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.

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*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.