Ipenama Apartment, Rio de Janeiro

Article
Doormen, even coming from the poorest regions (making merely 150 dollars a month for a 60 hour work week) come to know patrons, very very well. The occasion tip helps tremendously especially when dealing with "parcels from home."
The author found sanctuary in Rio de Janeiro for 200 dollars a month. It was a small studio, but in Rio de Janeiro, despite the interferences from all other 150 tenants it was more than worth the measly 200 dollars. He would hear their alarm clocks, their voices, and their vomiting.
He finally left, leaving his 30 dollar deposit with the landlord. Happily and hurriedly he left his apartment in Rio.
The landlord attempted to keep him there as long as possible and it was difficult to leave, but he did.
The only real aspect of this article that struck home is how the doormen controlled so much. For as much as their job description advised them to do (that is let people in and out) they did a lot more. Particularly the part aboutdealing with parcels from home rang clear a memory.
That is, 2 months after I had left my first host family I had returned to their gated community. I had returned not to see the family that introduced me to Brazil, but to see if I had received any mail from home. It turns out that I had. I received a package from home the day that I had left. My host parents, obviously done with me, had neglected to tell me that there was a package for me.
When my host brother drove to the booth in which the doormen stayed, they looked suspiciously upon the car. With questioning eyes they looked at my new host brother. When they saw me, however they exclaimed,
"ABIGAIL QUE VAI?! TEMOS UM PACOTE PRA VC!"- How are you Abigail? We have a package for you!
They had been keeping the package in storage for 2 month. They proudly passed it to me. I graciously accepted it.
My host brother turned around and scolded me on how informal I was with the help.
When I opened the package a burst of fire ants flooded from the box. My mother had sent me Halloween candies, that had already melted and been mostly consumed by the ants.
The only thing worth having, however, was a note that my mom had wrote. Her hand writing felt like a warm hug from home. It said all the normal things like "I miss you" and "I wish you could have seen....". It meant the world to me that the doormen had held onto it.
They were the nicest guys in the complex.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - Coke and Favelas

Article
The poorest people in Brazil live in favelas. I've talked about this already, but it deserves more than one mention.
70 percent of each favela's population consists of black people, or brown people. These people are the merchants selling ice cream or 'gucci' rings or sunglasses. The mulatto people, lighter brown skinned people, have jobs like security guards or secretaries and the majority make up the middle class. The mulatto people live in middle class communities. They don't have pools and don't live behind gates. The white people are the doctors, the engineers, the architects and the lawyers. The live behind gates and employ the favela-lites as gardeners, housekeepers and cooks.
The favelas are what I'm interested. The people that live in the favelas are what I am interested in. I, honestly, only got to know them as vendors or maids, but I somewhat regret that.
The author of this article tells us about the favela that was near his apartment on Ipanema. The first time he saw it he almost confused it for a used furniture dump and wanted to go ask if they had any nice tables. When he got closer though he noticed that young kids running wildly about. As he got even closer he could feel them eye him for anything of value. As he stood next to the favela they asked "Black? White?" (Weed? Cocaine?)
The author then goes on to explain a child, Paulo, whom he met on a bus and was complete strung out on glue sniffing. Out of pity he bought Paulo meat for his family and lectured him on the dangers of sniffing glue.
He saw Paulo many times after that. Often too strung out to move and sleeping in doorways or on the beach.
The author does raise an interesting point.

The poverty in Brazil only stands out because it really shouldn’t be there. Brazil is a country overflowing with natural resources, occupies about half the East Coast of South America and has hue potential for tourism. What holds it back are the cycles of corruption, discrimination and lack of education that cripples the country before it can stand up.

Brazil Carnival - Falling in Love

Article
In this article the author highlights some of the escapades he sees at carnival and one of them he experienced.
I thought this article would have more about explaining Brazilian sexuality, but it actually just went into how he fell in love 'three day love' with one of the girls that he met at Carnival.
I guess this article/story spoke loads to the kind of passion you experience at Carnival. Its different than meeting someone on a vacation. Its different because when you find someone you are attracted to in a crowd of 1/2 a million people, by the way most of these people are Brazil's youthly and Brazil's beautiful, it sparks something more powerful. With this spark and the hell heat and the sweat pooring from everywhere and from everyone, well its difficult to turn away a feeling of lust especially if you are surrounded by strangers that are falling for each other the same way. He also describes some of the 'drugs' they used (aresol cans sprayed onto paper and then inhaled are lanas) and he also describes drama that sounded him (brazilian men tugging and pulling on the hands of all the women that they wanted and getting into fights with another).
The carnival that I went to was in a small town. It little towns in Brazil, the carnival is just as big, but the news that their is a foreigner in the mix is celebrated and not look on as an annoyance.
I was a little Madonna and had my pick of the guys and look upon them from my VIP spot on the caged off section, complete with couches and free drinks. Drama surrounds everything. From the spot we danced in I could see fights erupt, people kissing passsionately, and men dressed as women that were fooling the drunk men. It was such a blast. My friend Kristen and I had a couple hell of a nights!

Brazil Travel Story - Servants, slaves and Unintentional Seduction

ArticleThe nannies, the cooks, and the gardeners in Brazil come from the favelas. They are paid enough to stay in the favelas. They earn enough money for their families to live in the favelas, to watch fuzzy television, to know college is worlds away from their own. The older ones generally accept their plight in life. Their skins tethered by sun and work and acceptance. They know they will work this way for the rest of their lives, old and ugly and poor. In Brazil, all three of these things are as offensive as the next. However, the younger ones dream of something better then servitude.
Its hard to understand that a country, left winged enough to have a polite/dinner table word for a one night stand which is 'ficar', could so carelessly look the other way when it comes to the mistreatment of people who tend to them hand and foot.
This article highlighted the backwardness of how these passionate people, very generous and giving in other areas of their life, would treat their servants.
The author referred to one of his experiences in Bahia. He explained that he felt woozy from giving blood and the doctor offered, in exchange for his company, a place to stay that evening. It sounds odd, but it is not too uncommon for Brazilians to invite foreigners to their home for dinner and a night. They will often have guests on the night of your arrival and then trapes them around, much like you'd pass around a birthday cake. Some people would engage deeply in conversation and devour your concentration, while the next person will simply shake your hand and then pass the divulgence without a second look.
Anyway he went to the family's house. In the gated community that every doctor, architect, or engineer is expected to live in. Inside the house, was the servant Joseph that the rich are expected to 'own' just like the swimming pool that was in the yard.
Joseph set the table, refilled drinks, served the dinner he made, got to eat a little of the dinner in a back room, filled drinks, cleared the table, served the dessert he had made(there was none left for him), and washed the dishes after doing the laundry and serving coffee.
After the meal the author actually remembers Joseph's 'boss' asking of him to,
"Joseph, pass me my lighter. And turn the light on. Joseph, ashtray. Bring some fruit, Joseph – and buy some cigarettes."
The servants in Brazil are treated this way. They are objects. Objects, nonetheless, that can be disposed of at any time, no matter how long they have been working with the family they serve.
On a personal note my second host family in Brazil had four servants. One do to all the cooking and daily washing, like dishes and sweeping, her name was Sonya. One to take care of the youngest girl, Lala and her name was Neosa. One to garden their lawn in the back, a man that I never met formally, but I saw everyday. One that came in once a week and the back breaking work, again no one ever introduced me to her and when I tried to talk to her she'd smile and then coyly walk away.
One day I noticed I had something missing. I wouldn't be able to tell you what it is now. Maybe it was a make up bag or maybe it was my brush, I can't remember. Anyway, I asked my host mom if she had seen it and how I was a bit upset that I was missing it.
The next day, Sonya, the cook, was gone. Neosa was cooking our lunch. It turns out Sonya had been fired for stealing from me. It also turns out that I found whatever it was I was looking for in my little host sister's room. Dispensable human beings.

Poverty, Poodles and Favelas

This article was written by a young man that used to live at the bottom of a favela in Rio on the beach Ipanema.

The favelas are illegal settlements built on the sides of hills considered too steep for safe construction. The joke is that for once the poor end up with the sea breezes and good views.

Favelas are the slums of Brazil. There there are things called 'cats', wires that are hooked around electric lines and used to pirate electricity. Because favelas are illegal settlements, no rent is paid. No electric bills are paid. No water bills need to be paid. However, the military police use the favela's inhabitants as target practice. Up until the early 90s the police got a bonus for every criminal that they had killed. If kids are born black, they are most deserving of the bullets.

The author compares the life of the impoverished to the lives of the wealthy. There is a vast disparity between both. He emphasizes the lack of knowledge about the poor amongst the rich. He states that the rich wear their wealth like a badge, rubbing it in the faces of the poor, much like the police rub their guns in backs of the same people. They tote around their poodles, step from BMWs, and wear the finest of fine clothing. While the world that the tote around and step into is a world that gives no nod to its poor.
I loved the title of this article. The article itself, up to now, has been the most compelling and interesting for me to read. As an exchange student, you see favelas, you see poodles, you see the extreme rich mixed amongst the beggers. To hear about it from such a real standpoint was facinating to me.
When he describes the poodles and the rich people, this is almost a hilarious/sad reality about it. Every rich person in Brazil has a poodle. I don't know why, obviously the author doesn't know why. Other than to show off their wealth there is no reason to have a poodle. I lived with very well off people the entire year in brazil. So did my exchange student friends. They all had at least one poodle, each family did anyway. I saw no other kinds of house dogs. Of course I'd see poor dogs on the street that belonged to poor owners, but poodles are a status symbol.
A very honest approach to seeing Brazil though a Brazilian's perspective. I couldn't read it fast enough.

When will I ever use Portuguese?

Native Brazilians on Learning English
The first section of this geocities (blog?) site has students of english write in english about why learning english is important to them. They state the most extreme importance under travel (being understood everywhere you go), and secondly for business(convincing americans banks to give them loans) and thirdly for education (reading articles in english).
I attempted to find an article on the difficulties of learning another language, but I was then bombarded by free trials of language learning software. This article (if you can call it that)/assignment was the most solid thing I could find on a personal approach to learning another language.
My personal experience with Portuguese could be summed up in one word: challenging. I got on my plane to go to Brazil, at the age of 16, with the same stereotypes that we all grow up learning. Well, all of us that attended Walker High School grew up learning. That is that "everyone around the world speaks english". Though this was the basis of my train of thought, I also thought it was essencial to learn a little spanish to smooth the edges of my Brazilian experience. Our highschool offered us German and Spanish. I opted for spanish, mistakingly thinking that it was probably very similar to portuguese.
When I arrived in Sao Jose do Rio Preto, I walked off the plane and was greeted by my first host family.
I had just gotten off a flight that was only supposed to be 8 hours. It turned into a 12 hour flight because of my inexperience flying and unreliable 'rides' and yadda yadda.
I started to unleash my apologies for being 4 hours too late. It was answered by blank faces. That was my first reality check. No one understood what I was saying.
This is what went on for the next 3 months of my experience. Though I was learning, I felt like the biggest idiot. I was communicating in english, portuguese, and spanish. I obviously didn't starve to death, but it was frustrating to only be fully understood... once a week. That was when I made a call home to my parents. My parents would have to endure a bawling child, pleading with them to take me home from the backwards country of Brazil. For three months my brazilian experience revolved around those 'once a week' conversations.
I started to learn, but it proved to be a lot more tasking than I had planned for it to be. After the 3 months of hell, I began to become more confident about Portuguese. I was beginning to have mini conversations with fellow students. I learned that their curiousity with me was virtually out of this world. I began to be confident in words and sentence structure. People began giving me compliments. I couldn't believe it.
The weekly conversations started to become bimonthly chats. I realized that I had learned portuguese fully when I entered the home of my third host family. Denise, my host mother. I had entered her small home with the same dumb look on my face that I had entered all the other homes. I felt, again, like a special education child that this family was going to have to take care of for another 3 months.
Denise asked my host brother if i knew any portuguese. I spoke up and proclaimed,
"Eu fala com fluencia, se tem otras perguntas, pode pedir me." I speak fluent portuguese, if you have other questions, you can ask me.
She seemed a little taken aback, but it proved a very positive experience. My third host mom, I can honestly say, was the only one that treated me with the respect and love of anything close to a real daughter.

Beyond Shelter

Beyond Shelter
In Recife, Brazil a new plan is being inacted to help out the poor people. Habitar Brazil is the name of the charitable organization that is providing people with low income housing. The city of Recife is one amongst the poorest in Brazil. Actually all of Northeast Brazil is dead poor. What keeps Recife alive is its tourist industry. Recife lays on the coast and is very popular amongst Brazilian travelers as well as international travelers. It is absolutely gorgeous. From the crystal blue water to the white sand its an extremely charming place to visit. However, everywhere you turn, there children begging and fathers begging and mothers begging. Much like the rest of Brazil Recife has a massive poverty problem. The northeastern part of Brazil draws many homeless people, mostly because it is hotter and it is more convenient to be homeless when you are not freezing to death..... That sounded bad, but there are a lot of poor people.
The Habitar Brazil program was started after a study was conducted in some of Pernambuco's (state in northeast Brazil) favelas. They found that 97.9 percent of the residents in these slum areas made, on average, roughly 240 reais a month. That is only 80 american dollars a month. The study also showed that 63.3 percent of the heads of house hold were women, and that 90 percent of the heads of household hadn't completed more than a high school education.
The program is not only providing housing for these people, but also it is providing health care, education and jobs too. They are hiring the people to build their new homes and new schools.
I didn't read about the requirements to qualify for this program. I am thinking that the rich people in Brazil are pretty pissed about giving their tax dollars to the poor people. Their mentality is a little backwards when it comes to that. I guess though when you see people begging all the time, it hurts your heart a little less each time. Hmmm just a thought to ponder.