winter in Floripa

daí gente ("well, people"), the winter here got me. tuesday morning (after a night out at a boite ("night club") called O Santo where they play popular american hip hop music on monday nights), i woke up with swollen glands, aching shoulders, and a headache. (no, it wasn´t a hangover--i don´t drink as much as it sounded like in my last entry.) i spent almost the whole day sleeping, except for when we went over to a friend of alberto´s (luiz felipe) for lunch.

finally, wednesday morning, i felt much better, thanks to my mother´s cold and flu tablets and zinc/vitamin C cough drops... wednesday, i had lunch with my second host family (the Menegaz family) and visited with them. when i arrived, they said i hadn´t changed a bit--neither had they, except that my host sister is expecting a little boy. my mãe, my pai, my irmã (sister) and two of their friends were there. (my irmão (brother) and another irmã weren´t able to come--the former is studying english in australia, the latter was working.)... it was great to catch up with them, to see my old house, and to be able to communicate so well with them. neither of us could believe it had already been 6 years that i´d been gone!... over all, the visit was great! it felt so natural to be there... i´m planning to hang out with them again on monday or tuesday.

thursday, i had lunch with my first host family (the Schlemper family) and visited with them, too. they also thought i hadn´t changed, only that i´d lost weight. (while i was an exchanged student, i´d gained about 10-15 pounds... with all the bread, fried snacks (coxinhas, pasteis, etc.), pasta, beer, etc., i don´t know how brazilian women stay so thin.)... it was also very very good to spend time with them again. the whole family (minus one irmã) came to eat lunch with me! it was great to see everyone, and it felt so natural to be back in their house again. besides a few little additions to the family, everyone is the same. from the moment i arrived, my mãe showered me with care and hugs. she was and stilll is such a warm, loving mother... again, over all, the visit with them was great! i met up with them again this afternoon to hang out, to drink fresh fruit juices at Café Cancun, to pass by one irmã´s house, and to eat dinner at another irmã´s house... monday evening, we´re planning to meet at Golden Café for a coffee and snack and to say our goodbyes.

friday, we met up with some friends of alberto´s (camila and oscar) and went to Praia do Santinho (one of my favorite beaches)... of course, it was too cold to swim, but it was very beautiful nonetheless... (later i´ll attach photos.)

besides all this, i´ve either been just enjoying or amused by the brazilian life--the night, the late mornings, the main meal at mid-day, the little quirks that you can only encounter in brazil (see previous entries), the food, the openness, the novelas (literally "soap operas"), the mobile advertizing (cars w/ loud speakers), the people-watching, the hunter and the prey of brazilian night culture, the consumerism of the wealthy, the cleanliness, the random smells of sewage, ... i´ll try to write more details later. i must get going... beleza, gente. beijos a todos!

Florianópolis

it is soooooo crazy to be back in Floripa again. so far it´s been all i´d hoped. my good friend, alberto, picked me up at the airport saturday morning (the 23rd), and ever since then, we´ve been all over. it´s fun to revisit all my old stomping grounds. in fact, in only two days, we´ve already been by Praça XV, Felipe Schmidt, Centro, Café Matisse (at the Centro Integrado de Cultura), a Univerisidade Federal (where i took a "Portuguese class for strangers/foreigners"), Praia dos Ingeles, Praia da Joaquinha, Praia Mole Barra da Lagoa, Lagoa do Conceição, and Praia de Jurerê Internacional (where alberto used to work in a really nice hotel--Hotel Jurerê Beach Village)... i haven´t gone to visit my old host families, yet, but i will some time this week...

like i said, it´s been so crazy, so surreal to be back here... after 6 years, a lot has changed here (more stores, more highways, more people, etc.), but it feels like just yesterday that i sat on the beach sipping on a caipirinha (sugar rum w/ lime, ice, and sugar) or a "chopp" (beer)... or just yesterday that i passed through Praça XV and hung out with the venders there... or just yesterday that i walked to school (Colégio Catarinense) or passed by the shopping mall on the Beiramar or chilled out on the beach with exchange-student or brazilian friends...

what else? well, first, it´s been really awesome to hang out with alberto again. he was one of my best friends when i lived here before, and it doesn´t feel like a single day has passed since we saw each other last... except of course that we´ve both "grown up" quite a bit... the first night i arrived to "Floripa", we went to alberto´s old workplace. while sipping on quite a few cafezinhos ("little coffees"), i met a few other crazy brazilians--camila, matheus, marcelo, fernando, luiz felipe, steffano, and oscar--and i got the royal tour of this grand hotel... afterwards, alberto and i went to camila and oscar´s place for a bit, and from there, we went to café matisse to have a few beers and listen to some live music... i introduced alberto to a "black and tan" (xingu with bavaria)-- i don´t think he´d ever had one, and he probably thought i was crazy... in fact, he just confessed to me that he´s already sure that i´m crazy... lastly, i must say that i had a really good time meeting alberto´s friends--especially camila. we got along really well, and it took us no time to get to know each other. she´s not like any other brazilian woman that i´ve met, meaning she and i think a lot alike with regards to socially-constructed gender roles, music, etc... she´s supercool.

since we stayed out until the typical brazilian hour--5, almost 6, in the morning--we didn´t wake up until 1 the next day. the first thing we did after waking up was drink a beer on the beach (Praia dos Ingeles). later on, we went to a "goodbye" dinner of one of alberto´s friends, magnus. we had calamari, shrimp, fried oysters, french fries, guaraná, and, of course, beer. afterwards, we went back to magnus´s house for some dessert, beer, and a little private guitar concerto, thanks to another luis felipe--magnus´s sister´s boyfriend. finally, alberto and i went back to his place at Praia dos Ingeles to crash.

today, we woke up late (again), and went into town. we walked around centro... what nostalgia. again, after 6 years, it´s a little strange, but it feels like i was here just yesterday. i love it! on our way back to the car, we stopped for an "exotic" fruit juice and snack. i had açai with guaraná; alberto had pineapple with spearmint. i highly suggest either one, but especially açai--which is an energetic purple fruit from the northeast. anyway, i think that´s it for now. i´ll write again later.

impressions

brazil is quite an experience--the division of classes, of labor, and of socailly-constructed gender roles; the sexual explicitness and public displays of affection; the value of security (i.e., the fenced-in supermarkets, the guarded apartments and schools, the gated housing); the random fireworks; the barking dogs; the formally-dressed, small-waisted women and the casually-dressed, glaring macho men; the cleaniness (people are paid to clean most public places) and the filth (in the slums, in the cities "streams," in the air); the little trash cans in the bathroom for your toilet paper (their sewage system can't take it); all the buses and little cars (no SUVs!); excellent restaurant service without the expectation of tips... the list goes on.

today sarah and i took the tourist bus around town and stopped at the Jardim Botanico (botanical garden), the Parque Tingue (a city park), the Memorial Ucraniano (a ukranian memorial), the Torre Merces (a vista of the city--at sunset), and downtown curitiba. after returning home, we ate dinner with the fam and went out to a bar/birthday party... that's it for now. off to floripa tomorrow.

Curitiba

from yesterday (the 20th) until saturday (the 23rd), i'm hanging out with my friend sarah (from UNC-CH) who's doing a study abroad to curitiba. (curitiba is in southern brazil, only 5 hours from florianopolis, where i did my exchange year as a senior in high school.)

curitiba is supposedly known for it's cleanliness and environmental-consciousness, but i haven't seen any proof yet... today, i went with sarah to her class of brazilian geography (9:30-12), and i was surprised to understand most of the "lecture." by "lecture" i mean that the entire classroom experience felt like high school. maybe that's because the students were fresh out of high school.

brazil's educational system is completely different than that of the US: students chose a major in high school, take a big test (the vestibular) at the end of high school in their major, and enter the university (depending on if they can afford to take the test, on the grade they make on it, and on where they place in the ranks of the major). generally, once they enter uni, their curriculum is set for them, and they remain with the same group of students thoroughout their uni career... makes me appreciate our educational system that much more.

anyway, after class we came home for lunch (the main meal of the day), and we went into centro. yesterday, we came into centro but only to change money and cruz the town a bit. today, we went to the Passeo Publico, which is a type of urban zoo and public park. there were birds from all over brazil and even some from africa. there were also some monkeys, snakes, rodents, turtles, and iguanas. after that we walked through the historic district (european-esque with cobble stone-streets), browsed the venders, found a buy-sell-trade CD-book-vinyl shop (which was pretty cool), and finally headed back to her house.

tomorrow, we'll probably take the "tourist bus" around to all the other sites of curitiba, and then we might go out to a birthday party of one of sarah's classmate tomorrow night. who knows? saturday morning, i'm off to florianopolis to see my old stomping grounds, and my old host families and friends! i can't wait!

arrived

i'm here! i arrived today, safe and sound, but i'm very exhausted... so i will have to write again later.

one thing is for sure, being back in brazil is so surreal. the street smells (both sweet and rotten), the class-division, the kamikaze cars, the venders, the beggars, the bus exhaust, the pushy pedestrians... the list goes on... but i cannot. i'm tired and running on 4 hours of plane-sleep. entao, boa noite, gente. ate logo. ta bom?

off to Brazil

i know (for some of you), it seems like it's been forever... so, i say, better late than never. hello from hope, again... so, now... have you ever wondered what hope's up to these days? (i wonder the same thing myself.)

well, she's off to brazil on tuesday for a semester study abroad. then, she'll graduate from UNC-CH in may (finally)... in the meantime, she'd really love to hear from you (for real!), one way or another. (email might be few and far between for the next few weeks/months, but the good, old-fashion snail-mail is always fun...)
espero sua reposta. ate aquel dia, se cuida. ta?
em paz,
hope

you can contact me ('til october) at:
Hope Deifell
c/o William Calhoun
Caixa Postal 52867
Agencia Aldeota
Fortaleza - CE - Brasil
60150-970

Tel:011-55-85-476-9099