An Inconvenient Truth: Exchange Student Edition

After my last blog-posting binge, I skyped with my dad who told me, "You know, Monie, they don't all have to be upbeat." So, with his blessing, I'm going to tell you the complete and totally sucky truth about some parts of youth exchange.
WARNING: If you like to worry, skip over this post.

If I had a pão de queijo for every time I hear how great an experience youth exchange is, I would have hit the obesity mark long ago. And you know what? Usually I'm the one who is saying it. This is a fantastic opportunity that an unfortunately few number of people get to experience. I am completely grateful for everything I have learned here and for what Rotary has done for me. I have come so far and grown so much in such a short amount of time, and that is something I value beyond comprehension, but I would be lying in the extreeeeeeme if I said it was easy.
There is nothing –and i really mean nothing– easy about being an exchange student. Well, actually, now that I think about it, it is really, sublimely simple to give up. To just stop trying. That's super easy. But honestly, some days that IS what you do. Sometimes I get so frustrated that i just don't want to hear Portuguese. I don't want to think in Portuguese. I don't want to talk in Portuguese. I don't want any more red meat and I would really like some air conditioning. Somedays you get so completely exhausted that all you want to do is sleep. You don't have the energy to socialize, to think, to even try. Some days, you get stuck in the "I'm crazy! Why did I do this?!" mindset. Am I guilty of this? Of course, just like I'm sure most exchange students are.
I've had days there I just try to be invisible. I've even hit a low and spent a day of school writing a 5 page long list of complaints and things I miss from home. This isn't to say I don't like it here, it's just that some days everything looks grey and miserable, no matter the country you're in.
Quite frankly, homesickness sucks. It really bites. And there's nothing you can do about it. The only thing you can do is keep living in your foreign land, and that is the only thing that is going to help you get out of your slump. You can either buck up, or go home, because if you don't move forward, you will be miserable. GUARANTEED You want to rely on the little comforts of home as a crutch, but you simply can't. I remember when our maid, Maria, finally washed all of the clothes I had brought with me, and they came back smelling like a new laundry detergent, I wanted to cry. You're unaware of the weight of little things like the smell of fresh laundry, a favorite couch, or whole wheat bread until you have to go completely without them. The problem isn't living without them, but dwelling on their absence. If you try and match everything in your new life to your old life back in your home country, you're exchange is not going to be successful. And that is the most painful part. That you are American (or French, or German, or Japanese, or whatever you are) but you can't live like you're used to. You have to live like a Brazilian now (or Mexican, or Pole, or Argentinian, or whichever applies to you). It's really scary and really difficult when you're the one who has to adapt, but it's even more difficult to try and make everyone else adapt to you. The only thing that you can do is take Dory's advice and just keep swimming (just keep swimming, swimming, swimming!).
For anyone who is considering becoming an exchange student; don't let this post stop you. Living away is so incredibly hard, but just realizing this alone is so rewarding. The ups are really high, and the downs are really low, but overall I would say: Se voce tem a chance para fazer intercambio, FAÇA! Porque é uma coisa que permite-te creser e descobrir mais do que voce nunca pode imaginar e é totalmente imposivel para explicar.

Wait, what would she say?

Simone Wears an Itsy-Bitsy, Tiny-Winy, Red, Brazilian, TINY, MINISCULE, PRACTICALLY INVISIBLE Polka Dot Biquini!

A few weeks ago I realized that I had been in Brazil for three months and still owned neither Havaianas nor a Brazilian bikini. It sounds materialistic and sad, but this realization actually made me feel like I was missing out on a part of Brazil. So soon after I went out shopping and bought my first Brazilian bathing suit and flipflops! I was actually really excited to get my first Havaianas, although I am a little disappointed that they don't glow in the dark.... For those of you who can't tell from the photos, they are black and white striped sandals with little characters that look like a mix between skulls and polar bears with little hearts for noses. They are all wearing crowns or head phones in florescent pink, blue, or orange, and are surrounded by little rain clouds and ice cream cones. Random? Yes. Awesome? Don't you know it.
Getting a bathing suit was actually a pretty cool experience. My host mom recommended that I go to a woman named Adelaide who makes bikinis for tons of women in Mineiros right in her house. I dragged Rebecca there and we both sat down and tore through the piles of already made bikinis looking for the styles that we wanted. I tried on probably 12 different bikinis before settling on a pattern. After that, Adelaide fit me and let me choose the fabrics I wanted. Ironically, my first Brazilian bikini ended up being red, white, and blue...
The reason I postponed publishing this post is because I wanted to wait until my bikini was done being made to show all my thousands and thousands of readers exactly what the difference between an American bikini and a Brazilian "biquini" is. Please keep in mind that when I went shopping in the U.S. for a bathing suit, I bought one of the smallest suits I could find. Also remember that this is a normal biquini in Brazil, not even the smallest style available.

Yes. They really are that small.

Tradição do Rotary International Intercambio dos Jovens

So I'm just getting back into the swing of this whole "blogging" thing again. So today I think I'll just write up a short little post before I go to the gym (which is amazing, and I HAVE to write a blog post about, maybe even later tonight...?), play some volleyball, and practice guitar. The typical Wednesday night. Anyway, I thought I would write about a very important RYE (Rotary Youth Exchange) tradition, and that is.....THE BLAZER! I'm not sure why we do it, other than the fact that it makes us easily spot-able in airports, but if you are a RYE student, it is an absolute requirement. Your blazer, which are navy blue from the U.S. and most other countries, but red from Canada, green from Australia and South Africa, and bright royal blue from France, is like a scrapbook of your exchange. Every exchange student has pins to represent their club, country, city, or flag. They are used to trade with other students, thus resulting in the acquirement of tons upon tons of pins from every corner of the world. Some RYE's make their own pins, other's buy them, and for some their clubs provide them. Mine are from my club, featuring pictures of Frank Lloyd Wright and Ernest Hemingway, and also handmade (shined pennies hot glued to pin backings). But pins aren't the only things you are allowed to put on your jacket. You can honestly put whatever you want on it. I've seen wigs, transit cards, plane tickets, bracelets, flags, candy wrappers and Happy Meal toys. I myself happen to have ceramic dutch shoes and a mini sombrero pinned on. The only idea is to FILL UP YOUR JACKET! Mine right now is completely barren. I seriously need to pin some more things on. Thank god we are expected to wear them in the airports, because by the end of your exchange (if you've done it right!) they should take up a pretty big percentage of your baggage weight limit.

ME DESCULPA!!!! I know I haven't written since September, but when you read this you'll know why!

I've been BUSY!! Nossa, every day I have more and more things to do! I'm so far behind in all of my American duties. Not looking at colleges, not writing to Rotary (uh oh....), not doing SAT practice tests, not uploading photos, and not blogging!! But at least I can say that I've been busy with awesome, South American experiences, and now that I have some down time, I plan on sharing them with all of you! I realize you’re probably all a little busy and might not have time to read all of the posts I just published, so feel free to take your pick. There are new posts on my trip to the south of Brazil and Paraguay, Foz de Iguaçu, camping trip on Rio Araguaia, and musica sertaneja.

And for all of you visual people, here are the public links to my Brazil albums on Facebook!

September

August

Please give me any and all feedback you have!

Hope you all enjoy! I promise to start maintaining this blog again!

Chora, Me liga, Implora...SERTANEJO UNVERSITARIO!

So people don’t seem to realize that Brazil isn’t entirely beaches and palm trees. Only a very small portion of the country is beach, most of it is interior, which happens to be where I am! My region is the farming region of Brazil. Mineiros itself IS a farm town. We have tractors and horses walk down the streets and most of the fresh food I eat was grown within a two hour radius of my house. That being said, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to you that we have our own little version of country music aka SERTANEJO! (ser-tah-ney-joh). It is played everywhere, at all hours of the day, at all volumes. When a new sertanejo song comes out it can be compared to a new song like “Airplanes” or “Love the Way You Lie” where everyone has heard it before, most know the artist, and the vast majority of people enjoy it, but may not necessarily want to admit it. It’s very popular to have sertanejo shows at parties and town celebrations where they play covers of all the top ten country songs in Brazil and sometimes mix in a few country style covers of Kings of Leon or the Black Eyed Peas. Pretty much, I’m in love with it. And no, I don’t feel ashamed for loving the Top Twenty Country in Brazil. Part of the experience, right? ;)

So for all of you who feel like becoming a little more international in your music taste, here are some seriously addicting sertanejo songs for you:

Sem Esse Coração (Translation: Without This Heart) – João Bosco & Vinícius

Amo Noite e Dia (I Love Day and Night) – Jorge & Mateus

Meteoro (Meteor) – Luan Santana

Curtição – João Bosco & Vinícius

Chora, Me Liga (Cry, Call Me) – João Bosco & Vinícius

(As you may have noticed, I really love João Bosco & Vinícius…)

Rio Araguaia Com Rotary!

Meu internet esta demorando demais, entao se voce quiser ver fotos, voces precisam procurar no Facebook!.... My internet is taking forever, if you want to see photos that go with this post, you'll all have to look on Facebook! Just click the link to the "August" album!

I’ve been meaning to write about this for FOREVER!

On the weekend of August 28^th (yeah, that long ago) Rebecca (the German exchange student), my host parents, and I packed up our green pick up truck with camping gear, fishing poles, and Brahma and headed off for a 4-day Rotary weekend on Rio Araguaia. Now since we live in the interior of Brazil, a weekend at the river is our version of a weekend at the beach house. To get there we had to drive 3 hours on dirt roads and over little wooden bridges…in the dark. Not an easily forgettable experience, I must say. We pulled over in the middle of the drive to eat dinner and sat eating grilled chicken. Mostly though, Becca and I just sat there with our mouths wide open because you could see the ENTIRE Milky Way. Pretty darn cool.

After three hours of a drive that my ass won’t easily forget, we arrived to Rio Aruguaia where my host brother, Lauro, had already set our tents. We drank some coffee, ate some rice and beans (shocker!) and went to bed where Becca and I FROZE.

My schedule for the next few days consisted of swimming in the river, playing volleyball an cards, and hanging out on the giant rock islands with Lauro, Becca, two kids from Interact, and Matteus, the most hilarious/perverted 12 year-old I have ever met. Lauro taught me to play a addictive Brazilian card game called Truco (troo-coo) which has quickly become my card game of choice. Lauro and I played as a team and took on other teams of very drunk Rotarians, many of whom grabbed a beer when they arrived and didn’t stop drinking until they got home. This led to a quite a few particularly memorable conversations with Rotarians and a celebration on the last night that neither Becca, Lauro, or I understood, but included silver wigs, feather boas, doing the limbo, Michael Jackson music, and capes.

Because I know my dad is wondering about the scenery right now, I’ll tell you all about it. The river was gorgeous, just like all of Brazil. The riverbank was filled with all these expansive rock formations spotted with gaping holes filled with tropical water plants. In between the rocks were little hidden white sand beaches where we swam. There were palm trees all along the river and flowers and butterflies growing in every spot available. Some of the rocks formed a little island in the river that you could climb to. There there were big sandbars in between the rocks where Becca and I taught the Brazilians how to play Monkey in the Middle. From the rocks we could hike along the river bed to places where we could jump and flip into the river.

It’s kind of sad that it’s taken me this long to write this post, considering it’s about happened two months ago, but it was just too great of a weekend to ignore.

Gone South for the Winter....PART TWO (Part One Below)

For those of you who ignored the title, I’ll say it again: READ THE POST BELOW FIRST! OTHERWISE YOU WILL BE CONFUSED!

But of course, Paraguay had to come to an end. So three hours and two Christmas presents later, the three of us crossed the bridge again (this time in a taxi, thank god!) with our giant shopping bags and waited through customs to get back into Brazil. Once we were there, our whole reunited party got back into the car and drove two hours to get to Cataracts National Park, home of the biggest waterfall in South America : Foz de Iguaçu. We payed the entrance fee and got onto a double-decker bus that would take us the 5 kilometers to the trail to the waterfalls.

You know the phrase “half the fun is getting there?” that was especially true in the case of the Foz. The trail that leads to the viewing decks is 1km long and full of b-e-a-uitiful scenery. Becca and I took a special interest in the hundreds of beautiful flowers and extremely friendly butterflies that are perfectly willing to sit on your finger for as long as you want while you take photos. They were absolutely gorgeous and came in vibrant purples, blues, and canary yellow. They weren’t scared of people at all and dart around you non stop, sometimes landing on your shoulder or on top of your head. The path was built against a cliff that was over grown with wildlife, but left patches open so you could view the waterfalls as you descend into the valley. The first thing you notice is the sound. Then you see the first waterfall. It is, of course, beautiful and huge. You take tons of photos because it is so gorgeous and amazing. Then you walk another minute or two and see a new waterfall and the cycle repeats. This goes on the whole trail until you get to what’s called “A Garganta de Diablo” or “Devil’s Throat.” It’s essentially a crescent-shaped, two-tier waterfall that funnels the water into one pounding river at the very bottom of a giant valley that divides Brazil and Argentina. It was so beautiful, so loud, and wet! The sad thing is, we came during the dry season! The photos pictured here are the ones I took, and my host dad told me that is about 1/10^th of the normal amount of water, and that usually if you stand where Becca and I stood, you would be soaked from head to toe from the mist.

All together it was an incredibly busy day completely stuffed with awwwwwesome experiences.

Gone South for the Winter....PART ONE

One of the greatest things about being an exchange student is that everyone in your host country wants to show you just how AWESOME their country is. Because of this lovely little truth, Rebecca (the other exchange student in my town from Germany) and I got very generously invited to go visit the south of Brazil with one of my future host families, Valdete (host mom, pronounced Val-detch) and Alemão (Host dad, pronounced Al-ay-mow. This isn’t his real name, just a nickname. It’s the Portuguese word meaning German.). My host dad, who’s real name is Horatio, has family in Paraná, a southern state in Brazil very near to the border of Argentina and Paraguay. He thought it would be a good chance for Rebecca and I to see a different part of the country and culture, so one Thursday a while back, we packed up Valdete’s car at 6am and drove the 12 hours to Paraná. We stayed in Alemão’s sister’s house, along with the family of Alemão’s nephew. Alemão’s other nephew, other sister, and mom all lived near by as well, so the house was continuously full of family. Both nephews had children as well, all under the age of 7. Needless to say, it was a very loud weekend. I ended up playing a lot with 6 year old Ana Júlia and her cousin. They were both endlessly full of energy and I only understood half of what they said, but they both seemed to like the fact that I was willing to play with toy trucks. By the end of the trip Ana Júlia had drawn me 3 pictures and her cousin confided in me that he wanted to play soccer for a team called Inter when he grew up, so I think I made friends. Alemão’s nephews and their wives were fantastic people. They were all absolutely hilarious and endlessly curious about Germany and the USA. Talking with them made me realize just how far my Portuguese has come. I think that I must be getting pretty good if I can explain our social security system to a bunch of people in a foreign language. The one thing that threw me and Becca was the fact that it was COLD and RAINED, very, very unlike what we were used to in Mineiros! It rained the entire time we were there and since the houses are built very open to the outside and without heat, Becca and I were damp and cold for most of the trip.

That’s ok though, because the second day of our trip we got in the car at 6 in the morning again, and drove off to the Brazilian/Paraguayan border. Once we got to the border we realized that Becca hadn’t brought the right papers, and would not be able to cross the border, so her and Valdete stayed in Brazil while Alemão, his sister (who will be called “Sally” because I never learned her name), and I crossed and extremely crowded, high, and extremely frightening bridge over into Paraguay. This bridge had sidewalks the same size as the one’s in Oak Park, but about 10 times the number of people on it. There was a lot of pushing and shoving and knocking into people’s shopping bags, which got a little scary considering how low the barrier was and how the walk way was almost 100 feet above the giant river below.

I had no idea what we would be doing in Paraguy at first, but soon discovered it was my favorite type—a shopping trip! Paraguay has no industry of its own, but it does import all the cool/chic American, French, and German things Brazilians want and at a price much cheaper than in Brazil. My little party of three only went probably a ½ mile into Paraguay, but it was so different from what I had seen in Brazil. The streets were so packed that cars moved far slower than the people walking around them. The streets were used like sidewalks because venders had set up giant stands there. Each stand had tarps draped from the top and attached to the closest building, creating a tent effect that covered the sidewalks for blocks, stopping only at intersections. Walking through the streets was like having all your senses messed around with. You start in the street, which is crowded with cars, people, trash, and puddles. It’s ridiculously hot from the sun and all the miniature grill stands selling “espatinhos” of sausage, chicken, or various fried foods. There is an overwhelming scent of car exhaust combined with hot oil, and all time you have to keep your eyes open for motorcycle taxis that weave haphazard through the cars, stands, and people. You take one step from the street to the sidewalk and suddenly it’s ten times darker and just as crowded. There are stands crammed into every space available selling jewelry, watches, suitcases, real and knock off brand name clothing and shoes, soccer paraphernalia, electrified bug rackets, pirated movies, and crappy children’s toys. Every so often the stands drop off to reveal stairs leading up into imported perfume and electronics stores or down into giant bargain basements almost the equivalent of a Paraguayan Cost-Co, only much more crowded. Everywhere there are people bargaining in Spanish and Portuguese or whistling for motor-taxis and of course a never-ending stream of sales boys trying to convince you to come to THEIR imports store. I swear, if I heard one more person say “Moça! Ven aca! Ven aca!” to me I would have gone insane. It was so completely overwhelming, but absolutely amazing. It felt almost like I was in some sort of movie, doing some stealth mission in a South American market. LOVED IT!!

Things Brazilians Like: Part Two

26. Starting parties at 12 and letting them go until noon the next day.

27. Neon colors in general.

28. Lemon pound cake, but instead of lemon…..pineapple.

29. Drinking “terere.” (Terere [ter-ray-ray], also called maté, tastes like green tea. The way you drink it is by filling a glass cup with special loose leaf tea, then pouring either cold fruit juice or water over the leaves and drinking it with a special metal straw that filters out the tea leaves.)

30. JUSTIN BEIBER, this whole country has Beiber Fever.

31. Nike Shox.

32. Reggae music.

33. MSN messanger

34. Orkut (or-kootch) the Google social network site.

35. Posing for photos. No one takes candid pictures.

36. Wagging their fingers while saying “tsktsktsk.”

37. Using photos of themselves as the background of their phones, that way you always know whose phone is whose.

38. Bumper stickers that say “Jesus Cristo é o Senhor” (I have to keep from laughing every time I see this because it directly translates to “Jesus Christ is the Man” and makes me think of School of Rock. I don’t think Jesus would ruin the ozone, burn the Amazon, or kidnap Shamu and put her in a chlorine tank….)

39. Salt.

Your Very Own Portuguese Phrasebook!!

1.My name is _______.

Meu nome é ______. (Meh-o noh-me ehh)

2. I’m from the United States.

Eu sou dos Estados Unidos. (Ay-you soh doos Es-ta-doos Oo-nee-doos)

3. Sorry, no I don’t like Justin Beiber. (Very Useful)

Desculpa, eu não gusto de Justin Beiber. (Geh-skool-pa, ay-you now go-sta gee Justin Beeber)

4. Corintians are awful! I root/cheer for Sao Paulo [ or if you want Flamengos].

Corintians sao ruin! Eu torço por Sao Paulo [ Flamengos]. (Coor-in-chee-ins sow hween! Ay-you tor-soo poor Sow Pow-loo [Flah-meing-goos])

5. Watch out, he’s a player. ( Also Very Useful)

Cuidado, ele é um safadinho. (Quee-dah-doo, el-ee eh oom sah-fah-geen-you)

6. Damn!/Holy crap!/ Oh my gosh!

Nossa, [gente]! (Noh-sa [jen-tchee]!)

7. Make me a sandwich!*

Me faça um sanduíche! (Meh fa-sa oom sahnd-wee-she!)

8. Where’s my sandwich?!*

Onde tá o meu sanduíche!? (Own-gee sta oo meh-oo sahnd-wee-she?!)

* After hearing the phrase “B*tch, make me a sandwich,” my host brother Lauro thought it was hilarious and took great pleasure in telling me to make him a sandwich every time I would walk into the kitchen.

Portuguese 101, Yo!

It’s not a lie that Portuguese is very similar to Spanish, but where people go wrong is thinking Portuguese is Spanish with a weird accent and different verb endings. Portuguese is completely its own language and is, in my humble opinion, a lot harder than Spanish. Maybe it’s because I’ve grown up with Spanish being spoken everywhere from the grocery store to Sesame Street, or maybe it’s because I’ve never been fully “immersed” in Spanish, but either way Portuguese is hard! I can roll my R’s and even attempt the accent from Spain where all the S’s turn to TH sounds, but in Portuguese there are some sounds that, to me, are MUTIO DEFICIL!

When speaking Portuguese, instead of the –ion ending in English and the –ción ending in Spanish, you use –ção (ssow). This is extremely difficult for me to do because when speaking you somehow miraculously use the back of your throat and nasal passage simultaneously. This is an extremely vital sound as well, because much unlike Spanish, Portuguese is a tonal language. Stressing the wrong sil-la-ble can completely change the meaning of a word. It’s the difference between grandma and grandpa, past and present verbs, and bread and a rather vulgar slang word.

Portuguese is also read much differently than Spanish. In Portuguese many letters make completely different sounds than in English. For example the word “radio” (I think you can guess what it means) is pronounced “ha-geeoo,” my name is said “See-mohwwn-ee,” and “differente” (different) is “gee-ferh-ench.”

Brazilians also use three different verbs to express to be. “Ser” expresses things that are permanent and “estar” and “ficar” (which literally means “to stay”) express the impermanent. As far as I can tell, the difference between these two verbs is like the difference between “good” and “well” and is something that’s difficult to explain, but easy to mess up.

However, in exchange for the impossible (well not IMPOSSIBLE) pronunciation and 3 forms of “to be,” Brazilians made the verb endings nice and simple. Unlike the 5 or 6 you need in Spanish, I only really have to be familiar with three verb endings to communicate in present tense Portuguese. Brazilians use the word “eu” (ayy-you) to say me/I, “você” (voh-say) to say you, ele/ela for him and her, “a gente” ( ah jen-tchee, literally meaning “the people”) for us/we, and plural forms of ele/ela/você for them/they. The nice thing is that voce, ele/ela, and a gente are all in the second person, and therefore use the same verb conjugation! Needless to say, this makes my life a lot simplier.

So far, my language skills are rapidly improving. I’m able to (semi) correctly use ficar/estar. If the person I’m speaking to speaks slowly enough, I can understand pretty much everything, and if I don’t understand, I can tell them exactly what parts they need to repeat. Some people are easier than others to understand, but it’s all a matter of how much they articulate and how many verbs they throw into one sentence. As of now, I can understand everything my host mom, brothers, and sociology teacher say, and none of what my host dad, history teacher, or Rotary president tries to tell me. That’s ok though, at least when I come back to the United States I’ll be really good at charades.

Confessions of a Caffeine Addict

I never understood why my parents drink so much coffee. Then I came to Brazil. Now I completely get it; it's because coffee is DELICIOUS. In Brazil, no one uses coffee makers though, so when you make coffee, it really is you making it. So after about the 5th day of me asking my host family to make coffee for me, my host brother, Lauro, decided it would probably be a good idea to teach me. Because I'm so generous with my knowledge, I will now impart onto you all the fine details of making a good cup of Brazilian coffee.

1. Use a pot with a spout, and put about 2.5 cups of water on to boil.
   

1. 2. Wait until the water is almost boring then add two or three tbsp of sugar.

1. 3. When the sugar-water begins to boil, add two to four spoonfuls of very finely ground coffee to taste and turn off the heat. Stir.
2. 4. Take your thermos and hold your "coador" (coffee filter made from fabric) over the top. Slowly pour the coffee through the coador.
3. 5. Stick a spoon in the filter and twist to wring out all the excess coffee.

6. Add milk, or if you're feeling adventurous, chocolate powder, cinnamon, and condensed milk to make a Brazilian cappuccino.
I am now officially addicted. My host family thinks it's hilarious.
Careful though, Lauro taught me that the word coador is almost exactly the same as the word for "pain in the a**"...

Brasilia and Minas Gerais!

My host brother, Lauro, is also an exchange student. He’s going to a town in Canada that’s very close to the border between Canada and New York on September 7 ^th, so it seems only practical to get him an American visa as well as a Canadian one. This is why I got to skip two days of school to go to Goiania and then Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. So on Monday morning Lauro, Lenilda, Severino, and I got up at 4 a.m. in Goiania and drove to Brasilia. We arrived around 7:30 in the morning at the American Embassy, where for some strange, ironic reason I don’t fully understand, I was the only one not allowed inside.

I said goodbye to my host mom and brother and headed off to the car with my host dad. He tried to explain to me what we were going to do while we waited for my host brother to get his visa. I picked out a few words and assumed from what I heard that we were going to go check out some tourist attractions in Brasilia. So we hopped into the little white VW and I promptly fell asleep.

About an hour and a half later, a bump in the road woke me up, and I quickly realized that I was definitely not in Brasilia. My assumption was quickly confirmed when my host dad, Severino, pointed to road sign a few meters ahead of the car and says “Minas Gerias!”

Now, I should tell you I have absolutely no idea where the state of Minas Gerias is compared to Brasilia, no idea why I was there, and no idea what my host dad was trying to explain to me. All I knew was that we were driving on a tiny road on top of a mountain and there was LITERALLY not a scrap of humanity, save for a plastic bag stuck in a tree, anywhere in sight.

After another hour of driving, we pulled into a tiny little town. It turns out my host dad needed to get some papers signed for his work, so while he was busy I took the time to grab a can of mango nectar (I love being able to say that) and take some photos of the gas station we were at in Minas Gerais.

The 2.5 hour drive back to Brasilia took me and my host dad through the mountains of the Brazilian country side. It was one of the most daunting things I have ever seen, because unlike the Midwest, this region of Brazil is very newly developed and mostly just empty land. We drove back through giant hills that had uninterrupted wild flowers and tropical trees while wild swallows flew over the road. Never in my life have I been able to see so far without seeing any evidence of humans.

We arrived in Brasilia in the late afternoon, picked up my host mom, Lenilda, and Lauro, then made a quick tour of all the main tourist sights in Brasilia.

In the middle of the 20^th century, the Brazilian government decided to move the capital from Rio de Janeiro to a new city in the middle of Brazil. It was for this purpose that Brasilia was designed and built. It is an extremely modern, well-organized city full of futuristic white buildings, the most famous of which were designed by Oscar Niemeyer strictly to serve as the Brazilian capital. It is an extremely beautiful city, yet extremely daunting because of just how much all the buildings match.

I visited the National Cathedral (pictured) and then rode an elevator halfway up a TV signal tower to the “skydeck” of Brazil and took photos. You can see all my photos of Brasilia and Minas Gerais on my Facebook (and soon, depending on how slow my internet decides to be, my flickr!).

Frustration!

As much as I love it here, and I really do LOVE it, there are somethings I didn’t expect to have to deal with that are very hard to “acustomar” to.

In Chicago, I was a good student, I was smart, I won awards, and my teachers liked me. In Chicago, I could take the El around the city, go for runs by myself, and walk around at night without feeling vulnerable. I didn’t usually get lost, but if I ever did I knew I could rely on the grid, public transit, and the fact that if I walk far enough east, I will always find the lake. In Chicago I felt self sufficient and responsible and knew I could take care of myself and school without having to rely on other people. Here in Brazil, it’s completely different. In school, I sit, watch, and try to participate, but discussing microbiology and philosophy is pretty hard when I'm not yet fluent in Portuguese. It’s impossible to study for tests, because all my notes are in Portuguese, so I haven’t gotten higher than a D on any exam so far. It is so frustrating because I want to show people I’m not stupid. I want to tell them, “That’s ok you don’t have to explain how to find a volume of a cube. Believe me, I understand,” and “Yeah, I have heard of the Holocaust, you don’t have to try and explain again.” Because I DO almost always understand. It’s answering that is the problem. For example: Last week I took a biology test. I actually figured out what every single question was asking, but I had no idea how to even begin to explain the answer. I was so proud of myself that I knew what the test was about, but I couldn’t show anyone that I had understood because I didn’t know how to explain what types of organisms lived in coral and which stage in evolution a fully formed respiratory system appeared, so when I got a 30% my biology teacher got pissed off. Now he checks to make sure I’m paying attention and taking notes, something I’m definitely not used to having happen to me.

The other issue I’m having is with being independent. I’m not used to needing to have someone acompany with me everywhere I go. I hate not being able to answer the phone, but I can’t do charades over a landline, so it just goes to voicemail. I’m finally starting to be able to do little things on my own, they’re just so insignificant though that I want to scream! Going to the pharmacy by myself, ordering my own food, walking to and from school, etc. Over the weekend, my host family and I went to a rodeo with Rebecca, the exchange student from Germany. My host mom gave me money, and I went and ordered for Rebecca and I. They were so proud that I could ask what was in all the food, tell them Rebecca wanted hers fried, and tell the man behind the counter I was an exchange student and that’s why I have this funny accent. I was proud too, but also angry that it was such a big deal for me to do something a five year old could have done.

I can’t wait to be fluent, but even then I still won’t have as much freedom as I’m used to having. Here in Brazil, even in a small town like Mineiros, it’s very dangerous for teenage girls to go everywhere by themselves. Mineiros may only have 47,000 people, but there are still bad parts of town, drugs, and crime. I can’t go beyond my neighborhood without testing my safety, especially since it is obvious I’m not from here and about 1 in every 300 people speaks English. Even just walking to and from school can be scary because of how aggressive the men and cars are here. The law ruling that cars must stop for pedestrians is flipped here, and thus crossing the street can be extremely hazardous. The men on the other hand, are even more aggressive. They stare, whistle, and follow the “pretty” girls and make fun of the “ugly” ones. It doesn’t matter if you’re walking with other girls, other boys, or even your family; men will still stare. It is also extremely vital that you don’t respond to anything they do, which can be difficult sometimes. If you show them any attention, they will think you’re interested and turn up their game. If you tell them to stop or rudely answer them, like so many women do in the U.S., the men will think you want to fight, even if you’re a girl. I don’t EVER feel like I’m even in danger, but it’s really difficult to just keep walking even though you know you are being watched. No matter where you go, it’s like you never have privacy. It’s for these reasons that my host parents are very careful about where I can go alone.

The whole experience makes you feel a bit like a child, because you CAN take care of yourself, but at the same time you can’t. You have to rely on other people to communicate for you, and know what’s going on. You also can’t express what you’re thinking or what you want easily, just like an infant. The part that makes this even more frustrating is that when you get a taste of such extreme independence like living away from home, it’s so difficult to know that you still have to rely on other people even more than you did back where you're originally from. Even though I still absolutely adore Mineiros, adapting is definitely not problem free.

Cachoeirinha!

(Pronounced cashoo-wear-een-ya)

My cousin Francesca, a former exchange student to both France and Brazil, gave me some very valuable advice before I left. She told me that if I ever have to choose between school work and having a once in a lifetime experience, school should never win. This advice is what prompted me to opt out of an afternoon gym class (that no one goes to anyway, don’t worry Dad!) and go with my host brother, Lauro, to a cachoeirinha (little waterfall) outside of Mineiros. Around 3:30 in the afternoon, I grabbed Lauro’s old mountain bike with a broken pedal and Lauro grabbed his little trick bike (the kind where you almost kick yourself in the face when you ride because the seat is so low and far back) and we walked them out to the edge of Mineiros where the asphalt turns to red, powdery dirt and all that’s in sight are hills, fields, and farms. Where the dirt road starts, the shade ends, and so does humanity. You can see for miles and miles!

Lauro and I started biking in our shorts and white t-shirts and immediately regretted not bringing sun screen. We rode for about 15 minutes father and farther away from Mineiros towards the meat farm outside of town that marks the turn toward the little waterfall. There were absolutely no clouds and very little wind, so the dust our bikes kicked up as we sped down the hills on our inappropriate bikes stuck to the sweat on our faces and turned our entire bodies orange brown.

We finally got to the meat farm and turned down and even smaller “road” that was actually just worn tire tracks that went down hill the whole way. Halfway down the road, Lauro realized that something wasn’t right, because in the year and a half he hadn’t gone to the waterfall, someone had built a farm on top of the path we needed to take. We decided that after biking all that way, there was no way in hell we were going home yet. So we tossed our bikes over the fence to the farm, made our way around a soybean field (where we got weird looks from all the farm hands, I guess farms aren't the highest tourist destination), and down into this little ravine in the center of the farm where the river to the waterfall was. We ditched our bikes at the top next to a field of (legit) red hot chili peppers and had to climb down using tree roots and vines. I felt like Tarzan, it was awesome. Once we got to the little river, it was like being in the center of the rain forest. There were all these wild birds and giant trees with twisted roots covered in vines growing out of the river and BUGS EVERYWHERE. So I broke out my 98.15% DEET bug spray and we hiked and waded our way through the river.

We never did find the waterfall, because the stupid soy bean field took us so far away from where we needed to go, but we did find a place where the river got deep enough for us to jump in (pictured), so we washed off as much dirt and bug-spray as we could before making our way back. We climbed back out of the ravine, got just as filthy as before we went swimming, got covered in burs and bugs, and got smacked in the face by some vines. Once we finally made it back to our bikes, we rode back to the fence. Lauro jumped over first, then I handed him the bikes before jumping over myself. It turns out in retrospect, that we probably chose a bad spot to cross the fence because one of the bikes landed on a fire ant nest. So when I jumped over the fence I proceeded to promptly be bitten on my foot. Well, I completely flipped and started screaming like a four year-old girl and until my host brother realized what was going on and killed the stupid thing. Thank god. It was the most painful experience!

Once we got back to the main dirt road it was about 6:15 and the sun started going down. It was absolutely GORGEOUS. Since there are absolutely no buildings outside of town, you could see the entire sunset. And that’s when toucans started flying overhead. Yeah, I love Brazil too.

It took us about another hour to get home, and we got stared at by all the everyone that we passed. This honestly didn’t surprise me at all considering we both had scrapes all over our bodies, red dust everywhere, and we wearing soaking wet and completely filthy clothes. My shirt was so coated in dirt that you could see a line where it was tucked into my shorts. By the time I got home, I had probably 15 more bug bites, the biggest bruise I’ve ever gotten in every color imaginable on my thigh, and so much dirt in my hair I looked like a red head.

You might be reading this thinking that it was the adventure from hell, but I can honestly say it was one of the best days I’ve spent here so far. I literally hiked though a mango orchard and a tropical river and now I have an epic story to tell when people ask me about what happened to my legs! It was completely unforgettable and absolutely hilarious. I have never had a better time not going to gym. Jullian and Emma; if you guys are reading this, we're packing a picnic and going out to the farm when (not if!) you come to visit. It's amazing.

Update: Driving Edition

I would like to start this post out by saying that I absolutely love Brazil and feel 100% safe and secure, so don’t worry. That being shared, I’m going to tell you about the biggest culture shock I’ve experienced so far.

I figured that the language or the food or school would take me farthest out of my comfort zone, and although they most definitely do, they aren’t nearly as shocking as one other thing I’ve experienced since I’ve come to Brazil. What is it that has, you might be wondering?

The way people drive.

Now I am in no way, shape, or form someone to judge the way other people drive considering the number of red lights I’ve failed to see and the times I’ve made a bad turn down a one way street, but let’s just say Mr. Calquon would probably not approve of how they roll in Brazil…

When my host parents and two host brothers picked me up from the airport in Goiania, we all sqeezed into their small 5-seat Voltzwagon hatchback and took off to my host brother’s apartment in another part of the city. Before I could even experience the food, school, or even a full fledged conversation, I had a mini culture shock attack when I looked out the window and noticed just how many red octagons reading “PARÉ” we were zipping by. Everytime my host dad took a turn I would slide into my host brothers, who just smiled at look of shock on my face.

The next day, we left on host brother in his apartment in Goiania and headed off to Mineiros, the town where I’m staying. The highways in Brazil are nothing like the Dan Ryan or the Eisenhower. They are all small two-lane highways, and since Mineiros is not quite a “destination city” the roads leading to it are not always the best maintained. And even when they are, when your driving in a very tiny little stick shift car going 170 km/h each tiny bump lifts you out of your seat.

Now, Brazilians have a reputation for being very touchy feely people who don’t have personal space bubbles, a cliché that is very true. What people fail to realize however, is that this part of their culture is also relevant when it comes to driving. Never have I ever seen so many cars driving so close and so fast before. Brazilians also love to pass cars going slower than them, even if there might already be a car in the oncoming lane. Now imagine that with a dirt road and a spare tire.

I don’t think I know any words, in either English or Portuguese, which quite describe what a car ride here is like. All I can say is that I wish my host brother wouldn’t laugh at me when I put on my seat belt….

Update: Food Edition

Alright. It’s 1:40 pm in Mineiros. Classes are over for the day and I have three hours until I have to go back to school to take (and hopefully PASS) a math test. I’m sitting in my living room blasting Little Joy, curled up with a pot of delicious Brazilian coffee and Deko, my host family’s chihuahua. It’s time to catch up on the three weeks of blogging I’ve blown off.

Let the blogging marathon commence with a topic everyone in Chicago seems to be very interested in: Food.

Brazilians have a very different eating schedule than we do in the United States. Breakfast is eaten together as a family very early in the morning because the Brazilian work day starts at 7 ’o’clock. Lunch is a family meal. Everyone comes home from work and school to eat together before going back to their own activities. And dinner, unless you eat out, is a very casual ordeal where every man essentially fends for himself.
Breakfast is mostly snacking, where various forms of carbs are placed on the table mixed with the occasional protein. There is always, always coffee, brewed very strongly with sugar. We eat lemon or pineapple breakfast cake, sweet bread, cinnamon biscuits, or pão de queso (which everyone seems to have their own style of making) with goiaba jelly. When my host mom wakes up early enough, she makes little ham and cheese sandwiches in her George Foreman or scrambles eggs and chops up tomatoes to go on top. When you are eating outside the home for breakfast there is usually fresh fruit like manga, banana, abacaxi, and morango (mango, banana, pineapple, and strawberry, respectively). That, along with the occasional sausage, pretty much sums up breakfast.
When most people tell me they eat the same food every single day I usually assume they’re exaggerating because, usually, they are. When people tell you that Brazilians eat rice and beans everyday however, they are telling you the absolute dead truth. I don’t think a day has gone by I haven’t been offered rice and beans. This is especially true for lunch, where the general meal formula is rice, beans, one or two types of meat, a cooked veggie, a raw veggie, fresh pineapple or orange juice, and Guaranaaaaa! My method of eating has sort of evolved into piling a little rice and beans onto my plate, then heaping a ton of whatever fresh vegetable we have on top along with hot sauce and this cornmeal/seasoning/texturizing food called farofa, mixing it together and diggin’ in. The meat is usually cooked with broth and these roots that taste and look like potatoes but AREN’T and is almost all ways chicken (frango) or beef (carne de vaca or carne for short). When you eat out for lunch, you don’t actually order anything but a drink. When you arrive you’re handed a sheet of paper. You grab a plate, and serve yourself buffet style. Next, you go to the man who’s barbecuing and indicate the 2923954874 different types of meat you want to have for lunch and he will take them off the grill and but them onto your plate. When you’re done serving yourself, you weigh your plate and a woman marks the number of kilos of food you have on your paper then asks you what you want to drink and marks your answer down. Now, I have discovered that the way you tell the quality of an establishment is by their variety of beverages. If they only offer goiaba, mango, and grape, it means that they only served canned juice and you’re allowed to think badly of the restaurant. A good restaurant will offer at least 9 types of suco (fresh fruit juice), all 3 famous brands of Brazilian beer, Coke, Coke Zero, and most importantly Guarana (a soda made from berries only found in the Amazon and the most important/addictive drink in Brazil).
The food has definitely taken some getting used to. The hardest part is that we eat the same thing essentially every single day! Meat, meat, meat, rice and beans. However, I think I’ve finally found my food-niche in the millions of fruits that grow here. I’ve been here a month and not even made a dent in the all types of fruits I have yet to try, not to mention learn to pronounce….
That’s all for now on the food front, but heads up because I have sooo many more things to write about.

Things Brazilians Like

Since I've arrived in Brazil, I've noticed a few things that seem to be very popular here. This is the beginning of what I'm sure will end up being a very long list.
1. Wearing high heels….all the time.
2. American music rerecorded in Portuguese.
3. American movies dubbed in Portuguese.
4. Lady Gaga.
5. American style hamburgers.
6. Hamburgers in general.
7. Meat in general.
8. Rice, every single day.
9. Women
10. Havianas (which they sell everywhere, even the supermarket, for dirt cheap)
11. Tropical juices from fruits no one in the United States has ever heard of.
12. Soccer (but that’s kinda a given).
13. Volleyball (called “volei”).
14. Soap operas, which are on all hours of the day, everyday.
15. Bikinis, very very tiny bikinis.
16. Coffee that is as strong as American espresso, brewed with sugar.
17. Pão de queijo, (bread rolls baked with cheese inside the dough) which they eat almost as much as rice.
18. Motorcycles.
19. American swear words.
20. Having ingenious ways of getting rid of mosquitoes.
21. Neon nail polish.
22. Parties.
23. Painting their houses crazy vibrant colors.
24. Antique VW bugs.
25. Everybody Hates Chris

End to my Procrastination

Alright, I've put off writing my blog for long enough. Believe me though, I've had good reason. Knowing where to begin writing is impossible. There is so much going on even when I'm doing absolutely nothing. In some ways, things are exactly the same here in Brazil as they are in Chicago, but at the same time they are completely, overwhelmingly different. Just like the United States, people still order pizza when they don't feel like cooking. They still have bonfires, go out for ice cream, and Billionaire still plays on the radio every single day. Only here in Brazil, the pizzas are tiny, don't have tomato sauce, and are covered in every type of meat you can imagine. Here in Brazil, the bonfires aren't for roasting marshmallows, but for jumping over, the ice cream is all flavored like tropical fruits, and Billionaire is translated into Portuguese.
I before I left, I remember talking with other soon-to-be-exchange-students saying how it didn't seem "real" yet. It felt like our exchanges were just some dreams floating in the distance and that even though our bags were nearly packed, our tickets were bought, and we were two days away from leaving, we still couldn't wrap our heads around it. The strange thing is, even while I was sitting on the plane seeing the Chicago skyline look more and more like Legos as the plane rose, I still didn't feel like I was really leaving for a year. I had expected to be bawling my eyes out driving the passengers and stewardesses insane on my plane ride out of Chicago. But that's not what happened. On my flight from Chicago to Atlanta all I could think about were the most bizarre things like how much I was going to miss CoverGirl mascara and whether or not stewardesses got frequent flier miles.
Even now, that I've actually lived here in Mineiros for a few weeks, for the most part my exchange still seems surreal. It's the little experiences and that suddenly smack you in the face and tell you that you're not in the United States anymore. In my case it's walking out of a store and seeing palm trees, hearing people say things like "Lay-gee GahGah" and "Goodge Nych-ee!", and that fact that when I come home from school the maid has ironed my jeans and band t-shirts. For some reason, it's not the big things like the language or the food that shock you into realizing that you're in a new country. Although the big things might amaze and awe you, it's the little things that you expect to be one way and turn out to be totally different that make you realize this is someplace new. For me it was having my host mom not tell me to use sunscreen, but to use bronzer to even my tan, my host dad ordering chicken hearts at a restaurant, and even just hearing people yell my name "See-moh-neee!" instead of the American "Sih-moan."
All in all, the biggest challenge as of now is trying to tell people about my exchange because, so far, it is completely indescribable.