It's Winter South of the Equator in Brazil: Só Falta Um Mês

Portuguese Words of the Day:
- Garfa = fork
- Sobremesa = dessert
- Senha = password
- Greve = strike
- Porta = door

Não posso acreditar que já passei mais de sete semanas aqui. Eu vou embora aos Estados Unidos o 12 de agosto. Então só falta um mês aqui no Brasil. Um sentido estranho.

It's best to live in the moment and keep on looking forward, but it's still important to look back to see where you've been. Therefore, this post will be to reflect on the past two months (54 days, to be exact) and how much I've learned since the 19th of May. And now, you have been warned: this is going to be a long reflective post. If you want something exciting, then wait about two weeks when I write about the Triple Frontier (on the Brazilian and Argentine side--I need a visa for Paraguay) and Rio de Janeiro.

When I came to Brasil, I was hoping to make a difference on the community, but I think people that I've met have changed me more than I've changed them. I recently read a blog entry that talks about "20 Things I Should Have Known in My Twenties," and advice number seven was: have as much contact as possible with older people. You will learn from the experiences that they have had. Here, I'm on the younger side. I would say most of the trainees and AIESEC students are between 22 and 25 years old. It's kind of funny that when people ask how old I am, they are expecting that I am 24 or something like that. I guess I'm flattered, but I digress. Let's begin:

Myself/Life
1) One very important life lesson that I've learned here is that it's impossible to do everything--that you should do what you can, and let the forces of life do the rest for you. I am currently planning a conference at GWU for the next year, and it's been difficult. The only thing that I can do from Brazil is send emails and ask for help. I really do believe that everything happens for a reason, so you should always make the best of each situation; and in the end, things usually turn out for the best.

To me, this screen shot is
absolutely hilarious.

2) The most memorable stories in life are your funniest and/or stupidest moments. Here in Joinville, there aren't that many main streets, so everybody takes the same streets day in and day out. The work days seem to blend together, and rain never seems to stop. Well, to be fair, it was about 24 degrees and sunny each day of last week. Only when we wanted to go to the beach did it start raining again...However, I will always remember the trip to Floriánopolis, which was a great bonding experience for the seven of us who went. I definitely will not forget the traumatizing experience on the Ônibus in Curitiba, when the bus driver hit a man, and then the man started kicking the bus. And one last story that is really funny now is Festa Junina. I guess with all of these stories, there's only meaning to those who were involved--no matter how long I try to re-tell the story to anybody, it won't have the same meaning as it does to me.

3) People, girls in particular, are the same everywhere you go. When we first were in Floripa, Ruhy and I were trying to figure out what to wear. We also went with Priscila, a Brazilian girl from São Paulo. At the time, we didn't know much Portuguese, and it was hard to communicate with her. But, it seems that all girls speak the language of clothes, make-up, etc--better known as "o idioma das meninas."

4) No matter how hard something appears to be, you will find a way to overcome it and feel great about it. This is especially prevalent in my work at Instituto Amar. When I first arrived in Brasil, I literally knew nothing about Portuguese and was completely unable to communicate with my co-workers without the help of Google Traductor. But now, I've made videos and documents in Portuguese and can joke about eating McDonald's for every meal when I'm back in the US.

Portuguese
My Portuguese has improved immensely. After seven weeks here, I can honestly say that my Portuguese is at least at the intermediate level. The only Portuguese that I knew when I came here was my friend Gordon randomly teaching me "olá," "obrigada," and "como vai." Now, as I was saying, I can have a conversation in Portuguese and do all of my work in Portuguese. It's one thing to learn a language in the classroom, but it's another thing to have to use it in everyday life (and learn it just to survive in general). When I am at work and at home, I only speak my version of Portuguese, which is good enough for people to understand me. With regards to writing, I've been writing my work in Portuguese and having people read it over before publishing it online. I've also been trying to write emails and chats in Portuguese. It's especially helpful when the people of AIESEC want to practice their English and you want to practice your Portuguese, and you can mutually correct each other's work.

It definitely helped that I've studied Spanish before. Instead of feeling like I've been dropped into an ocean and not knowing how to swim, I feel like I just jumped into the deep end of a pool and can doggy-paddle to shallow water. Spanish and Portuguese are so similar, and I get confused a lot of times. It's especially confusing when I'm on chat with the Spanish speakers trying to plan a trip and talking to another friend in Portuguese in another chat box. I guess I can say that languages are like different windows in my mind. It's like seeing the word "falar" on the Portuguese screen, and the word "hablar" on the Spanish screen. However, oftentimes, when I try to speak Language A, Language B comes out. This past week, this Spanish/Portuguese confusion is getting a little better.

I've definitely been soaking up Portuguese like a sponge, and I definitely want to continue to learn as much as I can in the next month. Well, actually, in the next three days. Ruhy and I are flying to Rio de Janeiro alone the day before Dani is, and I speak much more Portuguese than she does. She makes fun of my Chinese (??) accent, which, in my opinion and asking the Brazilian, is much better than "eu kero frengo," but I still have to translate and give directions for her. Então veremos.

Brazil
Brazil is a lot different than I imagined. When I first came here, I don't really know what I was expecting, but I definitely wasn't expecting the industrial town that Joinville, Santa Catarina is. It's fair to say that I thought that there would be more beaches, and as horrible as it sounds, more poverty. Most of my time in Joinville has been spent at work, the Garten Shopping center and universities, and at the center. On Thursdays, I go with the Institute to the poorest neighborhood in Joinville, Bairro Morro do Meio, to deliver food, but we only stay there for the morning.

Yesterday, I was able to go with Dilamar, the president of Instituto Amar, to other parts of town to deliver food and toys on behalf of "Amparo à Criança," another philanthropy in Joinville that Dilamar is part of. This was one of the first times in Brazil where I've spent time in the really poor neighborhoods and gone into the houses. At the bottom of this post are a few photos from yesterday's visit to o Bairro Paranaguamirim.

I have also learned that the Brazilian government is highly involved in all sorts of matters. It takes ages to get proper documentation, and you need a CPF, which is like a tax ID, to do a lot of things. When we tried to buy the bus ticket to Foz do Iguaçu, we needed to enter a CPF to create an account. In the end, I asked Dani to create an account. According to Rodrigo, there are also a good number of strikes (greves) here.

Other
I know there are a lot of other things that I have learned, but it's hard to list everything. So instead, I'll use this remaining space to list the plausible things that I have to do, but haven't planned, before leaving Brazil in a month:

- Visit São Francisco do Sul
- Visit Balneario Camboriú and its beaches
- Go to Joinville's Museu Sambaqui
- Go to the Bolshoi Dance Festival
- Take touristy pictures in front of "a Rua das Palmeiras"
- Actually make the run from home to Univille and back: according to Google Maps, it's 5.1km each way
- Go to Museu Nacional da Imigração e Colonização