Oi, Gente!

This is my first actual blog post! I've held off on writing for a couple of days; part of that was laziness, but part of it was because it took a couple days for everything to just sort of settle in. Of course, that's still a work in progress. I won't lie, the first two days were pretty disorienting. A day and a half of travel, homesickness, Yalesickness, being in a completely new setting in an entirely different hemisphere, the usual emotional stuff--it was all a lot to take in. But once I was able to just take a deep breath and start to enjoy the fact that I was here, I saw that this is an incredible experience in so many ways. With that in mind, I really started to enjoy myself. Getting to know the other people in the summer session, drinking caiprinhas in a bar on a Monday, walking around the city aimlessly, actually being understood in Portuguese, all of it was just so great. The next two weeks (woah, make that week and a half!) are going to be so much fun, and then after that... RIO. Can't wait!

So Paraty is a tiny city that, as I understand it (and that's not saying too much since I've only been here a really short time) has two main parts: O Centro Histórico and a parte nova. The historic center is preserved and maintained with cobblestone streets and really charming stores--it's pretty but kind of touristy. The newer part of the town reminds me a lot of the times I've been in Mexico, especially Mazatlan. The bustle, the five million drogarias and stores selling the same stuff, all the people, animals, and cars. Personally, I kind of like this part better--at least during the day, it feels more authentic. Then again, what's authenticity even mean? The 400 year old preserved church is just as authentically Brazilian as the guy hocking havaianas and Ronaldo jerseys. Maybe I mean to say more representative of contemporary Brazil? Either way, I really enjoy taking all of that in; of course, the bars and clubs in the centro histórico are lots of fun.

It's not all sightseeing and taking in a new environment, though. It's a Yale summer session which means that everyday I have 3 hours of class, homework every night, and starting next week the culture class resumes which means another 2 page essay every week (which reminds me I still have about 2 pages to write...). I'm really liking Portuguese, though! It's a lot of fun and I'm SO glad I spent those first three weeks of summer hammering down pronunciation. I've done well on the first two tests and am just really enjoying it all. It made me so happy to see that Bete (our professor) had written "Ótimo!" ("Great!") on my last test. Speaking of Bete, she's incredible. For the Redondo Union High alums reading this, she's basically the Portuguese-speaking version of Señora Forster: really kind, really sweet, awkwardly funny, and slightly older but totally cool. Her story's incredible too. When she was in high school, the Rotary Club organized a year abroad for her--she had no idea where--and she ultimately ended up in Brazil. This was way back when, and she said that she had almost no contact with home (two phone calls the entire year and letters that took 2 weeks both ways). That's amazing!! It kind of makes me feel bad about how much English I've been speaking--definitely something I'm going to work on though! I've always been sort of obsessive about learning foreign languages, but I'm starting to see that it's something I'm good at and something I really enjoy doing. And since Yale's great (i.e. full of money) for pursuing the things you want to learn, I'm really excited about what the future holds, linguistically and otherwise.

But speaking of sightseeing, tomorrow we're going to a quilombo! A community of ex- and runaway slaves. This one's a little different, I'm told, because it wasn't so much founded by slaves who ran away from the plantations but by a few freedwomen. Either way, I'm excited! Afro-Brazilian culture (especially the gender dynamics) are fascinating--WGSS and ER&M ftw.

[[ As a quick side note, I just got frantic emails from my mom and aunt about flooding in Brazil. Northeastern Brazil. 1500 miles away from where I am. Parents...]]