Eddy in Brazil

Hey everyone, just putting this on the blog to let you know that I´ve moved host-family!
The family has a low income, and we share a crowded little house with 6 people. One bedroom and a room that is like a living room with a kitchen in it. Here is a photo of the bedroom window, it takes a little getting used to sleeping with so many people in the same room and the street light flickers at night.. but i guess we get food on most days...

Ok, I know that was kind of bad taste... I haven´t REALLY moved to a favela...

In fact, I´m only a few blocks down from where I lived before! I´m still in centro de Vila Velha. I am staying with the Basos family. Here is my endereço:

Rua Antonio Ataide, 679/ apt. 302
Centro
Vila Velha, ES
Brasil

Homephone: +55 27 3329-4251

Host-family looks a little something like this:

Pães: Lucienne (mãe), Ary (pai)
Irmãos: Nayara (17), Vitor (15), Natalia (9)
Nearly forgot, we have a dog called Biju!

They look Brazilian don´t they... I have known the Basos family since the start of the year, as Louis, one of the other Australians used to live here, so in that sense settling in is made a lot easier; we are not total strangers.

I stayed with Uziel and Daiane for 6 months and a few days. I am very grateful for their hospitality and efforts to give me as many things to try and explore as possible in Brasil. Although I was officialy their host-son, I see them more as my friends, and I was basically a room-mate, in the sense I lived as an equal among them. They have taught me so many things about life, and I have taken away things from them that will stay a part of me. Cheers guys!

I look forward to staying with the Basos family for the remainder of the year. A new family, a different experience, making the exchange even more worthwhile. Ok guys, signing off now!

abraços para todos!

As much as I would like to sit here and type updates. I´m leading a busy and full-filling exchangers life and it would be silly wasting this precious time behind a computer screen.

The 27th of June marked 5 months for me, since I arrived in Brazil, and so I am more or less halfway there. It´s gone so quickly already, but it seems like a long time to go. People, it´s worth every bit of it. Today, I was talking to my host-dad, Uziel and a man from church Alarcon how missing out a year of university (faculdade) is really insignificant when you weigh up the things I´m learning here. Here I´m doing "faculdade da vida", and that´s exactly right, I´m learning about life, in all aspects imaginable. Experiencing a new culture broadens your vision, as now I don´t just see things the Dutch or Australian way, but the Brazilian way!! Remember Jeitinho Brasileiro...

Since the Curitiba trip I have been lucky enough to have traveled two more times. First to the south of this state to a place called Alegre. Here there is an anual music festival, called Festival de Alegre (seems logical). It is one of the biggest in Brazil that goes for four days and houses all the main Brazilian artists, tons of sideshows and sometimes even international appearances. Not long after Alegre, I went to visit Lucy, a friend from school in Adelaide. She is on exchange with Rotary in Bauru (São Paulo), so I stayed with her for a week. I am now back in Vila Velha, and about to turn 18. You can see how things get crowded can´t you.

I wish everyone well and até mais...

It´s post time!

I think I´ve already mentioned how I have come to perceive Brazil as a country of "extreme extremes". This perception became even greater when I visited Curitíba (koo-ree-chee-bah), the capital of the state of Paraná. For those of you use Google Earth, I uploaded the following placemark which will give you an indication of where it is located (Brazil´s south). Just looking at the Wikipedia entry for Curitíba, and it gives a very nice overview as well. I won´t give you a day-by-day account, but rather a brief summary along with my impressions and plenty of photos and for the first time on EddyinBrazil some videos!


Click on the thumbnail for a slideshow; read the post to understand the photos!

Destination: Curitíba, Paraná, Brazil
Reason for travel: Church and family business
Duration: 8 days (17th until the 25th of May)
Mode of travel: Aeroplane

Let´s take-off!



We managed heavily discounted tickets through "Varig Brasil" and so Uziel, Daiane and I flew to Curitíba´s João Alfonso´s airport after passing through both Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, with some delays.

Curitíba, located significantly further from the equator, has a very different climate than that of Vila Velha. Here in Vila Velha, there is barely any seasonal difference, and right now the temperature still hangs around 27 degrees celcius. At the same time, Curitíba´s will get below 10 degrees at night, and during the day, maybe a top of 20 degrees. So to say the least, it was a cold change!

The south of Brazil, was subject to much immigration from Europe, from countries like Germany, Italy, Poland, and therefore it has a strong European feel. The south, compared to the rest of Brazil, is considered first-world. And having personally experienced the city, I can now confirm that the difference certainly exists. The city´s public services are all of a high standard, and much of the city was re-planned and altered such as the roads and public transport. Curitíba has many parks, a botanic garden, musea, an opera theatre; facilities you would not find in a city like Vitória or Vila Velha. Crime, is significantly lower, and aside from locks on doors, it is almost not an issue (as I have been used to my entire life). In Vila Velha, you are forced to take several precautions, such as avoiding to go out at night, and carrying a minimal amount of valuable items. In the south, as I witnessed in an amazing personal experience, the police is not afraid to take action, even against considerably small crimes. Another example is that around the city, you find divided recycle bins for up to five different types of rubbish, and the city streets are noticeably cleaner; European standards. Transport is well organised, with large connection highways and buslanes in throughout the city. There are buses of three-times the normal length, that run on natural gas, and the bus stops are the iconic "tubes"; large glass tubes with ramps that are used to save time by avoiding buying tickets on the bus and they provide great shelter and easy access. Below is a quick clip of Parque Tanguá, one of many parks in Curitíba. Once an old, unused stone-groove, Curitíba´s ex-mayor Jaime Lerner had a vision and turned it into a beautiful park connected to a lake below through a large waterfall (not the waterfall seen here). Uziel is talking in the background.




Uziel (my host father) is originally from Paraná, and was born not far from Curitíba. His family, therefore, nearly all live in and around the city. So in the time I was there, I met Uziel´s parents, siblings, cousins and other in-some-way-related family members. Uziel´s family is bigger than I thought, and quite spread out. Let´s hope I get this right: Uziel is the youngest (29) of six siblings with 3 brothers and 2 sisters. His parents live in Palmeira (about an hour´s drive from Curitíba). Uziel´s father, Pastor Adolar Lagos is 82 years old, and has already worked for the ministry for 51 years. He has set up many churches, and is still completing the construction of a brand new church next to his house.

One part of my stay in Curitíba, and who would have guessed, was Marcha para Jesus, that´s right, Eddy went on a Jesus march! Roughly ten thousand people marched through the city center, uniting christians from all types of churches. Our church (World Revival Church) was there, with custom t-shirts and a large banner, which I helped carry for the majority of the time. A big trio-eletríco (big truck with a band on top and lots of speakers) led the way. It was interesting to observe a congregation like this. From what I could tell, there were mainly people of a low social class, hippies and there was a underlying political drive to the march as well, as the march´s destination was the governor´s house, and both he and the mayor of Curitíba held speeches. Although this is totally not my thing, it was fun being in the midst of it, and it gave a lot of people a spiritual lift. Plus we got to advertise the church!

I must say, I am getting value for money on this exchange... Let me tell you what happened on our second day in Curitíba. Driving home at roughly ten o´clock we were descending towards are big crossing when all of a sudden, we could hear shots being fired, really rapidly, and all I could see was a police car stationed in the middle of the crossing with several officers taking cover and firing their weapons. Uziel, who was driving at the time, immediately spun our car around, and headed in the opposite the direction. Catching our breath, we turned onto the road running alongside the main road where the shots were fired. It turned out there was a stolen vehicle being chased, and the car thiefs were firing at police, who in turn returned fire. As we later turned back onto the main road, we could see police lights flashing in the distance. As we approached we saw a blue car with its back, completely smashed as well as a white truck whose front had narrowly missed. On the other side of the crossing was the red vectra, which tried to run a red light, but crashed and consequently stopped working. The thiefs ran, and one got shot dead trying to climb a fence, while the other fled. We arrived only seconds after it happened. Swat style military police streamed in from all directions. I´ve never seen such an awesome police reaction in my life. These so called HONS police were all heavily armed, with submachine guns and literally shot the vectra (plus the thief) to bits. I made a small movie clip of the scene. The red vectra, and behind it the scene of where it crashed.



We stayed with Uziel´s nephew, Helder also known as Thor. He lived in the US for 15 years, and had his three children there, before moving back to Brazil. Just outside of Curitíba, he has a large retreat/holiday house, known as chacará. Complete with a small soccer field, pool, trampoline, large churrasco, numerous animals and plenty of spare land. On Saturday, he invited a whole group of friend and the men had a game of six-a-side, after which an entire lamb (pre-cut) was barbequed and consumed. Apart from this amazing meat, I also tried a new food item, which is orginally from the south of Brazil (Rio Grando do Sul) called Chimarrão (pronounced shee-mah-howng). It´s a tea-type drink, prepared in a cuia - a special container made from a pumpkin-like fruit of the calabash tree (crescentia cujete). In the foto, the cuia is made from horn. Uziel´s father has an impressive collection of near a hundred cuias, of all different shapes and sizes imaginable. Hot, but not boiling water is added to special ervas or herbs and drunk in turns through a metal straw called a bomba. Read the wikipedia entry for Chimarrão more info. It very cool, and hot on a cold day... you get what I mean. So if you are ever in Brazil, near the south, to fit right in just say the following: Vamos tomar um chimarrão! (Let´s go drink a chimarrão!).

So all in all, a very nice chance to visit another part of Brazil. My vision keep broadening, my language keeps expanding and there seems to be no end in sight. I´m loving it here.

Valeu galera!

Holidays! Although the school year here is not structured into terms as in Australia, with regular two-week breaks for every ten weeks of school, we have had quite a few holidays over the past few weeks here in Espiríto Santo. The Easter weekend, and the two weekends that followed were all long weekends, spanning 3 or 4 days each. This made for a nice time off school, and also gave the opportunity to travel here and there. My mate from school Diego da Matta invited me on the first two weekends to travel with him. The Easter weekend we spent down at Camping do Siri near a place called Marataízes, roughly three hours drive south of here. The following weekend I travelled with him and his sister to Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais. The third weekend Uziel & Daiane went to a church convention, also in Minas, during which time I stayed home alone for a weekend!

So, the Easter long weekend started with Diego's parents dropping us off at the camping on Thursday night. Oh nearly forgot, the night before I went out with Robertinho's older sister Nanda and her friends to Com Vento, one of the nightclubs in Vitória. Roberto is a mate from school, and Jarryd is now staying at his house. The night's theme was Psyfunk, hence a selection of
trance music and later Brazilian funky. Here is us:

I'm not homesick yet mum!

At the camping we set up our four man tent, which despite its size, failed to house my abnormally long legs. Diego's parents later left and we walked around to get to know the camping. Diego had been before. Very nice grounds, adjacent to the beach, plenty of trees, clean bathrooms. The camping is 30 years old and so has a bit of tradition to it. There were two other friends from school. We mucked around lots, playing bocha, a form of bowling, and of course going to the beach daily, where my sunscreen (30SPF) failed to adequately protect from the sun. We fished for Pitú (freshwater shrimp), in the little creek, catching up to twenty which we later cleaned and made a Moqueca of (a seafood dish). There was a lake nearby where we swam, jumped of the bridge etc. Just being able to be a kid again felt good, people grow up too fast. There at the lagoa (lake) at one of the kiosks we ate bolinho de aipim and drank Pinacolado, juiced pineapple fruit mixed with condensed milk, ice and plenty of vodka, served in the original pineapple. Very fancy. On Saturday night, as the "older kids" we were asked to play monsters and hide in the dark and empty section of the camping. The little ones then got to search for us with their torches and throw water balloons. I was a giant Gorilla and I think I may have scared some of the little ones a little bit too much... The part about the water ballons had skipped my ears, so it was a nice surprise having giant sacks of water land on me out of nowhere. It hurt copping them in the face! I hadn't taken any precaution in let's say wearing boardshorts and taking of my shirt underneath the cape... So I was soaking wet by the end of it. But it was good fun. On Easter the kids had a easter-egg hunt, while we preferred to stay on the beach. At the end of the weekend we caught the bus back home to VV.

A short week of school passes and we are off again; this time to Minas Gerais. MG is the state west from here and the bus trip there is about 7 hours. A very hilly and winding road. Diego and I went caught the bus at 8:00am on Friday. On Thursday night, I tried to invite all the Australians to go out as a group. We only managed three out of five, Jarryd, Louis and I, but it was good fun all the same.

Louis and Eddy!

I barely touched the matress at Diego´s house, before we it was time to catch our bus to Belo Horizonte. Diego was born there, and most his family lives there. Good thing I could sleep on the bus. We stayed with Diego´s Vovó, or grandmother, and she is literally half my size (I have photographic evidence). She had just turned 85 and would do anything to make us feel at home. She said "fica à vontade vui" (make yourself at home) about every minute and apologised that we had to sleep on the floor, asking jokingly "você caiu da cama?" (did you fall out of bed). Diego's cousins showed us around. His uncle is the president of Rotary and also of América, a big football club. I just found out this club has a partnership with Feyenoord Rotterdam, hmmm. Diego's dad owns the dairy company "Da Matta", very big in Brasil, and so you can see how these people are near the top of Brasil's wealth ladder. All in all, BH is a big city, with a bigger economy than say Vitoria. It appeared pretty clean to me, although a ot of people find the city ugly. Sunday night we went and saw the movie "V de Vingança" or V for Vengeance, written and directed by the Wachowski brothers (Matrix trilogy). It's awesome! A quiet day on Monday, and after a nice sushi dinner (sushi is my new found love, it's so good) we caught a night bus home, where I again struggled to fit my legs in the limited space provided; (thanks for the genes Dad).

From L to R: Cyntia, Leonardo, Nayara, Marcelo, Paola, Diego and I

The final long weekend, as I mentioned, my parents had to travel to Minas Gerais, and so filho Edgar stayed to look after the house. This gave me a taste of what it it like living alone, even though it was just for 3 days. Friday night, however, I already had my ticket for the O Rappa show. O Rappa is one rasta, Bob Marley looking guy with a big band including a Dj, guitarists, percussionists etc. His music style, is a mixture between rock and reggae, very cool. Show was held in a big gymnasium with lots of people, similar to the Trivela show.

Here's the whole group

O Rappa!

A view onto the crowd from above, at least a couple of thousand

The rest of the weekend I mainly stayed at home, trying to entertain myself. Failing, it led me to doing groceries, washing clothes and vacuum cleaning the apartment. Mum you would have been proud. On Monday the Aussie boys hit the beach for some Aussie Rules football. Lots of strange looks from were received, as nobody was quite sure what this strange sport was. At sunset we climbed Morro do Moreno, which his a big hill that overlooks both Vila Velha and Vitoria. Very nice views, and i'll be back no doubt with my camera.

It's taken a while to write this up.. I am writing this section on the 5th of May, which is my Vovó's 85th birthday! Unfortunately I can't be in every continent at once, (even though I try really hard) but nevertheless my thoughts are there in Gulpen. Proficiat Oma!

Gringo out!

This exchange is no fairy-tale and it's not supposed to be either. Apart from the obvious discomfort of being taken away from home, thrown into a foreign place, with different customs and a unknown language, there can be just be plain bad things that happen. Just like they happen at home.

You may have noticed in my posts so far, although I focus on the fun things I do and the nice places I visit, I also comment on some of the harsh realities I come across. Brasil, as I see it and as is well known, is a country of "extreme extremes", and hereby I am of course referring to the inequality of wealth distribution. It's a country where the richest one percent of the people have fifteen percent of the wealth , and the poorest forty percent has less than a tenth. An equally interesting (less numerical) fact is that Sào Paulo has more private helicopters than any other city in the world, more armoured limousines and armed security personnel. Yet at the same time there are currently 45 million people living in conditions of poverty. Brazil is second to South Africa, as the country with the biggest inequality of wealth ditribution in the world. This great divide, you can safely say, is roughly divided into blacks and whites. I could recite a little Yoda-style "poverty leads to desperation, desperation leads to crime" type cycle, but that's basically what it is. So crime...

Saturday the 8th of April, there was a churrasco at the church here, the second one since I've been here. I invited Sammy and Jarryd to come too, as we had plans to go out afterwards to a birthday. Churrasco is a brazilian barbeque, with large chunks of meat, heavily marinated with salt, speared onto spits and cooked over a coal fire. When cooked, the meat is then sliced and cut up into little pieces to be passed around. About 8 o'clock the three of us plus Cleverson, my friend plus the guitarist at church (17 years old) went to call over another guy from church, Renato. He only lives two streets away, all in centro de Vila Velha. Lost in conversation we walked one street too far, so we took the next street and walked around the block finally ending up at the house. We let another resident inform us that Renato wasn't in so back we went. Just before reaching the corner of the street, three black guys (couldn't have been all that much older than us) approached us from the rear, all of them on bikes. One pretended to ask Cleverson for street directions before getting off his bike, slamming into the ground as he did. At this moment I knew, as it's always in the back of your head, plus all of a sudden, the situation seemed to be just right for it. Say bye to what's in your pockets I thought. Their demands were quite clear; "carteira! carteira!" (wallet). The scroungy short one decided to empty my pockets, sticking his fingers in his shorts, signifying he was armed. I didn't resist in giving my cell phone and the loose note of ten reais that I had. Thankfully boardshorts have only one pocket... He was pretty delighted at the sight of my phone, calling over the other one, but other than a house key and a scrap piece of paper with the address for the birthday of that night, I had nothing more to give. The second threw the key hard against the ground and the three mounted their bikes. I picked up the key and looked at the others, all looking pretty stunned. We walked calmly until they were out of sight and then ran back to the church. It's all a compressed memory now, as things like that happen in seconds. The total loot: two cell phones, 120 reais in cash and a watch.

Yes, not happy about that. We tried to find the ladrões afterwards, having a pastor, a sergeant from military police and a federal police officer in the car, hahaha. They are all associated with the church. We didn't find them, which is probably better that way. Because it would have led to more nastiness, probably a fight or whatever. Numerous people tried to call my phone, and a few got an answer. A lady picked up one one attempt, and as it turned out the phone and the rest of the goods had already been traded in for drugs at the local drug point or Boca da Fuma (smoke-mouth). Apart from the monetary loss, my phone had quite a few photos on it and all my contacts and phone numbers, which will take some time to re-attain. Luckily we weren't personally harmed. Most of these muggings are solely in the interest of gaining money to trade for drugs, and unless you resist or do something stupid, the ladrão won't try to hurt/kill you. We did the right thing, by staying calm and just giving whatever we had. I don't think they were armed, and people I've talked to like to put up a big voice and say "Oh why didn't you run or beat the guys"!!? Easily said, but it all happened in a split second and I don't think it's worth the risk. Good news is, insurance will pay all, and the fact that three gringos got robbed and that I am without a cell phone is a continuous source of jokes.

It seems like following this incident on the 8th there has been a spree of looting or attempted break-ins in the area. The furniture store across the road had an attempted break-in, luckily the guy that lives on the opposite corner was woken by the guard dog in time to scare off the criminal. This same man informed us that two nights ago our car had some interest and nearly got broken into. Sabor da Terra, the restaurant where we eat almost 3 times a week was robbed by two ladrões with revolvers during lunch time last Tuesday. Took over 2000 reais and robbed the clients. On the same street the car-wash got robbed and just today a jewellery store on the main road behind our block got robbed, and shots were fired. Police presence is minimal and their atitude and naturally I now feel less safe and am more aware slash paranoid. You can see how racial prejudice arises like this, because my gut feeling tells me now that whenever a black youth passes (on a bike or on foot) and he looks a bit suspect; this guy is a ladrão. I know this is an unfair judgment, but on the other hand you can't blame me. And the possibility that he IS a criminal is higher, that's just a fact! And in a way it would be ignorant and stupid of me to ignore that...

Anyway. I'm not trying to scare anyone, nor trying to make it sound like my life is hanging by mere threads, but it's part of life here, part of Brazil's makeup, I view it as a good experience, despite the fact that we got mugged... =P

I think I'm done for this post. I don't spend much time on the pc and the computers here don't allow me to upload the ton of pictures I have for you guys. I am still writing however, and I have a couple of other posts lined , they're just waiting on photos.

Até a proxima pessoal!

A few Saturday´s back, a boy from Church called Pedro turned four years old. He is therefore known as Pedrinho or ´little Pedro´. He has become my little buddy and although I don´t always follow what he is saying, we are good mates.


He had a Batman themed party held at a condo in Vitória. A table full of sweets, hotdogs, torta and bolo (cake); there was plenty to stuff yourself with.





I was surprised and shocked to find out that Pedro wasn´t Pastor Loiola´s son, which I had always assumed seeing as they take care of him. (Pr Loiola preaches at our church). He is actually Pr Loiola´s son´s child, the result of an careless night out. So Pedro´s mother is with her other boyfriend and Pedro is being raised by his grandparents. These cases only become apparent after some time, and it´s always sad to discover them. If anything, it made me grateful for the fact that I am not in a similar situation. In fact, I´m the only one from the Australian exchange students here that doesn´t have split parents.



That was just a quickie, and just to cap off, the first Brazilian to go to space took off yesterday. Marcos Pontes. The launch was last night (just before I called home to check dad´s result). Click here to see the launch. Marcos will be at the international space station for eight days, before returning back to Earth. Cool isn´t it!

EDIT: Got my hands on some more pictures! Scroll on down!
I might get one post out of the way now... haha
Last Saturday there was a music show, that in portuguese slang is known as a Rock, pronounced 'hock'. It was an Axé festival, which is similar to Samba music (carnaval).The band was ASA Trivela, and boy it was CRAZY.

Below is the only picture I´ve got of us, it was taken and uploaded by the event people. If you want to get a general impression, go to http://www.tevejonorock.com.br/. There is a small video clip on the front page, then click on ´Fotos dos Agitos´ on the left, and find TRIVELA parte 01 and 02. Here is the still sober us (except for Roberto):

The way they run these things is so Brazilian and so good. Basically you buy a ticket (+- 50 reais) you pick up the designated singlet for that event (different each time and all the girls get them modified) and you're set. If you pay more you can get a blue singlet, and this puts you in the VIP area, which is above the main ground. But if you ask me those people paid more to get less; the real fun is down in the pit. Everyone gets there during the afternoon and before you even get into the grounds, there is one large street packed with people, everyone in yellow (the colour of the this events singlet) and there are infinite stalls selling lots of alcohol, food and playing loud music. Around 4 or 5 o´clock, people will start making their way inside. The actual band plays on a giant float, pulled by a tractor, so there is no front or back, because the stage is constantly moving around. I think they must have had about 5 songs that everyone knows, and they played them over and over again.

I can´t estimate the amount of people that were there, but it is at least 5 football fields filled, as far as the area goes. I went with friends from school and all (but one) of the Australians went as well. Location was in Vitória (across the bay from Vila Velha where I live) at Praça da Papa where Carnaval is held. So altough I didn´t witness any carnval here in person, this gave me a pretty good idea. You might think Australians have a pretty heavy drinking culture, but Brazilians go crazy just the same. Different types of Cachaça drinks (made from sugar cane), tequila, lots of beer and vodka. I managed to stay standing, but plenty of others were seen carried off, before it even got started. The show ends at 10, and afterwards we went to Cariacica where Sammy (other Australian) lives. We found out there was a house party nearby on top of some apartment building, so we went there to cool off for a few hours, before hitting bed at about 4. Great atmosphere and a great night, thanks to mum and dad for funding it and those that were there.

More updates to come! This week is semana de provas at school, so while the others sit their tests, we make good use of the IT room. Hahaha

Vai com Deus!

Hi guys,

I'm still here, no need to worry. With my school routine and some internet downtime I haven't gotten the chance to show and tell you more of my experiences, but trust me all is well.

I have been going out a lot more, making heaps of friends (my orkut has over 50 already) and in short, I am loving it here (Orkut, made by Google, is online community where you can add friends, upload pictures, write about yourself and message others, almost everyone here has it). My portuguese is still growing exponentially. Uziel and I just bought some grammar books, so we are going to teach ourselves over the coming weeks. This way I can go at my own pace and I'll pay a lot less.

At odd moments during the day, like walking down the busy streets here in Centro, I get these moments where I stand still, just glance around and take in everything and think; wow! I'm in Brasil. Sure there are some lonely times, when there is not much to do, but this is part of the deal. And the challenge is then to entertain myself.

There is much to say about the past few weeks, I could write you a novel. But I will use school time to write up some accounts and hopefully the computer let's me upload some pictures.

I'm having fun, I hope you are too!
Thanks to the Dutch Uncles for their messages in the guestbook.
Eu preciso sair, então, até mais!