it at least.)

I finally got my routine back, I go to school from Tuesday to Thursday just for a few hours and after it is either going hiking, beach or take advantage of the 4-5 day weekend and travel somewhere. Today, I have my portuguese class for the second time and after that I am either booking my flight to Rio de Janeiro on October or filling out an application to go teach english and spanish to middle school kids for two days to a city in Santa Catarina with all expenses paid.

Maybe I just love this place because I know it will be over soon, people always seem to want what they can't have or is bound to end.But for right now, all I know is that there is no other place I would rather be today, when I am 20 years old and one more year(and a half?) until I graduate. The only thing I can think of changing is having all my favorite people from back home to be here with me, especially the American boy that I miss more with every new day that comes.

Brazilian lifestyle

How can I explain life in Brazil? Some may say that it is a very laid-back lifestyle and while it is for me, as a foreign student or "gringa", Brazilians are very hard workers. I realized their dedication to work when I saw my "brothers" working 13 hour shifts or sometimes even 15 hour shifts, while at the same time their lifestyle is very relaxing once at home or off work. Who can blame them? Here in Florianopolis, they have over 40 beaches, countless hiking trails and so many other things to do to have fun, but when you are a foreign student like me, having all the time in the world to visit all of these places even on a tuesday after school.

Today, I had my anthropology class, 2 hours later I was free and experiencing a 72 degrees weather ready to head to the most beautiful beach. We got on the bus, an hour later we were walking up a hill to witness at the top the most beautiful view: blue water. This blue water thing is a big deal to me, my roommate and I have been asking everywhere and everyone where the blue and green water is, the water that they show in the postcards and google map pictures. People kept saying the north of the island, but we never found the blue water until today. It was amazing, except for the fact that the blue water almost digested Brendolyn, almost leaving me without a roomate, because the current was so strong she could barely get to the shore. But not me, I know my limits and I know that although I know how to swim, I usually just float and if I would've committed the mistake of going into the freezing water just to experience the "blue water" I would've probably died proudly at the beach in Brazil. But there is no time for dying when there's so much traveling to do. Although, for now the only thing left to do is finish writing this post enjoying my new addiction, suco de morango (REAL strawberry juice) and enjoy a nice hot shower because I still have sand in my hair from earlier today.

The roomies