Thursday, December 31, 2009

Walking Here & There


Monday
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl

Although I got my International Driving Permit today, I don't anticipate trying to drive much (or at all) in Brazil, especially in the city...I just figured that the permit would be one of those useful, just-in-case pieces of paper to carry around and add weight to my purse...

Later, after a lot of driving around running errands, my boyfriend and I stopped by REI to see if they might have a smallish shoulder bag that would fit my picky standards (verdict: maybe). I felt desirous of entering Anthropologie next door but didn't want to subject my boyfriend to the torture (or perhaps myself to being around someone rational who would tell me, "No, you don't need that!"). I suggested he could drive home and I'd walk back...after a tour of BookPeople (for MadLibs for my boyfriend's niece and nephews) and perhaps a quick glance in the ridiculously priced clothing store nearby.

And so after finding the MadLibs and then some indulgent shopping in the sale racks of Anthropologie, with a white paper bag and tissue paper covering my unnecessary purchases, I found myself walking home...I chatted on my cell phone to my grandma, watched the sky turning pink, felt little drops of threatening rain on my face and neck, dashed across busy intersections, felt my cheeks flush with the quick pace I was keeping and watched the world around me...I was reminded how much I enjoy walking and sadly, how little I do it. Some of the best pictures I've taken have usually been found while strolling about and just looking around.

Depending on how pedestrian-friendly PoA is, I may later recant this statement, but, in the current moment, I'm looking forward to being car-less in 11 days time and getting the chance to explore a new city by foot. Which really, in my opinion, is the best way to get to know where you are.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Imagining What I Can't Imagine


Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl
I landed back home in Austin yesterday and waited in the gray of the wet afternoon for my boyfriend to pick me up.

We then drove to Curra's where we ordered our usual: Oaxacan coffee, huevos motuleños for him, the taco vegetariano plate for me. These items join frito pie on the list of food I'll miss. Because it's not just the food, it's also the environment where you eat it.

I drank far too much coffee (delicious as it was) for 4 'o' clock in the afternoon. I started feeling a tad jittery. And sometime during our meal, I started realizing that I was leaving for Brazil really damn soon. During my December holidays in the cold northeast, Brazil had seemed like more of a hazy daydream. Now it was a reality moving steadily closer and closer.

I now have 12 days left in Austin. All of a sudden, I'm counting things down. For example, this amounts to 3 yoga classes until I get my teaching certificate. After this evening, only 1 more visit with the young woman that I mentor through Big Brothers Big Sisters. 16 envelopes with 16 stamps to buy to give to my Little Sister so that she could send me letters in Brazil. 1 (more) phone call to AT&T to put my phone on Reduced Rate Suspension. Countless hugs goodbye to all sorts of wonderful people. Probably 10 trillion remaining things on my to-do-in-order-to-prepare-for-Brazil list...8 trillion of which probably won't get done and may not have been that important anyway.

What is so interesting and daunting about planning for this kind of thing is that I don't really know what I'm getting myself into. I know I need to be open to whatever it is, but I can't even really imagine what it is. I could look at thousands of photos marked 'Porto Alegre' on Flickr. I could read up on the Brazilian juvenile justice system or about the weather in Southern Brazil. But, until I arrive, I can't imagine what I'll see and smell and hear and do and feel. I don't know what my internship will look like.

For the most part I'm cool with this; I can blithely enter into this exercise of patience and acceptance of the unknown. Still, there's another, smaller part of me that shows up, mostly in my dreams, and feels anxious and insecure. It asks, "How are you going to do this? How will you connect with these kids you'll be working with? Who do you think you are? You think you speak Portuguese well enough for this kind of work, huh?" Reminding myself that it'll all turn out the way it needs to sometimes feels trite.

In a recent dream I arrived at the first day of my internship. It turned out to be a small one-room alternative school for juvenile offenders connected by a walkway to the public school. The kids were playing cards (certainly a detail I can connect to a recent meeting with my faculty liaisons).  Everyone wanted to feed me, but because I was vegetarian they didn't quite know how. They opened up the fridge. The freezer was completely full of beans and rice. Not in containers, but like a huge block of ice occupying all the space in the freezer.

For a dream that was supposed to indicate anxiety and unresolved fears, I guess I should have been comforted. For starters, the dream was in Portuguese. The people were all very friendly and into showing me around. The kids seemed cute and ready to teach me how to play cards. And hey, if I had an ice pick I could have hacked out and defrosted some rice and beans to eat. I think the feeling of the dream had been one of just being very willing to be led around and shown this new world. Just infused with a dash of anxiety about how I might fit into that world.

After our meal, with very full bellies, my boyfriend drove us back home. I started neatly piling up things I wanted to pack for Porto Alegre on the futon couch in the study. Feeling that interesting mixture of excitement, anticipation, sadness and anxiety while folding dresses, piling books and travel documents and crossing things off my to-do list. Trying to prepare for what I can't fully imagine right now, but will experience in 12 days time. Feeling both happy and scared and almost ready for this adventure.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Planning Curitiba


Now that I've written about how I'm mainly going to stay in PoA during my 4 months in Brazil, I'll amuse y'all by already adding a second stop on my travel wishlist: Curitiba.



It's north of PoA, but only by 340 miles...Considering that in Texas, I'll drive 6 hours from Austin to South Padre Island/Brownsville for a long weekend, I think it's a feasible trip.

When people hear I'm going to Brazil, they often remind me of the violence there. That perception will certainly be a topic of a future blog entry, likely more than one, considering that I'll be working with kids in trouble with the law. However, as a result of people telling me to "be careful" and probably as a result of all this social work training I'm getting, I'm especially curious to seek out what is working well in the country.

Curitiba, which has been called "...the best planned city in Brazil and an international model for sustainable development," appears to be a good example things working well.

In PBS's Frontline/World, Tim Gnateke traveled to the city and writes about the experience here. He writes, "When I first began reading about Curitiba, I imagined a golden city whose planners had solved all the problems of urban living."


Of course, the reality didn't quite live up to that expectation (how could it?), but Gnateke describes what he does see:
While visiting Curitiba, I witnessed scenes of daily life that added greater dimension to the international model I read about back home. Seconds after a man tossed an empty can onto a dark street, I watched a child dart from a corner to collect and redeem it for cash or food through Curitiba's world-renowned Cambio Lixio trash exchange program. I saw people lining up all hours of the night to log on at free, public Internet terminals along Rua 24 Horas -- one of the city's lively pedestrian-only streets, lined with shops and restaurants. I watched children playing on park equipment that I learned was transported to Curitiba by an old city bus, later converted into a mobile recreation center. The vignettes were testaments to the city's embrace of urban planning and environmental protection -- something I didn't witness in the rest of my travels in Brazil.


It can be easy to idealize a place without ever going there. I just feel interested to see what "progressive urban planning" can look like in a developing country, what it looks like compared to cities I've lived, and to hear what locals actually feel about where they live. People come from all over the world to gain inspiration from Curitiba's urban planning and so it'll be fun to step out of the literature about the city and into the actual city, to look for that inspiration on the street-level.

Saturday, December 26, 2009

"Poor Niagra"


Public market
Originally uploaded by sj0m0

Given that I'll be working 40 hours a week at an internship when I'm in Brazil, I don't anticipate traveling too much around the country. This will be my first visit to Brazil, but I hope it won't be my last. And so, I have to keep reminding myself, "I don't have to see everything there is to see in one go. I'll come back again." Besides, there's something to be said for trying to immerse yourself in the city where you're living. So I'm definitely looking forward to getting to know Porto Alegre in a way that's only possible if I stick around most of the time and experience the daily life in the city.

However, that's not to say that I don't have some places on my wishlist....

Iguazu falls is one of them (Spellings also include: Iguassu, Iguazú, and Iguaçu). If they were enough to make Eleanor Roosevelt pronounce, "Poor Niagra," rather unpatriotically, upon seeing them, they must be worth the trek.

Looking at a map (that big circle in the middle), they're technically not even that far from Porto Alegre.

275 waterfalls over a span of several miles. A "a Natural Heritage of Mankind" according to UNESCO...I'm not sure what number Iguazu falls are on my wishlist, but they are definitely up close to the top.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Mate Across Borders


Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl
A few days ago, I was sitting drinking a cup of mate at a lighthouse, watching the snow whirling outside on the Massachusetts coast. Texas had been pretty chilly, but my trip home to New England had reminded me what cold really meant even through long underwear, scarves, hats, neck warmers, gloves, snow boots and winter jackets. And with no internet access in sight, I had no choice but to sit, relax and watch the wind blowing the snow about.

I was thinking about how I'd be soon be sitting, maybe sharing a gourd of mate (or as they call it, chimarrão) with Brazilians in humid 80 degree weather in South America.

I remember when mate first started gaining popularity in the states. One of the attorneys that I worked for, who was always ahead of the trends, started drinking mate at work, using the traditional straw. She raved about how great the stuff was, good tasting and good for you, and containing enough caffeine for a little pick-me-up but not enough to get you jittery. I should have listened earlier because this was the same person who told me that I absolutely must watch The Wire. And I will be forever be grateful to her for turning me on to that amazing show.

So, now a mate convert, I'm excited to learn the customs of how to really drink this beverage when I'm living amongst the gauchos. And, as much as I love the beauty of the snow, I also won't  mind being welcomed by the summertime weather of Brazil in about three weeks' time.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Except Brazil

One thing that continually irks me is the newest trend in airlines to charge for checking baggage. There's just nothing like searching and searching for the best ticket deal only to realize when you arrive at the airport that it's going to cost you an extra $20 each way if you want to bring your suitcase with you too. I usually try my damnedest to cram my stuff into a carry on bag, but there are times when that's just not feasible. This includes when I find myself traveling out of the country for 4 months.

I had thought that international flights were safe from this insanity. But I was wrong. The other night when trying to find out how much it was going to cost to check a bag when flying to Massachusetts (unfortunately it's hard to cram clothes and Christmas presents into one carry-on), I discovered with shock that many international flights were charging for checking more than 1 bag, some for checking any. "You've got to be kidding me," I thought.

I went on the airline I'll be using to fly to Brazil and felt both amused and pleased to read the following line:

The service fee will not apply to customers seated in First or BusinessFirst, OnePass Elite members, Presidential Plus primary credit cardmembers, customers traveling on full-fare economy (Y) class tickets, active military personnel or any customer traveling to/from Brazil.

Woo hoo! I'm not sure exactly what kind of relationship Brazil and this airline have, but it feels like playing Monopoly and picking up the Get out of Jail Free card. Along with military personnel and elite people who have fancy super duper cards (that probably also allow me to resent them when they get to bypass the regular security line), I get the privilege of checking in not just one, but two whole bags, weighing no more than 50 pounds each, for free! Well, "for free", plus the $1200 ticket price that is.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Don't Even Think About It

I recently came across a Brazilian anti-drug campaign called, "Crack: Nem Pensar" [Crack: Don't even think about it]. Now, I'll preface this, by stating that I haven't read too much of the content on the site and that of course I agree that crack is a bad thing that destroys people's lives. I've simply been a visual peruser. This is what I saw when I logged onto their homepage:

And it was that model in the right side of the page that got to me. I mean, really? She looks a bit too much like a heroin chic model in a fashion magazine.

Kinda similar to the woman below, who really is a model in a fashion magazine and is not trying to spread an anti-drug message. And yes, the merits whether any of us would actually want to go out dressed like we've just been crying and rubbing our make up all over our eyes are another topic...It's just that this is what's presented as a glamorous look.


Then I realized, gratefully and luckily, that the photo of the Crack: Nem Pensar model actually wasn't the original. In the original, she indeed looks a bit more strung out, a little bit more like she hasn't showered in several weeks and certainly less glamorous.


Some of their other campaign pictures try to be more intense. Especially if you click on them and see them full-size. They do start to get the point across that crack will mess a person up. But, I'm not totally convinced. This girl looks like she rubbed a lot of kohl below her eyes. She's still got a bit of a wholesome glow underneath the initial layer of unwashed hair and sores...but that's probably because she's a model.


What's closer to terrifying are the Before Meth & After Meth photographs that have been circulating for some time now (not part of the Crack: Nem Pensar campaign). Though of course these are real people strung out on meth and not models, which certainly packs a stronger and more depressing punch.
 

But, I have to take back some of my initial surprise (and yes a little of the righteous indignation too) that this image was being used as an anti-drug photograph.
 

And I can understand that they'd want to mute the photograph a little to blend it into the background of their homepage so the text stands out. But still, that's the first page people see.  And frankly, she looks just a tad too glamorous and cool for someone who's supposed to demonstrate the horrors of crack.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Through Others' Eyes

I realized this afternoon that one way to explore images of PoA before I arrive is through flickr...To see shots of the city through the eyes of different photographers, including the beautiful photo by Vejo tudo e não morro [I see everything and I do not die] shown to the right of this post, take a look at the Porto Alegre Gallery that I put together (instead of packing for my upcoming trip to Massachusetts ;-) of pictures that stood out to me as I culled through what folks had posted. So much interesting photography of the city...it's always fascinating to see what others choose to capture. I can't wait to arrive and start exploring, camera in hand...

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Geographically Speaking

So Brazil of course is that big green country in South America. If you look closely, you can see Porto Alegre (which Wikipedia likes to translate as Joyous Port or Happy Harbor)  way down near the bottom, close to Uruguay.



Porto Alegre is the capital city of the lowest yellow state, Rio Grande do Sul, quite literally Large River of the South.

Zooming in a little closer, the red section represents the metropolitan area of Porto Alegre.



And, zooming in even closer, here's what you might see when flying in for a landing.  If you click on the image to enlarge it, you'll be able to see a huge plane in the bottom left hand corner, so I'm assuming that's where the airport might be...

Friday, December 11, 2009

Do Frito Pies Translate Well into Portuguese?

So, I'm sitting in the back room of the Spider House Cafe enjoying a vegetarian Frito pie and thinking that this certainly falls into the list of dishes I'll miss when I fly over 5,000 miles southeast of Austin. This is just an assumption, but I don't expect to find this delicacy in other countries.

The cafe is cozy and packed. And I'm thrilled that I snagged a booth with access to an outlet. The guy in the booth next to me is apologetically handing me his computer cord to plug in underneath my table. "Oh, of course it's no problem," I say. I'm reacting oh-so graciously as if the table and the power to bequeath access to electrical outlets are actually mine.

I'm meeting Estrela here. She's one of the reasons I'm certain that things will turn out well in Brazil. If folks I meet in PoA* are only half as open, kind and welcoming as she is, then I will fare well. And considering that she concludes her research work here and returns to PoA just a few weeks after I arrive, I know I'm in luck (her sweet, well-behaved son may not agree as he's told her he'd prefer to remain another month in Austin).

Estrela and I met when we were both wearing short sleeves and could actually sit outside because the oppressive summer had subsided. I recall this when I see her walking into the room wearing layers of clothing. We greet each other with a hug and a cheek kiss. I'm still trying to figure out how many kisses is the appropriate number.

The barista delivers her hot chocolate with whipped cream on top and I sip, a little enviously, from my Earl Grey, thinking perhaps I should have ordered what she did.

We begin our conversation in English. Estrela informs me that she's spoken with a friend of hers in PoA, who agreed to let me stay with her while I find a place to live. How cool is that?! For a little bit, her telling me this that it's not sinking in. It just seems too nice. And then, my next thought is that I can't wait to let me granny know and assuage her fears a little (my dad told me that my granny told him that she was worried that I didn't have a place to live yet).

I often have an innate reaction to just want to do it all on my own. That's what I did when I spent an undergraduate semester in Madrid. No student halls or host families for me. Nope, I trekked through the city and stood in lines to look at apartments for rent. One landlord told me not to even bother looking at the place because he wouldn't rent to me. I wasn't Spanish and didn't have a job. Who cared about bank statements if I could just hightail it out of the country without a trace. It was about that time that I remember crying on the phone to my mother outside a sandwich shop. Several days, one Spanish bank account, one slow read of the lease (with dictionary) and a three-month deposit later, I had the keys to my own little attic apartment. Sure, you couldn't stand up straight in most areas of the room, but from the balcony you could see the opera house and watch the bats fly at dusk.

This time though I don't feel the need to go it alone. I feel comforted to have kind people there from the start to help me as I try to prepare for and navigate my journey. In this case these people now include Estrela's friend and her little dog. And I'm grateful.

Estrela and I continue talking and our primary language morphs slowly into Portuguese. I'm realizing that I do need to revisit that old grammar book from my undergraduate class, as I falter over various tenses. We're talking about poverty here and poverty there. She's telling me about the youth that live under the bridge of a major road in PoA. I have these images of what she's describing but they feel vague. "What do you do when you ask them for money?" I ask.

"I try to give them snacks, but sometimes when I look into their eyes, it depends what I see there. Sometimes I give money."

"I keep bottles of water in my car for the homeless guys I see on the street," I say, "Sometimes they are happy with that offering, sometimes not. Mainly it's just the gesture I guess. It's hard."

I realize most of the homeless guys on street corners here are old, grizzled dudes. Usually they're totally sweet to me and I am sympathetic. But, how would I react if it was a child? I've seen kids begging in India, but I wonder if it would hit me more to see it here where I don't expect it. Of course, almost 1 in 5 children lives in poverty in the US, according to the National Center for Children in Poverty but that takes us back to the point that what poverty looks like here is not what it looks like elsewhere.

Having made it through a year and a half of a social work education, I've become so much more sensitive to this kind of thing (just ask my boyfriend about my social work-flavored running commentary about any movie or TV show we happen to watch together). Something tells me that what I see in PoA is going to feel so much more intense than whatever I've experienced in the past. Especially because I'm likely to see all this in the kids I'll be working with. Up close.

The barrista comes by the table and and asks if she can take away the remnants of my Frito pie. I nod and say, "Thank you."

"I don't exactly know what to expect, but I imagine that I'm going to be shocked," I tell Estrela.

"Well then, at least you're prepared," she replies with a smile.

Our conversation turns to the frustrations of university parking and tickets. We get up to leave, putting our clothing layers back on and our empty mugs in the bucket by the condiments before we head out the door.

---

*I've noticed that people from Porto Alegre keep referring to the city as PoA in e-mails and it looks kind of cool to me, so I think I shall follow suite.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Instruments of Change

"I started to ask why we wanted to kill each other. How do I end the violence? How do I...? Can I use music as an instrument of change?...For every kid our movement attracts to percussion class 5, are waiting to join the drug army. We are happy to have that one kid. Yet..." says Anderson Sá in Favela Rising, a documentary about a man in Vigário Geral, a favela in Rio de Janeiro, on a mission to change his community from the inside out through music.

In 1993, the movement, including a successful band called AfroReggae, became the non-profit Grupo Cultural AfroReggae, whose mission is to promote social justice through programs for youth in art, Afro-Brazilian culture and education. The documentary does much more justice to how inspiring this group is than I can in this blog entry. It shows how a community can take charge of its destiny and begin changing its narrative - both how it views itself and how it wants to be perceived by the outside world.

I watched this documentary (shedding a tear or two) about a year ago when I was beginning the process of trying to get my Brazilian internship set up. There was a line that hit a core with me from one of the AfroReggae band members. He describes touring the world with the band. People, inspired by their performances, would come up to him and want to donate money to his cause. He told them to save their money for their own communities, that problems existed everywhere and we should work to effect change in our own backyards first.

This sent me into a state of existential questioning. "Really?!" I asked myself, "What are you thinking? Who are you to fly to another continent to try to help Brazilian kids when there are plenty of youth here that you might be able to assist in some way? And anyway, speaking of which, why are you in Texas? Why didn't you stay in Massachusetts where you grew up and do some good there? And while we're on the topic, do you really think a 4-month internship is long enough for you to do anything of use?"

So, I beat myself up with these kinds of questions. It mollified me when I eventually realized, thanks to logic presented to me by my boyfriend, that no matter where I did my final internship, it would still only be 4 months. And that I was a student. The point being: this was also about me and my learning experience.

In many ways - beyond the grander points I could make about social issues transcending national boundaries - leaving my comfort zone entirely behind will put me in the perfect position for learning. I may have a grasp of the Portuguese language, but I don't know it as spoken by youth in conflict with the law in Porto Alegre. I may have an idea what juvenile justice and poverty and teens killing teens for pointless reasons looks like in Austin, Texas, but not in Brazil. I have no idea what social work looks like in another country. I can only hope that being ready to learn and simply being there will mean something. These kids may even enjoy teaching me by sharing the narrative of who they are and how they see their world with me.

How does this tie into AfroReggae? It's a reminder to learn and observe what beautiful strengths already exist within an individual and within a community. If they're not being tapped, could they be? Or, say, if I happen to teach yoga and the kids like it, are there yoga instructors in the community that would want to sustain this sort of thing? Or, if yoga is not happening, what is?

Living with HIV in Brazil

The word on the street (or at least at social work student potlucks) is that Brazil is ahead of the curve when it comes to taking care of their citizens with HIV/AIDS. In the midst of the US’s raging health care debate, this is an amazing thought to ponder: if you are infected with HIV/AIDS in Brazil, you will be treated…free of charge.


As of this year, approximately 730,000 people are living with HIV/AIDS in Brazil with a prevalence rate of 0.6 according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS [3] (although other sources describe this number as low as 630,000 [4]). The Joint United Nations Programme estimates the same prevalence rate in the United States as in Brazil [3]. It’s amazing that these two countries have the same prevalence rate, especially considering that the 1990s found Brazil confronting a potential AIDS epidemic with the World Bank estimating that 1.2 million Brazilians would be living with HIV/AIDS by the year 2000 [1]. Instead of letting this happen, Brazil took action.

In the 1990s developing countries were encouraged to focus on prevention programs for their citizens because AIDS drugs were prohibitively expensive [4]. But Brazil saw the situation differently and challenged the conventional wisdom of the World Bank. Starting in 1996, under a law passed by the Brazilian Congress, the country has provided free universal access to these life-saving drugs, made possible especially due to the production of generic versions of these drugs (drawing some ire from other countries, such as the US of A) [4] and negotiating for lower drug prices [2]. Essentially, this is described as an, “…exercise of corporate social responsibility” that “…highlights the importance of a strong role for national governments and international organizations, pressuring companies to perform better” [2, p. 72].

On the prevention side, Brazil has been educating its citizens about HIV and distributing condoms, especially to its vulnerable populations, since the 1980s [4].The early education has been described “stigmatizing, threatening, and ineffective” [1, p. 63], but it has improved considerably, and with the help of the media, is now reaching most of the population [1].


Brazil’s success has been attributed to a strong response in public policy, a strong civil society with well-organized AIDS movements and thinking outside the conventional box when it comes to affordable drugs for treatment, changing the global norms for how we treat AIDS [4].


HIV/AIDS is still a national and global crisis, no doubt about that. While HIV/AIDS affects everyone in Brazil, it is unsurprising that the poor and most socially vulnerable are the hardest hit by the disease [1]. The world has a long way to go in terms of fighting HIV/AIDS, but it makes me hopeful to see the viable fight that Brazil has been waging against the disease on behalf of its people.


I’ll be curious to see how this fight transcends (or doesn’t) to the youth I’ll be working with in Porto Alegre.
---




References

1. De Arimateia da Cruz, J., da Cruz, B. K., Hammers, C. (2007). HIV/AIDS: The pandemic hits the ‘Sleeping Giant.’ International Social Science Review, 83(1&2), 55-67.

2. Flanagan, W. & Whiteman, G. (2007). “AIDS is not a business;” A study in global corporate responsibility – securing access to low-cost HIV medications. Journal of Business Ethics, 73, 65-75.


4. Nunn, A. S., da Fonseca, E. M., Bastos, F. I. & Gruskin, S. (2009). AIDS treatment in Brazil: impacts and challenges. Health Affairs, 28(4), 1103-1113.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Yoga in Porto Alegre

Once I awaken from jet-lag induced sleep, finding a good yoga studio in Porto Alegre will be on the top of my list. I'm hoping to teach yoga to either the kids I'll be working with at my internship or my fellow co-workers. I'm going to need to immerse myself in the language of yoga in Portuguese because I only know the English translations of the Sanskrit words. And quite frankly, I haven't spent any time using my Portuguese trying to describe how to put your body into various unusual (or usual) positions.




However, after reading a friend's fabulous blog on her adventures with yoga in Nicaragua, I can't help but wonder what yoga will look like in Brazil. A quick yoga + Porto Alegre google search brings up such a plethora of overwhelming options, that it appears that whatever yoga I want will be available there, I just have to find it.

This may be a bit of a quest because finding the yoga (and instructors) that work for you can require some effort. For a long time I didn't like yoga because I was always comparing myself with everyone else and thinking that I should be doing the poses perfectly even if it was my first time trying them. Frankly, I felt kind of bored and didn't understand what all the fuss was about. Luckily, the same fabulous friend brought me to a wonderful yoga studio in Austin about a year ago and I was hooked from the start of my first class. The instructor created such a beautiful space for accepting myself where I was at, that I could finally shed some of my competitive type A nature and just "be" in the practice.

Really, it was love at first sight. And by first sight I mean the first time I realized what it was all about. By the summer I was enrolled in their 200-hour training so I could learn how to bring yoga into my clinical work as a future social worker. In the fall I was traveling to Boston with some amazing women for a Street Yoga training.




And so if I can bring yoga into my internship in Brazil, I will. But I'm thinking that this will first involve a quest to find out what yoga in Brazil has to teach me.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Traveling to Brazil via the Azores

In a rather roundabout way, I'm going to Porto Alegre in January because of my granny. Her parents both emigrated to New England from the Azores at the turn of the century. As for my Azorean background, my granny was always telling my cousins and I to "senta-se" (sit down) when we were running wild around the house. Of course to me that sounded like she was talking about Santa Claus and I was vaguely confused and amused, though I understood the sentiment. I also recall going to a Portuguese Festival held in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Provincetown was a beautiful mix of kitschy tourist shops amidst leather stores. I don't remember the Portuguese part. My granny, great aunt and I sat on a park bench and watched statuesque drag queens walk by.

And so, while backpacking around Europe in my late teens, when I ended up in Portugal, my curiosity was piqued. The Azores islands were hundreds of miles away from Portugal, but I was closer to them then I'd ever been. The Portuguese did not react well to my attempts to address them in Spanish. I had to revert to English mixed with words picked from the Portuguese-English dictionary. I had no idea how to pronounce them and the more I listened to it, the more I was fascinated. According to a friend of mine, Portuguese sounds something like, "Bej mej maj neej baaj neej maaj." Like running your fingers across velvet.

Upon return to college in Rhode Island, I signed up for an intensive Portuguese class. My professors were all Brazilian. I thought Brazilian Portuguese was the most beautiful language I'd heard and I started to fall in love with the language, the music, the cultures, and took all the relevant classes I could fit into my schedule. After graduation when I was back home gardening, I made friends with a Brazilian teenager that I met in the town library. We took long walks on the beach in middle of winter and he patiently let me stumble through Portuguese sentences. Later, teaching English at the community school, my most vocal and fun students were Brazilians. I gardened for my day job and a number of them were house painters. Every once and a while we'd run into each other at job sites and greet each other with a joyful mixture of broken English and Portuguese.

Unfortunately, my Portuguese fell out of use when I moved to Texas, although my Spanish of course gets daily use. When I found out about the opportunity to intern in southern Brazil, I jumped at the chance.

The truth is that I didn't know much about Porto Alegre. As many have confirmed, it's not the first place you think of when you imagine Brazil. And so imagine my bemused surprise when I first googled the city and read (on Wikipedia) that: Porto Alegre was founded by Azoreans. Of course that's where I had to go! What better way to start to make a story come full circle? And beautifully, around the same time I'll be in Brazil, my granny will be returning to the Azores with her grown children and their spouses.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

37 Days...

...until my flight leaves for Brazil.

I excitedly picked up my visa from the post office a week ago. Due to reciprocity (whatever the US does to them, they'll do to us, which I can respect), I had to make an appointment and present my application at the nearest Brazilian consulate at 9 AM. We left, yawning, at 5 AM and drove through the sunrise to Houston. Still, no complaining because at least I don't live in the other states in this consulate's jurisdiction: Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, New Mexico or Oklahoma.

My boyfriend and I arrived early and spent a half hour in the tall, sleek building's cafe. I excavated spoonfuls of blueberry yogurt from my accidentally frozen Greek yogurt. I left him there with his coffee and laptop and returned to the lobby. Other folks quietly filed in armed with folders full of papers, that made my own document collection look pitiful. They had us sign in, gave us badges and ushered us into the elevator at precisely 8:59 AM.

In the consulate, chairs were arranged as if for an audience watching the production of each visa interview. My name was called first and sat with my back to the scattered audience as I sifted through the documents on my lap.

My interviewer, a man with a sparkle in his eye and whitish hair, and I exchanged greetings from both sides of the glass partition between us.

Silence.

"Well...?" he said.

"Well, I'd like to apply for a visa, a Vitem-I."

"Yes...?" he said.

"Uh...what papers would you like from me?"

"What do you have?"

"I guess you'd like this form first?" I said, handing him a print-out of the online visas application.

"An internship, huh?" he said, "Do you speak Portuguese?"

"Sim, falo Portugues."

"What are you doing there?"

"Working with youth in the conflict with the law as they try to reintegrate back into society. Here are the terms of agreement between myself and the agency."

"Ah, you're one of those trying to make a difference in the world?" he smiled.

"That's me, an idealist."

"Where's the paperwork from your university about your loans?"

"Uh-oh," I thought, "Well, it's on the terms of agreement about my loans. That's all I have."

He raised his eyebrows.

"Um, I have a letter on university letterhead from my professor about the internship, nothing about money in it though."

He took it, smirking slightly.

I couldn't help thinking that being a non-threatening, cute, and yes, white, girl dressed appropriately, was definitely an unfair privilege in this situation. He could have given me a harder time. Especially if I looked differently. But I certainly didn't want to point that out to him and say, "Sir, you're right. I don't have the appropriate paperwork. Perhaps I should reschedule and come back?" I took advantage of my privilege.

He took my criminal background check.

Then he started tapping things into the computer.

"Do you want the copy of my driver's license?" I asked, looking down at the pile of "required" documents that he hadn't requested.

"If I had wanted it, I would have asked for it," he replied.

I put my stamped Express mail envelope on the counter. "Oh, you want us to mail it to you?" he joked.

I nodded.

He handed me a receipt. "We'll send this out to you next week, give or take a few days."

In less than 5 minutes the interview was over. My boyfriend looked up surprised in the middle of drinking his coffee, "That was it?" he asked.

"Yeah, so what do you want to do now?" I asked, "We're here so we might as well see something besides this building and the highway."