The other weekend, Loni and I had our first taste of genuine American food in over a month.  Though our small city does have a Subway, we hadn't been able to find it yet and thus traveled about an hour to the neighboring and much larger city of Itabuna which has a shopping mall with a McDonalds.  We were dropped off in the middle of the city and eventually found the mall by asking everyone we could find where o shopping was (that's how you say the mall in Portuguese).



The food court was hopping and McDonalds was packed with hungry Brazilians.  I didn't notice anything too different about the restaurant except that you could get corn with everything and that it was a little more expensive than the McDonalds in the States.  There were also quite a few additional flurry and shake varieties with unfamiliar flavors and candy.  Loni got a Big Mac meal and I got a quarter pounder meal; we both devoured them a little too quickly and definitely paid the price for that later.

Shopping mall entrance

Though I probably wouldn't go to the mall in the U.S. to eat at McDonalds, when you are far away from home anything familiar tends to taste fantastic and much better than normal whether it be a cold can of Coke, a Hershey's chocolate bar or a burger and fries from Mickey D's.

Yum

The desk that I used in my shared office; it has air conditioning - a HUGE bonus

Poster for "Language Week" - Loni and I have to organize this year's conference in November (Sean - you get to help too!)

Coffee and water are delivered every morning - though I could easily drink this whole thermos myself, it's normal here to only have a tiny cup/shot of coffee

Everything kind of comes to a halt when there's an important soccer game on, seriously.

Everything is tied down everywhere - scissors, pens, staplers etc.

Classes can be pretty casual sometimes . . . especially on Monday mornings

Documents only matter if they are stamped and signed by about fifty different departments - here you can see the hours and types of classes that Loni and I give.  Ahh the hoops and hurdles of the crazy bureaucracy.

Showing off some capoeira moves

After experiencing life in the small town of Eunapolis, Eric, Loni, Eric's sister and his friend and I rented a car and made the 45 minute drive to the tourist mecca of Porto Seguro.  Porto Seguro is known for its beaches, parties and shopping but it's also considered to be the place where Brazil was first discovered.  We arrived in the morning to streets lined with huge tourism buses, crowded beaches and a beautiful sunny day.

Dance party. Woot woot.

After slathering myself with sunscreen, we headed to the main draw - a beach/club/party called Axe Moi.  Axe Moi was unlike any place I had seen before.  It was what I would imagine a mixture of Carnival and an American teenager's spring break to be: loud, obnoxious, colorful, drunk, dancing, scantily-clad and crowded.  I think my jaw was in a perpetually dropped position the entire day.  We joined the crowd in front of the stage to watch our beautiful/handsome transvestite host lead us in some dances while giant water fountains soaked us from every angle.  I felt like I was on some edition of Girls Gone Wild except that it was more like Brazilians just being Brazilian.

Getting my cheese on a stick grilled

After working up a sweat from dancing, we went swimming and tried some of the snacks on the beach.  You can have pretty much anything you want from the mobile vendors hauling their portable grills and coolers around.  We tried shrimp on a stick, grilled cheese on a stick, empanadas, sticky coconut, cashews and popsicles.  You can also get pirated DVDs, necklaces, bracelests, earrings, T-shirts and the like.  It felt like a circus at the beach.  After a late lunch we spent the afternoon at the touristy Artesenal market which took over an entire street and led to a giant cross, which was the supposed location of the first mass performed in Brazil.

Yep, it was heaven on a stick, if you like cheese

Seafood anyone?

In the evening, we headed back to a friend of a relative's beach house and showered to get ready to go out.  I had been warned that we weren't going to sleep that night.  Everyone else seemed strangely excited by this notion whereas I only felt vaguely disappointed.  Perhaps this is what happens when one is almost 32.  Much to my surprise, getting to the particular club involved taking a ferry to some faraway riverbank.  While we were boarding, Loni and I looked at each other like, "We're taking a ferry?"  Yep, a lot gets lost in translation - especially with uncommon words like "ferry."

Location of the discovery of Brazil

The night was fun and we had a good time.  We drove back to Erik's city in the wee hours of the morning, collapsed on mattresses on the floor and woke up just in time to barely make it to the bus station to start our 5 hour bus ride back home.

Night swimming

This is my "I didn't know we were actually going to have to take a ferry to the club" face

Loni and I, opening our presentation

Public speaking, not my favorite but a necessary part of the job

In some sense, living abroad is a chance to start over; it's a clean slate with the freedom of re-inventing yourself if you so desire.  For me, this freedom, though liberating, is also a little overwhelming and scary.  I've come to find that living abroad magnifies exponentially even the tiniest struggles you were having back home.  Lonely? Depressed? Anxious? Insecure? Unsure about the future? Going to another country is not going to solve any of that and in fact it's going to get worse before it gets better.  Believe me.

Showing how we slow dance (completely foreign to Brazilian students)

Modeling the country line dance "Boot Scootin' Boogie"

This time, for me, I've been struggling with personal identity - something that I wasn't anticipating.  I thought I was pretty solid about who I was and why I was coming here but that changed quickly when I was thrown in with a hierarchy/clique-crazed university, a very outgoing roommate and the fact that I'm following in the footsteps of two other much-loved American Fulbrighters who were ending their year here just a few months ago.  The comparisons made by the students between Loni and me and between us and the previous ETAs are omnipresent and very vocal.  Comparisons are natural but they can be hard to hear sometimes and they get old really fast.  Really fast.

Loni in full country gear

Me teaching the country line dance

One thing that Loni and I have been trying to emphasize to our students and anyone else at the university is that though we are both American, we grew up in wildly different environments and thus carry with us almost a polar opposite set of ideals, perspectives and beliefs.  Loni comes from a very diverse inner-city and I come from small town Midwestern America.  She is more of a fan of Mexico than the States and has never dated/would never think of dating a gringo whereas I carry a lot of love and pride for my hometown and my country and I'm married to such a gringo.  She is an ultra social person and disagrees with the church while I'm not so outgoing and religion is a big part of my life.  I think an awareness of these differences is a valuable insight for the students to have but it can be a painful process to witness when you're on the other end of it. 





The aforementioned differences were made extremely clear last night during our first cultural event at the university: "Music and Dance in the U.S.A."  Loni and I each talked about three types of music and dance that we had experienced in our lives.  For a few of the dances, the students participated and were able to learn the steps and the music.  I talked about dancing at events like the Prom and Homecoming, community Dutch Dancing and country line dancing.  Loni explained "grinding", the Cupid Shuffle, Chicken Noodle Soup, the original Harlem Shake as well as some Mexican-influenced dances.  The presentation went well and it made me see that our differences can be an asset but it also felt a little bit like a competition.

Teaching the Cupid Shuffle

I'm struggling with the fact that I'm not the cool/fun/crazy/outgoing ETA but rather someone else who I haven't really nailed down yet.  It's hard to feel like we are not just in the middle of one giant popularity contest as all of our classes and events are completely optional.  I'm finding myself asking questions like, "Why am I here?" "What can I uniquely and personally offer to this community of students?" "What routines and ideals are of top priority in my life here?" "How can I be social and meet people without going to late-night parties every single weekend?" "Where can I find the much-needed affirmation that who I am is ok without wishing I were more like someone else?"  It goes on and on.  Again, these are similar to questions I would ask myself at home but starting over in a new place puts them squarely in my field of vision and directly under a microscope. 

I relayed some of these doubts to the student monitor of our program here.  "I'm not sure I am the type of person the students were expecting when compared with last years' participants and my current partner."  "Sarah," he said.  "Don't worry.  God made you the way you are for a reason."  He's right, of course.  Now I just have to find that reason.

Loni teaching Chicken Noodle Soup (Yeah, I didn't know what it was either - Google it)

Preparing Good Friday lunch

Fish, beans, salad and rice

On Friday morning we boarded an inter-city bus for the five hour bus ride to Eunapolis, a city south of Ilhéus.  We were invited to visit the home of one of our students (Eric) and celebrate Easter with him and his family.  The minute we walked into the house we were given a glass of wine and asked if we wanted to take a shower (a normal question here because of the heat).  After settling in, we sat down to a traditional Good Friday meal of fish and salad.



Eric had said that his mom and grandma were a little nervous about having us visit since we were the first foreigners to be in the house and they were not sure we would be able to communicate well.  As long as they spoke slowly and were patient with us we didn't have any problems.  My favorite thing about the weekend was talking with Grandma.  We had a lot of fun and confusion relating to each other about cultural matters.  For example, she could not figure out why I couldn't speak Portuguese.  As she vehemently patted my arm she said, "If you come to our country you should speak our language . . . why don't you speak Portuguese?  What do you speak?"  I assured her that I was indeed trying to learn the language but also that she would have to speak slowly.  She also couldn't figure out how my husband would let me come to another country by myself.  "That would never happen in Brazil" she informed me seriously.

Me, Grandma and Loni

Ready to head out on the town Friday night

In the evening we walked around the small town of Eunapolis and Eric pointed out some of his favorite places.  Since it was a holiday weekend, we saw a lot of people hanging out with family and drinking at small snack houses and street cafes.  After a few drinks and some chit chat with friends, we headed to bed early in anticipation of an early morning trip to the neighboring city and tourist mecca of Porto Seguro.

Your typical hamburgers here - they are almost always served with corn

The main church in town

For the Easter holiday in Brazil we had Thursday and Friday off.  We spent Thursday with our program coordinator, Isaias, and then spent the rest of the weekend at a student's house in a city about 4 hours away.

Eating pizza with Eric's students

On the Wednesday night before break, one of our advanced students who teaches his own English classes in a private language institute, invited us to spend the evening with his English class at a restaurant.  It was fun to meet some more people and hear about what they want to do in the U.S. as some of the students are going to be exchange students in Arkansas starting in August.

Relaxing after lunch at Isaias' house

The next day Isaias picked us up and took us to his social club where we spent the day hanging out at the pool.  It was fun and relaxing and a chance to get to know our boss a little better outside of the office.  We went to his house for lunch and were able to meet his wife and kids as well and then spent the rest of the day back at the pool.  We made it back to our apartment with just enough time and energy to pack our bags for a weekend away in a neighboring city.

Enjoying the warm weather at the pool

At the end of my advanced English class last week I asked my students to respond to another question. We didn't discuss it as a class nor did they talk about it with each other. Here are their answers to this week's question in their own words:

What to you like most and least about the United States?

"I truly admire Americans' competition spirit.  I don't know if it's true but I dislike when sometimes Americans (some of them) behave as if they were superior."

"It is good in USA the people have more opportunity to grow up in career, the poor people there are rich people here.  It is not so good in USA, there are a strong block to foreign enjoy in the country because is a closed country with political strength."

"As a student of English, I think that USA is a good place.  I love the American English (accent especially) and the culture as well.  Maybe one day I'll have the opportunity to practice my English there.  The majority of Americans are more interested in money.  Money comes first, I think."

"Normalmente os americanos tem mais facilidade para viajar para outros paises e sáo insentivados a fazer isto.  'Alguns' americanos agem com muita arrogancia, como se fossem superiores." Americans usually find it easier to travel to other countries and are motivated to do this. Some Americans act with great arrogance, as if they were superior.

"One good thing in the U.S.A. is the movies and some musics.  and one bad thing is the government trying to dominate the world."