Dia da Festa

17 de junho de 2012
Joinville, SC, Brasil

Portuguese Words of the Day
- Chapéu = hat
- Tesoura = Scissors
- Agulha = needle
- Toalha = towel
- Lixo = trash
- Tirar uma foto = to take a photo

On Friday night, we had a farewell get together for one of our friends that was leaving to study in France. A group of five of us (Christophe, Kevin, Othman, Leandro, and myself) went to Mango, a Mexican restaurant in the center of the city. There was a mariachi band there that sang all sorts of songs--from Juanes' La Camisa Negra to Michel Teló's Ai Se Eu Te Pego. Later, one of the members of the mariachi band came to talk to us, and he was from Mexico. I wish that I could have stayed longer, but I had to be up at 6:15 on Saturday morning to meet my co-worker Cris at 7:00 to prepare for Instituto Amar's Dia da Feijoada.

Feijoada

Feijoada is a typical dish consisting of beans and meat. When we arrived at the Institute, there were already a number of volunteers there cooking and setting up. Apparently Josmar, one of the employees of the Institute, stayed there last night. For the day, I was the official photographer, and I took hundreds of photos of the event. There are photos of the preparation, the interviews, the food, dancing, and legitimately everything else in between.



There are more photos from Feijoada on the Institute's Facebook page, found here.

Most of the team from Instituto Amar, plus Marco Tebaldi
and the Tebaldi's daughter

In taking photos, I was also able to walk around and talk to the attendees. It is always slightly intimidating to talk to people for the first time, and much more in a language you are just learning. But after four weeks in Brazil, my Portuguese has improved immensely. I kept on telling everybody that I spoke to that when I arrived in Brazil, the only phrases that I knew were "oi" and "obrigada," and they didn't really believe me and told me that "você fala muito bom português," which made me really happy. It's great how welcoming that Brazilian people are because in the U.S., if you speak with an accent, people look at you funny.

The event itself was supposed to last from 11h-14h, but nobody showed up until 12h, very typical of any party. When I left the Institute at 16h, there were still guests there. In attendance at the event were the president of Instituto Amar's husband, Marco Tebaldi, who was the former mayor, and is now running for mayor in the October election. I don't think I've ever taken that many photos in one day.

Ariane and Jussara Preparing Food for Festa Junina

After Feijoada, I walked across the street to Giovani, the vice-president of AIESEC Joinville's incoming exchange's, house for a general meeting of AIESEC and Festa Juninia. First, the meeting was to discuss and update everybody on AIESEC Joinville's progress over the past month. There are so many AIESEC traditions that I don't know about. Then, it moved to Festa Junina, the June Party. The June party is a party in June (or July) that (according to Wikipedia) celebrates the inactivity of Saint John the Baptist. To most other Brasilians, it means a party where you dress up in country plaid and eat and dance a lot.


During the party, there was a jail, "correiro," a caipira wedding, and Jeca awards. The jail was that you could arrest somebody for one real, and the money raised would be used towards starting an educational project. The idea of the mail was that you could send mail (anonymous or with your name to anybody there. The Jeca awards were the best dressed awards.

Food from Festa Junina