Somos os Pet Shop Boys!

A while ago, Raquel, a woman introduced to me by Sandra, my liaison with the university, asked if I'd want to see the Pet Shop Boys here. I told her surely, and she ended up not being able to go, so she sold me her ticket (R$45, the price for students and youth - everyone else pays R$90). Unfortunately, I couldn't find anyone to go with; neither her friends, nor my new queer friends at school. André tried to get some more tickets from a friend of the producer, but to no avail. I offered to sell the ticket to him, since he's apparently passionate about them, much more than I am. He didn't want to go himself, and I almost wasn't going to go myself, but I did.

Going to a concert, in any country, by yourself, is an interesting experience. You get to freely wander through the crowd, and pay more attention to the ambience as well. I was surprised that the average age was about 35, and more than half the crowd was straight. My friends at school love them, and when I learned about the Pet Shop Boys a year or two ago, I thought only gay people listened to them.

Not the Pet Shop Boys, but some other band, in the Arena at Chevrolet Hall -->
http://www.maristahall.com.br/novo/index.asp
(Chevrolet Hall official website)

I'm really quite a party pooper. While I gyrated the whole time, on my mind were some deep thoughts - what it must feel like to perform for a foreign audience. Aside from "Somos os Pet Shop Boys," they spoke in English, and occasionally, there'd be a pause after what they said while everyone processed the words and decided whether to clap, scream, or do nothing. Most people here in the higher echelons have some faculty of English, so there definitely wasn't total miscommunication. Speaking of said crowd, the vast majority of the crowd was very European-ish. Whiter people are richer here, so it makes sense, but the unconscious affinity with white faces (I can't help it) here made me tune in to the emotional vibes, and I became really aware of the fact that people all over the world are really all the same - with the same aspirations, needs, pleasures, etc. I also thought of the role of foreign investment here, as the name of the venue is Chevrolet Hall, and there was a car elevated next to the stage, and Chevrolet insignias scattered about with the slogan "Conte Comigo" (Count On Me).

Now, what I REALLY enjoyed this weekend (the show was nice, but really more of a sociological observation session for me, and occasional boy observation session too, of course), was going to a samba bar last night! Carla, with whom I have two classes, invited me, and she and her friends say I'm now converted to the religion. We went to Bar do Cartola, in memory of a famous male sambista of the same name, in Caiçara, a neighborhood to the NW of the city. It was absolutely fabulous, and any vision you have of Brazilians all sambando together, is totally true. While people don't samba in the streets and women don't walk around with hats of fruit, inside this newly-expanded bar, everyone was having a blast. Here, the men can actually dance, most of them, in contrast with American men who are quite reticent. For me, there was the constant underlying cruising eye, and guys I could have sworn were gay ended up making out with girls. The only thing that happened to me in that realm last night was a man in his 60s who was pretty damn drunk and was dancing near me when I was taking a rest in a chair. I could tell he was trying to meet eyes with me, so I just totally ignored him. I probably should have just not cared about him and danced whenever I wanted to (I forget if I was faking resting at any point), but older gay men still make me somewhat uncomfortable.

We left the bar around 4am, and Carla, her friend Gabriel, and myself went back to her apartment in the Centro. She said it was a pretty crappy apartment, but I felt right at home. With all the strange angles, plastic wire sheaths, washing machine in the kitchen, it felt just like my friend Julia's apartment in the Village. On the 16th floor, she has an incredible view of the Central Station, some plazas, the Santa Tereza Viaduct, and the mountains in the distance. She says the location is wonderful, nothing has ever happened to her in terms of crime, or anyone she knows in the area, but she just doesn't like the apartment itself. She'll be moving to Caiçara in July, to her brother-in-law's apartment, where the rent will already be paid for.

This morning, we went to the Hippie Fair (a craft fair that used to be entirely handmade things, but industrialized items, like Kipling bags, are slowly infiltrating it), passing through the Parque Municipal first. I didn't buy anything aside from some little things to nibble on. I felt, again, right at home; the park is like Belo Horizonte's Central Park, and the fair is very well-organized, and because it rained cats and dogs this morning, it wasn't too packed - I felt like I could have been in a fair in the U.S.

We're going to the Bar do Cartola again on Friday, and then one of the friends I met at that gay club I went to 2 weeks ago is having a birthday party on Saturday. I'm going to look into gay samba bars - I think samba is much more conducive to sensuality than wretched techno music - and I can't wait until I can unabashedly samba again. :)

Oh, men

As can be expected, last week I had two men, and now I have none. I was supposed to meet Vinícius one day and he never showed up, so I thought he was no longer interested in me. Later that day, with friends of his, I met Bruno, and ended up staying at Bruno's that night. Turns out that Vini and Bruno are friends, so for a while, both wanted nothing to do with me, then Bruno did again, and now he doesn't. It's kind of confusing. Singleness can be freeing, but having someone to cuddle with is nice too.
The classes I'm in are the following:

FAFICH - Faculdade de Filosofia e Ciências Sociais (School of Philosophy and Social Sciences)Student Number: 2007550479

Departamento de História (History Department)
HIS031P - Tópicos em História Moderna: Formas de resistência política na Europa, Amêrica Espanhola e Amêrica Portuguesa (Topics in Modern History: Forms of Political Resistence in Europe, Spanish America, and Portuguese America)Friday, 2pm-5:40pm, FAFICH 3044, 4 credits
HIS032K - Transição democrática e Relações Civis-Miltares no Cone Sul (Democratic Transition and Civil-Military Relations in the Southern Cone [of South America])Wednesday, 2pm-5:40pm, FAFICH 3044, 4 credits

Departamento de Ciências Sociais (Social Sciences Department)
SOA071A - Tópicos em Sociologia: Sociologia da Educação (Topics in Sociology: The Sociology of Education)Monday and Wednesday, 9:30am-11:10am, FAFICH 3042, 4 credits
SOA071F - Tópicos em Sociologia: Sociologia da Criminalidade (Topics in Sociology: The Sociology of Criminality)Monday, 7pm-10:40pm, FAFICH 3040, 4 credits (most of the class is conducted on the Internet)


You probably think that it's difficult to comprehend a class entirely in Portuguese. It is. But I'm making my way through it. The teachers I understand, since they take the effort to usually enunciate a little better. When fellow students talk though, most of it usually goes over my head. In the case of the Transition class, for example, we've spent the last 2 weeks talking about sociological theory about the military. It's very abstract to me, and even if I understand all the words, it doesn't always coalesce to a coherent thought in my head; even if it were in English, wouldn't make any sense either. I hear that teachers are usually somewhat lenient with exchange students, and I think my language ability is someone better than most of the other exchange studets, so I'm not really worried.

By now, I've gotten quite comfortable with the university, and with the downtown here (where I shop, and transfer to my second bus to-and-from school). I still feel like everyone looks at me funny, cuz I'm just about the whitest person I ever see, aside from the exchange students who are French or American. I can pretty much get whatever I need done done, but I wouldn't call myself fluent, and certainly not comfortable in every situation. One challenge that makes itself apparent everywhere, is my lack of knowledge of the snacks here. They all look the same; fried balls or pockets, which on the outside give no hint of their contained goodness (such as chicken, ham and cheese, corn, beef, etc.). So I constantly have to say, "Oh, what's in this? Oh, ok. Can I have the triangle-y one? Thanks!" I'm getting better though.

I was in a 1.99 store the other day (our dollar stores, and full of cheap crap from China, of course), and I wanted a can opener, since I recently got a can of tuna with no finger-pull-handle-opener thingy. I saw plenty of kitchen tools, but no can opener. So I asked one of the people working there, if they had can openers. "Ah, I see. But in the U.S., where I'm from, we have this kind of can opener with two arms, and you put it on the can, and turn the handle... / Oh, well you guys are a First World country! You could find something like that in (insert fancy store name here), but not in this store. / But the American stores like this, with cheap stuff, we have that kind of can opener. / Really? (genuine surprise on her part)..."

I didn't get a can opener. But Lara did point out to me these metal things she has that you put on a can rim and wiggle it all around, do the hokey-pokey, and the can opens. Tada! I'll try using it eventually, when I want tuna again.

Speaking of cans, it's damn near impossible to find canned beans here; they're all in bags. I hate cooking beans, so anytime I want beans in the house, it's been imported lentils, or I think once I was able to get some sort of pinto beans. I'm sure I'll have to crumble and cook beans eventually. Usually, I make pasta, with tomato sauce, and cut up pepper and onion and add that too. It's quite filling, quite easy, and probably quite healthy.

And, there's almost never soap in public bathrooms. The water's always cold. And more often than not, there's one toilet paper dispenser above two stalls, to be shared between the two, or what I saw in some bathrooms, the toilet paper is outside the stalls, so you have to go and gather a wad before you go in. It makes sense, and just requires a little more planning, but it is different. And annoying when you poop and don't know how much you're going to need.

Returning to feeling comfortable with the university, I've met so many gay guys, it's kind of scary. I hear there's no official gay group, so people just kind of informally meet, and really that's how it works! If you go to any neutral hangout area, be it grass, a Diretoria Acadêmica (basically a student lounge), or benches - an area with no explicit purpose to be there except just to be - you will find gay guys and their faghags, and the requisite lesbians as well. It makes sense, but it just seems so much more explicit here to me. Maybe the society is less accepting, or what's most likely the case is that it's just a different society and I'm still not quite capable of interpreting all the attitudes that people have. The fact that just about everyone of the gay guys I've met here greets and says good bye with a kiss on the cheek (with guys), certainly indicates a different norm here. I like it, of course.

Sunday, the Pet Shop Boys are playing here. I may buy a ticket from a friend if I can meet up with other friends of hers that are going; I don't want to go myself.

According to a 12-step guide to studying abroad, missing home starts at a certain time. I think I kinda miss New York about now. But I'm looking forward to meeting more Brazilian hotties enough that the homesickness isn't taking too much of a toll on me. I buy boxes of assorted chocolates from time to time (like I did yesterday) to establish the continuity of orgasmic chocolate in my life here. I ate 4 already today, I think; I better stop.

And for all of you curious critters out there, the time difference is now only one hour ahead of Eastern Time now, since we here in Brazil stopped Daylight Savings Time, and you Americans just started.

A whirlwind week

The past week was full of events, making it so that I never really had time to stop and write things down.
Tuesday evening, I met Sandra, my liaison at UFMG through the scholarship program between the US and Brazil. We spoke about what I'll be studying, and she took me to the nearby shopping center so I could buy itty-bitty photos of myself for my student card and my Federal Police registration.
Wednesday was the first day of the international student orientation, and I must say it was fascinating. Being, for once, totally out of the mainstream of the student body is truly eye-opening, though it gets tiring. Also, it was like the UN was meeting everytime we were together, since the French, British, Italian, Cabo Verdeans, and Argentinians would talk in their own language or dialect with themselves, but when we were all together, there was a broken Portuguese with bits of all the other languages in effect. Also, from day one, I was complimented for my Portuguese; really, most of the kids who come here came expecting to learn Portuguese throughout the course of their stay here. Alot only spent a month studying it, and that really doesn't give you much to stand on in everyday life here, no matter how close Portuguese may be to French, Italian, or Spanish.
Thursday, I met Cristina Campolini, the head of the History department, to plan some of my classes, and we ended up talking about gay life in BH. She drove me home, picking up her boyfriend on the way, a man 24 years her junior (she's 55, he's 31). She's quite a character. I have a picture of her I'll post. I ended up enrolling in Forms of Political Resistance in the Americas and Transition to Democracy in the Cone Sul (Southern part of South America). Later that night, I met up with some of the other exchange students in Savassi, the chic part of town, and we went to a restaurant, sat at a long table for 18, and drank caipirinha all night. I had maybe a 1/5 of a glass and already felt a bit tipsy, so I stopped, incurring the wonderment and almost-frustration of those around me. Caipirinha really is the drink of choice by, well, just about everyone here, Brazilian or not -- it's impressive how noone escapes its allure.
Friday, that Political Resistance class met at 2pm, but I stayed with our program, at the Centro Esportivo Universitário (CEU, which means Sky), which was chilling at the pool, a free lunch, and then a samba and capoeira lesson. One of the instructors, Wesley, and I, had a long conversation, in Portuguese, about love and other abstract things. He's pretty. They'll be leading capoeira classes for beginners starting soon, and I'm going to join.
Speaking of pretty, I also met Juan, who's Argentinian, and Friday night, I took him to Match, an improvisation show that friends at UFMG are doing for 2 weekends - the audience chooses the topics, and 2 teams have 30 seconds to plan improv skits. We both really liked it, and I invited him to stay at my house since it's nearby, but he wanted to go home.
The next day, Saturday, yesterday, I bought a new cellphone, one that actually vibrates. Next, all of us exchange students arranged to meet at the CEU at 2pm, and I went swimming a bit, with the perfunctory total slathering of sunscreen so I don't roast. There was a birthday party for someone at the university housing at 10pm, and I decided to just stay in the area instead of go back to my house. I talked with Juan for a long while in his dorm about democracy, American and Argentinian and Brazilian culture, and our personal stories. He's so nice to me, and seems to really like me, but I think I'm pretty sure he's straight. Those kinds of nice straight people confuse me.
That doesn't really matter since later that night, Juan had left the party, and I left my bag in his room, and it ends up he basically passed out. So I wasn't able to get my bag, or get into his room to sleep in the extra bed there, so I just hung around the party, completely chateado (pissed bored), watching all of the drunk people (drunks are the same here; they make asses of themselves in any language) completely crowding the suite, and the lights went from dim to off throughout the night, so it really was not my kind of scene. At that party, I hadn't drank a drop of alcohol, only juice and Coke. Cláudia, Argentinian and a faghag, introduced a guy, Júlio, to me, having danced with him and figured him gay, so for the next hour after Juan disappeared, I mostly kept an eye out for him, trying to get into the right atmosphere to come on to him. A guy suggested he has a boyfriend, so that got my hopes down a bit. In the hall though, finally around 3am, I was talking with Júlio and friends of his, and followed them to their dorm, going from building 7 to building 4, and lo and behold, their suite felt to me like a gay colony. Four of them, friends, and all gay, live there. Soon after I entered, André, Adriano, Vinícius, roped me into a conversation on Madonna, who they view as their holy mother. They put on some of her music, and André and Adriano started vogueing. The gay scene here is about 15 years behind the American one apparently. They were in awe of me being from New York, but equally flabbergasted that I do not view Madonna as holy in my eyes. I have nothing against her, and I like her music, but I'm not in love with it like they are.
Eventually, I started making out with Vinícius, (Júlio is dating someone), and didn't leave his room until 9 hours and 2 showers later.
I know, TMI. Good. I disgusted you. :)
I ate a little breakfast with Vinícius and his roommates, and then they went to the computer lab in the hall, so I was watching the amazement of internet talk in Portuguese for a long while. I was a bit preoccupied with ringing Juan's doorbell before he might go out or do anything for the day, so that I could get my bag, and say goodbye to him for the time being, and finally around 1pm I went over, and he was perfectly awake, though with a bit of a ressaca (hangover). We said tchau until the next weekend when us intercambistas (exchange students) will probably reunite again at the pool, and I returned to Vinícius and Adriano on the computer. The two of them and their friend Valesca and myself, we went to a supermarket, about a 20 minute walk away, to buy food for lunch. André did most of the cooking, yielding us spaghetti with ground beef, sauce, onion, peppers, and garlic, with caipirinha as the beverage. A bag of maybe 10 limes to make them was something like R$0.10 - 5 US cents. Amazing. Food here is much cheaper, but technology is much more expensive.
I was talking with them and some other people, including Carô, a lesbian who sang with my host Lara in the UFMG choir, and Keili, 31-years-old, studying law but not at UFMG, and who still hangs out in the dorms since she's had UFMG friends forever. We all talked about what I'm studying, leading invariably into the conversation on inequality in Brazil, the frailty of the school system and how the people are stuck in a vicious cycle of being too uneducated to know to vote for politicians who will make the education better.
I invited Vinícius over, but he has class at 7:30 tomorrow morning, so we're going to meet up Tuesday at the school. I got home around 8pm, and learned on email that my grandma passed away Saturday night. I was mute for while, but reconciled things, knowing that she's been in a sort of daze for a year and a half, not in pain, but just sort of without any marbles in her head. I've also reconciled not flying in for any memorial services, since (a) I was never extraordinarily close with her, (b) I saw her in September at a family wedding, and called her on the phone before I left for Brazil, so I'd like to leave my last remembrances of her as her being alive, not dead, and (c) of course, flying back would be so incredibly difficult, financially and logistically, as classes start this week.
On the flip side, my mom finally managed to go to a library and email me, which left me equally speechless. And, a very well-written email at that.
It's been a hell of a week. I feel quite well-adjusted now, but there's still so much more to come.
Tomorrow, I meet with the Human Sciences office to discuss classes in politics and economics. There's the Sociology of Criminality, which I've heard rave reviews about the professor, that I will try to take. I hope I can get a spot in it.
Until later!