I am still in Belo Horizonte, or was when I started this email at least - surprisingly enough. I didn't expect to stay here so long, but time is quite strange here.4 days of my 5 weeks ....random?
Its not a touristy town at all, in fact, the walk Roman and I took around the artificial lake, is really the only thing to see. The city was designed actually, by a fairly famous architect, the streets running one way being the states in the Brazil, and the other way being the indigenous tribes (mostly wiped out).
We are the first couchsurfers, apparently, who have come here. Everyone else just passes through... so we were quite welcomed by the community here! We have been staying with the same couchsurfer and her family, who is letting me use the internet, wash my clothes, cooking us vegetarian snacks, and helped me figure out where to get my yellow fever vaccine!
I got two shots yesterday, the most vaccines I can remember getting really except when I went to Africa. I barely have any of the normal shots you get. I got the rubella shot, which means I am not supposed to get pregnant for 4 months. I think I can handle that.The shots were free.,... absolutely, for anyone who walks in and it was such a pleasant medical experience - probably nicer than almost every other one I have had. She was so nice..!
I agree with Romans comment after, that we have been mothered a lot in Belo Horizonte, which we both needed a bit of after all of our intense travels recently. Sleeping in, etc.
One evening we were supposed to meetup with a couchsurfer named Raquel - who wanted to take us out. She gave us instructions to her place as we were already downtown, and we arrived at quite the swanky apt building, probably one of the nicer ones I have been in! Her dad opened the door, with shirt open, apologizing as hed just gotten home from work and proceeded to lay out all sorts of bread, cheese, fruit, cake, and tea for us for dinnner!
Raquel recently was in Germany, and works in risk-management at a bank and is hoping to study economics abroad!
We went out to a nice bar, with a $5 covercharge - she said my chacos and skirt-tanktop were ok, because we were already obviously gringos... Gringos is descriptive, not derogatory in Brazil and theres nothing wrong with being American.
I think if I had dressed in tight jeans and little high heels, etc. people would have thought I were Brazilian as we could have easily been in Europe... Everyone was very white!
Race, the 49 colors of it according to Lonely Planet, is relatively linked to class here. She said that her friend who also works at the bank, is discriminated against and another couchsurfer Valeria, who lived in Park City Utah for 4 months said she was quite surprised when she was considered colored in the US as she is considered white in Brazil.
Couchsurfer Sidney and his fiancee (english teacher) meet us at the bar and were very friendly and patient as I insisted on trying to speak Portuguese. I later received a thank you-goodbye email from him saying that I changed his view of Americans - that he didn't know Americans were so nice! Yay! Though it is sad that his stereotype was so easily influenced, at least it was positively influenced... had I known he had such bad images of Americans I would have made more of an effort to paint a somewhat realistic US situation, but we can keep in touch.
There were a couple of guys hanging around Raquel's moms very expensive car and Raquel seemed a bit worried and annoyed. She gave one of them 50 centavos and then explained that she hates this. Its guys who are often unemployed, and they "watch" your car for you when you are doing something like going out to see a show, shopping, etc. They sometimes demand money upfront and other times when you get back. This time, he wasnt there when we parked, just asked for money when we got back.
Raquel says she dislikes it because its a kind of violence and intimidation... you dont know what they might do to your car if you dont give them money and you cant really tell them no.
We slept and slept - can't quite decide whether it was oversleeping making me tired, or me catching up on my sleep slowly. Either way, no alarm clock rudely interrupting my dreams has been nice and I have most mornings awoken with the sun, though promptly and peacefully gone back to the dreamworld for a bit.
Then we got in touch with Valeria, who had offered to take us to the mountains.
We met up with her in the Centro and took a quick taxi ride up towards the surrounding mountains. Belo Horizonte is an incredibly hilly city itself, encircled by mountains that stretch to the horizon.
I dressed conspicuous, in a conductor hat so shed find us easily, and black and white and blue - quite self-entertaining. The dirt was red and orange with iron and other melange of minerals found in the area. It was a simple 2 hour total hike, but surprised Valeria that we were so eager to get into the mountains...Roman missing the Himalayas and me missing the Rockies. We had a breathtaking view once we got up a bit, increasingly so, of the 4-6 million person city stretching out in front of us.
Valeria said that despite the grandiosity of the area and population, that it felt like a small city, that you meetup with the same people, and it has quite a small feeling - that people live small - like its a bunch of small towns side by side.
She is ready for the big city of Sao Paulo, boasting at least 12 million.
Roman and I found Belo Horizonte quite peaceful, however, refreshing after the insanity of the favelas.
Valeria, very surprised, asked Roman and I, why on earth out of all of the places in Brazil we had chosen to spend time in the favelas - that we were the third foreigners she had met who had chosen to do so and she didn't understand why. I also met, via some searches online (Lonely Planet Thorn Tree Forum), a young Danish man who is studying the phenomenon of tourists visiting the favelas. I am undecided, as there are pros and cons... it is important that people understand whats really going on in different parts of the world - but the lives of people should not be a tourist attraction at the same time. It depends upon the motives of the tourists I think - whether its for entertainment, or for understanding which they can use to help through various means.
We decided on trying the local food that night - which meant that I tried a taste of some local meat, along with 3 different deserts, a lot of garlic bread and garlic rice,...
Whats the opposite of commiserate? Because thats what Valeria and I were doing regarding our couchsurfing experiences, and the community in general.
Then we got onto the subject, of the fact that if you mispronounce the word for bread, it means a slang word for penis - that was good for a couple of laughs as Roman shared the multiple times and various situations wherein the german volunteers kept trying to pronounce it right...
As everywhere else in Brazil so far - it costs $1 to ride, there's no bus schedule, the buses are nicer than any greyhound bus I have seen - quite a bit better actually! And, there are two employees per bus - one driver, and one that takes the money. Is that more efficient? My first reaction was that it's not an efficient use of their money - but it might be, when considering safety, faster loading-unloading, etc. Also - with unemployment so high, the cost might not be as much as I imagined to add another employee. They have been quite useful so far with directions!
Walking around the lake the first night, I realized that Palm Trees, the very existence of them in my immediate surroundings, make me happy - a sign of relaxation, vacation - along with white birds being beautiful and symbolic. Of course, these perceptions are very much affected by my upbringing and culture. It's just another reminder that my truths are my truths alone.
Couchsurfing - can help bridge the gap between living in a city you are visiting, and visiting/seeing a city you are in. The difference between living your lifestyle and seeing touristy sights and living the local lifestyle and enjoying the city.
Were I in control, no one would receive a degree in international development without having lived for at least 3 months or more working for a development project in some capacity! My observations made me wonder whether my sister, after a year of working as a volunteer in a development organization in various capacities, knows more about development than I do - or more, what has she learned that would complement my knowledge and vice versa.
I have been excited to see the technology leap that has, according to my meager experience, occurred here, at least in terms of the energy efficiency of the showers. They are using, in the favelas and middleclass neighborhoods, one of the most efficient ways of creating hotwater if you are unable to use renewable resources to do so, which is heating the water right when you need it rather than keeping large quantities of water hot 24/7.
Now we are in Brasilia - arrived this morning on a very bumpity rockety 11 hour bus ride which affected my dreams in strange ways. Its a desert-flat area, and the most spread out city I have seen in Brazil. The weather is marvelous so far, and the city is quite strangely organized. We are staying in Quadra 209, Block i, apt 410. Everything is organized by numbers, laid out in the shape of an airplane. There are two people responsible for the city's design, one who designed the layout, another the buildings, and apparently they get blamed for everything.
Every night I have been looking at the moon and its been kind of refreshing to have that consistency and watch it change - it might be helping me understand the passage of time as I see the moon wax from a Cheshire cat grin to a large, hmm, elegant banana I guess might be the best description.
The couchsurfer we are staying with now couldn't have been a better match in terms of my research here - he is studying international relations and has many government, environmental, and academic contacts. He is presenting at an intl relations conference this week, on the structural relationship between the NGOs working to combat desertification in the North East of Brazil. He also wants to travel around different cities in Latin America learning best practices that he can bring back to Brazil to try as pilot programs. I am excited to explore what options are available, and to build contacts in case I am successful in my application to be the next United Nations Youth Caucus Coordinator.
It was his birthday today - and I pleasantly impressed myself with my portuguese skills as I was able to have such conversations as whether Brazil is considered Western (to which I inquired what their definition of western was), and the positive and negative aspects of virtual world technology among other things.
Thats it for now! I know - quite a mouthful - but I cant leave anything out - it just builds up as little curiosities..... more to come :-)
Love and more love!
Emma
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