Last Day at Mangueira

This is way late, but I'd be upset if I never blogged about it!

My last class sessions at the favela were actually the sweetest things in the world, pt. 1 and 2. Deciding Wednesday morning to get on a plane Friday at 1pm, I panicked on the way to work and said that though Wednesday would be my last afternoon I would go in Friday morning. Wednesday afternoon, we did the usual then danced and played games for two extra hours with the elderly who also hang out in the library at that time. They served a three-course snack and all the kids stayed until 5:00. They all said very upbeat goodbyes and ran out the door, which is a huge contrast to my farewell to the morning class.

I was questioning my decision to go in Friday morning (I was afraid I wouldn´t get a taxi from the favela, and that I might be late to the airport.) I told them on Wednesday that I would be in from 9-10 to say goodbye, keeping in mind we usually don´t start class until 9:45 so expecting them a touch earlier than usual. All the kids were there AT nine when I got there, before the coordinators with the keys, waiting outside the locked gate. They sat in a circle around me and asked to hold my backpack for me and played with my hair and asked me how to say flight in English and basically broke my heart. Then we went inside and ate the cookies I had brought while they all gave me their email addresses. When I had to get in a taxi, they all hugged and kissed me about 6 times and waved from the gate. One of the girls gave me a towel with her name on it as a present.

Now I have to start thinking about how to present about the experience for Carleton. There's so much to say! Also I kind of want to really continue communication not only with the kids but with the library and project. I got the address of the it so that I (or you!) can send letters or postcards or books or supplies (they literally have nothing but white paper and crayons) when I get back.


I can't believe I leave tomorrow. I'm back from BA and it's about 35 degrees warmer and I had my last dinner here and am getting ready for my last caipirinhas and last night out. On the plus side, talk to you all so soon! Will blog tomorrow if I get wifi in GIG/JFK.

Alt64

I don´t think I´ve ever become so enamored with a place so quickly. I love Rio with a deep gritty love because I lived there and my kids are there and it has warmth and beaches and familiarity but Buenos Aires has an incredible charm that makes me want to pack up and move here ASAP. Today I saw Evitas grave and watched a couple make out in Recoleta cemetary. I had Dolce de Leite and medialunas and a toastada. I talked to like 8 really friendly people and bought art from a street fair. I took pictures but am too lazy to post them. The post about my last day at the favela will come as soon as I figure that out.

In love with this city,
Leah

Also a man in the internet cafe told me the way you do the @ sign is to hold down Alt then press 64 on the number pad. DUH!

Hey from BA

Quick notes about Buenos Aires:
1. This is the hardest keyboard I have ever had to use. Good thing James shitty laptop helped me not to use quotation marks, I don{t understand how here. Also no at sign makes it hard to log into the facebook and the question mark is in a crazy spot.
2. It is only like 60 degrees outside, which is colder than Rio (I know right who am I going on vacation somewhere cold), but the people here are big fat babies and wear down jackets and coats with fur and mittens and scarves and rub their hands together like it is frigid. Also EVERYBODY EVERYBODY is in boots and all I have is flipflops which induce stares galore.
3. I went to the best restaurant of my life. For $50 pesos which is like maybe $17 you get unlimited bread fries, fully stocked buffet, and meat meat meat many kinds of meat, dessert, and your own bottle of wine.
4. Nights out here don{t start until about 2am. We went to this really hilarious club where everyone had really dumb jagged hipster haircuts and wore sunglasses and danced jerkily. The place itself was ENORMOUS three huge rooms four bars and a huge outside area with beds (like remember that Sex and the City episode where they go to Bed the bar and Carrie tells whats his names friends that he was bad in bed? that one?)
5. I am in a really good hostel. The guy at the computer next to me just gave me m and ms and everybody is friendly and they arrange so many things for the young folks. Also, the way to get in the door is with your FINGERPRINT how cool is that? Like your computer, Pieh!

Tomorrow I am going on a bike tour maybe or seeing the grave of Evita. IT IS UP IN THE AIR!

I had my last day of work this morning and cried on the taxi on the way out of the favela. I will blog about it tomorrow when I have more time and can load pictures maybe. I am going to miss those kids like crazy.

Night darlings, I am going to go join the singalong downstairs (maybe they will play Closing Time?)

GUESS WHO'S GOING TO BUENOS AIRES

Me. It's me.
I booked a flight for Friday - Wednesday on a whim this morning.
Exchange rate 3 Argentinian pesos to 1 USD. You're all getting cheap wine.

Classing it up at the H. Stern

FINALLY today it was sunny again. So even though we went to bed at 7 this morning, Sally, Danielle and I dragged our butts up to go to Ipanema at 11 and work on our taaaans. It was a really lovely day at the beach (I listened to that mix CD I made last year with t.A.t.U. and that cover of Sigur Ros) and we got quilo lunch/dinner after from this place called New Natural. Walking around Ipanema, we decided to stop by the H. Stern museum. This may have been the most surreal museum visit of my life. We were ushered in, asked our names and nationalities, and given fancy nametags. They showed us a table with free caipirinhas (com alcool!), juices, fancy crackers, or chocolate. A man then escorted us to the elevator and took us up to a floor where we got individual headphones and a narrated tour of the gem process. When we returned the headphones, a well-groomed woman named Huckadee (something like this, it was really strange and ended in -dee) took us down a different set of stairs to a private table and brought out this huge selection of expensive emerald, topaz, amethyst, and diamond rings. Even after we said we weren't interested in purchasing anything, she still insisted that we try them on. When we were finished, she disappeared again and returned with lush black boxes that when opened revealed three different gemstones, our gifts for visiting the museum. Huckadee or whatever then escorted us to the showroom, where we were offered another drink and shown the "classic" and "contemporary" collections. Meanwhile, we were still wearing bikini tops under our dirty t-shirts, covered in sand, and sporting R$2 street jewelry. Danielle still had unblended sunscreen on her arm.

I guess they had to give the benefit of the doubt as potential buyers, but it was pretty obvious that none of us would drop 6,400 on an emerald necklace. At the very end of the tour, we were ushered into a waiting room with glass doors facing the street outside and told to wait for four minutes while they prepared the shuttle back to our hotel. So for absolutely no price whatsoever, we got a museum tour, alcohol, authentic gemstones, and a free ride home. It was a long ride, though: while a cab can drive from Ipanema to Catete (our street) in about 10 minutes, this van decided to travel through Copacabana, past the Botanical Gardens, around Corcovado, and through the neighborhoods of Gavea, Botafogo, and Flamengo before dropping us at Largo do Machado. (That sentence was mostly to show off how well I know the 'hoods of the city by the way. You don't really care how far the van drove.) Also at one point the driver stopped and hopped out for 10 minutes to meet someone in a dark street. At Largo do Machado we got waxes at the salon and churros on the street. GOOD DAY.

One of the dumbest/best things about this country is the forward men. I was told I was beautiful on the street seven different times today. My self confidence is going to plummet when I get back to the U.S. When I lose the last of the tan, I don't know what I'm gonna do. By then, though, I should be so heavily buried in schoolwork that I won't give a care. SPEAKING OF, everyone, I'll be back at Carleton at or around the 27th. You know what that means. I'll be in America with phone access again beginning the 22nd. That's nine days away. Good heavens.

If I ever join a dating service this will be my photo.

These are those dudes that tan standing up all day. At first I thought they were so unnecessarily many lifeguards. Also it feels really good to see white people at the beach that I'm darker than (aka the couple on the right.)

Best compliment

Last night on the street at Lapa I was talking to this Brazilian man, who began the conversation with the usual "you are verr beautiful whererrr you from?" I told him America, and he asked me questions for about two more minutes in English before interrupting to tell me "your English, it is very good."
Aww, thanks dude.

RioGym // So many masks

Oh man, so after months (weeks, I just unwittingly exaggerated) of passing RioGym, I decided to pay the R$10 daypass fee last night and go. My leg's being kind of a pain (HA good one am I right?) and getting really sore when I run or do anything high-impact, and I figured a foreign gym would be an experience in itself. I was right!

I stepped into a spinning class, something I've never done. It turned out to be THE most intense fitness class I've ever taken. Harder than Russ, harder than Shelly, harder than crazy cardio-kickboxing lady. It was additionally confusing trying to comprehend instructions beyond the pulsating music (it's easier to push when you know the end is coming but I had no idea). Also, the instructor turned out the lights to add to the intensity. And I didn't have a towel. But Sandstorm was on the playlist. Anyway, I felt like throwing up several times which is an effective workout, and my leg didn't hurt while I was biking AND the class was next to a thai boxing class with a lot of attractive men so it was worth the pain. Mounted on the wall of the weight room were large sculptures of ideal torsos: a front of ripped abs and pecs for men, and the backside of a woman with a HUGE butt. Also everybody wears spandex here to work out and the music was far better than Jack.fm (they played Lil' Wayne!).

Today I made masks with the children. The morning class took their time, spending the entire two hours adding intricate details to theirs. The afternoon class threw glue and glitter everywhere and kept asking for more masks (each left with about four).

Kassia decided she needed two masks at once.

His was actually quite scary. It looks like Squidward from Futurama or the Elephant Man.

The one without a mask sticking her tongue out is my new co-volunteer, Danielle. She's 27 and from South London and has a forreal Cockney accent.

I know this is blurry but how cute right?!

Also we watched the opening ceremony of the Olympics in the background; I didn't realize how long it was. Or how awesome. And I'm sorry, Project Runway, but not all the costumes look "athletic." Would the Japanese women really compete in those dresses? Brazil's athletes had really stupid hats, and you could tell some of the younger competitors were a little embarrassed because they took them off and waved them.

No a computador AGORA

(That means online NOW)

Guess what: we have a rat in the house! which should be in no way surprising as it's next to a huge garden and is over 100 years old. This rat has provided far more entertainment than it probably should. Sally thought she saw a tail disappear behind the old-as bookshelf in our computer room when she was drunk on Saturday morning, but she wasn't sure. Then someone else saw it run behind the bookcase Tuesday evening, and last night in the kitchen, another volunteer and I saw it run from the hallway under the oven, then again from under the oven to a different part of the kitchen. What makes this lil' retelling amusing is that one of the grown men in the house freeeeeeeaked out when he heard about the rat and ran to his room. This prompted Sally and I, sick of the sheer boredom of going from a house of 30 to a house of 9 and desiring to take advantage of Brian the semi-pervy Irish guy, to run to the store, buy some random vegetable whose name I don't remember in English much less Portuguese, and fashion a fake rat to leave random places around the house. PROBLEM IS now they think we never had a real rat and are calling off the exterminators. OOPS I feel like a sheepish nine-year-old.

In other news, I'm working with someone new at the project, who's so much easier to work with than my previous co-volunteer it's almost unbelievable. Yesterday we played bingo for the full two hours and they loved it; turns out I'm actually working with elderly Americans. The bus stops by police have become a regular part of the trip home. I've been questioned every time but have only had to get off the bus that once. I've started bringing my ID.

My Portuguese somehow became somewhat proficient; I had a full conversation with a cab driver last night and can now understand my kids about 75% of the time. They call me one of four names: Leah (very rarely), Mia (again for some reason the translation of my name), Tia (sounds like "chia," this one means Aunt and is what I get the most), or Profesora (which rolls together like pfffessssra) when they really need my attention. I still get confused by no, the Portuguese word for on and in, which makes every billboard look really negative. NO Rua do Catete, no sua marcado local, no casa, etc. (Nao means no but sounds like "now" so you see where the confusion ensues?) Also, I recently learned moro and morro mean live and die, respectively. The children asked me vai a mora em Rio? and I was all like "NO what are you suggesting?!" For the most part, though, I'm maintaining a tenuous grasp on the language, preparing for my week outside the city when I won't be with English-speaking people and I'll need all the communication tools I can get. I THINK I MIGHT GO BUNGEE JUMPING during that time. But I'm not sure yet. XTREME Rio?!

Oh here are some pictures of things:

This is Flamengo Beach, where I run every day (or did at least until I did something silly to my leg).

A gorgeous picture of Luara, the 8-year-old love of my life. I let her win twice at bingo.

This is a random picture from my birthday. Fist pumps are big in Rio.

Too many parentheticals?

Hi,
The past few days have been really eventful in ways that aren't really interesting to blog about. (I know about the preposition-ending but it would have been more awkward to switch the wording, no?) I don't want to get behind, though, so I'll give the update on the birfday etc.

Thursday night was the celebration of my birthday/most of the group's last night/PARTYTIME. The group of 16 that I came with all went out to PizzaKilo (that's not the real name, it's not even a kilo restaurant it's a buffet, these waiters bring around pizzas and you can take a slice of whatever you want, I had two beef stroganoff pizzas among others, they also have dessert pizza which tastes just like when you put bread in chocolate fondue), then to Casa de Matriz, acclaimed by guidebooks as the most hipster of Rio's clubs. The last night activities were really sweet, two from our group organized an award ceremony with joke awards for everybody. I got made fun of for running the stairs to the beach for exercise. You all can be comforted to know I haven't changed much.

Anyway, a birthday in Rio allowed me to start drinking well before I actually turned 21, and drinks in Rio are STRONG, and my friends were generous so I definitely had the 21st birthday experience one is supposed to have. I got in from the club (I'm not really sure how many hipsters were actually there, I remember seeing a waify model but nobody here wears American Apparel so it's hard to tell. The DJ played some old Clap Your Hands Say Yeah I guess, but probs its label was a misnomer) at 6:45 and had birthday cake for breakfast.

Everybody left Friday, which made for an emotional, kind of hollow actual birthday. Anna and I went to the beach, and I had an acai, and in true August 1st birthday fashion it was hot as hell (WINTER IT'S WINTER HERE) but saying goodbye sucks. Living and working in a strange city with few people that speak English bonds people in a really unique way, and as much as I anticipated falling in love with the city and being indifferent about the housemates, I lucked into getting the best of both worlds. Also, the new people seem pretty cool and I'm fully intending to make the most of my next two weeks (ONLY TWO MORE WEEKS) in Rio. Then it's one week of travel (Paraty/Buzios/Iguassu/I dunno yet) and then HOME. I need a new drivers license.

Jesus Christ!

So I was one of the last people here to go see the huge Christ the Redeemer statue up close. My logic was that I had 4/3/2 more weeks so why rush it etc etc, BUT this is Max's last week, so he and Sally and I (and a boy that just moved in named Russell) decided a while ago to go Tuesday morning. Except... we went out Monday, so we all slept in, then Sally and I went to the beach until about 1:00, then Max made lunch, then we had to go to the bank so really we didn't leave until 2:30.

Christo is the highest point in the city, and the views of all of Rio are supposed to be amazing from there, so the best time to go is when the sun is bright and the clouds are few. Of course, we got there around sunset with a lot of clouds. The way to get all the way up to the top of Corcovado (means hunchback, descriptive name of the hill Christ is on) is with a special van/taxi that costs something like R$36 each to take you up, stop three times on the way, wait for you for an hour, and take you back home (in our case, all the way back to Gloria). It's quite a ripoff. We were afraid of missing Christ by daylight, so we only stopped at one of the helipad photo-op spots and only for five of the twenty minutes we were alotted (the bus driver seemed quite shocked at this decision).

I expected this excursion to be underwhelming (that may have been why I waited so long); however, even though we came at the wrong time of day and even though I've been seeing Christ peripherally for weeks now, seeing really large things up close is always gonna be pretty cool, and this was no exception. What's even more incredible that I didn't really anticipate is how HIGH UP this mountain is; we were above clouds, and even through the clouds, the view of the city from that height was really breathtaking.

PIXX:

No but it's, like, really tall up close.

The good thing about having pictures with the statue is it's hard, solid, evidence that I was in Rio de Janeiro if I ever need it.

Sally took like 100 pics of me with Christ when I asked for one. This photo's my favorite, because it looks like my head was photoshopped in.

The perk of going at sunset.

Shit

On my way home from work tonight, I got on the bus like usual and was sitting by myself (Anthonette didn't go today). The kids had been horrendous this afternoon so I was kind of exhausted/preoccupied; I noticed the bus had stopped but didn't pay attention to why until I was tapped and looked up to see three armed police officers staring at me. One of them asked me a question which I of course didn't understand. I guessed that he asked "where are you going" because I heard "onde" so I answered "Praca Tiradentes" which is where I catch the second bus. This annoyed him, so I quickly told him I didn't speak Portuguese which annoyed him even more. I then figured out that he was asking where I was coming from and so responded the next time he asked "Mangueira," the name of my favela. (It didn't occur to me to lie to this police officer, and even if I had the presence of mind to, I don't honestly know any less-questionable spots beyond the favela where I could have hopped the bus.) Anyway, the policeman then made me get off the bus, pointed me a spot on the sidewalk while the bus drove away, and thoroughly searched my person and my bag. I, meanwhile, was using my limited, limited Portuguese to explain that I was at the favela as a volunteer teacher (forgot how to say "teach" which didn't help) and that I lived in Gloria (which is a fairly nice side of town). Of course I didn't have my ID to back up my story that I was American (we were told not to carry it, even a paper copy, into the favelas) and of course it didn't help that I was carrying pepper spray. The whole time I was also terrified that the police (who are almost always corrupt) would just take my camera or expect me to bribe them just to get home. Anyway, the cops were eventually satisfied that I didn't have drugs (though the two other girls that got pulled off the bus definitely did) and told me I'd get another bus. When I asked why I'd been searched/what was going on, one of the police officers responded "because you're coming from Mangueira." Shiiiiiiiit.

BO-TO-FO-GO and Drinks at the Palace, Or More MBs Than Any Post Thus Far

UPDATE PART I: Enthusiasm

After a blissful morning at the beach, I went to my first professional soccer (futbol here duh) game Sunday evening. Rio (/the greater Rio de Janeiro state?) has something like 16 teams. My program director is a huge Botofogo fan; he threatened to kick us out of the program if we cheered for anyone else (semi-seriously). Botofogo is the team most middle and upper-class fans cheer for; all my favela kids support Flamengo, the team Botofogo happened to be playing against Sunday. The game was in Maracana stadium, the biggest stadium in the world when it was built and one of Rio's most famous landmarks. It holds 100,000 people, and I think about 36,000 were there Sunday.

Botofogo's colors are white and black can you tell. Felipe is in the bottom right of the picture, he has a lot of hair.

Anyway, I've perhaps never seen so many people as excited as these people were about their team. The teams have sets of cheersongs that literally do not stop from about an hour before the team comes on the field until after the game. (By the end even I could cheer along with them to most, one was to Unchained Melody. There's also a few men on drums the entire time.) They have about six of those GIANT flags and everybody is wearing the team's colors except when they take their shirts off as part of the cheer. People light flares all over the place and hand out confetti that they've made to throw, pick up, and throw again. It was total madness. Felipe had us sit in a particularly enthusiastic section, so we got the full experience. The men around us screamed and jumped and opened their mouths really wide and pointed us out if we weren't screaming or clapping (I don't know what they would have done if we would have sat down or stepped off of our seats). The high-stakes game ended up 0x0, and we were instructed to stay in because the nil game might induce rioting. (There was a riot at one point right after the first half; a HUGE crowd just started running and we ran with them, not knowing what was happening.) The point is, All-Stars, we need fans like these. Next year: flares at every game.

It was hard to remember most of the time that a game was actually being played; some of the men leading cheers didn't turn around once. Felipe told us that we're not there to watch Botofogo, we're there to support Botofogo.

Flares, confetti, and a man we stood by that genuinely looked like he was going to cry at one point because we weren't singing.

This video, which Blogger won't let me center on the page, demonstrates what happened THE ENTIRE GAME. This may even be a down-time.

UPDATE PART II: Elegance

Last night, it was my friend Shauna's (Alex and Aaron, that one) 21st birthday. Everybody had been wanting to dress up and go someplace fancy, so for her birthday celebration we all surprised her with drinks at the Copacabana Palace hotel. I didn't bring heels (I know right what was I thinking!!) but I did bring pearls and managed not to get kicked out for wearing flip-flops. I got a R$20 margarita and drank it in the Piano Bar, then sat by the pool with the other 20-year-old volunteers and tried to flirt with the men walking past in suits. The plan for my 21st birthday as of now includes a three-day bender, a group-rented room in the LoveTimeHotel (which charges by the hour... classy) and meat on a stick, so it's good the classiness is out of everyone's system now.

Da pool.

The group (ironically, sans Shauna) that busted all up in the classiest hotel in Rio.

My friend Max made a comment that the bartenders dressed up more for work each day than he had ever dressed in his entire life. In his defense, he did trim his beard for the occasion.

Afterward, we went across the street for R$2 beer at a beach bar.

Tomorrow: touristy pictures with JC (finally right?)

MJ in RJ

Tonight, I was walking home from the grocery store, and I passed a newsstand kiosk on the street with a television facing toward the sidewalk. I noticed as I approached that about nine or ten people were crowded around this newsstand TV and so I moved in curiously to see what breaking news story might potentially be so interesting. This group was actually watching the music video for "Beat It." One of the men in the crowd said "Michael Jackson!" and pointed at the screen.

I'll do a real post tomorrow about a soccer game and drinks at the Copacabana Palace but for now I just wanna upload pixx and maybe watch half of Weeds and go to sleep.

Things Brazilians really like:

1. Chris Brown's "With You." It plays everywhere; I hear it at least twice a day. Ultimately I think it will be the song that reminds me of Rio. Not samba, not favela funk, Chris Brown.

2. Key-making places. There's at least one kiosk and one store on every block.

3. Salgados, aka really cheap, really fatty snacks sold at every restaurant and every Lanchonette, usually in a deal with a pop for R$2. The salgados themselves are about .60-1.00 and are usually some combination of fatty breading/pastry, meat (hot dogs, sometimes chicken or ham), and melted cheese. I don't understand how everybody's not 300 pounds if all they're eating all the time are these snacks.

Mostly I just wanted to complain about "With You," which I heard about three separate times while shopping for a few hours today. I went to the craziest mall, Rio Sul, which is about eight stories of mostly upscale boutiques that are just beyond my price range all selling clothes that look similar, "going out" blouses and dresses, etc. It's extremely confusing because every store display looks the same, and they have no maps of the mall. I got lost about four times (a girl from my house got so lost last week when shopping with three others that she just took a taxi home alone). For the most part Brazilian fashion is just fine, but some garments I saw today were HIDEOUS -- there was a shirt like that sassy woman's "ethnic dress" on PR last week with what looked like fins on the side, and they're really into elaborate crossing bits of fabric that need to be tied. Anyway, I bought a pair of jeans (which are the one thing I desperately needed) and a bottled water. BIG SPENDER.

Experiencing Carnaval (but not really because it's July)

Yesterday, because it was cloudy, Anna and Rory and I decided to go to the Carnaval warehouses, a place on the edge of the city called Ciadade do Samba (SambaCity, a dumb name). Since no floats are currently being built, it serves at the moment as a Carnaval museum. A really lovely English-speaking worker gave us a private tour of the complex and told us all about how it works.

Carnaval is in February, and starting at the end of July/beginning of August (this weekend, actually), the city starts preparing. The way it works is there's something like 58 samba schools in the city/region that try to have a show at Carnaval. Right now, groups from each samba school start putting together themes/costumes/songs for their school to perform. Each Saturday (night: starting at 1am apparently) for the next two months, these groups perform their shows for the school, and the school ultimately picks the best show. The themes are all over the place: Love for Nature, 200 Years Ago in Rio, Time Travel, and Chills and Thrills are four from last year. Anyway, the schools pick a theme, compete among the 58, and either win to be in the top twelve or get eliminated. The top twelve then get huge spaces in Ciadade do Samba to put together floats and costumes. Literally HUNDREDS of people from each school participate (some get to as members of the school, but citizens of Rio can also pay about $500 and dance/walk in a costume), so hundreds of elaborate costumes are made. The floats, too, are unreal in their intricacy.

At the time of Carnaval, the twelve top samba schools get a 1 hour and 20 minute performance in a designated area of the city with a street something like a mile long (six go on Wednesday night and six go on Thursday, then on Saturday the six best go again). Forty different judges rate them in ten different categories. Carnaval is actually a national holiday in Rio, so everybody gets the week off. Seats for the event cost from $500-$2000, so in general people just support their favorite samba school (each school has colors and banners, etc it's so cute) instead of actually attending the parades. My favela is adjacent to a samba school that's consistently in the top twelve -- they were painting the streets the other day the school's colors, green and pink in preparation for the Saturday performance parties that are about to start. I'm making it my new goal in the three Saturdays I have remaining to attend one of these performances.

Here are some pictures of floats.

We could only climb on one.

This one had fur.

This is from the Thrills and Chills theme. It's a baby emerging from the womb. What you can't see are the thousands of smaller upright, green-tinted babies that comprise the rest of the float.

The costume on the left is for the oldest female participants. Hundreds of women age 60-80 wear dresses like this in each school's performance. Keep in mind that this is in the middle of Rio's summer (AKA SO HOT EVEN AT NIGHT THIS SHIT IS CRAZY)

It's raining now, which is really hard for everybody to deal with. The Cariocas on the streets were looking around in disgust; it's a fair point, though, that a slight rain is a big deal for people used to 78 and sunny every single day. Also, I may have stubbed/broken/bruised my little toe today playing soccer this morning. But I did score two legitimate goals. Against children. Probably I'm just being a baby. But it really hurts!

Uncoordinated

So it's 11:43 and I just woke up and I'm eating some Skarchitos (aka Frosted Flakes but the Brazilian name is far more appealing, no?) in the living room of the guest house. Sometimes life here is mundane, too.

Yesterday I played my first extended game of futbol with the children. They quickly learned how unskilled I was at soccer and set me up for shot after shot so I could feel better about myself. They, on the other hand, are of course all amazing (the skinny 9-year old girls could outschool most teams the All-Stars have gone up against). I played barefoot with them and didn't remember until I came home from work and the bottom of my soles were BLACK.

Last night, Wednesday, in true Carleton fashion, I went out with a group of people from the house. Rio is really interesting because each night of the week has a pretty popular club for youth to check out: Sunday night Casa Rosa, an old brothel in Santa Theresa, is happening, Thursday night, Casa de Matriz in Botofogo provides kind of a Brazilian hipster house party, Friday is Lapa, Saturday is samba school performances that start at 1am, etc etc. UNFORTUNATELY Wednesday night here is usually the night of rest; the first club we checked out, Fosfobox, is apparently really cool when it's happening (it's in the basement of a shopping center) but it was not happening last night. We ended up in Democratico, this samba club in Lapa, and for the second time of the day I demonstrated a total lack of coordination while attempting to follow the lead of men who know how to samba well. I met a cute one who tried all night to teach me (1, 2, 1, 2, nao nao nao). Sidenote: this nice boy gave me a piece of candy, but I didn't want to eat it at the club because I was afraid it was rufied so I gave it to my friend Max to hold. He ate it and didn't fall over, so really it was just that the guy was sweet. Apparently it was a big chocolate with a whole walnut in it. Anyway, it was a good thing that I was a girl, because the men are willing to teach whereas the guys we were with were shoved away as soon as the Brazilian women found out they couldn't samba. We closed the club at 4am and then got (what else?) meat on a stick outside. I love this city.

I was going to go to the beach now, but for maybe the second day of the 20 I've been here it's cloudy, so I'll probably watch Project Runway and go Saturday instead. One of the girls I'm living with asked me somberly this morning "what will we do when we can't just go to the beach at least a few times a week?" I don't know. I just don't know.

Busy Day in Busytown!

Today I had another day off, and I decided to go to the project at which my friends Carolyn and Rory volunteer. They work in a nursery in a favela in a different part of the city than mine; to get there, we took a combi (a big VW van with no seatbelts that one hails, it feels a bit like hitchhiking). Their favela illustrated for me something that I'd heard often about Rio but hadn't seen yet: the proximity of the really wealthy to the poor. We drove up a hill past huge, ivy-gated mansions worth R$2 million on our way to the favela where concrete slab houses were stacked on top of each other. Apparently, the favelas and the homeowners work out a deal so that any construction to be done on the houses is commissioned to workers from the favela (in exchange, the homeowners stay protected). Anyway, the children were ADORABLE. I still prefer my project because running after babies all day would soon get tiring/feel less than rewarding but LOOK AT THIS FACE

From out the window of the nursery, the favela I visited today.

The place we went for lunch, besides offering an a pot of chicken stroganoff, rice, potatoes, fries and Guarana for R$7, offered this amazing view of the city. The hill on the left houses the second biggest favela in Rio.

After spending the morning with Carolyn and Rory and having a very filling lunch, I caught the combi back by myself, met up with my friend Sally who also had the day off and went to see the famous Selaron stairway in Lapa, which you may have seen in this Snoop Dogg video. This Chilean-born artist became obsessed with Rio and decorated these steps over the course of 20 years as a tribute to the history of Brazil using tile from around the world. The man is somewhat crazy - the other art he does all involves his face on a pregnant woman's body - BUT he happened to be at the steps while we were there. He took us into his private studio and showed us newspaper/magazine clippings with photos of the steps (EDWARD NORTON has filmed on location there!).

Original paintings of Selaron's face on pregnant women are only R$30. I SMELL SOUVENIRS!

After the steps, we walked to Santa Theresa and rode the Bonde (a tram that's free ) around the neighborhood of ST and over the Arcos do Lapa into Centro. The tram moves just faster than a person walking so holding on was not hard. After we got home, we went to see DARK KNIGHT at the local theater. Tickets were pretty expensive but popcorn was ridiculously cheap. The cinema was a surreal experience; after seeing a 158 minute film where everybody (even the extras) spoke in English, entering the lobby where nobody did was off-putting. The movie was very good (obviously not dubbed, which was a blessing; some people I know went to Kung-Fu Panda over here and after paying R$15 realized it was in Portuguese). Heath Ledger, in the role that killed him, was terrifying and the makeup of that guy from Thank You for Smoking was even more terrifying. Christian Bale's teeth as he talks as Batman are not necessarily terrifying but really grating.

I'm having trouble with whether to go to Buenos Aires or not; I finally decided to BOOK IT this morning but in the hours between 2 and 5pm the price went up US$100. I found a British site that converted could get me a flight for $411 but I'm just not sure. It's likely I'll regret it if I don't go, but the Karels frugality is embedded SO DEEPLY within me (hey Tom remember that time I really unnecessarily argued about eleven cents at the Kwik Trip?) that I am still holding back. It's also likely that Buenos Aires '08 means lame spring break '09. We'll see. Now you have a prerogative to read the blog tomorrow.

Hot(t)

Today, in the middle of Rio de Janeiro's winter, it is 31 degrees Celsius aka about 92 degrees Fahrenheit. HOW COULD IT BE THAT I WAS BORN IN SUCH A WRONG PLACE FOR ME?

Finally some RSS action

I've always failed at keeping journals. I get behind and then I get overwhelmed and instead of catching up, I just quit. I have like six empty books at home from when I thought it would be different.

BUT NO THAT'S NOT THE POINT. This is DIFFERENT. I live to give your Google Readers a new bold entry. I just got back home from a day at the beach and most of my friends here are still gone on a weekend trip to Ilha Grande and I'm listening to some old Lil' Wayne and I'm ready to BLOG. I'ma do blurbs though because too many details are hard to follow.

ON THE FAVELA: I finally got the balls to take a pic of the favela itself. Here's where the kids I teach live. I still haven't personally seen any drug deals.

ON THE KIDS: Our classes have gotten HUGE - the morning one is now about eight and the afternoon one is about sixteen ranging in age from 4 to 13. Needless to say the afternoon one is MUCH HARDER. Last week we did the alphabet, the body, and family. The kids really love to teach us Portuguese so we've started teaching them in English and then letting them tell us what the words are in Portuguese. It's really handy for me - I'm learning more from them than from my phrasebook. Friday we took both groups on a field trip to a park about 15 minutes away and just played for two hours. Brazilian kids have all these games that make no sense. Some of them on Friday tried to teach me a game that was throwing a ball around to others in the circle while saying a color and then without warning, everyone scatters and one person throws the ball at other people and then the throwing at others just continues. And their version of duck-duck-gray-duck has a ball and a song and an undetermined number many laps around the circle.

These are three girls from the morning class: Kassia, Jessika, and Tiffany. Tiffany asked me the other day what her name was in English and when I told her it was the exact same she got really disappointed. Apparently my name in Portuguese is "Mia." I don't understand how a different language constitutes a change in consonant but they've all started calling me Mia.

The older kids from the afternoon session at the park. Flora on the right has mad leg muscle.


Luara (not Laura) is maybe my favorite. She has this frizzy hair and is missing her four top front teeth and so really just looks like this crazy old woman. She's really, really smart, too.

ON THE HOUSE: Sometimes I like to pretend I'm on Big Brother. I'm living with 16 other volunteers (along with the two maids and a random French man and the house owner and her son, Timmy, who is 11 years old and bilingual and autistic and excellent at loud story-telling). We have two bathrooms we're allowed to use and two we're not but do anyway. The house is fairly large but the bedrooms are NOT and with the arrival of three new girls yesterday my room went from being full enough at five people to being crammed at eight. Among the 16 we have a diva who takes two hours in the bathroom both in the morning and before bed and we have a weird man who says creepy things and we have a few romances (and one potential secret romance between the diva and the French man) and we have some people with drinking problems. Anyway, the best part of living in a big house is the constant gossip (Anne you'd love it here). The sad part about having everybody gone for the weekend is the total boredom an almost-empty house brings.

This one night we made pizza and party punch! So cute! This is in the kitchen!

ON THE NIGHTLIFE: The timing of going out here is pushed back about four hours. We start drinking at like 11, get to a club/the street/whatever at 12:30 and get back to the house at like 6:30. Naps abound in Rio. They sell a drink in Lapa called hy-fy which is just like big cups of half vodka and half Fanta. CLASSY.

OTHER THINGS I DID THIS WEEK: got a R$6 pedicure (that's four bucks), lost my voice completely (which doesn't help when I have to speak Portuguese, these museum guides today looked at me with a combination of confusion and disquiet), got stuck on the Metro (an slow man exited in front of my friend Krista and me and we had to walk back from a stop farther at 11:30 last night), was told by the children that I looked vermelha (that's red; thanks kiddies), had like 8 churros, missed Pitchfork (the live feed won't work either), missed you too

This week's goal: shorter and more frequent posts! And jeez everyone comment more before I get insecure.

And by tomorrow I mean Sunday.

OOPS five days later

BAAAAH sorry major update coming tomorrow kay?

On favelas and corruption

So a Brazilian that works in a favela with my friend Anouska told her that three drug dealers he knew from their favela were recently arrested by the police. Apparently the cops took the dealers before the chief of police, who was paid off and refused to acknowledge the situation. The cops, angry at the chief, then took the drug dealers into a rival favela, beat the shit out of them, then left them to be killed by the drug lords in that favela. This is the environment in which my children are growing up. I talked the other day to Priscilla, a citizen of Rio who works for i-to-i, and she told me a bit more about the government here. Apparently the capital of Brazil was Rio for a while, but as the city grew, the corrupt government needed to move away from the eyes of the public and businessmen to continue doing what they were doing. They founded the city of Brasilia far away from the other major cities of Brasilia, and apparently it serves solely as a place for the corrupt government to perpetuate -- politicians won't even live there.

I haven't had trouble with police corruption yet -- two gave my drunk friends a free ride home the other night, and the other day when I was out running and my keys wouldn't stay tucked inside my shoelaces, one laughed at me and told me to wear them around my neck instead.

The favela drug dealers are an interesting thing: for the most part, they don't bother anyone not involved in drugs. It's easy to see that cocaine is being sold and that many of the men standing around have guns with them, but they don't seem too concerned with volunteers. Also interesting: since they can't really leave their favela without being arrested/shot, most druglords spend their money on HUGEASS favela parties once every month. I'm hoping to attend one of these before I leave. Wednesday I'm going with my favela kids to Macarana stadium and a huge park nearby! Macarana is right by my favela and apparently one of the things to see while here (it's on postcards, even). Today the children absolutely exhausted me, it's 6:22 and I just want to go to sleep. I might walk down the hill to get an acai for dinz and call it a night.

Maybe one of the dumbest decisions I've ever made?

So this morning at about 8:45 I was about 95% sure I was being kidnapped.

My friend Anna talked on Monday or Tuesday to a guy who works at her project about going to a beach outside of Rio, a "natural beach" instead of the "city beaches" of Copa and Ipanema. Anyway, he told her that he and some other people from her work were in fact going that weekend, and she told me and for some reason I thought it sounded like a fine idea. So we get out to the car where they're waiting to pick us up at 8:00 this morning, and it's just the guy from her work (who doesn't speak much English), his Brazilian friend, and nobody else. They hastily take our bags and tell us to get in. So I find myself sitting in the backseat of a coupe (no doors to escape) with my pepper spray and Anna's cell phone out of reach, driving away from my house and out of the city with two men I'd met only minutes before. And we'd ASKED them to do this for us. So I'm terrified out of my mind, and I keep whispering to Anna and the man in the front says sharply "speak UP when you are talking so I can hear" and when we ask him what beach we're going to he says "oh there are a lot of beaches we could go to." Also both are wearing jeans, not swim trunks -- no towels anywhere. So we drive and drive and drive for three hours and all the while I'm planning strategies to run away and practicing the word "help" in Portuguese and thinking of how Lindsey told me to never, ever get in a car if you don't feel comfortable with the driver. So finally the car pulls over in a driveway and there's a gate and beyond the gate is a path covered in vegetation with no end in sight and Leo (the one that speaks English) says "oh now we're going to visit my grandmother and I will change" and beckons us down the tree-laden path. I politely refuse, saying I will sit by the car (I got my backpack with pepper spray out of the trunk when we stopped) and with an eye on the road. Leo looks really hurt and Anna says she will go despite my frantic eye darting and mouthing "no!" So the three of them go down the path and I sit by the car and hope that my friend comes back alive and that if I need to run to the road one of those cars will stop and help me.

As it turns out, the guys are completely harmless; Leo was indeed visiting his grandmother, they take us to a beach in Angra (pronounced ahn-gra), a beautiful little city west of Rio where the water is clear and the mountains are covered in trees and the buildings are colorful and the locals are friendly. We spend 4 relaxing hours at the beach (I mean until I walked into the door of my house I was still not sure I wasn't being taken somewhere), the guys watch our bags while we swim, and then the four of us go to a mall food court for lunch/dinner (yeah I know okay) then drive home. Leo stops again to say goodbye to his grandmother and the driver puts on a Celine Dion CD for the ride.

So I guess the moral of the story is I need to trust people more? I need to make smarter decisions to avoid three hours experiencing waves of sheer terror? I need to thank God that I'm not lying in a ditch? All of the above?

A picture from the beach (I only took 3). Anna, Leo, and the Brazilian driver are playing in the water.

Love from your thankful, thankful friend/sister/daughter.

Pictures of cute children!

Here are some photos from the favela, mostly taken from outside our library/classroom in the "yard" the kids play in during the last 30 minutes, when they've had about 1.5 hours of English instruction and it's been more than enough:

This little girl in front is probably the cutest child I've ever seen. And the best of the 8-year olds at English. She told me her name like four times but couldn't write it yet and I have literally no idea what it is.

The man on the far right is Jefferson, who helps with the school. He doesn't speak any English but spent 15 minutes with an Ingles-Portugues dictionary painstakingly translating the menu of a lanchonete in the favela yesterday.

Each one can now count to 10 in English.

As soon as I pulled out my camera, Flora above and her friend dragged me to the other end of the yard and asked me to take about three portraits of each of them.

This is Jessica, she's a great artist.

I've been here a week now and I feel like I'm really getting the hang of it. I've learned to pronounce it "brigata" instead of "obrigata" like the native women, I can get out correct bus change swiftly, I know how to navigate my way around Gloria, I feel somewhat confident with teaching...

In about five minutes we're going to the BOTANICAL GARDENS! At about 6:00 comes what I've been waiting for: a trip to a churrascaria restaurant -- basically a meat paradise, where patrons pay a flat rate and get to take from a salad bar while waiters walk around with different cuts of meat AND YOU CAN HAVE AS MUCH AS YOU WANT.

I really don't mean to end every post talking about food. Shit. I did cave and buy some R$1 postcards (that's like 75 cents! Unnecessarily expensive!) yesterday. They're all comically ugly or obnoxious. Not intentionally either, I couldn't find any that weren't photoshopped to have blinding color contrast/in Comic Sans/full of exclamation points. They're great, though. Bye for now from Rio!!!

Finally favela

I literally have the house to myself right now except for the house manager and probably the house manager’s grand[son/daughter – we can’t tell for certain which yet]. Everybody else is going out tonight but I’m playing tightass with my money and probably going to listen to music and go to bed early. Seven weeks is a LONG TIME and running out of money in like week three would be awful, so it’s good that I’m conserving now right? Right? I’ll go [all] out tomorrow.

I actually started working with the kids yesterday. To get to my favela (Favela de Mangueira is the name), I have to take two busses; it's about an hour of travel through Centro (the downtown area) and then into the sketchier part of the city. I'm working in a library converted by the woman I mentioned in the last post, and the building is right on the edge of the favela next to the public school. So we're not really inside (BLOGGING BREAK: the he/she child is singing so very loudly/incomprehensibly. It's 11:04.) the favela, like some other people from my house are in their projects. This is both good and bad: I don't really have a reason to walk around inside so I don't get to experience it quite as fully, but of course I'm ostensibly much safer on the fringes. On Monday, we were given a tour of the favela; it was reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally incredible, built into the hill and just twisting up and up and up. The man who gave us the tour (Jefferson, who helped us at the school on Wednesday but doesn't speak a word of English) explained (through our translator) that every space possible is built up by people looking for homes. He also showed us some houses built by the government for people whose homes collapse due to poor foundation. He spoke with such disdain for the government, though, that it was easy to tell that the solution of temporary housing wasn't nearly enough. Huge chunks of the favela smelled very strongly of trash or feces, and we saw quite a few mangy dogs roaming around, but for the most part it seemed fairly calm (some of the others in the house have told stories of being 20 feet from cocaine negotiation or passing guards with guns aimed on top of sandbags).

Only four children came Wednesday afternoon (they're expecting quite a few more when word gets around that strange people are at the after-school program). They had a LOT of trouble with the English, so really we just went over "Hello," "What is your name?" "My name is" and "How are you?" Brazilian Portuguese doesn't use a lot of "th" sounds and their "s"es are usually said as an "sh" so "is" comes out "iz-zhuh." Even though their pronunciation was terrible, they were enthusiastic and making them repeat it over and over seemed to help. The two hours went really quickly (we also drew and played outside, photos soon but the internet is too slow for them right now) and at the end they all gave us beijos (kisses). The woman running the center then insisted on feeding us ham sandwiches and cookies. Tomorrow we're teaching from 9-11am, have a three hour break to spend in the favela, and then again 2-4pm.

New food obsession of the day: the barbecue chips here actually taste like meat. If you know me you know this is the most exciting snacking news of the century.

No I'll actually start the volunteer work soon, I promise

I did go to the favela yesterday for like an hour, to meet the coordinator of my project. She speaks no English -- I had a translator but the woman would just speak and speak and speak in Portuguese for 15-minute chunks and the translator would like squeeze in a 5 sentence explanation when she took a break. At one point the Brazilian coordinator started weeping and of course I had no idea why until 10 minutes later. Anyway, starting TOMORROW (afternoon) I'll be spending 2 hours in the morning and 2 in the afternoon playing with kids, teaching them as much English as possible while doing it. This is a very new project, so my co-volunteer and I basically get to create all the structure ourselves. The favela didn't feel that dangerous, but then again, I was getting a guided tour with a large man raised there so that could've helped. MORE about the favela/children/work when it actually starts tomorrow.

I only work Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays so without even beginning I had a day off. I went to the beach. It turns out the beach we went to the other day was Ipanema (nobody figured it out until yesterday, when a volunteer whose project is a surf school on Ipanema realized it was the SAME place - Copacabana is apparently larger and more commercial.) Here are more pics from a large rock (is it totes obnox when I'm in them? I feel like it kind of is):


























Then I hacked up (hawked up? spent.) the 44 Reais to take the cable car to the top of Pao de Azucar (Sugarloaf Mountain). We hit it at the perrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrfect time, sunset on a clear night and pictures can't describe how incredible it was. The funny thing is though, its beauty was so expected; I still keep getting taken aback by the most common things, like the walk up the hill home or passing random buildings in the bus. It's really hard to forget that I'm a long way from Milaca/Nofo, but I like that.


















































New food obsession of the day: CHURROS. Holy SHIT they're this tasty dough noodle that some vendor squirts chocolate through (through! better even than dipping like Spain) then rolls in sugar. And they're only R$1. And there are men selling them all over. BOSS.