O Jeitinho Brasileiro

Farol da Barra

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 08:43:50 -0400

Fred "Fredgie"- Prof and tour guide

Farol da Barra

Photo

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 07:50:51 -0400

"Salvador is not only the location of the discovery of Brasil in 1500, but was also the first..."

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 07:31:00 -0400

“Salvador is not only the location of the discovery of Brasil in 1500, but was also the first established city, in 1549, when the King of Portugal wanted to strengthen his holdings here. Because of this Salvador has some of the most beautiful colonial architecture in Brasil, but also has a generally ancient infrastructure. In Bahia, toilet paper must be thrown in the trash can because the plumbing can’t handle papel higiênico. blegh.”

- Culture Corner with Gringinha Sarinha

Adorable type-written letter from my friend Liz arrived...

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 07:20:00 -0400

Adorable type-written letter from my friend Liz arrived yesterday reminding me of the pile of postcards I still have not sent…

Rebolation.(link)

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 07:08:00 -0400

Rebolation.(link)

Acordar.

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 06:57:00 -0400

Every morning at about 6:30 AM, I wake up to early light, music, the sound of men’s voices, and an occasional siren. The large sliding shutter window in my room faces the Police Station, and I am a stone’s throw from the men lining up and organizing for the days work. I can hear the engine of each policeman-bearing motorbike or car as it pulls up to parallel park below my bedroom. This is, of course, only true if the vehicle is not blaring “Rebolation,” in which case I hear the music get louder and louder; the men pause for a minute to steal a last few beats of Brazilian axé and then the song is abruptly cut short. There are two car door slams, and a greeting is yelled across the street announcing the new arrivals’ presence. Between the intermittent bursts of music and greetings and excited chatter of deep men’s voices, I can also hear the sound of singing tropical birds and the occasional kissing sound of the little monkeys that scamper across the power lines to cross from tree to tree.

By now I have adjusted to my routine, and I either rise to finish my homework for my 9AM classes, or will myself back to sleep until the alarm on my phone tells me at 8 that it’s time to join the living. Making the bed consists only of arranging my sheet and pillow neatly. There is no air conditioning in the home, and I am cooled at night only by the fan and the breeze. With any more than a sheet, I would awake drenched in sweat. After showering and getting dressed, I linger in my room wondering if mae is up. The clicking sound of the gas stove sparking in the kitchen tells me that she is.

Salvador has been unbelievable so far. I have 6 hours of classes each day with a two or three hour lunch break at 12 and field trips all over Bahia on Fridays-Sunday. I am kept so busy that I have not had time to digest anything that I’ve experienced ( or obviously to write about it). Being a part of this exchange program lets me do an all included see, eat, hear, touch, smell everything in Salvador trip, and living with the family let’s me practice Portuguese like I would never be able to touring the city any other way. However, the family is paid to provide me three meals a day and laundry, and complying with my family’s schedule definitely docks from the freedom I’ve enjoyed while living away from home the past three years. I’ve told my Mae that I don’t mind cooking my own breakfast so that she can sleep in. It feels strange having her wait on me, but she insists that I sit at the table while breakfast fruits, sandwiches, and eggs appear over my shoulder ready to be obliterated by my American appetite. Her insistence on cooking/serving means that I must time my entrance to the kitchen perfectly so that I don’t have to hover uncomfortably while she plays maid. The sound of the blender means she’s making the juice, and I can leave my room and head to the table. I notice Lua waiting by her bowl in the corner of the kitchen and feel a strange kinship with my perky eared friend.

My family and I (brother and his girlfriend not included)

Sat, 19 Jun 2010 21:10:00 -0400

My family and I (brother and his girlfriend not included)

View of neighbor’s garden.

Sat, 19 Jun 2010 20:51:23 -0400

View of neighbor’s garden.

View from dining/ living room.

Sat, 19 Jun 2010 20:37:13 -0400

View from dining/ living room.

Photos of my new home!

Wed, 26 May 2010 23:00:00 -0400

Photos of my new home!

We are family, I got my cachorro with me.

Tue, 25 May 2010 08:38:00 -0400

After meeting mom, we went upstairs and ate a delicious lunch provided by the hotel, and then I went to my room, packed my bag, and signed out at the front desk. My mom, Dora, called her niece to come pick us up. When we got to their home, Dora unlocked the gate and we entered the courtyard underneath their apartment complex and together we carried my luggage up the two flights of stairs to minha nova morada.

I entered behind Mae and met dad sitting at the kitchen table eating lunch and watching futebol. He gave me kisses and then we talked a bit before I rolled my bag to my new bedroom and began to unpack. The apartment has three bedrooms, one for me, one for Yuri (my brother), and one for mom and dad. My room is cute and sunny and has two dark wooden twin beds and a huge window open day and night. The house doesn’t have air conditioning to my knowledge. The windows are open all the time. Immediately upon arriving, Mom changed out of her fancy get up into jean cut offs and havianas. Dad is always in a tank top and Yuri constantly shirtless. I understood immediately that this would be a quasi-sweaty existence these next few weeks.

I was still packing when Mae called me to meet my new brother, Yuri (ee-ur-ie), in the next room. I entered Yuri’s room surprised to meet him for the first time in bed shirtless, and to also simultaneously meet his girlfriend, Fernanda. I practically had to climb in, in order to meet and give kisses.

I returned to packing and when I finally finished and entered the living room, I was surprised to meet the entire extended family as well. Everyone was buzzing and excited. I got out my computer and showed them pictures of my American family and talked for hours with my aunt, uncle, grandmother, great aunt, and new mom and dad.

After they left Mom, Dad, and I walked down to Porta da Barra, along the shore to the Farol, and then back to the house through interior streets. It was a beautiful night for a walk along the beach, which I probably ruined with my incessant talking. Someone pushed the Portuguese on button, and I haven’t shut up since. On the way back to the house, we picked up fresh bread at the bakery. OPA!

I have the world’s cutest dog named Lua, for the moon. She was chewing on my feet with her uncomfortably sharp puppy teeth as I read an email from my mom in the next room. She wrote me before she fell asleep to tell me how happy she was to have me as her new daughter. Estou muito contente aqui no Brasil.

Dias, e Noites, e Farols. Oh Mae.

Mon, 24 May 2010 22:00:00 -0400

I woke up on Sunday morning way too early, dressed in my athletic clothes, and went on my first run in Salvador. I ran down avenida sete toward Porta da Barra. It was drizzling a bit, but alas it’s rainy season in Brazil, and if every time it rains I forgo exercise I will be one fine gordinha when I return to the states. So, I began my short run toward the beach in the company of two other students from Texas. We ran only to the base of ladeira (hill) barra protected from the rain drops most of the way down by the giant shading rainforest trees lining the Salvadorian cobblestone sidewalks. On the way back up the hill, it began to pour and by the time we returned to Hotel Sol Vitoria Marina, we were all three drenched.

It was exhilarating.

After a quick squeegee dry on the door step outside of the previously pristine hotel, we sludged across the lobby toward the back patio and ate a delicious breakfast without changing. The expressions on the faces of as brasileiras ricas enjoying breakfast at nearby tables made clear their disdain for our fashion choices at the muito chic –ie breakfast buffet.

After hosing off in my room and donning new clothes, I joined the other students in a meeting room for orientation. We received the worlds longest lecture about avoiding drugs, excessive amounts of alcohol and unprotected sex that I’ve been subjected to since DARE in 5^th grade, and then finalmente, we were each given half of a post card and encouraged to run down stairs to find our mothers who had the other half of our incomplete cards.

My post card was half of the Farol da Barra, the famous light house and marker of the site of the first discovery of Brasil, in the neighborhood, Barra, which I soon learned is where I would be living. I immediately found the woman with the other half of the Farol, we matched our cards and she said in English “I think… eh… that .. you are mine” we smiled big goofy smiles at each other and embraced and exchanged two big Brazilian-hello-cheek-kisses. “Mae!!!!” As I struggled for more words in Portuguese, I looked down at the now complete post card in my hand only to realize that on one side of the light house, it was night, and on the other, it was day.

I turned instead to see my real mae, hovering near by clutching her half of day time farol da barra in her freshly manicured Brasil-mom fingers. Again I embraced and exchanged brazilian-hello-cheek-kisses and exclaimed happily “Mae!!!”, while my old-new-mother tottered off to find her new-new-american daughter with a nighttime light house post card.

"Brazilians use liquid deodorant, usually in spray cans."

Sun, 23 May 2010 00:01:00 -0400

“Brazilians use liquid deodorant, usually in spray cans.”

- Culture Corner with Gringinha Sarinha

O Shopping

Sun, 23 May 2010 00:00:00 -0400

On my second day in Brasil, I woke up and enjoyed breakfast from the hotel. I tried to communicate with Clara, the head of the program in Brasil, and with, TAM, the airline that had my baggage.

The Texas group was trickling in as the Illinois group was meeting host moms. I met a few of the Texas boys at the front desk, Leo, Pablo, and Pedro, and we walked down to the closest luncheonette for some eats. I bought brazilian deodorant, as my confidence that I would receive my baggage from TAM had not increased.

When we returned, I received word that my luggage had in fact arrived. I caught a cab and took an hour taxi ride back to the airport chatting up the driver to the best of my ability on the way there. I took the taxi drivers number, and went in for my bag.

Meu Deus. Talking my way through the airport as a gringa solzinha was difficult. I had been told on the phone that my bag would be at arrivals, but it wasn’t. After 20 minutes of airport hiking, pantomiming, and portuguesing, I was reunited with my luggage on a different floor at departures. Obrigada Lanie (my first Portuguese professor), for teaching us airport vocabulary.

I called the same cabbie and we chitter-chattered our way back to Vitoria, where the hotel and ACBEU, my school are located. I rounded up the boys again and we taxied to the pelourinho. The pelourinho is the oldest part of the city. It is block after block of old buildings, museums, and historical landmarks. It is also the location of many a trendy bar, street vendors, tourist shops, and at night live music. We went during the day, hoping to get some gifts for our host families, and as soon as we got there it began to rain. We hurried through the cobblestone streets and back to the cab circle, where we caught a taxi to shopping Barra, the biggest mall in Salvador.

Eh, seen one mall, seen em all. This one was just in Brazil. CC and Holly, you will squirm to know that my male company and I did not in anyway take advantage of the three story mall. Instead went to one or two stores, perused the book shop, and then, bored, left via taxi to the nearest liquor store. We bought our new parents over priced American imported alcohol, and then called it a day.

That evening we went for cervejas and caipirinhas on the back patio overlooking the water. Here we made a pact to begin speaking only in Portuguese come morning.

I went to sleep content and full of açucar, cachaça, e limón.

"Don’t touch your food with your hands. ever. Brazilians will think you are gross and..."

Sat, 22 May 2010 00:10:00 -0400

“

Don’t touch your food with your hands. ever.
Brazilians will think you are gross and won’t want your cooties.

Instead, use a fork and knife with things like pizza, fruit, etc. and wrap a napkin around sandwiches and appetizers while eating them.

”

- Culture Corner with Gringinha Sarinha

My first sunset in Brazil.

Sat, 22 May 2010 00:04:00 -0400

My first sunset in Brazil.

cable car down from hotel to the bar on the water with Luciano,...

Sat, 22 May 2010 00:03:00 -0400

cable car down from hotel to the bar on the water with Luciano, Bahian professor at Illinois

Hotel room and view. Opa!

Sat, 22 May 2010 00:02:00 -0400

Hotel room and view. Opa!

Making our final descent.Yeah, that’s right, after they...

Sat, 22 May 2010 00:01:00 -0400

Making our final descent.
Yeah, that’s right, after they told me to turn off my electronic devices:

What up TAM, that’s what you get for the baggage mix-up.

The Brazilian Way

Sat, 22 May 2010 00:00:00 -0400

The first time I encountered the Brazilian expression “O jeitinho”, the Brazilian way, I was already en route to Bahia. On both of the previous legs of my trip, I was asleep before take off (a result of four days of late night goodbyes with Kingwood friends and last minute packing), but on the last hop from Rio to Salvador, I cracked open the extensive notes-packet about Brazilian history and culture, and as I read, was rewarded for my abuse of the UT ASE computer lab’s printers .

“The Brazilian term jeitinho describes the Brazilian talent of making do in difficult circumstances.“

I selected the red barrel on my multi-color clicky pen, an artifact from the days of sharing an apartment with random-roommate-Brittany, and circled this quotation. It was printed in a section about lifestyle and housing and was referring to Brazilian ingenuity at repairing household problems, but I liked the quote and thought it a brilliant way to approach the next six weeks in Bahia.

———

Immediately off the plane in Salvador, I was given an opportunity to practice both my Portuguese and my newly adopted philosophy of jeitinho; after about 15 minutes of watching the same luggage circle the conveyer belt, I asked the attendant. “Disculpe, mas eu não pode encontrar meu equipaje.” Translated: “Sorry, but I am not able to encounter my word-that-means-luggage-in-spanish-but-not-in-portuguese.”

After learning that my baggage had not made it out of Rio, I filled out the appropriate forms, and was told my bag would be on the next flight and that I should return the next day to retrieve it.

Though my first night in Salvador was one without clean clothes after two days of traveling, it was an amazing introduction to a beautiful city. Because I was one day early to the program, I spent the first day with a group of 9 students from Illinois and their professor Luciano. We ate a wonderful buffet style dinner of Brazilian delicacies for which I don’t have the patience to look up spellings at the moment, and then walked down avenida sete and then along the beach on a clear and beautiful breezy Bahian night.

Luciano spoke to us a bit about Brazilian culture and demonstrated some simple Capoeira with another student Elsie. Capoeira is an ancient dance/martial art influenced by African traditions and invented by Brazilian slaves. Luciano showed us that by tapping the back of Elsie’s knee with his free foot she would be forced to fall. He told us that Capoeira is about once knowing you will fall, learning how to fall and how to recover. That, he said, is jeitinho, the brazilian way.