Daniel in Brazil: April 2007

** there are lots of pix below, sorry though for the screwed-up order of them - blame Blogger **

Yeah, I disappeared...e daí? (so what?) I've been busy abrasileirando-me. It's been an interesting month. I went to Rio with the exchange students in the beginning of April, and I'll be going to Florianópolis, a city in the south, where there are 2 students at NYU (Laura and Jimmy) studying at the Federal University there. Unfortunately, Laura was going to be able to put me up, but there's some drama with the building's landlady, so I currently have no where to stay - I'm possibly thinking in cancelling and going to a city in the interior of Minas where I have a friend, but I should take advantage of the fact that I already bought the ticket, and that I miss travelling alone. As you can imagine, traveling with 12 other students and staying in a hostel in Rio can be a bit difficult at times.
The first night, I went to a soccer game at the Maracanã stadium. I never saw people set off fireworks in a stadium, but aside from that, it didn't seem too unexpected or crazy. It might have felt that way since I was among a group of foreigners, and we were surrounded with people from this one company named something like "Don't be a gringo!" Still, in front and behind me were some actual real live Brasilians (no shit!) and hearing the kids launch all kinds of curses at the field was kinda funny. Sure, our kids do it too, but hearing kids curse curses that you learned as a sort of essentialization of the banalities of Portuguese is different. Vai tomar no cú! was a standard (take it in the ass!) - when I got back to the hostel, Roberta, the girl who was working there, and who now has transferred to work at a hostel in Bahia, told me someone told her they heard a kid say Vai tomar no cú até sair feijão! - Take it in the ass until beans come out! I use that with some of my friends now. Quaint, huh?
We went on the trolley that goes through Santa Tereza, a neighborhood full of beautiful houses, and also makes certain routes that provide wonderful views of the valley. That felt typcially Brazilian - it was completely full when we went there, and so maybe 3 of us (not me for long, since I'm kinda of a wussy), were hanging on the outside, along with 30 other people, aside from the 40 or 50 people seated within the trolley. Certain stretches of the ride had no railings or anything on the bridge/overpass - it definitely makes the Brazilians more agile. I also remember seeing here in Belo Horizonte, a kid hop on the backend of the bus I was on, and put his arm in the door to hold on, while staying on the outside, and he rode for about 10 blocks, sneaking inside when the bus would stop so the change-man (who looks back to make sure everyone's gotten off and then tells the driver to close the doors) wouldn't see him. I couldn't stop smiling when I saw that, but noone else seemed especially amused nor pissed. The Brazilian, I'm told, is accustomed to being passive, and that's why even amidst such grave social disparities and governmental corruption, popular mobiliziation is minimal. Brazilians have been told that they shouldn't complain, and that Brazil is tranquil, with samba, and beautiful women, and beautiful beaches, so just chill - ever since the colonial period - this is what a friend in History tells me. I'll return to protest later.
We went to Copacabana beach that first day, and I surely proceeded to burn myself, as I put on SPF 15 only, and then laid about 2 hours on both sides - thankfully mostly on my stomach, so my back is what got roasted. Walking around shirtless in the hostel for the next few days was a trip, as everyone felt my pain on seeing me, especially the other whities from say, Australia, the US, the UK. I got some blisters on my shoulder, and Lucas, my friend I made from Araxá, in the interior of Minas, who was staying at the hostel, went with me to buy a cream to help them heal. By the end of our stay there (about 5 days), they had almost all healed.
I walked around the Lapa neighborhood alot, and on Saturday, it was just with Claudia, my friend from Argentina, who last week was among the group of people with whom I went to a gay club here in BH. Lapa is full of 1800's buildings, and quite beautiful. Claudia and I found a spectacular street fair full of antiques and retro things. One man passing by a stand was a casting agent, and gave me his card, thinking I'd be a good actor, so if I ever find myself in Rio again, and with the intention to get into acting, I have who to call. I think he gave a card to Claudia too.
Of course, we saw the Cristo Redentor (Christ Redeemer) on Corcovado Hill - see the correlating pictures..
One day we were all together, we went to a pizzaria, and summarily got sickened by the tomato-sauce-less pizza. Apparently, the base of pizzas here is just cheese, not sauce and cheese as we Americans, and also my Italiana friends, are used to. Benoit, from France, is a bit lactose-intolerant, so he asked for a certain pizza (chicken and mushroom, I think), and told the waiter he can't eat cheese. Benoit asked, can you make it without cheese? / No, that's how the pizzas are made, but sure, you can take it off with your hand, it's not that much. Bullshit - it must have been a half inch thick of cheese on the entire pizza. So Benoit complained, and the manager agreed to make a special serving of pizza without cheese for him, which was very nice, and Benoit liked his special pizza. As he was still hungry, he went to the nearby McDonalds, where we had all considered going if we hadn't been able to find another restaurant. I ended up wanting to try an apple pie, so I did - it was probably R$2.25, about $1, for aone pie (for Brazilians, it's quite expensive, whereas for us Americans, it's the cheapest of the dreck). It tasted just about the same, and a few days ago, when I mentioned my having bought an apple pie, the person I was talking to recoiled, considering it kinda slimy. But I liked it. :)
Near that McDonalds (yes we're still in Rio), I bought a Charlie Chaplin-type straw hat, from an Uruguayan artisan, for R$10. After that, we went to the Museu da República, where a large part of the exhibits are devoted to former president Getúlio Vargas, who was almost a cult figure in the 40s and 50s. He committed suicide, and the gun he used, the shirt he was wearing, and even the bullet that found itself in his body, are on display. The building itself was formerly the Presidential Residence, until Rio ceased to be the capital in 1960 (giving way to Brasília), so the room he slept in is there too. IT was a bit eerie. My camera was dying, so I only managed to take one picture of the shirt and gun.
Orlando and Alan, who I had befriended here in UFMG, as they were working for Itaú, a credit card company, selling student cards, visited me in the hostel - they had wanted to travel, so they decided to come to Rio and stay in the exact same hostel where I was staying (with my help telling them where it was, and that iwas cheap of course - this wasn't exactly a surprise. Nevertheless, it was quite refreshing to wake up Friday morning and see them in the living room of the hostel. Story behind them: a few weeks earlier, I was in UFMG, and with Leandro, a friend of a friend- this was the first night I'd met him. The boys stopped him in the Letras cantina, and I was sticking around cuz I had nothing better to do, and I wanted to continue to be around cute boys. Alan, Leandro, and myself went outside, continuing the conversation. Alan said that if Leandro filled out a form (they have a certain quota of forms to get filled, even if someone doesn't want a card), he could kiss their friend, Wiverson, who was sitting at the table. Leandro, who was becoming late for some dance class I think, eventually ceded way once Alan invited Wiverson outside. The two of them went up a staircase to a nook outside the building, and invited me, so I figured I'd go along. At that moment, Orlando, who had also been sitting at the table, and also works for Itaú, appeared - until that point, I hadn't really seen him or thought of him much. Leandro and Wiverson started making out, and so did myself and Orlando. Brazil is fun.
Orlando, Alan, and myself, realized that in the hostel, there were some other gay guys, so we created our own little gang of homos. Jack (Jacolino), Luiz, and Lucas were the others. Later that night, we went to Le Boy, apparently the most well-known gay bar in all of Rio, and for good reason. It's just like the club in Queer as Folk, huge, and pulsating to the beat of silly gay electronica and Madonna, etc. (or bate-cabelo as they call it, hairbanger, technically). I met another guy there, Carlos, who lives in Juiz de Fora, a town in Minas about 3 hours from BH, in the direction of Rio. He hasn't returned my messages though. Go figure.
So that's Rio. The bus ride was 7 hours. For Florianópolis, there's a trip from UFMG that's going, for some library sciences conference, but they're going by bus, and I don't think I can handle 20+ hours each way, though I'm sure it'd be an adventure. I'm taking an airplane, with a total flight time of about 2.5 hours, and a cost of R$550 roundtrip ($275), whih I hear is typical. There was an offer going around of GOL giving yo ua flight to Floripa for $50 each way, but it's nowhere to be found on the website. I was going to be accompanied by Mindy, from Wisconsin, but she had trouble buying the ticket with her credit card (as did I, but thankfully, I have an American Express, just about the only card the website accepts that's foreign).
I went out with Orlando about 2 weeks ago, and he was supposed to call me to invite me to a handball game he was playing at, but he never did, and I asked Alan about it, who told me the game wasn't gonna happen. I've called Alan (Orlando's phone is on the fritz), emailed and left Orkut messages for Orlando, but to no avail. Pooey. Also, about a month ago, I went to COnfessionário, a club here in BH, for the birthday of André, one of the guys I met the first time I went out at night in February. There, I met Oziel, who André referred to as, oh, you're taking advantage of the sabor da terra, huh? (Flavor of the earth), just cuz he's quite dark. I thought Oziel was maybe 21, 23, 25 - turns out he's 33. Brazilians conserve themselves well here - I joked with Oziel that it mut rain formaldehyde here. I've been seeing him every once in a while. Still, I'd prefer Orlando get back in touch with me. It helps that he's 19, more my age range, and more my life stage.
Everyone says I speak Portuguese so well, and when they ask how long I've been here - 2 months, I tell them - they are amazed -- and you can speak Portuguese so well? Well, I tell them, I took classes in the US. They have Portuguese classes in the US? Noone thinks that anyone learns Portuguese outside of Brazil, which isnt a totally invalid assumption. I think I'm almost fluent - I often find myself talking faster than I'm thinking, not really realizing that i t happens to be Portuguese the language I'm speaking. Last night, Natália, a friend who studies English at UFMG, invited me to an English phonology class, sayig the the teacher says wrong things sometimes. (She has the right to comment as she went to an English international high school in Saudi Arabia for 4 years.) Heert for heart, cayterpillar for caterpillar, but it wasnt like that. I wasn't able to mess with her like some friends said I might be able to, especially if the teacher were Thaïs, an especially disliked teacher for being so pompous about her English prowess. Still, it was interesting,and at times a bit over my head since they use the International Phonetic Alphabet, which I learned a bit in my one linguistics class at NYU, but still it's all IPA to me. Most of the pronunciation was correct, or at least as correct as Brazilians can speak it with their accent, which I must say, is a cute accent. :)
So that's my life here. I'm putting off writing some papers that I need to do - one for my Criminality class, about the Subculture theory of why crime happens - one for my Political Resistance class on how uprisings in the UK in the 1700s over the price of grain relates to the economic situation - and another on some articles for my Sociology of Education class.
Speaking of Political Resistance, there's a movement at UFMG to try to lower the price of entry into the cafeteria. For me entry is R$2.50, as it is anyone who doesnt have the economically disadvantaged student card (or the poorcard as my friend Vinícius calls it), while for the lowest level it's only $0.75. The movement wants the price for everyone to be $0.75, since eating lunch and dinner at the cafeteria (bandejão) can become expensive once done everyday, and may mean that some have to go hungry, or spend less on other things (like the damn expensive copies that you have to get constantly here). So a group of students decided to jump the turnstiles at the cafeteria, as their pleas for the administration to bargain with them were ignored. Of course, the univ says they offered to bargain, but the students continued being intrasigent (the word used here, which even in english i dont entirely understand). Last Friday, they closed the cafeteria. The posters affixed by the movement say that the univ refused to bargain. Each side says shit about the other side, as usual. The cafeteria was reopened on Tuesday, but the movement is still continuing, trying to get the administration to talk with them about lowering the entrance fee. Wednesday during my afternoon class, there was a truck going around with a loudspeaker, making announcements to rally up students. There have been protests, but they keep happening when I have capoeira at noon. Oh yeah, speaking of which, I went to a berimbau workshop on Sunday - that's the instrument used in capoeira - it looks like an archery bow with a gourd towards the bottom, and you hit it with a stick, while holding a little rock to and away from the wire. So I made one, though with a lot of help from Meque, my teacher, since the workshop actually started Saturday, but I didn't get there since Friday night, I went to Confessionário with all of my gay friends and faghags (including Claudia, as previously mentioned), and we didn't get back to the dorms until 6am. And, no, I didn't pick up any guys. :-P
The berimbau will be an interesting thing to bring back to the States. Probably customs'll think it's a weapon, but other people say that they must be accustomed to tourists coming back from Brazil with strange things. I probably can't bring back a cute boy though.
So I really like this atmosphere of protest at UFMG, though a lot of people are fed up with the political drama nature of it. I'm fed up with the fact that there are so many other things that students could be caring about in society, but neveryheless, the limited timespan of university studies (all over the world) makes students think, oh, I don't have to complain or protest, since I'll be out of here soon, so I'll just accomodate myself to it. Meh. Nevertheless, it's certainly fascinating.
OK it's 3am and my papers are due, like, last week, so I should get to work.

Raquel, during her contortionism show at Confessionário

Thiago (Jimmy) and Raquel, in Pampulha, near the dorms, at a pet store

Chilling at the dorms
Me peeling the pole for my berimbau

Getúlio Vargas' shirt, gun, and bullet of his suicide

On Ipanema Beach during our last night there - we would end up spelling Ipanema with our bodies - Andreas (Greek) has a picture - after having realized that there's no samba in Ipanema, no matter what someone was told