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!!