As I said in my previous post, I have been kinda doing that whole class thing. But then again, kinda. My program has not been that hard so far, although I am sure it will pick up later on, when we have a research project to do (more on that later). The classes themselves are not too challenging. Portuguese does give the homework expected of a language class, but the other classes have so far had minimal work (right now however I do have some work, and am using the blog as a tool for procrasitination).
The other class though is in the afternoon, and let's just say it has not exactly wowed me. The problem is that it is spoken in portuguese and then translated into english. A further problem is that it is translated into english by someone with an incomplete grasp of english so that the lesson becomes a little broken up from what it could be. Add to that relatively dry subject matter sometimes, and you have the recipe for a difficult afternoon.
One of my classes in particular bears mentioning, just because it started to turn into a lord of the flies scenario. Salvador is renowned for having terrible traffic, and unforutunately, our teacher for that day did not account for that (the teachers switch every day, based on specialty). We continually got calls saying that the teacher would be 15 minutes late, and that 15 minutes late got 15 minutes later each time we asked. In a room on the 7th floor, in a hot environment, this is already bad. With 24 20 year olds, you already have problems. However, the coordinators decided because they had time, we could address some more costs that they had not clarified before. The room erupted into chaos. They also decided to give us a forum for complaints, which is just not very smart of them.
Jiu jitsu has become a big recent feature of my life here in Salvador. I have really enjoyed it so far. The sensei is a big black man who can just toss me around at will. The dojo itself is a long narrow padded room, but it is the people in it that make it the dojo. The people there have been very accepting, and they were very excited to go against someone with wrestling experience. The wrestling experience put me in good stead against the people in the gym, with only a few people in there beating me (only some of the blue belts). Still, I get a worked by the end of a workout, simply because the cardio aspect of jiujitsu is really intense.
There have been a lot of cool moments associated with jiujitsu, everything from a round robin featuring the sensei where he systematically took on everyone, to getting a tap out on a blue belt, to just hanging out. One of the people there likes to call me Hulk-e, and describes me to be big and green. He fortunately has spiky hair so I call him wolverine. One of the blue belts there goes pretty hard against me, and when he got me in an arm bar he really cranked it, giving me a sore arm for the entire next day. There also seems to be a trend of big ripped black guys in leadership roles, because you guessed it, the sensei was ripped. One of the other days, a couple other blackbelts came in and gave truth to an old saying, you don't fear the blackbelts the most, you fear the grey belts, the people who have been black belts for so long that the threads have become withered. You didn't want to mess with this old guy. I told him I wanted to go with as many blackbelts as possible so I had a fun workout. Still not sure whether that was a good idea or not.
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,This is a picture of the group, on a day where we were celebrating one of the members victories in MMA
Life is pretty regular during the week, and I have gotten into a rhythm of class, working out, doing jiujitsu and running in the mornings. It is the weekends that the more exciting things happen, as we just have more available time.
Sometimes we spend the weekends at the beach, but one sunday I decided that it would probably be best to spend the day with the family. I had a leisurely breakfast before my host mom took me out to what is usually her night job. She takes care of two elderly people. I briefly talked to the old woman, and had about an hour conversation with the old man. He talked about his involvement in the war and how he spoke german. At one point in the conversation, he interjected with HEIL HITLER, which left me slightly bamboozeled and slightly concerned. Eventually we went back to the house, and I attended a baby shower (although I did not know for the life of me what we were going to, as I had never needed to say baby shower before). I talked with some adorable little kids, and spent the afternoon practicing portuguese with my host parents. And the lady was VERY pregrnant.
I have had a lot of other random adventures in the weekends as well. We celebrated several birthdays with one very successful surprise birthday. Dylan, the guy who lives above went a bit hard on his birthday. As the 21st birthday has special significance for us americans, he got pretty drunk that night, and apparently when he woke up, he woke up in a pool of blood. He had apparently smashed into his host moms glass cabinet that night, and had to extricate pieces of glass in the morning. One of the areas that is quite popular to go out to is pelourinho, which is basically the historical district, replete with cobblestone paths and a lot of dance clubs.
I would say the other major thing until cachoeira ( a rural area where we spent about 5 days, worthy of its own blog post) was candomble. This right here was an experience. Candomble is the local Afro Brazilian religion. It is especially important to the program because it is a healing religion. The adherents to the religion believe that there is a spirtitual force known as an orixa that inhabits the people. We sat in a very hot room watching old women dance for a few hours, with drums playing in the background. Some of the old women had some serious character. One old, rather wrinkled woman was placed in the position of respect in deference to her age, and at points, she was nodding in and out of the perormance. Another woman, who was in charge of cleansing, had a stern expression on her face. She uttered a sound which I really don't know how to describe as she performed the cleansing, something in between a hiccup and a groan, and she hit us with branches to make sure the evil spirits came out.
Allison and I at candomble. PS we had to wear all white out of respect for their religion
One of the major features of the Candomble ceremony was that people would get possessed. However, mostly the people who got possessed were participants. They took turns in being possessed, and it was quite clear who was the one being possessed. The rest of the people would remove the person's shoes and head wraps and would allow the person to have space, but also try to make sure they were safe. The people possessed looked like they were halfway between a seizure and a intense dance session. The possessed would scream, run about, and continue dancing. While I am not sure I believe in their religion, it was certainly interesting to see. When we had a chance to ask them questions, it came out that only those of the faith could be healed, and only if they truly had faith that they could be healed. That, in addition to the fact that not every disease could be healed, only spiritual ones, made my mind scream Placebo Effect.
Well, I am off to a beautiful island tomorrow Morro de Sao Paolo, and need to pack etc. Ciao for now!
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