Dia das Crianças

12 Oct. 2009
=Children's Day
There are several Children's days, I don't know if it's really observed in the U.S. by European-Americans but it is celebrated in many different countries. The day it's celebrated on varies as well, but in Brazil it is October 12, along with the celebration of Brasil's patron saint, Nossa Senhora da Aparecida (Our Lady of Aparecida). Children's Day is simply a day to honor children and minors.

So my family was like "Hey Sonia, come with us to see the church. It's the oldest church in Bahia and it's really pretty" So I went. I find it really hard to say "no" or rather "nao" to experiences here. Especially after watching Yes Man with my family. But really I was told by one of my friends once that we regret what we don't do more than what we do, so I find myself doing things other than homework whenever they arise--but I still do homework. Anyway, on with the story:

And it turned out, it was pretty old indeed.
It was the Nossa Senhora da Aparecida church too I think.
Very peaceful. We didn't go during mass time but just explored.

So as usual, although they were just like "sonia let's go to the church" but we ended up going to a party! We went over to my Tia's house who has two children and is a professional baker. She makes cakes for a living and here is one of her custom-made masterpeices.
The two year old daughter had requested that her mom make her a doll with a purple dress, purple shoes, a purple purse, and two pink scrunchies. So she did and voila, you have the center doll.

I always feel really happy when family is just arriving at someone elses house because they look soo happy to see each other and it gets so joyfully loud. To make the effects more extreme my sister stomps in playing a pot like a drum and singing some axe (carnaval music). The hosts always seem extremely enthusiastic to see the guests and everyone is trying to greet and talk at the same time so it just gets louder and louder.

What is a culture shock to me sometimes though is how they divide the people among spaces in the house. At almost every party I've been present, the adults are in the living room, the children in their rooms, and I'm usually escourted over to the room where my younger sister and her friends are. I have to admit that I feel segregated and slightly offended at first to be physically moved into and restricted to a certain space, at fist thought/impression. But I guess it's just the way of dealing with the limited space there is for so many people and it's just more convenient to separate by age.

Then everyone was reunited into the huge mass to sing the congratulatory song, "Parabens pra voce" It's such a great song! It is used for birthdays too but since it's one of the only Happy Birthday songs that doesn't say "happy birthday" it can be used for other things as well.
It goes:

"Parabens pra você
nesta data querida
muitas felicidades
muito anos de vida"

which translates more or less to:

Congratulations to you
on this beloved date
good wishes to you
many years of life

This is my little cousin enjoying her slice of cake and the doll. She explicitly expressed that she wanted to eat the doll all by herself and started with the head. all that's left to the left of the cake is the torso in this picture.
Some of the murals made by these children.

Culture shock part II: in the house

I forgot to mention but the day I came home for the first time, the house cleaner was cleaning the bathroom. And when my mom introduced me to her, I wasn’t really sure what I was supposed to but I hugged her. And I think may be that might have been weird, or unexpected. But yeah I have never had a maid or servant or house cleaner, and I don’t know what to call her when referring to her. In Brazil I hear “doméstica” “moça/ moço" [pr:/mossa/mossu/] and I’m not sure which one is preferable.

All families in this program had some kind of helper. Most of my friends had females, a couple I knew had male cooks/house cleaners who did laundry too. I also have to add that all of the ones I’ve met are African descendents while the families tend to be “white”.
It’s not recognized as institutional discrimination that 90% of the poor population is African descendent. And I believe over 95% of domesticas are black females. And honestly this to me, really brings to life all the history that we’re learning about slavery in Brazil, and like I said usually our middle/upper class families are “White” (mine is what would be called “morena” I think and they have a different background than most of the families in the program; both my host mom and host father grew up in the interior on farms) anyway, then I see Fernanda (I changed her name for this post) barefoot in the kitchen (before this was considered a sign that someone was a slave, freed blacks wore shoes) and exposing herself to all these harsh chemicals in the bathroom and just working sooo hard all day more/longer than she had been told…I feel like it’s really unfair that this labor is reserved for only a certain demographic.

Anyway..so yeah my family had two moças at first but then only one that did cleaning and cooking, and then a male cook for special occasions like the Caruru.
I was totally not used to that or having other people do my laundry and dishes all the time, but Fernanda and Barbara, and Ed (pronounced /edgy/) were so nice to me and especially Fernanda that it wasn’t hard to interact with them. I mean they weren’t like afraid to talk to me or anything and I’m sure they kind of have an interest in not making me dislike them, but I see them as friends. I have become really close to Fernanda because she comes three times a week now and on one day that my mom goes to church to volunteer so she’s who is keeping me company (since the rest of my family leaves super early in the morning to school and work). While I’m having breakfast or lunch she’s preparing the next meal right there in the kitchen next to me so we have a lot of interesting conversations, we'll joke around a lot too.

I can really relate to her a lot—even more than my host family sometimes, not saying that our experiences are necessarily comparable, but we both have single mothers and have had similar experiences in certain circumstances. Her mom also moved to a different place in search of better opportunities. And then we talk about relationships and how her daughter is doing, well I don’t want to divulge too much information about her but she’s told me some pretty funny things. Oh I love Fernanda she makes my day she’s just such a genuine person and always seems to be in a good mood. I actually hug and kiss her good-bye all the time now. I don’t know if that is against social norm, but she seems to be fine with it and does it too. :D

I see that my host mom and family all have a personal relationship with her too, they know a lot about Fernanda's personal life and family. She's been with this family 3 years. My mom is always telling her about what's going on in her life, she's complain to her, share joy too. It would seem like she's a part of the family, but not really. I also see how they can be a little disrespectful to her time too, but I don't think I should mention some stuff, but generally my host mother tries to do things for her.

In this picture is Fernanda and one of my mom's sister's cooking for the Caruru, a lot of help was needed that day. But also to bring up the point that in my family, my mom and her sisters and my host sisters also do chores once in a while. My mom has done my laundry and she does cook a lot for me, and washes the dishes and kitchen counters etc. But I've never seen them wash the bathrooms or floors.

I miss my mommy

September 08/09/10 Homesickness.


I guess I started to miss my family and friends, pretty much as soon as I left. In the airport especially while just sitting waiting 7 hours for my next flight. But I don’t know if this is normal homesickness, because there was quite a lot going on back at home when I came over here so I was mainly thinking about mistakes that I’ve made and it was really hard for me. Homesickness and then adding culture shock is just not fun. The thing for me I guess was like comparing to my tiny 700 person town and my school town [I know it’s not good to compare but it happens subconsciously it seems because obviously coming to the city of Salvador I was not expecting to find my home town], I could always just walk around at night and didn’t have to depend on anyone to be able to go out at night. But here it’s just always risky to be out at night [even in the day sometimes]—but even more so alone—and as a woman—and as a tourist! It is pretty hard at first just having that kind of change. And also I guess I was missing my friends and partner too because I knew that they would have had similar plans as me, and being here there are so many things that I would like to do, but I feel like I’m dependent on having someone else-- for safety reasons--to come with me, and that pretty much makes my activities dependent on someone else wanting to do the same things, and yeah you have new peers to get used to. Luckily my group seems to be pretty cool and diverse like there should be someone with whom most people can relate. But it’s kind of hard to get together sometimes because we don’t always live so close and I don’t have a cell phon, and all those things just really affect my social life.


So how to cope with it? Well I always keep in mind that 3 months go by really really fast. But also my host family is oh sooo welcoming and I feel cared for and my mãe is just extremely affectionate. Once in a while she’ll grabs my face “oh soninha!” and kisses it. The first few times I didn’t know how to react really so I just kind of laughed and smiled.

me, my host sister, and her namorado having ice cream together. like invite me out with them and it's really super cool we have good times.

this is the famiily and part of the namorado's famly at their house in arembepe. just chillin'. i just don't have their permission to show their faces and, although i think that eventually i'll end up showing my face 'cause it makes pictures look awkward but...whatever. for not this will do.

But apart from that having skype really helps. [it’s a program that works pretty much like a phone over the internet and it’s free between computers and cheap if you’re calling from computer to a landline; you can download it for free at skype.com] but I can only chat right now because my computer won’t connect to the internet and my sister’s laptop (which she’s so nice in letting me borrow) doesn’t have a mic, camera, or functioning speakers. But regardless it helps. And just keeping in touch with family back home--even if it’s just through email, is very soothing. But these would just be flows of home sickness, that happen usually when I am by myself at home, especially when my plans were changed due to other people’s plan changes. But of course while you’re out seeing the city and especially on the tours, and traveling, or just hanging out with your peers having a bowl of acai, and you let yourself enjoy what you’re living at the moment, it’s all good.



I heard that usually by the second and third week your homesickness just goes away. And by the 3 week if you have culture shock, I think around this time it’s pretty much over too.



possibly helpful links for homesickness:
http://www.ehow.com/how_2058286_deal-homesickness-during-study-abroad.html



http://www.transitionsabroad.com/publications/magazine/0405/combatting_homesickness_abroad.shtml

http://www.shelteroffshore.com/index.php/living/more/dealing-with-homesickness-living-abroad-10290/

MY new home

29.08.09- saturday

What I learend about the families was that they are all basically middle/upper-middle class because we all have to have houses near the ACBEU university and that is located in an area where that social class predominates. So my host father came to pick us up in his Volkswagen after I got my bags and checked out of the hotel. We soon got to the apartments pretty quickly. It has a gate and a person to open the gate fore people who are familiar. They were some pretty nice apartments. We took the elevator to the ninth floor and as soon as I entered the door, I thought it was a very beautiful place. It has white walls, and a lot of white furniture with some strong colors here and there, but it has huge windows so the natural light illuminated the living room/dining room really well. Then we went into the cute little kitchen and there was a second living/enternaining room with a big TV and stereo system and very like contemporary style walls--not saying that it was positive or negative like oh wow "it's great that they're modern" or anything but just that I've never been in a place like that before. But it had some really nice vibes. Then my mother showed me my room. Everyone in the program gets a single room furnished and all. They have sheets, towels, and in my room internet and big windows through which I can see part of the bay.

this is my room

"-- this is below the apartment area, lot's of trees and the sound of all these different birds just emits from this shrubbbery... all day

I put my stuff down, and since it was saturday my younger sister was there, and I could see some resemblance, I could definitely see how we could be sisters. And we were sitting there in teh living room just talking for a long while getting to know eachother. Then my sister brought out this chart that they have for the program with all this food, and we can let them know what we like most, what we CAN eat, what we can't eat stuff like that. I felt kind of bad that my stomach is a bit picky though. But that's why I made sure to mention that in my housing questionnare. I am lactose intolerant but I do eat cheese and ice cream and iogurte (yogurt) in small quantities. And my stomach is also slow at digesting meats and starches so not too much meat or rice, or bread, or pasta, or etc. etc. But it seems easier if I say: i eat all the vegetables and virtually all fruit except for kiwi and pineapple. (sorry i don't think you neeed to know all this) the point is be very specific from day one, because it's harder to say after a long time "oh by the way, this whole time i didn't like this, and this is bad for me"

But then my older sister came home from work, she works in construction/engineering, because she's studying engineering.

And we talked some more. I felt like they were really interseted/curious about me and very super welcoming and I felt like we were family that I was visiting and hadn't seen in a very long time. And I didn't really remember the language. But I knew enough to describe the words I didn't know, so that helps a lot.

Of course they understand that we're hear to better our Portuguese so they were super helpful in speaking a little more slowly and clearly than usually perhaps, and also using more description so that it's easier to understand with the context and stuff. And oh I just loved being there. My host mom is super caring like my own mother and like I said I totally see how the psychology is working here. It really helps with the homesickness to feel loved here too, and like I said my mother is always hugging me and kissing me calling me daughter, and perhaps the director knew that it would be easier for her to do that and feel that way because I look like her daughters quite a bit.