An Insider's Guide to Brazil

So I had a very eye-opening conversation with my friend Bethina from Brazil over text yesterday night. Luckily there are quite a few Brazilians over here in the US for me to talk to before I go, and hopefully keep in touch with while I am there. 

I found out that when I go there I will be attending private school, as is the norm. The uniform differs from region to region, but it sound like it is suitable for the climate.

I am a definite yoga pant wearer, so that was a pretty weight-y concern for me. I know that in Spain they dress up fancier than Americans for going outside the house, and yoga pants would be a definite no-no. Bethina told me that people might think I was wearing pajamas, but it depends on the day/ where I am going.  One thing she told me for sure was that I would be donning jeans and leggings more often than not. I don't know how people wear leggings if it is super hot out, though. Leggings can be color, non-color, pattern, whatever, and they are worn under skirts or long shirts. So check: bring my jeans, get some leggings.

Right after warning me that I would be quick to gain weight due to the delicious Churrasco barbecue and chicken hearts, she absolutely forbade me to bring my own North American swimsuits. She gave me a link to this picture:


She then chided:  

"That's like the biggest size of bikini that you will find in Brazil. If you wear any bigger than this people will say that you are wearing that thing that they put on children so they don't poop their pants"

To which I playfully remarked:

"Well I hope its okay with all of them that my butt is not anywhere near hot enough for anything like that..... "

She then assured me that the whole point of such small bathing bottoms was to give the illusion of larger buttocks. 

A statement to which I said "Touche." And who knows, the more I look at them, the more they grow on me. I could see myself wearing one. Maybe.They are pretty expensive, I looked up a few bikinis on the internet. 

Bethina told me that like the swimsuits, most of the clothing in Brazil is expensive, and I should try to pack as much clothing as I can into the fifty pounds allotted for the checked bags. I will most likely end up taking two bags anyways. 

One more thing on clothing before we move on. Once upon a time, far, far away, on a slightly surreptitious website that I found, I heard someone mention that in Brazil you can tell a United Statesman ( I am trying to avoid saying "American" as that can get confusing what with North and South going on) distinctly by their tennis shoes. Bethina laughed, then told me that for sure Nike tennis shoes are popular, and almost everybody has a pair. I don't currently; I am more of an Converse All-Star kind of girl. She said they do have Converse, but they are around $200-$300. Whooweee!

As Bethina cracks up at all my Usaian (see what I did there?) anecdotal questions she consistently uses the same Onomatopoeia: 

"aheuaheuahauehaaaaaaa!!!" ----- I was wondering about it the whole time, until I concluded that it is the Brazilian equivalent to the US's "LOL".

The rules:  

 1. No rules!!!! aheuaheuaheuahaaaaaa!!!! she seemed to use the same letters and order of letters each time, but a few times she used:

"shduahsudhasudasdaa" , "aksopakspaokspoaksaa" , "rsrsrsrsrsrsrs", or even "kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk"!

So there are really no rules. Any letters, any order, anytime. 

 So cool! It sounds loads closer to the carefree and jubilant looniness that I feel when I am actually laughing out loud. 

Pilot Post

After a long, tedious wait following my acceptance into the CSRYE program, I finally received my country assignment! It is....here goes......BRAZIL!

this picture is accompanied by an (the) angelic chorus in my brain.

I am so excited, although I speak no Portuguese, only a little Spanish...which may or may not help.

So I have decided to start a blog in order to maintain my sanity through the six months wait before departure and onward into the ten-month long haul. The posts during the six-month stretch will most likely be far and few between in hopes of saving you from the details of my everyday life. I'll let you know when something important comes up, such as an rotary info meeting or an exchange event. I'll pick up more consistently as I get closer to Brazil!

My parents are pretty nervous. Spain was at the top of my list, but due to the insecurity of their economy and ongoing riots, it was decided too dangerous to send a student there. It is hard to remember, but I think I had a few other South American countries down before Brazil as I was hoping to make use of my Spanish. Argentina, Paraguay, Peru and Bolivia were a few options. My parents are afraid that Brazil is unsafe, because my dad went to Rio De Janeiro on a business trip once. He stayed inside the city and was told not to leave the hotel because crime rates were so high. I do not, however, believe that rotary would send me into the heart of a city with a murder rate of 6,000 people a year. I have constructed an argument in hopes of convincing him that the rest of Brazil is not as dangerous as Rio. So far I have this as evidence:

1. I don't own any jewelry expensive enough to make me a target

3. I live on 8 mile, (yes, like the song by Eminem) Just forty minutes away from Detroit, a city with a homicide rate of 411 per year and rising. I might as well live 20,000 miles away with the amount of crime I see in my quaint little town of Northville. It goes to show that you can't judge a region by its city, just like we shouldn't judge the whole of Brazil by Rio De Janeiro or Sao Paulo.

4. I have viewed countless other blogs of foreign exchangers in Brazil, and all of them are ten months long and end with a plane trip back home, not a high-adrenaline chase between Liam Neeson and Albainian Human Traffickers.

5. At a district exchange event I met a few Brazilians who will be home next year and who I can keep in touch with during my stay. They can answer my questions and give me tips on how to stay safe.

6. Rotarians are good, upstanding citizens who I would gladly trust to house me and safely escort me through the obstacles of travel even in the more dangerous areas of Brazil.

7. I WILL BE THERE FOR THE FIFA WORLD CUP HELD IN BRAZIL IN 2014!!!!!
which is a huge selling point for me. Also that since there will be a lot of tourists, the officials will be layin' down the law to make it World-Cup friendly.

Other factors in my parent's argument lie as such:

1. They have seen both "Taken" movies and my dad is afraid that he will not be stealth enough to come to my rescue if by chance I was captured and sold into human slavery.

2. A family friend went on exchange a couple years ago and her host family left her at a train station (oops..) --that's to say, she came home early

3. The day we found out that I was going to Brazil the local news channel informed us that there was a nightclub fire in Santa Maria, a city in southern Brazil. 231 people died, with many more injured. (but c'mon, it's not like I am going to be club hopping around Brazil, am I?)

Anyways, we'll see if my argument can hold up against the rigorous questioning that my parents are putting me and the district exchange officials through. I should know for sure by February 16th, the day of the first info and training meeting.