Life Continues

Well, after six weeks living just beneath the equator I finally am getting a tan. This is hard work for me as my fair skin requires me to wear no less than SPF 55 without turning a nice deep shade of red, but alas I am succeeding. I continue to spend the majority of my days cooped up on the fourth floor of IBEU (the bi-national institute between the US and Brazil) learning Portuguese in the morning and in the afternoon discussing just what exactly is development and moreover how can development become sustainable? Many times our group discussion become repetitive and we are stumped by these questions. The world is a big, confusing place, but I won’t dwell on that now. But generally, the weekends are mine, and I prefer to take the long onibus ride to the beach, sit under a barraca, and gaze out over the ocean. Yes, I know, I am living a marvelous life.

Since my last post many things have happened in my life, other than me turning a nice bronzed shade…sorry I just can’t help myself with this fact. One, I was mugged. Now, no one get their panties in a twist, I am FINE. I was bit shaken up after the whole event, but now things are great again. I’m just a tad more paranoid and a little more jumpy when I walk on the street past 6pm and I don’t walk even a block alone anymore, but other than that my life is back to normal. I just think of the whole thing as something to add onto my list of life experiences.

Two weekends ago the group and I traipsed our way into the Interior of Brazil to visit an MST, Movimento Sem Terra, settlement. (A little insight into our four hour ride there and back: every time we go someplace we ride in an oversized van/almost bus, with the same bus crazy bus driver, and due to his love of American culture we watch MTV hip hop and R&B music videos from middle school and high school. It was fun reminiscing about this time in my life for the first few times of the music on repeat, but after this last trip I don’t need to hear any of this music for a very long time.) Continuing, MST is the Landless People’s Movement in Brazil that has been fighting for agrarian reform for the last 25 years. This was an incredibly learning opportunity for me because MST is considered the largest and most important social movement in Brazil. At this settlement we all had an eye opening experience as to what it truly means to be given nothing and have to fight for everything, absolutely everything.

The settlement we went to is called ‘Viente e Cinco do Maio’ (25th of May) and it is located in the interior of Brazil. The bus ride there was beautiful. At many points I felt as though I could be in any number of countries in Africa or Asia. There were sprawling low land hills, vegetation and trees everywhere, a few rock cliffs, small lakes with livestock and other animals watering, and a sky that continued forever. The sky reminded me of the sky from my childhood in the middle of summer in Montana: endless with big, puffy white clouds. Although, the closer we got to the settlement, the more desolate the landscape became: shriveled bushes, trees without leaves, and dry, dusty dirt everywhere. We were approaching the sertão. The sertão is a semi-arid region of Brazil, and there rain rules everything; it is the most sacred resource.

The leaders of the settlement had organized multiple forums to discuss their everyday life, the founding of the movement, how the companheiros (literally translated to companions) lobby the government to provide basic goods and services, and what it means to be a member of this movement. Agrarian reform is tricky subject anywhere, and here in Brazil it is a much more complicated issue that needs to be resolved. Mostly because the largest landholders (sometimes holding pieces of land the size of Holland and Belgium…) are also, guess what, the government representatives. Therefore, land redistribution is the last thing on the government’s ‘to do’ list; fancy that. The Brazilian Constitution has this great little article in it that essentially says (I will translate political talk here): all unused, unproductive land will be redistributed to people that need it, including the pieces of land the size of small, European countries.

Anyways, MST acquires territory by finding this unproductive land, camping out on it, and then entering into a very long, hard bureaucratic fight to gains rights to this land. This, of course, is a vey simple explanation of how this process works, and even I don’t completely understand all of it. However, once MST acquires land the struggle doesn’t end. The settlers have to continue navigating the bureaucratic loopholes for basic necessities: food (or an irrigation system so they can plant food in the sertão) education, loans to build house, and healthcare. The settlement we stayed in was the first one established in the state of Ceará 20 years ago. It was only this year, after 20 years of fighting mind you, that they received a school to educate their children. For the people that I talked to this school represents what they are most proud of. The settlers there aren’t asking for much, just human dignity; the ability to not only survive but to live a decent life.

On a lighter note, the settlement performed for our group one of the most famous Brazilian legends, Bumba Meu Boi. I read about this in my Portuguese class in the states and it was really cool to see this legend acted out. The story involves a bull, someone killing the bull, and the owner interrogating the town about this, beyond that I got lost in translation. It was a true Northeastern Brazilian experience. I will remember my time spent at MST probably for the rest of my life, as it was truly an enlightening experience that made me think about the world we are living in.

Last weekend was Easter, as I’m sure you guys remember, and here in Brazil Páscoa (Easter in Portuguese) is a very big deal. Pretty much the city of Fortaleza becomes a ghost town because the majority of families pack up their little Chevy Geo cars (the little hatchback, two-door car that most people have here) and head to the Interior. Before this little adventure I took last weekend with my family, I had a false understanding of what exactly the interior is. I was under the impression that the interior meant you know the interior of a country…no, because we went to the beach. All the interior refers to is an area that is not close to the capital city of the state. So essentially, the majority of Brazil is made up of the interior.

But moving on from the technicalities, I had a wonderful four-day break in the interior (let’s see how many times I can say that word in this post) with my family. My family owns a house there, and we spent our days lounging in hammocks, eating a lot of food, playing games (I taught them how to play Scrabble and gin rummy!), I read a great book (Middlesex, I highly recommend it), oh and I ate a lot. Eating is one of the main activities that everyone does here, and one of my daily struggles is to stop my mom or my sisters from refilling my plate with more food. The only phrase that stops my family from feeding me is when I say “Estou com Bucho Cheio.” This literally translates to ‘my gut is full’ and I think this is my favorite phrase now in Portuguese. I have been warned that this phrase is not at all elegant, and a beautiful girl such as myself should absolutely, under no circumstances, ever use this phrase in public. But, I do, because I think it’s funny and I love cracking myself up and don’t care what other people think about this.

Well, these are the new developments in my life as of late. I continue to look forward to the day when I can take a hot shower, eat something other than beans and rice, and eat any sort of thing that doesn’t have an overwhelming amount of sugar or salt in it. Other than these slight annoyances, I couldn’t be happier. Tchau and Beijos to all.