Transportation

For the past seven weeks I have been getting around three ways: public bus, taxi, and walking. Walking is the only mode of transportation that is not a bit of a rip off.

I travel during the day until early evening by public bus. It costs R$2.50 every time you step on and its usually extremely crowded. The nice thing is that it is customary for others to hold your bags or anything you are carrying when you have to stand. There is always so much traffic too so everything just takes a bit longer than it should. Salvadorans spend a lot of time complaining about the poor quality of public transportation and the amount of traffic within the city. Taking the bus was how I learned the layout of the city. I definitely have got on the wrong bus a few times but I am pretty confident now and can usually get around. It helps that people are generally helpful about letting you know when to get off if you ask for some help when getting on the bus.

Taking taxis may be quicker but are so expensive here. After going out at night I take taxis home which ends up being rather expensive. It doesn't help that because I am evidently not Brazilian that taxi drivers will try and rip me off. Even though the taxis are metered, drivers try to get away with not turning them on or driving in circles or the long way so that the meter will be more. I have learned to be extremely upfront about knowing how much I should be paying and that I know what route he should be taking. I hate being ripped off because I'm foreign. I live here now and I'm not dumb. End of story.

Walking. I walk to and from class each day which takes about fifteen minutes. I walk past loads of shops and vendors on the streets. Street vendors here sell the most random assortment of things from underwear, refrigerator magnets, staplers, fresh fruit and veggies, and flashy fake Rolexes.Walking the city streets here should be a sport. Salvadorans walk at an extremely leisurely pace in which they make frequent stops in the middle of the sidewalk to have conversations, window shop, or buy and eat food.This makes it frustrating and hard to walk at a steady pace, or even a moderate pace for that matter. Then there is the dodging of poop (human and animal), muddy rain puddles, vomit, loads of trash, and street vendors who are numerous and have no problem reaching out and touching me.  The buildings also drip water down from the AC vents onto the sidewalk so I get a little wet sometimes. There is also an occasional jump or duck needed along the route. I have my walking system down now and am no longer am bothered by the sweatiness that results.

Aging

Since I have arrived at Josefa’s house, I have noticed the intricacies that come with her age. She has a tendency to spew food when eating and regularly leave parts of her meal on her lips or face without realizing. Sometimes she eats them after saving them for a bit. She is hard of hearing and I have to yell when I talk which makes it so that in general I just have a louder voice when speaking Portuguese. She is very headstrong and always speaks her mind regardless of how inappropriate what she is saying is. She is very set in her routine. She wakes up at 6 in the morning and walks back and forth on the 50 yard little street for one hour as she recites the rosary and prays. I woke up one morning early to spy on her and it was probably one of the cutest things I have ever seen. She is a pretty mean speed-walker. She leaves the house only to buy groceries, visit her sister, church and the doctor. She spends her days cooking lunch and “organizing the house” although we have a maid who comes in and does cleaning and organizing. She watches loads of TV and has her particular programs she likes. After drinking her decaf coffee and bread she watches TV and goes to bed around 7:30pm. I adore this woman for all of these things and the amount of care and attention she gives me.

The biggest thing I have noticed about Josefa is her problem with her memory. She forgets my name a lot for example, I will have two forks and no knife, or she will have forgotten where I went. She also never really remembers my schedule although it doesn’t change. She will lose track of time and forget what she is doing or saying right in the middle of something. She leaves the stove on a lot so I always make sure it’s off when I walk by and nothing is cooking. One morning I woke up and it was as if she didn’t know who I was by the look on her face.  She frequently says “me esqueci”(I forgot) and apologizes. I have gotten used to it and understand that she is just getting older.

Yesterday at dinner, Josefa told me that she had gone to the doctor the day before and was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She said it very matter of fact and told me that there wasn’t much she could do. She explained that that’s why she looks at me like she doesn’t know me sometimes and why she forgets my name a lot. Why she can’t remember how old her grandchildren are or where her son is. I didn’t know what to say or how to react. It’s not like she is very ill and dying but in a way her memory is. I am very shocked and sad, and yet it all makes sense. I don’t know anyone with Alzheimer’s nor do I know much about it. I want to know more so that I can better understand what Josefa is going through and what she will go through. Say a prayer for her for me. Thank you.  

Apartment, Check!

After checking out several apartments for the Independent Study Period (May 11 to June 20), Carolyn, Callie and I signed a lease on a beautiful apartment. It is in a nicer and safe neighborhood called Graca which is close to the beach. It is on the top floor of an apartment building, with a large outdoor patio, Jacuzzi, view of the ocean, and celling to floor windows looking over the city. We completely scored on the set up and on the price. I can’t wait to move in for ISP and live the life. Living in a homestay has been wonderful but I ready for a different Brazil living experience. Our landlord Livio (a quirky older Italian man) lives below us with his Brazilian wife, 15 year old daughter, and his mother-in-law. He is extremely friendly but probably not the best person to learn Portuguese from. I am most excited about his espresso machine, his wifi internet and the amazing patio. I am hoping that the beautiful living situation will ease the stress of designing and performing research and writing a 40 page thesis paper on my research.

Quiejo Coalho

The one Brazilian food that I crave here above all others is quiejo coalho. It is a special kind of cheese treat that can come in a large block or on a skewer and is grilled to perfection. You put herbs and a unique molasses sauce here. The inside is grilled and a dark brown. The inside is off-white, warm and gooey. The best way that I can describe the cheese is a less dense mozzarella. It is very simple in taste but terrific with herbs and molasses. You can find men grilling cheese on the beach and in the streets with coals in a large tin can, even an empty paint can. Many restaurants also offer less sketchy, typhoid free options. This picture is with a huge block of quiejo coalho at a delicious seafood restaurant at the beach in Barra.

Ilha de Mare…Island of the Tide

This past week I spent three days on fishing island in the Bahia de Todos os Santos called Ilha de Mare.  We traveled one hour to the boat dock outside of the city and then took about a one and a half hour boat ride to the beautiful island as the sun was setting. Going to the island was like going to another world in comparison to the city of Salvador, even though Salvador’s skyscrapers stuck out in the distance.  The people on the island live in about 9 different povoados, or smaller villages, which are accessed by boat and canoe. I stayed with a very generous family on the largest povoado called Praia Grande.  The vegetation is dense with a lot of mango and coconut trees. There are no cars so boats and donkeys are the means of transport. Life is rather primitive in comparison to the modern city. The people of Ilha de Mare support themselves on the sale of crafts like woven baskets, fishing, and shell fishing (mostly crabbing). Many of the people are also direct descendants of slaves and some of the older inhabitants can still communicated in African dialects.

Over the three days, I spent a lot of time asking questions, observing and listening to try and get a grasp of the lifestyle that is so different from anything I have ever known. Development has come very slowly to the island and each improvement has been a fight. Water and electricity are fairly recent additions and up until recently people relied on drinking rainwater and carrying well water for long distances on their heads.  They may have telephones and cell service but there isn’t even a school for those students past the fourth grade. Students after fourth grade must make the one and a half hour boat ride at 5 in the morning to the city. Only in the past four years has the government paid transportation to students. The majority of people that I spoke with don’t have more than fourth grade education. The government has promised a school on the island but most think it will never happen due to the lack of resources and teachers.  

One of the greatest developments on the island is the health post that came three years ago. The health post is open from 10 to 4 from Monday through Friday and has greatly improved the heath of the people.  Sadly, the majority of health care services can only be found in Salvador.  I heard a lot of stories about women giving birth in canoes due to the 4 hour trip to the hospital. It can be very dangerous and women have lost their lives and their babies for lack of a maternity clinic on the island and a permanent nurse of doctor. All medical emergencies and many prescription fills still require the long trip to the city as well.

Ilha de Mare translates to Island of the Tides. It is one of the many islands in the Reconcavo and considered the rural part of Salvador.  Something that was so impressive and refreshing in a sense is seeing nature’s role in controlling these people’s lives. I live in the world where technology and development have worked primarily against nature to try and beat it and gain profit from it at its expense. But on the island, their daily lives are ruled by the tides and the weather. They rely on this balance and respect it.  Whether they have water, electricity, food, and work is all ruled by nature. Schedules of fishing, crab hunting, and traveling are determined by the tides. The citizens of the island have not tried to conquer nature but work with it, knowing that working with nature is their way of getting by. Sadly, modernization is trying to change this balance of the people and nature on the island. PetrobBras, the Brazilian oil company, found oil on the island and has several large plants. As a result, the water, land and air are becoming heavily contaminated. Fish and shellfish are dying and the ocean is becoming a toxic environment. Without fish and shellfish, these people will lose their livelihoods. The worst part is that PetroBras is paying large amounts of money to Salvador for its access to the Island due to the fact that the island is technically part of Salvador, but the island is not receiving any of this money from Salvador. Their lifestyle that has worked harmoniously with nature since before explorers came to Brazil at the beginning of 1500 is being threatened by outside forces. The people are beginning to organize and a fight will soon follow.

Finishing up the first month...with a cast

So I suppose it only took me 2 weeks to lose track of my goal of writing a blog post weekly. So please forgive me. I have been quite busy working hard and enjoying myself.  I haven’t yet decided how I feel time is passing here. At times I feel it has passed extremely fast. I can’t believe that I have been in Brazil for over four weeks. Although the weeks fly by, there are definitely moments and days that have passed by very slowly. So I guess I have felt caught in between time flying and time slowing passing. Hard to explain but I will leave it at that.

Yesterday, I returned from a five day trip to a rural area outside of a town called Cachoeira about 2 hours away on the other side of the large bay, Bahia de Todos os Santos. The town that opened their hearts to us is called Alecrim and it was an amazin, yet difficult, experience.

This is why it was so difficult:

 The night before we left for Alecrim, last Tuesday, I went out dancing to celebrate a friends 21^st birthday. Just as I was leaving I missed the bottom two steps of the exit and completely ate it. I didn’t superman it but I fell on my ankle and twisted my ankle really bad. I hobbled out of the place and went right home in hopes that a nights rest and some ice would heal my ankle. I woke up the next morning at about 5 am with throbbing pain. My ankle and foot were blue and swollen. At that point I knew that something was wrong. I wasn’t even able to walk on it. I told my host mom and the director of the program and was taken to a private clinic called COT. I saw a doctor about an hour after arriving. He spoke Spanish, so I explained to him what happened in Spanish and Portuguese. I got five different xrays done. I was extremely happy to hear that I didn’t fracture my foot. However, it turns out that I sprained my ankle on both sides severely and my tendons and ligaments were really messed up. He immediately put a plaster cast on my leg which extends right below my knee. He put me in a wheel chair and told me that I could not stand on my leg or do anything with it for 8 days. I was absolutely devastated and emotional because I was really looking forward to going on our first rural excursion that day. When I called Damiana, the director of the program, she told me that I would have to stay in my little house in the city until Wednesday. But being the person that I am, I told her that there was no such way I would do that and that I would go crazy if I stayed alone in Salvador. We talked it out over the phone as I sat in my wheel chair and it was decided that I would buy some crutches and hurry to catch the bus to Cachoeira with the rest of the group. I knew that it would be a huge challenge trying to get around and do the things with the rest of the group on crutches.

At the doctor getting my cast put on!

My stay in Alecrim was extremely rewarding but just as exhausting, physically and emotionally. Overall, I left completely overwhelmed by the amount of support and hospitality that I received from the people of the town, my beautiful host family that I had their, and my fellow students.  The simplest things to do were difficult and tiring and it was only exacerbated by the heat, the language barrier, and the rural surroundings. I was able to participate in quite of few things that the rest of the group did and I am very fortunate for that.

My sweet ride in Alecrim, thanks to my host brother!

My host family on the last day. 

Highlights:

• ·         For two days we went to the health clinic (posto de saude) and I got to sit in with a nurse on her patient visits and learn about the free health care system called SUS. It was really interesting and I thought for a few seconds what it would be like if I switched my career plan and became a doctor.
• ·         On the last night the whole community threw us a big going away party with samba and food at the Candomble house. The unity present within the community was astounding. (The photo is of my host brother and I at the party).

• ·         Watched a children’s capoeira show the first night put on by the capoeira school.

Two of the boys from Alecrim doing Capoeira

• We visited a Casa de Farinha where they make all sorts of products out of manioc, a very important food staple in Brazil. We were able to try some delicious beijus which are sweets made out of manioc that come in many different flavors like passion fruit and chocolate. 

A woman making beijus on the hot stone stove. 

• We also spoke with the town medicine man about traditional healing and its interactions with modern medicine. 

The trip ended with a very emotional and touching reflection on our experience where we expressed our gratitude to our peers and the community. I don’t think I will ever forget my time in Alecrim just because I feel that I overcame a lot there due to the extra obstacle (my leg) and learned a lot about myself.  I am very grateful for being able to go on the trip and to all of the people that helped me out. I am not a person to ask for help and consider myself independent so it is quite the challenge to depend on people so much. I get my cast off on Wednesday and can’t wait. This weather and a cast do not mix. Sadly, I am not able to participate in the hospital visits I was looking forward to Monday and Tuesday. I hopefully will be back to walking around, with crutches, on Wednesday or Thursday to visit the AIDS clinic and research center. I have just got to stay positive and just laugh a lot, it could be so much worse.

Other Adventures:

At the Candomble Terreiro de Tumbenci outside of Salvador. We spent a day at a Candomble religious center where we bathed, were blessed, talked with the Mae de Santo, and ate delicious food. I also found out that my Orixa is Iansa who is a very strong and passionate Orixa, and a bit wild.

The clouds in Brazil are amazing so I have been checking them out quite a bit. I am sitting on a porch here in Alecrim. I did a lot of sitting there. 

Drinking coconut water during a morning walk near the beach. Fresh coconut water is everywhere and about 1 dollar. 

 A boat that I saw in Praia do Forte. My hometown for the next 12 weeks. 

On the beach in Porto da Barra. Most importantly, check out the man behind me. 

At Projecto Tamar, the turtle project, in Praia do Forte. 

My small gated street. This is the view from the small second floor balcony where I live with my host mom Josefa.