I made it!

Well, I made it to Brazil! I've been here for 5 days and everything is different. To begin, it's VERY hot and humid here. I was anticipating this, but it still comes as a shock to step into 95 degrees with 90% humid after living through a Midwest winter. There's no hot water anywhere in this country. With this climate you don't really need/want hot water, but still at 7am it's hard to step into a freezing shower. On the shower note, people here take a lot of showers. There's a huge shower culture here. You take a shower after everything you do: take the bus, go to the store, go to school, etc. Also, you don't put toilet paper in the toilet. This sounds easier to do and remember than it really is. Putting TP in the toilet is just what we as Americans are used to doing.

For the first few days we lived in what the group called the "Compound." It was this hotel/convention center outside the cit with an open courtyard, rooms with two beds, an outdoor eating area, a meeting room where we did our orientation, and a lagoon on the outskirts. It was freakin' beautiful! There were palm trees, flowers everywhere, beautiful tile mosaics, oh and a lot of pictures of Jesus and then the word 'hello' in Hebrew above where we ate (kinda funny). The orientation was really fun, and the people in my group are super awesome and chill. During the orientation we talked about cultural differences (there are a lot!) and things about being safe around town. Families are very unida (united/close) and people like to eat a lot! Also, during the orientation we had a few cultural experiences. One was on MPB (musica popular brasileira) and a band came and sang us some brazilian song. It was really fun. One of the girls on the program is a music major in college and plays the sax, and she played with the band at one point. They made us sing and learn how to dance 'forro.' I am really bad at dancing forro. It involved coordination, and I don't have that.

The food here is really good. People it a lot of rice, beans, and meat. Oh, the fruit is amazing too! For breakfast I eat papya, apples, bananas, mango, cake (kinda weird), and bread. Mostly the country runs on carbs. Also, it is really hard to not accept food. The parents here take it personally if we don't eat what they make us. Our Brazilian mommies think we're all too skinny and I'm pretty sure they've talked and are in an alliance to fatten all of us up. For dinner we eat rice, beans, and meat. I don't know what else people eat because I haven't eaten anything else!

I haven't been to the beach yet (yes, I also think this is a sin!), but we're going on a tour of the city on Saturday and the beach is on the schedule. On Monday we had what is known as a 'drop off.' Essentially, our program assistant took us to the largest bus terminal in the city and sent us in groups of three to different social justice organizations throughout the city. My group and I were sent to the outskirts of Fortaleza to a very poor neighborhood. We had to take 2 buses to get there and it took about an hour and a half.

There we learned about this organization Banco Palma which is a micro financing institutions for that community. In Conjunto Palmeira (the community) they use their own money called palmas. Banco Palma has a store where local things are bought and sold, an area where they make clothes to sell, classrooms for teaching responsible financing and to increase awareness about women's and children's rights, and offices to coordinate networking with other micro lending institutions throughout the world. It was a really cool place to go and learn about. Our tour was at times difficult because it was only in Portuguese, and it's exhausting to think in a different language all the time. Also, part of the experience was eating where our organization was located. We ate at this little shack, a lachonete, and I was only slightly scared with what I was eating. During lunch we looked like true Americans, gringas, But, we were successful, we didn't get lost, and we made it back only 2 hours late.

Moving on, I moved in with my family on Sunday. I live with my mom and my sister and my nephew. My mom, Cira, is an older woman (around 65), my sister, Monica, is almost 40, and my nephew, Erasmo, is 15. Across the street lives my other sister and she is 40 and she has a 18 year old daughter, I have a brother who lives near by and he has a 4 year old daughter. I have 2 other sisters and they come over every Sunday for Church and lunch. The family is very close and we eat dinner together (well, the ones that live close to us) almost every nights. They are very nice and hospitable. A bit more religious and conservative than I'm used to, but that's expected with the culture. To go to school we take 2 buses to get to school and that takes about 40 minutes. The buses here are crazy! They're extremely crowded and drivers don't really stop if you're not all the way on. You enter the bus from the back and get on in the front, and to get to the front you have to really push.

I started Portuguese class yesterday and that is going great. There are five of us in the advanced class and our professor is really smart and funny. We have port class for 3 hours each day, and it goes by surprisingly fast.

We haven't started out social justice seminar because the whole semester is getting changed. The community has requested the SIT participate in a social synergy project. This is actually a very big deal. The legislature is under the impression that we are students from the best colleges in the US, and they want our help negotiating social justice and development issues. The idea of social synergy is that organizations of all kind, multi-national corporations, NGOs, small businesses, social justice orgs, the gvernment, etc., are getting together to try to create new policies that will actually benefit the local community. The idea is that the government has failed, which the legislature realizes, and the community needs to take a more involved approach in creating policy. We will be working in groups of four, 2 students from SIT with 2 professionals from different orgs, and we will discuss our issue and then write an article for the legislature. For me this is really exciting because I have the opportunity to make an actual difference in a community instead of just theorize about change. (!!!!)

Alright, I have to go immerse myself in the city! I love and miss everyone!