Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Essay 1 Culture Class

I've been working on my first essay. It's very different from writing essays back in California, I feel like I need many more days to work on this than usual. I usually take a lot of time thinking about the topic and taking notes but i won't actually start writing the essay until 3 days before it's due. But I feel like I need to start writing a lot earlier here, because I can't go late into the night, I'm tired by like 8PM and can't keep my eyes open while reading/writing. It's terrible.
Another difference, it's a little harder when you don't really have that many guidelines. We were just told "write a 3 page paper on any topic within the module that is related to the Afro-Brazilian experience". And since this is the history module we've learned about the colonization period, the different economic and slave cycles, and capoeira. So I'm not sure what a good topic will be and since I don't know how my TA does papers, I feel a little in the dark, but I'm glad we can choose whatever we personally find interesting because, I do find a lot very interesting. Let's see how it goes.

Itaparica & Ilha dos Frades

Sept. 2009

We went on a boat trip as part of the program we went to the neighboring islands of Itaparica and Ilha do Frades which are around the Bahia de todos os Santos (All saints' bay). It was like a day trip, we first went to Itaparica to chill at then have lunch and play soccer/swim at the other island.


this is Itaparica from far away
We had a DJ and drinks and snacks, fruta! This DJ by the way apparently learned English from Bob Marley songs so he has a Jamaican accent it's pretty groovy. He was really nice. i think he was playing a little samba in this picture but we had all types of music. At one point live: my friends took a guitar and a harmonica and were awesome at them.

This is me looking all chill
on the beach of Itaparica

Ilha do Frade

Me and Yemanjá, the Orixá symbol of mother and protector of fishers


Our lunch was delicious, it was composed of two differnt kind of moqueca super awesome, one was like moquec and ceviche because of all the lime, and I LOVE lime. mmm. and also some fried chicken and some other chicken but as always i'm at the end of the line so I didn't get any of that. aborazados! anyway oh and a little vegetable and fruit salad. gotta have my mamão (papaya).

at this island there was this guy hanging out at the place we were eating and he had this dog and my friends and I went over to admire the cachorro and he's like "wait a second" and he went into a little room nearby and came back out holding some huge lizard's skin. It was, very surprising and he wanted us to hold it and take pictures of it. I couldn't because, I just don't like seeing dead things like that if I'm not eating them. but this was just the skin.

The beach at ilha do Frade was my favorite ever out of all of them for swimming. I was super calm, and warm and just perfect for swimming. I also noticed that the sea water here is a lot saltier than on the Pacific coasts with which I'm familiar. I wonder why. but regardless it was a really nice time. I loved the food! I have no idea what the place was called because Clara didn't tell us, but it was like home-style food all made in big pots and then they just lined the pots on a long table and we served ourselves buffet style.
I was so indecisive about what colors I wanted my silverwear. because most of them i've seen here have plastic handles in bright colors. Oh me and my colors I chose greem and orange. oh and to drink: Guaraná!

On the way back one of my friend's was teaching us basic hula dancing.

Oi Linda!: Gender Relations Part II (nas ruas)


"Oi Linda!" "Linda, Viu?"
These are comments that my girl friends noticed from the night we stepped foot out of the orienation hotel and into the streets.
Our first experience:
So we were 3 women looking for a place to have dinner and we were walking by a near-by park and there were lots of people out chilling, selling street food like popcorn etc. And when we passed by guys almost all of them would make some sort of comment and my friend Allegria said “well, then I’m glad that at least I don’t understand what they’re saying” and right after she said that a guy we passed goes: “beeeautiful”. It was just amazingly good timing. So anyway this was fairly representative of our experience on the streets of Salvador as women from that day forward. It happens every day especially if you’re alone; it happens far less if you’re with a guy and especially if they think the guy is Brazilian.

But yeah it is very uncomfortable, to quote one of my friends who is constantly hit on almost everywhere, that she “feels like a deer in the woods ready to be hunted" or with comments like “gostosa” [delicious] "literally like a slab of meat at a delicatessen." Although I/we don’t condone this, my friends and I agreed that at least they’re just comments like “Beautiful” and not more vulgar commens about our bodies or anything like that, which we have experienced before in the States. Allegria, from San Francisco said one time when she was walking to a job interview and felt she looked really cute, a guy passing her says “nice tits” and that is… yeah so we’re thankful that usually it’s something less vulgar.

But of course this kind of thing does seem to be limited to experiences with strangers and usually on the street [some have experienced a lot of machismo in their capoeira classroom but it’s a different sort of thing]. Because I am not treated like this by all guys/men on the street. Especially if they’re working. I’ve noticed that wearing the uniform really means something; sometimes the minute some guys are off work--like our tour guide at Morro-- it’s a totally different story. But yeah I am not harassed by my sisters’ friends or other friends we make here at some concerts etc. Of course even less by the males in our host families. I also think that anonymity and social class have something to do with it usually.

  • How do I cope with it?
I guess I had had some experience with that before, in the U.S. in Mexico, but I don’t feel comfortable, and I don't condone it as a patriarchal behavior so men feel dominant over women reminding us that our place is nothing more than as sex machine as we were created for men’s pleasure and passing on of genes. But anyway, I guess you just kind of learn to ignore the common "oi linda" "oi amor!" "linda, viu?" to the point that in some situations I just find it somewhat amusing even. Like one time I was walking by some gated building and there was a guard behind the gate who saw me between a crack for like one second and he goes “wiew”, like he was on a rollercoaseter or something.

My friends and I satirize it all the time. “oooh, do my half-shaven, pasty, mosquito-bitten legs turn you on?” Because it really doesn’t matter as my housekeeper, Fernanda has said, whether you’re all dressed up/ showing cleavage and in a mini skirt or “toda desarrumada ” and all covered up and sloppy.

But this one time that it got to be more than just “oi linda”. I was at a bustop with 4 other friends and this man who was homeless, came up to us and started talking to us, asking where we were going and such, and my friend responded “praia do flamengo” and he was okay at first but then he started saying stuff like “oh I bet you’d look good on the beach with those long legs” and from there we demonstrated disapproval and tried to ignored him. Then he went away and came back "where are you from?" And I answered “Sou Brasileira” thinking he might leave us alone now if he’s only doing this because he thinks we’re all tourists who don’t know how to deal with this stuff, but nope that didn’t help--and I guess we didn't really know how to deal with this stuff. Cause he grabs my arm and kisses it ..out of patriotism? I don’t know but that’s when we moved away because touching or any physical contact is waaaay beyond crossing the boundaries. So we moved away and then it seemed like he was gone so we came back, (the bus still hadn’t come) and we sat down on the benches and then in like 3 minutes he comes over and sits next to me and wants to keep talking and I’m like “I have to go”. But he gets up and follows me and he’s like “no wait let me give you another kiss” me: “nao!”

So I recommend that if something is going beyond (because you can spend your whole day just saying something back to every person that sexually harasses you and it seems like a waste of energy because it'll happen the next day again and again and again) and is persistent that you just leave the area, or it will escalate. You can also say “me deixa em paz” = “leave me alone” and then go. Sometimes, like in this case it doesn't seem like reason will really help because this guy seemed to have a mild mental disorder and I don't know I just know that being homeless his behavior is reflecting his life experience and what he’s probably been seeing on the streets all the time. And I was thinking also that since I don't experience this sexual harassment with my family or my sister's friends well they are all from a middle-upper middle class so may be that's a factor. However it's not so say that it doesn't exist in that social class because....

This other time, God, also at a bus stop --by myself this time, I was waiting for the Praca da Se bus and it was taking for EVER! I had already waited like 30/40 minutes and in the last 10 minutes there was a guy who was in a suit, suitcase, tie, and reading the newspaper apparently just got off work or something, and I noticed he kept staring at me and smiling creepily just watching me. And I moved a little and he followed, I moved back and so did he. It was getting weird so I just decided to get on the next bus even though it was the executivo (executive), more expensive one because I wanted to go already. And he gets on the bus with me! But I kind of made the seat next to me unavailable so he sat more towards the front
And I wasn’t sure where to get off because this bus might have different points than the other normal bus. So I asked this other guy who was farther in the back with me. He was super nice he was explaining everything to me, very respectful and he told me he’d let me know when to get off. So then he says “it’s coming up” so I go back up to the front and the bus driver told me oh wait it’s a couple more blocks, but to my bad luck there was terrible traffic and I was standing almost right in front of the suitcase guy and I start hearing some noises. I thought it was my imagination at first, and then I told myself may be he’s just smacking his lips at what’s in the newspaper, but afterward "no it can’t be that repetitive". But I felt disgusting because I had my backside to him and now I realize he’s making kissing noises at me trying to do it only loud enough for ME to hear and oh man those minutes were eternal to me and I guess he did want some kind of reaction because he was getting louder and louder to make sure I heard, so I decided not to look because obviously that’s what he wanted if my reaction at the time--of not doing anything-- was not what he wanted. But I just got filled with such raiva that I just wanted to turn around and smack his dirty lips I just wanted to slap him. Like what the hell are you doing?! And then finally it was my stop, and he gets off too. I was determined to lose him in the crowd luckily avenida sete is always crowded. But I was still feeling really frustrated. And it was worse to me than when the homeless guy kissed my arm because it is definitely a different power dynamic. This guy had not only had the education to know that he is doing something wrong but I almost feel like he was doing it for that purpose. Because he “knows” he is in the position of power and probably wanted to intimidate me or something, and obviously it’s very unequal because I can’t do that back to him and make him feel the same way, he can’t feel sexually harassed by me and if I did what he did to be back, he’d probably like it.
Oh disgusting though. I
t was the WAY he was looking at me. a super sexual way of looking at me and it really did make me feel like being violent towards him. I don’t know if I dealt with that well, I still feel like I should have told him something in front of those people on the bus like “velho perverso, você não tem vergoinha de ser tão maleducado!” But again I’m not sure if he probably even would have wanted that, or any reaction. I think, well I wish I didn’t react the way I did internally because that only hurts me. I wish it hadn’t bothered me to that point, but it did all the more because he was a “White” man.

So, like I said it usually had to do with class but not always, and it was very interesting how different my reactions were to this. But after I told my friends they were totally more disgusted regardless of all the kisses blown at them before, but it did make a difference that it was a White man from an higher class. It just is a different power dynamic in this instance and it changes the way we perceive it.

[the picture is from: ]

Gender Relations Part I: Em Casa























Gender relations are... complicated as so many things. but I will incorporate different people's observations as well.
As a woman in Bahia gender relations can't really go unnoticed as all of my female peers don't go a day walking down the street without being hit on or cat-called, or blown kisses at. I'll post something on just that, and I'll title it... "Oi Linda".

But yeah many of my friends and I still get very frustrated and feel extremely uncomfortable but apart from that and the gender inequality in the work place and apparent patriarchy found in all sectors of almost all societies. I observe the dynamics within my family.

My mother and father: A minha mãe takes a lot of pride in her position as mother. She used to be a secretary but is now semi-retired, to be a host-mother for this program. She spends most of the day in the house and looks over the aesthetics of the home while my host father doesn’t really. A minha mãe likes to go shopping, likes to wear dresses and look pretty.
My host father, owns this little business and works 6 days a week. He usually comes home and takes off his shirt almost immediately once he enters the house and is just around in his shorts the rest of the day and his days off. He is not very talkative with anyone, minha mãe is extremely talkative with everyone. I think meu pai has a shorter temper than minha mãe. And although my mother is now more of a housewife than anything and has a lot of traditionally feminine qualities, I don’t consider her submissive in any way. She is very much a part of the decision-making process of the home and other issues pertaining to the family. Both minah mae and meu pai are very opinionated, so it’s not to say that one is dominant or whatever.
During the week my mãe is in charge of the kitchen and usually washes dishes when Fernanda isn’t there. On Sunday meu pai usually does the cooking and my sisters help, but even during the week sometimes minha mãe will just be like “oh I’m so tired/my back/head hurts can you take care of all of this" [referring to the kitchen] and he’ll do it whether it’s making dinner or cleaning up the kitchen. It’s really great that they can take turns like that. And one time minha mae said to me “To me, it was always very important to get married to my job first, and then my husband”.
over all I think they both contribute a lot and I’ve never heard any talk about a woman’s job or man’ job like I hear many of my older Mexican family members. I also feel like they’re raising some empowered women by not limiting their existence to a single…chore. They really emphasize the importance of my sisters' education and getting a good career. My older sister is going to the university to become an engineer, and my younger sister is thinking of going into psychology.

My sister and her namorado: they also have a very interesting dynamic, I think it’s fun to watch them. The Namorado, Carlos* is totally into coming to our house and surprising my sister while she’s studying, and doing all these little things: bringing her flowers and constantly being physically affectionate, while my sister is just like “ew, okay that’s enough” or “you dork”. And she's not into doing any of that back.
She’s always teasing him like one time that Carlos was over and he offered to help replace the water gallon thing for drinking, and when he was done he had the jug over his head “ should I put this down?” my sister super sarcastic “noooo, it’s meant to stay on your head, smart one”. I don’t know but she’s very strong and physically kind of big. She works in construction and drives to school and work. She, unlike her mom, never wears dresses; she doesn’t like to. She pretty much lives in shorts except for when she’s at work: pants and big construction boots. She doesn’t wear make-up or much jewelry. She is also very opinionated, and loud about it, and possibly has the temper of her dad.

My younger sister: is kind of quiet, she is the one to whom minha mãe goes for comfort. She’s always so sweet and polite with me. She’s sooo patient, it’s amazing. Like her computer’s charger is broken and her dad told her to take out the battery when it’s plugged in to the electric outlet so as to not overuse the battery, but if the cord doesn’t stay at a certain angle, then the computer just turns off right? So I was there because we only have the internet line in my room, and it turned off on her in the middle of her homework like 4 times and she just handled it with such a calmness, that just amazed me. But yeah she’s extremely sweet and kind of shy, very smart, and responsible. She’ll do a lot of the going to pay the phone bills when it’s required to go the mall or some other place. She's currently learning how to drive and is studying hard for the vestibular--kind of like the SATs to get into a public university which is the top of education in Brazil and FREE! yeah. come on California, come on U.S.

Saturday, December 26, 2009

The Carurú!

27. 09. 09

My mom had been waiting for this day all year! And she had started preparing for it for months. And I've seen them actually working on things for a week, food, decorations etc. From what she tells me, she is following in the tradition of her mom to make the traditional Carurú, the kind of paste made of okra, onions, dried shrimp, toasted peanuts, oléo de dendê (palm tree oil) , ginger, bell pepper, and a little rapadura (condensed sugar cane candy, i think). But it's not just the caruru they make like 12 other dishes, but you call this party a carurú because that is the main offering in this case to Saints Cosme e Damião. these are catholic saints that are linked the the Candomblé orixás "gemeos ibeji" who represent youth and vitality. So these things are offered to them. Several people were helping with the cooking.

they had bought a rooster and a few chickens a few days before to cook for the carurú.
the sugar cane
My aunt roasting peanuts for the carurú and vatapá

From the day before my sister and her school mates were cutting the okra for the caruru
the ingredients for the vatapa and other dishes. the top one is the ground dried shrimp, and under them the beans


this is the pre-vatapa- the paste before cooking (white beans)

Ed's carurú! the yellow stain on the wooden spoon is from the oléo de dendê. He was cooking over this hard core industrial burner, and one definitely needs lots of muscle for this job. but it really is the BEST carurú I've had! it's amazingly delicious.

The black beans with linguiça


the cut sugar cane (cana)
this is the altar for Cosme e Damião

MMM plantain (banana da terra) fried in oléo de dendê
The tables so neatly organized and presented. there's some abobora (pumpkin) the fried plantains that yellow flour is the farofa

some more beans and rice

this one was one of my favorites, it was the BEST farofa I'd ever had. Farofa is a kind of (I love wikipedia) toasted flour (usually manioc flour but can be corn flour etc) that people usually sprinkle on top of beans. That's what my family does anyway, but this farofa was toasted with honey, sooooooooo goooooood!

These plates were the ones offered to the saints/orixas and were to stay at the altar for 3 days I think.
traditionally 7 children are the ones who eat first, (but there weren't enough children at the party so they just used the young kids from my group and) they can only eat with their hands and once they're done they have to wash their hands in a specially prepared bowl full of water and rose petals.
And then everyone else can eat.

Later on they did a raffle to 7 "children" and the winners got some presents. It was a pretty big thing.


then my friends all went home but the party continued, and I hung out with my sister's friends. One of my sister's college friends especially I found really cool and we talk whenever we see each other, he's really cool and he speaks english well but I want to practice my portguese so we compromise. He apparently went to live in the states for 2 years to really learn english but he was in Florida so really he ended up learning Spanish.
Then i went with my other sister's friends who were all in my room. And they were playing the guitar and I got excited and asked if he knew how to play garota de ipanema, and he's like well if you look up the notes i bet i can. so he did play it and he asked me to sing, so i did and we had a little concert in my room with like 10 people. He also played Ambar from Plastiko, for me while i sang as well, that was the first time anyone had ever played that for me, it almost made me want to cry because I love that song so much.

it was really nice. all of my sister's friends are really nice to me and I see that most of them try to speak slowly to me to make it easier. And I'm glad I was corrected on something, I was talkign about cooking with one of the friends and I was trying to say chayote which is chu-chu, but instead I said "chichi", which I hadn't learn yet. I totally told her I like to put urine in that dish! ooops. she's like no, no it mustn't be chichi!
so good to know words for pee and poop people.
it was really fun, and I really like it when i have opportunities to just be friends with Bahians and be treated like a friend. Although of course it's always known that I am not from there and my mexican/united statian accent is always there, but it feels like they can look over that and just focus more on what we're talking about and be able to talk about normal things, once the whole "what's different from here and the States," and all those curiosities, that I'm sure I ask people who are new to the States and from somewhere else, so it doesn't bother me.

Português class part II

25/09/09

Studies: Portuguese class is really fun. Our professora is always trying to make up little games for us to play, always super competitive and some students really get into it. Overall it’s really fun; stuff like pictionary and then each group guesses in Portuguese what word the drawings are depicting.
We also played gestures…in Portuguese of course, my words were way to easy though: hair, eat, cake and stop. (cabelo, comer, bolo, para) but other words were harder like shirt collar and sweater vest, bat. I don’t think all the classes necessarily did this, because our class was the more advanced one so there might be some different activities in each classroom.
But we read articles and debate them in class (in Portuguese). The topics include things like sexual harassment in the visa process, castration for rapists, whether the rich in Brazil are actually the poorest because of how badly they’re seen by the rest of society and how they live in fear. Another time we read news report about this one girl who was expelled for wearing a short dress and 1,000 students were offended by this and were talking about it online or something. Then one day they decided to harass her all day calling her names, and she was expelled for not dressing appropriate to the university environment.

We also listen to songs while filling in the blanks of incomplete lyrics for the song. The songs are really great too. We’ve done skits in class, and current event reports.
I think that’s the difference between my experience in Portuguese back at my UC campus and ACBEU here. The class I feel is less structured and more filled with activities in which you get to interact with everyone in your class, while in Port back at the UC we usually got to practice a little at the end or beginning of class with our neighbors. So I like the structure of class back in California but I like the activities we have here. If they were combined it would be perfect.

Many students feel that they really needed more structure for a better sense of direction and preparation for the mini-tests. So we told our professor and most of us felt there was a big improvement. But my concern is I'm not sure if I’m learning as much as I would like to.

There are mixed feelings about classes some students feel like they aren’t learning anything in some classes and feel like class time is wasted on peers’ questions about curse words. However, there are people here who came not speaking ANY Portuguese and are really falando muito bem now. It’s amazing to me how much progress many of my friends have made from not speaking any Portuguese or even any romance language before to the level they are speaking now.

this is our book.



I think it's okay but we aren't going in order we're jumping around alot, but I like the pictures :). I'm doing pretty well though the mini-testes aren't hard for me at all and I am not the one to study a lot but I pay really close attention in class and ask questions until I understand things, but I know it's not like that for everyone. those are just my habits, but like i said it this course isn't necessarily super easy for everyone and it requires a lot more time for them.

mmm comida gostosa!

I felt like after talking about how salty the food was I have to show that I was sooo happy with many meals though, here's an excerpt from an email sept 24, 2009 :

i had such awesome food today. okay so for breakfast i had some white and black beans with lots of herbs and veggies, and some mamão (papaya), and a long conversation with my older sister--the 21 year old. about what kind of stuff she likes to do with her friends. and about how in november what really IS bahia (salvador) is the practicing for carnaval already. even though it's gonna be like in february or ...march (depending on when lent is starting).
but anyway i have had the best papaya of my life here in salvador i'm really going to miss it and i won't know what to do. i have to have it every day while here and it's so delicious. it makes the papaya over there taste nasty.

anyway then for lunch i had the same beans but so delicious i was happy to have them again, and on top of rice and next to some teriyaki type chicken....so good. then the sardine apple, cilantro, tomato, chuchu (chayote), and some other stuff salad. and a side of papaya. mmmm. then i had a snack of coco whole wheat cookies. and then i had a nother snack of that sardine and soy salad, and then i had another snack of papaya, and suco-juice de maracujá, and crackers.
then for dinner i had this thing called mugunzá and it's made of corn with coconut milk and cinnamon sticks and cloves. and then cuzcuz, which is like corn bread but the corn flour is more chuncky and flakey and fluffy and a minha mae put some butter on it and had me eat it with the teriyaki chicken. and soymilk. it was delicious. i love bresil and i know that i'll be hecka missing it.

Here's the food: mmm

the salad

Those beans with some linguiça


Mugunzá ^
(it seems like this food also has some kind of indigenous origin because of the corn from the americas, but apparently angola and bantu cultures also have a similar porridge so may be it's an afro-brazilian food with origins in slavery hmm...)


Cuzcuz, one of my favorite brazilian foods!
and here it is with the teriyaki-like chicken. dericious!

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

pictures

P.S. just in case you didn't know or haven't tried, if you click on the picture, you can enlarge it, para verlas mejor. pra vê-las melhor, tá?

Steet Food!!!

Okay two at a time:
Pamonha:


This is what the stands look like on the street, if you eat it there, they open it for you, cut it inside the banana leaf or corn husk and offer some butter to put on it. I like them sem nada.

These are two different kinds, one is carima and the other is made of a corn and milk paste cooked in the husk. The name pamonha comes from Tupi, (one of the most imfluential Brazilian indigenous language, on Brazilian Portuguese) pa'muña meaning "sticky" and they are kind of sticky.




The corn one [above] tastes a lot like a tamal, but not quite. In northeastern Brazil like in Bahia the sweet pamonha is more common, but there is also salty pamonha and which is available in Bahia but some places will only have a day in the week that they have it. Other places will make it but only if you make a pre-order.


The carimã kind [above] is made from the Cassava root. This one was the stickier one, and I don't think the taste is comparable to anything I know, but it was really good. It wasn't a very invasive flavor it was possibly a little like tapioca flavor, like boba! yeah like boba in thai pearl tea.

Água de Côco

This coconut water is offered everywhere! And I actually got to go to a coconut farm. Even though there are many coconut trees lining the beaches, they usually don't get the coconuts from there. The price definitely depends on where you are but the more common price was around R$1.50, but some barracas (fancy little hut/restaurants) and restaurants will sometimes charge like R$4


So as you can see, or not actually you missed the important part, they'll cut it on three sides and the top is chopped off either enough so that the top is open or easy to punture with a straw. They usually let you choose your straw, which is pretty cool.
But the best part is when you're done drinking it you can go to any coconut selling place and ask for them to cut it for you and they will, even if you didn't buy it there (at least in my experience)
And they cut two sides so you can have a little spoon to take out all the côco.

viu? that's one of the little shpoons.