Great Nights wirh Greater people

The earthquake in Haiti was an event more devasting than many of us have ever experienced. The event turned our attention to the disastrous state of the country and the many persons living well below the poverty line. It was a disaster that took the lives of more than 200,000 and displaced over a million. The world is touched by the magnitude of what has occured. When I look at these pictures, they do not nearly match what as a child I imagined the world would be like. I do not need a touching anecdote from Hollywood to understand the urgent need in that country. Over 200,000. It never occured to me how many Haitian friends I had until this tragedy. It was petrifying being able to do little more than call and make sure they at least were alive. Who knows the rest of their family.

I am not at my University now, but when I return this summer, I would like to do a major fundraiser, as many are doing. As many are doing, I would like to collect funds and food and send them to Haiti. I would like to celebrate Haitian culture and invite my friends to celebrate as well. I think so many péople realized how lucky they were to be Haitians living in America this year...

There are now more people covered in dirt. An earthquake with a magnitude of 8.8 in South America took the lives of 400 on February 27th. It has hit over four countries, including Brazil, destroying homes and displacing many. The earthquake triggered a Tsunami that is bound to hit the Pacific coast. I am not sure where, but I do know that people all over the coast are moving inland. I am hoping my family in California is not affected. Please keep my posted about the effects of this tsunami. All these things seem impossibly close, hitting closer and closer to home. But we must not take this as some vengeance of the earth or the manifestation of some ancient prophecy. We are all powerful in this world, and there are some monsters we ourselves have put in motion. We are not just the helpless victims, and we must cease looking at ourselves this way. If you must die for a cause, look around you-we aren´t short of causes. If you must live for the moment, do so, conscious of the fact you are a moving element of the world-tiny yet visible, and you are capable of bringing relief. So shed tears in your penthouses for the things you don´t think you can fix, but remember what it took you to get there. Remember that nothing ever was easy. Maybe you didnt dream it would be like this either. But here we are with the tools and the means and nowhere to go but up. I am not afraid anymore. The world is growing and I too must suffer little white hairs...

I can not begin to explain how difficult it is to take a minute to write on this blog. I am always doing something or with someone or running around or eating or gone etc etc etc! I have been here for a month and, though I certainly feel at home by now, I am not settled down. Ive still got so many touristy things to do and people to meet! Whats more is that the workload, both in my politics and my portuguese classes have begun to pick up because carnival is over. This I am glad for because i am accustomed to everything being fast paced back at UVA and I looove keeping busy.

Ive had a great introduction to the rhythm of Brazil. Brazillian history is similar to the states in some manners, massive bouts of immigration, colonization, exploitation, political unrest, displacement and finally a makeshift solution to a long engrained issue of racism and inequity. Such is life! Today we began our classes on grantwriting and I am so very excited to learn how to have this experience of formal writing. As some of you may know, I would like one day to open up a chocolate factory and, though it may seem a private enterprise and not a public service, the purpose will be to increase minority employment in NYC and expand the pool of skilled minority workers by reinvesting into the community of Harlem. I will need to know how to write a proposal for a grant to ask for startup money.

This week I most say, I feel old. All along, with every passing day in Brazil, I have indeed felt anewed, but this week, I am grown. Not old old, but old. The kind of, OMG my life is starting old. The kind of you better fudge some confidence and get out there into the real world old. The kind of, are people looking at me? I am aware not only of my eyes but that others have eyes as well. At Cadec, my volunteer internship, I have been informed that money is depleting. Everyone was crying and emotional. The volunteers that I have become accustomed to, are leaving because they can not afford to continue working there. No one is getting paid, I never knew. I keeping thinking of the kids who will have nowhere to go and no one to stay with if this place closes. Of the meals they wont eat and the attention they wont get. I cant help but feel emotional. Today I am a person with means who has not yet learned how to utilize them. Today I am asked to do something. American, can you help? I should and can, but how? Today, as my friend was straightening my hair,she passed me a white hair. MY FIRST WHITE HAIR. There was only one but I almost started crying, I couldnt hear anything, everything was a blur...I am getting older. Im 20! Im 20! When I return to college I will be legal to drink in the states. This is the first time I am afraid of my life. This is the first time I am afraid for my life.

Vitoria

Though Vitoria came as an afterthough to our week of carnival, Caleb and I thoroughly appreciated the luxury of spending this past saturday in the more upscale part of town. Vitoria, similar in appearance to the east side of manhattan, is situated a bridge away from Vila Velha and is about a 30 minute bus ride from my house.

We visited a mutual friend, Fabiana, a spunky fun chick from Philadelphis who has come back to revisit her Brazillian roots, and hung out with her roommate Gaby and her girlfriend Carol. Apparently, there is a large and visible lesbian population in Vitoria. I have to say, it was quite a relief to chill with the more bohemian type and, if I did not know I was in Brazil, I would have definitely felt comfortable saying we were somewhere on the uppereast side of manhattan.

There was a padaria( if I use this phrase its because they are everywhere, all it means it a little bakery) Across the street from Gabys house, and I was stunnned by how charming it was and how delicious the food seemed. It was a small scale boutique Im sure, but compared to the ones back home, the food was surprisingly reasonable. Can you see the chocolate cakes! They call them tortas here. I stared at it so long, I myself decided a picture would last longer and took a few. It even began a conversation between me and the lady managing the bakery. I asked her if she made it and she looked at me laughing and asked ´are you serious? I can´t make that, I just sell it.´ It sure had my tastebuds going, imaging that smooth dark chocolate feel inside my mouth. Do you see the little Garota chocoloate bom bom perched on top? They consider that stuff luxury man...



I instead ended up procuring some suprisingly authentic japanese food from a restaurant across the street and found a sushi roll with sundried tomato inside. Have you ever seen that? Maybe its not so crazy novel as Im making it out to be, but I thought it was pretty cool. I also ended up buying some sexy brazillian avianas(chinelas) that were pink with gold designs. I wear them every day now! I have only been away from Vitoria a few days, but I already miss her. Though vitoria has the best city by far, Vila Velha most certainly has the best beach, in fact the differences between the beaches are so extreme that I may not even swim in the Vitoria beach again for fear that I may spawn a new limb. Anywho, Vitoria my love...you have not seen the end of me...

An Excerpt of Pessoa, My Useless Literary God

"I don´t know the meaning of this journey I was forced to make, between one night and another night, in the company of the whole universe. I know I can read to amuse myself. Reading seems to me the easiest way to pass the time on this as on other journeys. I occasionally lift my eyes from the book where I am truly feeling and glance, as a foreigner, at the scenery slipping by-fields, cities, men and women, fond attachments, yearnings-and all this is no more to me than an incident in my repose, an idle distraction to rest my eyes from the pages I´ve been reading so intently.

Only what we dream is what we truly are, because all the rest, having been realized, belongs to the world and to everyone. If I were to realize a dream, I´d be jealous, for it would have betreayed me by allowing itself to be realized. ´I´ve achieved everything I wanted,´says the feeble man, and it´s a lie, the truth is that he prophetically dreamed all that life achieved through him. We achieve nothing. Life hurls us like a stone and we sail through the air saying, ´Look at me move.`

Whatever be this interlude played out under the spotlight of the sun and the spangles of stars, surely there´s no harm in knowing it´s an interlude. If what´s beyond the theatre doors is alife, than we will live, and if it´s death, we will die, and the play has nothing to do with this.

That´s why I never feel so close to the truth, so initiated into it´s secrets, as on the rare occasions when I go to the theatre or the circus: than I know that I am finally watching life´s perfect representation. And the actors and actresses, the clowns and magicians, are important and futile things, like the sun and the moon, love and death, the plague, hunger and war among humanity. Everything is theatre. Is it truth I want? I´ll go back to my novel..."




Ah! All of my writings are just Pessoa echoing through my soul! The moment I met him, I knew no landscape could cheer my heart. I am as bright as day, with a smile that betrays sincere happiness. Why then, when I compose, do I reek of blues? Who placed this soul here and wrote these lyrics? Who taught me minor chord progressions and the temptation of irresolution? You´ve played a love story so many times, you think you wrote it. And of the love stories you have written? Have they been so tragic? Has not every lovc been another revolution? I recollect in solitude that I am soley a creation of the leisure class. If I did not love literature, I would not have to die like this. Useless and intelligent, I retreat inside myself. May my pen halt at the truth.

I know Ive had a decent rest when I have dreampt. Amanda, Caleb and I walked along the beach to the movie theater in the shopping mall that night and we saw this ball of light in the sky that scared Amanda. It was too far from the shore to be fireworks but too close to the ocean to be a falling star. We did not come to a consensus about what it was, but I dreampt about it that night. It was a gorgeous walk, its amazing how calming it could be to just walk alongside the beach, nothing special needs to happen.

Amanda is Calebs host sister, as beautiful as she is kind. You find here that despite how young people are here, many of them are way beyond their years in maturity. Shes only 16 but weve become good friends and shes probably more mature than some idiot 21 year olds I know. She bodyboards every saturday morning and Im going to start taking lessons with her. She is thinking about being a marine biologist and would love it if she became a professional surfer. Shes sensitive and sweet, and going to her place makes me feel back at home , kids dogs cats and smiles! Shes got this adorable dimple that was actually the result of a really bad accident when she was younger. I think it adds character. All things happen for a reason.

So that night we saw that valentines day movie which I keep forgetting the name of, but has all the famous actors in it, you know what Im talking about. Anyways, I was thinking of you dad as we stacked up on candy in the supermarket-we bought crazy chocolate, ruffles and ice cream and couldnt have stuffed ourselves up more with sweets if we wanted to. This was the perfect movie for that! Though I am not the kind of female whose usually into the romantic comedy, I will admit, this got a few tears out of me. Well done hollywood, I would reccomend it to even my dude friends(well all of you guys who said you cried at pursuit of happiness, if you didnt cry for that you just have no heart)

They have a cookie brand called Amandita Amanda! Thought youd like this:

Did some browsing through the mall and let me tell you something mom, the shoes!!! AHHHH, ok, not only gorgeous but crazy cheap(im talkin 20-30 bucks) for a pair of awesome sandals, stilletos, you name it. Im going to start putting up different shoes so you can let me know what kind you what, im def getting you a pair down here. Theyre really cheap because they produce their own shoes here. Let me know what kind you want! Below is a posting of some really cute sandals I liked, but they have crazy more variety than this, with awesome colors as well.

Chris and Tay Tay! Dont think I forgot about you....dudes here wear swimming trunks to class...however this beautiful specimen you see here below, is called a sunga....even shorter than a european speedo. Das allll yoou. Lol.

I dreampt that night about the light in the sky. In my dream it was a light opening up from the heavens, strangely my dream was just a still picture of the image. When I woke up, I thought maybe it was a ball of lightning.

Bom Dia

This morning felt almost like every other morning in New York city, but for that they put too much milk in my coffee. I walk towards where the sun meets dawn, where the sound of construction outsings the birds, hope in hand. No one sees me in the crisp fog of daybreak, I am a consciousness breathing through the mist. Half awake, I skip my morning courtesies with the doorwoman, the bricklayer and the man at the newspaper stand. Like watching the birds in washington heights, I allow myself to observe and be observed.

The 20 minute break that´s not a break at all we get to sit and drink our coffee in the padaria across the street is all the freedom in the world. Sunlight through jail bars, these moments are tenderly mine. Caffeine pours into the yawning streets, and I feel the day grinding with human energy. Her name is progress-we don´t always know where she´s going, or if she´s right, but we can smell her anywhere. She may not always be right, but she´s never wrong-even if all she does is keep the heart of the city beating. Like an adolescent, I am itching for growth and staring into the jungle of my dreams...

The day is resolved in a layer of sweat and dirt-which sometimes is its own achivement. I stare at all my colors in the mirror and am proud of the bronzed arms I am wearing. The dirt does not go away, I am forever tanned by this place-stronger and more beautiful. When I sleep I am an orb of restless energy, comforted by city music.

We´ll be in trouble once they teach bricks to lay themselves. But for now this morning felt just like an Ny morning-they put a little too much milk in their coffee though.

I am only the extremes-a wideeyed reckless child, consuming the world like a ball of candy, indulging for the very sake of, and also a deep penetrating sadness, aware of what she is not, conscious of the tedium of a beating heart, suffering the silence of God. No happy medium is worthy of life.

Seranata do Amor

Love in Brazil, is spelled GAROTA. This is the name of the world famous brand of Brazillian chocolate which boasts of exports to more than 27 different countries. Though I was not allowed to take pictures, Caleb, Geli(my program director) and I visited the huge chocolate factory in the middle of the city of Vila Velha about a week ago. I was thrilled. Windows down riding in the backseat of the car, the aroma of sweet sugary hot chocolate fills the air surrounding and I indulged. Inside we wore clothing and hair protectors and were given a full length tour from manufacturing to production. I kept thinking about my chocolate factory I will open one day....(and also all that chocolate they must have stored away!!)

Anyways, at every stop they have barrels of chocolate where you can taste as many as you please(dont worry I didnt overdo it). They had milk chocolate, white chocolate and of course my favorite, dark chocolate, and every chocolate had some kind of surprise filling. Awesome sauce. The infamous candy which caleb and I bought by the pound at the gift store is this certain piece of heaven labeled Seranta do Amor(Serenade of Love).Below. I assume they must call it this because when the bom bom is in your mouth, Coltrane plays Mood Indigo outside your window. I have a picture of the melting bom bom below, it is a luscious chocolate fudge outside enclosing a wafer with white chocolate bursting out of the center. it is in sensations like this that you forget you exist for reasons beyond feeling. I will gladly send this love home.

On every Seranata do Amor candy bar, there is advice about love which is surprisingly poignant. For example:

My poor translation:

"Can love be transformed into friendship?

The natural path of love is to be transformed into friendship. But this does not mean that one thing has to end for another to begin."

How right you are little chocolate bom bom.

My Apologies

Dear Family and Friends,

I must offer my deepest and sincerest apologies for not being myself. On this blog, you expected to find the deepest expression of my soul, and I have failed to provide. Well let me now compensate for the faults of the past....here my friends, is a little taste of some of the foods of Brazil....

Here we have the hamburger, an American import of course, but a strange take on the American version! Here, they include a smaller crunchier version of fries(Batatas fritas) inside of the burger! Its packed an occassionally has some egg as well. Many brazillians use a lot of mayo but i abhor this....

So I cant remember the name of this dish....but it is some kind of meat stew served over rice with some french fries on the side. It was bomb...I let you know the name when I find out...it was kinda hard to pronounce..

I promise there will be more! In fact, I will dedicate a blog to it....later.

Tchau!

Estou apaixonada por o ritmo do Brasil...

Interlude

Mornings and nights when I awaken,
my jovial sleep is depressed by a new reality:
My bed overlooking a window to a landscape of impossibilities. Therein lie the deepest desires of my soul, triggered by unconscious exposure to propoganda and the floating ideas of men. I am possessing the sensation of beauty, and eager for its actualization. But there are no worlds within my reach where fields sparkle like gold and the sky is an endless sea, and the ether that formed the earth is left at my disposal. No-any beauty that treds these parts I carried from slumber, opening my hands only to find its turned to dust in transit. Sadly, I let it slip like time through my fingers...

But there was a moment I was drowned in colors, and the novelty of the experience let me know that it was magic. I was a child swept under a wave, fear forcing my arms to resist. Eyes forced open in terror, I was soon calmed by a song of blues, purples and whites beneath the sea. Breath waning, there was no life to worry about, it was not day or night-it was a sensation my body possessed: dying peacefully. Yet as I slowed my own resistance, the ocean sensed my defeatism and threw me back into life,retreating again into its vortex of certain endlessness. When I arose, there were dark bodies sparkling in the shallow waters, laughing into the setting sun. In this world, the secret of my death is not a thing for poetry, but for the restless shadows of impossibilities I cast outside my window.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

To dream in life as well as in sleep, is to believe in ghosts. It is to carry phanotms, other-wordly fantasies, into the world of man and allow them breath. Footsteps where no one walked, a song with no composer, the whistling you sometimes hear-all the mysteries of sleepwalkers-those unforunate men who know not the difference between here and there.

I am one of them, living a million lives inside my head, loving for reasons that dont exist. To be ambitious is to presuppose a destiny. But what is this destiny? Of what is it composed? We can track a million years past by measures of erosion-but not a single minute into the future. I can imagine a potentiality, but this image is a mystery to be discovered. We are all subconciously casting images into that nonexistent space and time ahead, like throwing lines into the ocean. One or two may bite, but what of the ghosts who never manifest? They are put to rest and are forgotten in death. But from time to time, up from the racing oceans and streams, one may here the phantom song of a long forgotten dream...

Taking Myself Over

So many things can happen in such a short amount of time. I think it was only yesterday, or maybe the day b4 that I left you with my last blog but it feels like a century ago. What day is it? I cant recall in either english or portuguese. I am able to express myself a little better=beyond yes i like and no i dont like, sarcasm, disdain and even inside jokes. Im glad I can express some subtleties. This blog is called Taking Myself Over because Brazil has been perfect at forcing me to come face to face with my main issue, my number one problem which is not taking the bull by the horns, letting life sweep me up like a wave and letting circumstance define me. Brazil is that place and Brazilians are those people that you can easily drown in. I am daily stimulated and distracted by their charm, the novelty of their day to day makes me forget from time to time the things I want to do. So quickly everything can become a blur, but I am begining to understand that it is this difference, the difference between taking life or letting life take you, that is the difference between content and happiness. If you know me at all you are aware that it is very difficult for me to be unhappy in a place, but I am learning now that if I am to get what I want out of these three months, these short ass three months, I am going to have to take that.

So you will find a montage of photos of a school my family took me to today-I was not entirely sure where we were going, I misunderstood and thought we were going to a samba party. Instead it was my little sisters(Nicoli really Gabys neice but shes like a sis to me) school where a youth samba group was coming to play the drums for the kids. Charming as it was, it was not exactly what I wanted to do.

The pics are adorable as are the kids celebrating carnival early. What you wont see are the pictures I didnt take when I left the house after we got back. Frustrated with my homestay sister who went off when I didnt understand what she was saying...I left to do what I had wanted to do since i got there...eat some crabs. I went to the best crab restaurant and the dude sat me at table 42. You the know the significance of this number for me. I ordered crab and beer(skol which is the best they have) and read some 20,000 leagues under the sea. Great book. Turns out my waiter lived in Boston 9 years and spoke fluid english, that was a relief. I indulged...I ordered some mocaco(sp?) the staple here, a shrimp stew and another beer and felt happy and full. Then I walked along the beach for an hour and bought u guys some gifts, also what I had wanted to do for a little while. I didnt have to go far til I walked smack in the middle of a samba street party, drums blasting people dancing in bikinis and sungas(male speedo but even shorter) crazy head pieces, beer, popcorn, rotisserie chicken and a booming gay and lesbian presence and of course tons of onlookers. Man I shoulda been born in this place. Wait till I learn how to samba....

Pics from Cadec!

Dalva runs the show with the yum yums!! Great woman, awesome food...shes trying hook me up with her son, the one behind her is tryna hook me up with her brother, they brought me gifts!! I guess they all want an American in the family, lol.

Dont let there looks deceive, theyre like little adults

They all wanted to be on the blog!!These are my little monsters that I have to take care of Monday thru thursday...I get off thursday thru sunday which is awesome. Today was nutz...I had to keep them all inside even though classes didnt start yet. I could barely keep them in their seats. I am starting to see now how this is a school for the kids who need more atttention.

But I feel like I am not prepared for this kind of job. I can play with them outside all day and handle conflicts and feed them and make sure they dont pee in the trash can(yes apparently they have been doing this) but I dont feel like i am prepared to teach them things. After carnival(which is next week!!!) i will have 40 kids every day and Caleb and I will be teaching a class of English. I can barely speak portuguese!! Im excited and kinda freaked out at the same time. These kids are the most challenging but strangely caring that I have ever come across in my life. At least I have the practice of having you crazy kids as my brothers and sisters!! Im the oldest(other than Robert) living in a house turned nursery back home so i am quite accustomed to dealing with cretons....

I suppose I am entirely missing the point of blogging if I dont vent at least once. So here it goes,
As I said, in Cadec, a school for kids through the ages of 7 to 12, about 40 kids attend in the morning and 40 kids attend in the afternoon. Most of them are a dream, some or not. But it is not the kids that get to me, it is the fact that for the last week or so that I have been here, I have seen nothing constructive done academically with these kids. Granted, they don~t start official school until a week from now(nobody does anything here until after Carnival) but why not plan something for the kids who are here all day? The facility has a bunch of volunteers who administer but it is usually, me, Caleb and another girl who play with the kids. As of right now, this is my job. To play games....tag, picoalta(kinda cool, u run from the person whose it and jump on top of something as base), hand games, we tell stories....its more like camp then school right now. But the kids sometimes look as if theyre dying with boredom until we come to play with them. They should be studying!!! And on top of this, they only have four hours of school, and they wonder why they have so many kids running around in the streets.

A friend of mine here whose in highschool said she was guna skip school this week cuz she doesnt want to go. There is no repercussion for this, her parents are cool with it and shes just not guna go....crazy to me. School is only four hours and she prolly wont be doing anything with those four hours.

Admittedly, it is difficult to study in paradise. You live across the street from the beach, all your friends, crab stands, street parties and carnival. But the biggest difficulty is the heat. It is very hard to read in the heat as it almost always puts u to sleep. I am coming to value New York City winters by being here.

I am also coming to value more things about myself...things like my race, where I come from, who I am..I was never really proud to be american but here they lover everything american, every time they beg me to translate a beyonce song i say u know we do have some other artists over here. Also, my hair. I thought I would be annoyed at the fact that I cant get it done bc its too humid to have it straightened, but it has become my mane. People adore my hair and they wont let me straighten it. I feel that I love it more than I ever have and I feel more beautiful than before...most ppl here think im braisilera until i start to talk. They thing Im from Bahia, where the majority of the african population is from here. The blacker u are, the more beautiful u are considered. In Brazil, there is much appreciation of the brazillian roots, and even the lightest skin people are proud to have african blood in their veins. How different brazil is from america, every woman wants an african man. Black is Beautiful..

Anyhow, I got off track but I suppose my head was in a bunch of different places. My initial romanticization of the place has subsided, now I must decide the direction of this love affair and whether we can work out together....TTFN,
Beijos,
-Nicole(Or Nicoli as they call me here)

A Day in the Neighborhood-Would you be my neighbor?

Cadec

So I work at a school for children between the ages of 7 and 11 called Cadec(pronounced Cadeki) usually from 8 to 12 30 in the morning. Right now, Caleb and I are working with 20 kids. After Carnival, it will be more than 40...aycaramba. But the kids are awesome, they call u tia(auntie) and play with you all day and jump on u and ask u wat its like in the states and dance to michael jackson and throw bricks and tell u wat they wanna be when the grow up and trust you and love u like crazy. They are the picture of innoncence. They are not like kids in the states. They have no technolody and, bc skool is only four hours here, after school they are home alone until there parents come home. Imagine being a seven year old with no siblings home alone all day with nothing to do and nothing to play with. They are estatic when they have visitors and it almost makes you want to never leave if it will make them happy. I know I will be really emotional when I have to leave. I bought them some candy at the Garota chocolate factory, they say the kids like this kind the best so this should make them really happy.....

.