Graffiti

6/30 Today in the morning we went to CCJ to assist in painting some walls of some of the houses in the surrounding neighborhood. It was an experience that reminded me a lot of when I was a missionary. The living conditions of these people were very poor. Most of them don't have running water in their houses. Their sewer is a gutter which usually goes down the sidewalks in front of the house. It's important to watch your step.

Carbonel e Mosca, two of the guys from CCJ that helped us out a lot today

Just like on the mission, the people were very receptive in general. I'm not sure how many walls we painted, but it was quite a few. It was one of those experiences which made me more grateful for the material possessions which I have.

I heard one guy muttering as he passed us by while we were painting. "Look at these Americans here to see people going hungry." And in truth, though it hurt, it was partially true. I had no response for this statement. I still don't. Hopefully I can take advantage of this internship to serve others and let them know that I, as an American, have more to me than a dollar sign.

Dia Nao sei o que ("...")

Quote of the day:
Josh: "It's been a couple days since I've read the material that we're going over in class today."
Me: "What if Vanessa asks you a question today regarding this material?"
Josh: "Then I'll just remember really hard"

Probably the most entertaining day of my life and also the most educational. We talked about globalization, how it will come about, and what will happen if it does. My teacher Vanessa brought up a question:
"Is globalization a good thing?"

I was thinking "of course!".

The rest of the class: "It depends" ...

Glad that I didn't say that out loud. I would have had to JUSTIFY it, and then I would've looked like an idiot: "Because everyone wants McDonalds and CocaCola on their front step!!"

A danca de Forro!!!

That's not my funniest joke, but the point is that those two companies are the two biggest symbols of globalization in the world. The risk with globalization is that you risk losing a country's identity and culture by trying to make it more universal with other nations.

I STILL  think that overall, it's a good thing, but I'm more than willing to hear counter-arguments to change my weak-willed stance on this subject.

The most important and productive item of business today was going to CCJ and getting a really cultural experience!

Doug and I playing a hand game with the children. Doug is like 6'6 and I'm not that much shorter *cough*
so we both had to bend over a lot...

We arrived at the school to find several dozen kids playing around. There was that first, awkward couple of minutes as the barrier of language, age, and racial differences took hold and set fear in our hearts. But this quickly gave way to the benefits of being there. We played games, watched forro, I even participated in the barraca do beijo(Kissing booth). Each person that participated got to take a candy off the table in front of me. It was interesting to note that the after the candy jar ran out, almost nobody came towards the kissing booth.

Confrontation with a menina(girl) who was clearly wanting to participate in the kissing booth for candy.
One of my last participants if not the last.... (she holding everything that was remaining in the candy
basket at that time).

In other words, it was a great day.

Thanks for reading!!

Legal vandalism!!!

Quote of the day: Professor Fitzgibbon: "Okay class, what we'll be doing at the internship today is finishing coloring in those drawings that we made earlier."
Brady: "Best Internship Ever!!"

Today was a GREAT DAY IN ALL ASPECTS OF THOSE TWO WORDS("Great Day"!! )!! Class at ABA was interesting. We learned today about the Sertanejos, who live in the deserts of northeastern Brazil. For them, there is nothing that they can take for granted. In the Sertao, the region where they live, droughts are frequent, the environment is unfriendly, and it is a day-to-day struggle to stay alive. I think about this and then compare it to my bloated, spoiled self where my only struggle is to stay awake on the bus ride home and digest food when I eat too much... ya it's a hard life.

Cristina took this picture. I won't like I wish that she had taken it just a little farther away so that you couldn't
see the drawn-in pencil marks to help guide some of us " slightly less-talented, significantly less-coordinated,
motor-skill lacking" type. Just for the record, THIS TIME while in action, I didn't spray my own hands/shirt/face
....ON ACCIDENT.

I now have a tremendous respect for the Sertanejos, who, despite poor circumstances and little external help, keep going no matter how hard it is. At this time in history, the Brazilian Government viewed these mulattoes as an inferior rest and applied that theory that if it didn't support these people, the race would end up dying off. Unfortunately for these short-sighted bigots, this didn't happen. The Sertanejos have persisted and made a name for themselves in the history of Brazil, which is celebrated in numerous ways, such as music. These people, in my opinion, are unsung heroes who helped pave the way for the success Brazil is experiencing today, just as the early settlers did in North America. Hopefully one day they'll receive a little more credit.

YES, I KNOW THAT MY HANDS NO LONGER HAVE PAINT ON THEM, BUT IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD
IDEA AT THE TIME, OK? LOOK! TAWNYA IS DOING IT TOO! (Sticks tongue out in infantile manner)

After this we went to the CCJ and met with Carbonel!!! It turned out that we got to "vandalise" the interior of the classroom by putting up "graffiti" as they call it in Brazil. It truly was a great experience! This was a great experience involving teamwork, leadership, and vision- which was greatly enhanced by large amounts of aerosol inhalation... Please take note of the distant, hazy look in most of our eyes.... Existentialism... no I don't know if that is the correct term.

Hypothetical Question: In a zombie apocalypse, would you be able to drink the water made from an air conditioner?(You know how they "drip" right?) If the answer is yes, then all you need is an infinite power supply!...and an air conditioner. Please keep this in mind when buying your next house.

O onibus glorioso The marvelous bus!....

Quote of the day: "Does this look as red as it feels?" -Jordan, referring to his skin after lying out for a couple hours in the sun on the beach.

            Well today was something else!! It's interesting that when we get out of the house late in the morning to catch the bus, we actually get to ABA even quicker!

           Also, I'm noticing that as time goes on with the trip, people seem to be taking less and less pictures, but I'm sure that my beautiful face will still show up here and there. :)

This photo was NOT taken today but it's still kinda cool....not that a photo's
"coolness" should be judged by its age.

           We talked a lot about how some of the holidays in Brazil came to be. One thing interesting is that Carnaval started to celebrate the end of the union between Spain and Portugal. Something fun that would happen in this festa(party) was the "laranjada" (ladan jada(if you say it quickly)), or "oranged", where rich people would throw oranges at each other. The poor people, who couldn't afford to throw away food, found something else to throw.....yes that is it. Wow, you SO totally know what I'm talking about and I didn't have to say anything huh? Great(or normal) minds think alike ;)

            I didn't realize the influence of the Jesuits was so strong here in Brazil! No wonder they have so many days off from school, with all these saints to commemorate! What was interesting to learn about it how some of the Jesuits really cared for the native Indians in Brazil! We all know about the Inquisition and some of their brutal acts realized against people they deemed as "pagans", but we don't know a lot about the positive effects of it.... I don't know that many either, but one thing I learned was that the Inquisition helped to end "Antropofagia" , or cannibalistic practices still used by some of the newly converted natives.

          After class, we went to the CCJ and met up with Carbonel. At the end of this week we're gonna get to dance more forro!!! I'm pretty much the master of the dance "dois pra la, dois pra ca"(two steps here, two steps there). Anything other than this I'm a little hazy on.

This is a more current picture of me and the group in front of the CCJ. Don't recognize me? I'm the handsome, tan one
with a blue shirt squatting in the front row....

Today we had FHE, which was fun as well. I walked home about 3 miles with Doug and got to practice my espanol!!!

Thanks for reading!!

O meu dedo!! (Oh my Gosh!)

I woke up this morning with a feeling like I didn’t really want to do anything. The day before our teacher had informed us that we’d be visiting the temple today. In order to get to the temple, we’d have to catch two buses… oh man I was not looking forward to that. In addition to this, I volunteered myself to be the navigator for the group of people to the temple. As I stood in the bathroom, brushing my teeth and preparing my responses to the group for when we got off at the wrong spot/ got on the wrong bus, it crossed my mind that I could just say I was sick and stay home that day…. It wouldn’t be hard. I’d done it for school before…. But in the end I went with everyone else.

Surprisingly, we got to the temple without any confusion! (Actually it was because another guy, Doug, in the group had thought ahead and looked up the directions)

Upon arriving at the temple grounds, my feelings of self pity evaporated. I saw other members who had come hundreds of miles in large buses just to visit the temple, and I thought about how close a temple is from my home in the US. I really have nothing to complain about.

As I watched the some of these members walking around the temple garden, I recognized one of the members from one of the wards in my mission! What a cool surprise! I talked with her a little bit and she told me that there was a large group of church members from my mission here visiting the temple today. They had been there for a couple days and were preparing to drive a couple hundred miles later that night to return to Bahia.

The rest of the visitors were still inside the temple. Could some of the people who I saw get baptized on my mission be here? I got really excited.

As we entered the temple, I saw a man sitting on a couch reading the scriptures. As he took his hand off his face, I realized that it was Marcelo!! I had taught Marcelo on my mission and had seen him get married and then baptized! His wife Neia was there as well! It was their first time visiting the temple!

A little over 1.5 years ago. Do I look fat in this picture? All the Brazilians tell me that I've lost weight since then.

What are the chances of that? Well, if I didn’t believe in God, they would be very slim I think. The rest of the day passed by in a breeze. I honestly don’t remember a whole lot about the rest of the day. The Jones held a party at night and some of the study abroad group came! That was awesome.

I shoulda looked in a mirror before taking these pictures, but at least it's a candid shot!!!

I’m just really thankful that I didn’t let my laziness get the best of me and that my teacher Vanessa was inspired to take us to the temple on this day.

My life is GOOD!!

Thanks for reading!

Dia 4 Eu sou da Bahia (I'm from the Bahia)

Probably one of the most memorable videos I've ever seen was today. We watched a BYU-student-made film called "I'm from the Bahia". It was a documentary on the lives of some of the artists in the Bahia. The Bahia was were I spent two years as a missionary. This experience gave me the opportunity to really get in touch with the "Baianos" or Bahian people. I never really had a chance to talk with the artisans in Bahia and this video gave me a new perspective.

Baianos are often known through-out Brazil as being lazy, passive, and primarily black. After being there for 2 years, I can tell you that the last two are true. Contrary to popular belief, most  Bahians are hard workers. The problem is that they are simple, and in the eyes of the world this automatically gains them certain other derogatory attributes.

O castelo The Castle

We visited a Ricardo and Francisco Brennan 's castle, which is now a museum full of armor, nude paintings, paintings, knives, and guns. Art and Weapons, to be concise! It was interesting to see what was used in wars   which happened centuries ago.
 I also started thinking that this would be a cool place to be if the zombie apocalypse started. Then I started thinking about the fact that there are many exits(and entries), and I have no idea what type of food storage the castle has. Anyway, it would be an iffy situation but at least I would go down fighting! This mentality helped me to find out that today there are two other members of my study abroad group, Sara and John, who watch the walking dead!!

It was a good day!

Dia 3 O Malandro

We left on our house a little later than we were supposed to, but somehow we got off about 10 minutes earlier than usual! What nice luck!

In class, we talked about how the term Jeitinho came about. In 1930, when Getulio Vargas was the president of brazil, he made a great effort to urbanize the country and take away Brazil's image as a primarily agricultural country. With this, many people from small villages came to the cities, only to find that there was no work. These backlanders, or "malandros"had to pull strings in order to sustain themselves and their families. These acts were called Malandragens "Maul anne dra hangs". Now this as known as pulling the jeitinho. It's interesting to see how things have evolved.

Afterwards, we went to Olinda, a place which is colorful with history!! We saw several old churches and a really cool statue of Princess Isabela. According to the Portuguese, "First comes God, then the saints, then Princess Isabella". She was a huge advocate slave liberation, who in 1888 helped facilitate the legislation which led to the slaves being freed. Pretty cool!

The bus ride home was another reminder of how grateful I am to live close to work/school. One luxury that most of us have in the United States is that we have personal transportation, and even the public buses which I have ridden on are nicer, and A LOT less crowded than the ones in Brazil. 

I'm trying to think of a funny story to tell but I'm pretty tired. Sorry if you were expecting one. Thanks for reading, and please don't get discouraged.

Dia 2 (19/6)

Today, we decided AGAINST walking  to ABA. (I still have no idea what the acronym stands for). Taking the bus was long, uneventful, and reminded me of when I was a missionary in Brasil a couple years ago. Today in class we learned about the jeitinho(jay cheen yo) which is the Brazilian way of getting through the red tape and cutting corners to make things more efficient. We use the jeitinho in the united states, but not to the same extent in which the Brazilians do.  We also learned about Brazil’s progress and that its recent improvement isn’t due to the world’s perception of Brazil, but more to the fact that the Brazilians’ perception of Brazil has improve. Brazilians are gaining more confidence and self-respect!

Halfway through the class, our teacher Vanessa told we were going on an impromptu field trip. We got 5 taxis and went to the other side of Recife, Recife Antiga, or “ancient Recife” to a neighborhood called Peixinhos “Pey sheen yoos”.  We stopped at a house which had been turned into a school. It turned out to be CCJ, another acronym which I will get back to you about.

One of the teachers from CCJ. This guy is standing next to his graffiti...ok well
that's takes first for unnecessary explanations of this week.

What they do at this school is amazing. They help young adults strengthen their skills with media courses such as Design and photography. After these young Brazilians finish this course, they return to their neighborhoods and try to make a difference there through their art. We met everyone and then they took us around the bairro (bye ho) neighborhood. We visited an old slaughterhouse which held the remains of several buildings, a large tower, and a lot of cool graffiti. 

Some of the artwork at the slaughterhouse. Not all of it was framed

One thing which was discussed today with these students was the significance of the kite in Brazil. It was interesting to hear some of the different responses. To some, it represented being a child, or youth. To others it was esperanca, or hope. One student even said that it was how he was able to financially provide for himself when he was younger. Wow, all I ever saw in a kite was about half an hour of fun before my attention span dwindled and I started craving some other material possession. Guess I have a lot to learn.

We will be working with these students during our time here in Recife. I look forward to getting to know each one of them more.

Ok, so I won't lie, we took this picture a couple times because we were trying to float but
all the pictures looked pretty hilarious so we just settled for this one.

Look how close my roommate Josh got!!

As we got back to the Jones’ apartment, my roommate and I decided once again that it would be great to go for a midnight swim in the freezing pool. After getting in, losing your breath and feeling in your body, and dunking your head under water, it’s totally worth it!

This was the closest I could get...what
if he was a poisonous frog?... and what if he was really a she?

On the way out we found a frog! My roommate Josh got a really good picture with it before the flash scared it away.

 Awesome day in summary. I hope yours is going well also!

Thanks for reading!!!

Dia Um

Today was intense. It started off easy enough. I woke up at 7:10 instead of 6:30 and realized my cell phone time was 7:10 PM... Well at least I didn't miss class!

Our lovely hostess Sister Jones gave us a ride to the school. We thought about going on foot to see how long it would take... I'll come back to this because I now have an answer for you.

Today we went over the class itinerary. We're studying the Brazilian culture.  I realize that I really don't know a whole lot about the country's history. Looking forward to being a bit more informed.

The school we are studying at. NO I DO NOT KNOW WHAT "ABA" STANDS FOR

After school orientation we went to the mall to get SIM cards for our cell phones. As we passed by the stores and window-shopped, the first-timers in Brazil were astounded with the prices of some of the products by sold, which included american items and electronics. My friend Brady brought up a good question: "Why, in a country where a good amount of it's citizens are unemployed or earn less than $300 a month, are the prices so high?"

I didn't really know how to respond to him... and I still don't. It's sad to see that people with significantly less financial means than I would have more trouble getting hold of something that I take for granted, such as a cell phone.

a view of Recife from the top of the ABA school

I learned something about persistence today. As we went into the phone store, we had to insert a test Sim card to see if our phones were unblocked. The employee who was doing it would stick it in, wait for the phone to turn on, and see if it would get service. The problem was that he would only wait for a couple of seconds for the phone to get service before taking the chip out and saying that it didn't work. This is exactly what happened with my phone.

As my normal, passive, complacent self, I would never have made a big deal out of this. However, there's a story behind this phone....

I found out one day before my flight to Brazil that I'd have to get a new, quad-band, unlocked phone to be able to use during this study abroad. My sister's graduation was on this day as well. In the morning  I searched for a store which sold unblocked phones. I found one about twenty minutes away from my house. What should have been a simple one-time visit turned into a day-long ordeal, because the cheapest available phone in the store still had to get unlocked. I just about made my sister late to her graduation to get this dumb little cell phone.

Anyways, as we walked away from the store to go get the SIM chips for the unblocked phones, I plucked up the courage to go back and ask if I could test the phone myself. Some of you are thinking "Well, duh! I do stuff like that all the time!" but it was a big step for me.

It worked that time.

After we had all the SIM cards, we debated how to get home. Being that our apartment was right on the beach, all we had to do was find the shoreline, and follow it until we got home. Easy enough right? It seemed a little far and we had been on our feet in the mall for about two hours, but I being my cheap self, thought that we could walk back. Enough agreed with me to make this the group decision.

NOW, returning to that question of how long it would take to get from home to school to home, I now have an answer: TOO LONG. We walked SEVEN MILES. I've heard stories about people in Africa walking 10 miles just to go to church, and I realize that I might go inactive in such a situation.

My feet were killing me and I had on hiking boots! Everyone else was in flip flops. I. would. have. DIED. I'm so glad that I did bring them. I don't care that I'm the only white-faced boot strapped "Alemao" (All- ey - maow) (German descendant) on the face of the beach. it was worth it! I didn't get robbed.

This picture was taking somewhere on the trip home from the mall and you still can't even see the apartment!!

As we got in, my friend Josh and I decided it would be a good idea to take a swim in the pool while it was raining. No, I don't know why but it actually felt really good!
I'm gonna take a shower now. I smell like chlorine. and salt(ed/y)?
Thank you for reading!

A chegada

I got into Recife this morning after spending the last week in Salvador and Alagoinhas. It was great to see and catch up with old friends! It also gave me a better idea of what it feels like to be a tourist in a foreign country.  The flight to Recife was quick and I spent more time at the airport then on the plane(no offense to my ride). Vivan Fong, a brazilian student, came to pick me and a couple other students up from the airport. I was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, which seemed like ideal apparel for Recife weather, when I learned that we would be going straight from the airport to church... ok.

 It was great to hear church services given in Portuguese! In sacrament meeting I got up and bore my testimony! Picture this: An Unshaven, Poorly Dressed, White boy that can barely speak Portuguese up there talking at the pulpit! Okay, you've probably seen something like that somewhere down the lines. But now imagine a recently arrived immigrant with the same characteristics trying to speak English!  Guess what I talked about? The fact that it's easier to uphold and maintain your standards in Utah then it is in other places. I'm sure my example helped prove this point.....

Sunday Best!!!!

I continued by telling the members that I was grateful for their examples, even if I didn't show it. After church I went to the home of the family which I will be staying in. Their home is the nicest I've ever been in for an extended period of time(as of now, it's been 3 hours). They live in a building overlooking the beach!!! Que coisa boa!!!

     Not that I'm really a beach kinda guy, but who knows in a couple of weeks right? This next time will provide ample opportunities for me to get ear infections and sunburns!

      I'm doing this blog for a class, so I don't know how well it's going to turn out. Still, if you've read this far, that means you've given it a shot! I'll try to get better as time goes on... but no promises. Thanks for reading!!

A Vista - The View

I'm so going out there tomorrow morning!!