Brazil, Chapter 9: In which we Go Clubbing (and sleep in and miss sacrament meeting the next morning)

I think that on Saturday I finally had the "true" Brazilian clubbing experience--or as true as you can have without drinking, smoking, and sex. It was such a long night that I won't remember everything, but I'll do my best.

Valeria and her friend, N, came around 7:30, chauffeured by F, a mousy character who, according to Valeria, is very rich, and who buys everything for (the voluptuous) N, "because she kiss him." We drove first to a house where N picked up 5 pairs of expensive shoes, and then to N's house. N promptly sent F away, and soon her "real boyfriend" arrived. Then we ate chocolate and talked--or rather, occasionally parroted Portuguese swear words--until N's boyfriend took us to Valeria's house. Valeria, Diane, and I played battleship and Uno and discussed N's, um, profession, and around midnight Valeria showered and got ready.

Finally, around 1, F picked us up, with 2 new girls in the car, whose names I forget and will now call Hips and Blondie. The Brazilians agreed that Diane's flip-flops were not acceptable club footwear, so they drove us home and waited while Diane changed her shoes and I scribbled on some eyeliner. Then we finally drove to the club, but...false alarm! We were just dropping off Hips and Blondie. The rest of us went to pick up N, who kept us waiting awhile, and then we went back to the club, arriving about 7 hours after we left.

The club--oh, the club. I really want to learn to samba, but it's difficult to find boys who will teach you to dance and then leave you alone. Short hair and freckles are not the mode here, but I heard some hilarious pick up lines nonetheless: "I have always want to kiss American girl." "You are very special and gentle." "Can I kiss your mouth?" These guys are probably far more elegant in their native language, of course. But in the end, my favorite dance partner was Hips. I've never seen dance come more naturally to anyone in my life. I really don't know how she moved her namesake like she did, but I was glad she was willing to try to teach me, even though I looked like a fool. I repeatedly reverted to isolations from Jazz 3 at Green Tree. I remembered too late that any of my students could be at the club.*

I was fully enjoying myself by 5:00 or so, but then Valeria (who doesn't approve of Hips and Blondie, because they does sex with boys they doesn't know) said it was time to go. F picked us up again, and I was so tired that it took me a while to realize we were just driving around in circles, passing the club every 10 minutes or so. F played "Video Phone" so loudly that covering my ears did no good; the bass reverberated through my cranium and down through all my organs, and I finally succumbed to the slow deterioration of my hearing. We finally insisted on going home, now, without any more laps around the city, and fell into bed by 6.

*Since writing this post, one of my students confirmed that she did indeed see me at the club--fortunately just talking, not dancing...

Fat Eyes

So, two of my students taught me a Portuguese expression yesterday: when you're jealous of something, you have "fat eyes" for it. Isn't that a great one?

Now that I know the right term, I can say I have fat eyes for this particular aspect of Brazilian life:

Why have I never seen a moto taxi before? I got to ride home on one yesterday, in the cool Brazilian night air, with my ill-fitting helmet (yes, the one worn by all passengers) rattling around on my head. Definite fat eyes for the moto taxi, if not for the cobblestone routes to home.

Paint the Town

One of the first things I noticed about Lins was the color. The people here have no reservations about painting their buildings any shade, from amythest to zucchini. It makes the city really cheerful, especially on a sunny day. Here are some pictures of the brightest buildings in town. And, since I've had some requests (ok, one request, Single Follower) to put up pictures of me, most of them include my head.

Here you go:

Turquoise/Turquesa

A wall that says "Tutty Collory"--I'm not sure what that means, but it sounds like it could mean, appropriately, "Many Colors":

Red/Vermelho:

Peach/pêssego:

Purple/roxo (purple does not adequately describe this building. It is outrageously orchid, insanely indigo, egregiously eggplant):

Pink, green, yellow, and blue/rosa, verde, amarelo, e azul:

I'm sorry all these are so close to my face. I only have my little video camera with me, and so I can only take horizontal photos and the "zoom out" isn't very great. But back to business.

Yellow/amarelo:

Primary Colors/cores primárias:

Blue/azul:

Chartreuse phone booth/phonebooth chartreuse:

Peptobismal/peptobismal:

And finally, green. I walk past this house every day on the way to school, and I love the bougainville. I wanted to take a picture here, but another problem with the video camera is that I have to take a video and then choose a frame later. In this case, I thought the video of me trying not to be blinded was so funny that I just put the whole thing in. So laugh at the squinting, love the bougainville, but don't forget to notice the green/verde house:

Today at dinner I told my first story in Portuguese: "Hoje eu fazo fotografia em Lins. Mas eu acho que gente acham eu loca." If these words mean what I think they mean, I said roughly this: Today, I make photograph in city, but I think people thinks I crazy.

Brazil, Chapter 8: In which I Make a Friend and Throw Up, in Unrelated Incidents

A lot happened this weekend, so I'll be brief:

• Valeria, yet another kind friend and birthday-lover, threw me a party. Diane and I arrived early to help get ready, blew up dozens of balloons, and realized the guest list actually consisted of only us and Valeria's family. Valeria made some delicious food: those little fried chicken things, brigadeiro, and this beautiful chocolate cake that said, "Happy Birth Rachel" on it. I wasn't going to mention the unusual phrasing, but Valeria asked if it was right, so I squirmed around a little and said, "Well, I mean, I guess...usually...we would say 'Birthday,' but...well...birth isn't really wrong..." and then she was sad. But really, "Happy Birth" only made that cake more memorable.
• Some of the teachers play soccer--actually, futsal--and invited Diane to play with them. I invited myself to watch, and Patricia picked us up in her slug bug:

This may not be worth documenting, but it was my first ride in a slug bug, plus we rolled down the whole street before we could get it to go uphill again, so it was pretty exciting.

• One of my students, Rafaela (cool name, no? Don't forget the "R" makes an "h" sound) invited me to go out with her friends on Saturday. People are friendly and genuine enough here that I don't think she's brown-nosing, and I certainly hope not because I really like her. We went to a party and everyone said random, half-remembered English phrases at me, and then we went to a rodeo-circus thing where a famous Brazilian singer performed. I want to learn to dance here!
• On Sunday I opted to stay home from church and vomit potato salad, beans and rice into the toilet, so the morning was pretty boring, except for those suspenseful trips to the bathroom. By the evening I felt better, though, and Rafaela invited me over again to meet her family and eat some banana pie. Then she taught me the names of every food in her pantry, which I repeated and then forgot.

Brazil, Chapter 7: In which Everyone is Very Nice to me on my Birthday

You know those people that don't tell anyone it's their birthday? I always admire them for their lack of attention-hogging. So every year on my birthday, I think, I'm not going to tell anyone, either. But then I spend the day thinking everyone should just magically know, and being a little grumpy that they don't at least ask. Come on, it's August 11 and you're not even just curious whether it happens to be my birthday?

Anyway, yesterday was great because everyone did magically know. Apparently in Brazil birthdays are very exciting. All the teachers and students hugged me and kissed my cheek and said, "Parabens," and even my students knew. Diane snuck into my classroom and put up balloons and brought me candy, and Rita and the other teachers threw me a whole party, with a cake and guaraná and this fantastic cheese bread.

The worst part of the day was when my really sweet roommate bought me a present, which was...earrings. I tried to hide my earlobes and just take them, but she saw my ears weren't pierced and she looked really sad. I felt so bad! I was about to tell her to just poke them through right there at the table, but she took the earrings back and in the afternoon she gave me a shirt instead. Her birthday's coming up...I can't forget it. She's so nice.

Laundry

Guess what I did today?

Yep. Laundry. We have a washing machine but not a dryer. I've never hung my clothes up to dry outside like that, with real clothespins and everything (we always used ours for making forts). I'm so proud of my handiwork that I'm posting a picture of my skivvies for all the world--or just my one follower--to see.

Brazil, Chapter 6: In which I Post Yesterday's Activities Today

Fridays are our off days, and I certainly needed it yesterday. Teaching is hard! This morning we wandered around downtown, looking for very cheap, local-use only, pay-per-use cell phones, which is a difficult thing to ask for in another language. No luck on the cell phone front, so we window shopped and then went home for lunch.

After lunch, we wanted to go to a river that's about 15 kilometers from Lins. But we can't figure out the bus system and nobody will tell us how to get there by foot--some people don't even know what river we're talking about.

Maybe I should trust the people who live here more than Google maps, but I want to find that river!

One way or another, we ended up staying in the city and going to Valeria's house. She was very hospitable: we used her internet, her motorcycle, her perfume, her coke, and her ham sandwiches. We even used up her missionary time. Valeria took Diane on a motorcycle ride to the movie theater to check the times, and I stayed home and tried to talk to Valeria's mom in Portuglish. While they were gone, the missionaries came by. It was fun to talk to some other Americans and nice to have them translate for us. Poor Diane came back and was accosted by Mormons, and Valeria was accosted by Americans, and the missionaries were accosted by girls wearing shorts. I was the only one who should have felt at home, being a member of all three of those groups, but I just kept thinking about what a weird mixture of people were there.

We went home to dinner and then went back out again to catch a movie. Listen, there is only one movie theater in Lins. And it offers only two movies at a time. And those two movies are currently Shrek and Eclipse. Diane and I agreed that Eclipse would probably have a less advanced plot than Shrek, so yes, we watched it in Portuguese. Word to the wise: If you ever want to watch a movie with a heartthrob in it, but you want to know the plot, do not see that movie in Brazil. I've never heard such persistent shrieking, not even for Johnny Depp when it was me yelling.

Oh! I can't forget: we also garnered an invitation to a wedding. Only one week in Lins and people are inviting us to weddings! We're just so cool and popular, you don't even know. We stopped by the church that we accidentally went to last Sunday, and the piano player was getting married the next day, and he invited us! Ok, so we shamelessly hinted, but still.

Brazil, Chapter 5: In which I Decorate my Classroom

The internet’s down today, but luckily for you, my one follower, I’m writing a blog post on Word to cut and paste later. I’ve taught two days of school now, in Room 5:

It’s really fun but also exhausting. CCBEU has three types of classes: regular classes, which are divided by levels and follow books; conversation

classes, which have students from various levels and in which we just talk and play games; and VIP classes, which have just one or two students who come in for private lessons.

My first regular class yesterday was eight teenagers. I really liked them. One of the students, Diego, teaches the lower level classes at CCBEU, so it was kind of fun but also kind of weird to teach one of my co-workers. Another (handsome) student spent the class drawing on the (pretty) girl next to him. I’ll pull the mean teacher trick and make them not sit by each other anymore. But even they were willing to participate, and all around it was a good class. We just talked and got to know each other. Actually, that’s what I did in most of my classes. The adults are shyer than the teens, but I’m hoping that they’re just nervous because I’m their first native

English-speaking teacher.

It’s funny because everyone calls me “teacher.” I keep telling them to say Rachel, but they never do. Mr. Cheney used to call us “student” when we did that, so maybe I’ll try that.

I’ve also noticed a definite change in how slowly and precisely I speak. It’s a good habit for the classroom, since half the time they can’t follow my native accent. But it gets kind of weird when I’m talking to Diane. Luckily she does the same thing. Please excuse us when we come back in December saying, “Mer-reeee Chriiiist-maaas. Wow! It is ver-ry cold heeere.”

Our school is three stories, with classrooms, a kitchenette, a waiting area, and even a stage upstairs. The cleaning lady keeps it spotless, and everyone has a locker for their folders and stuff. I get my own classroom, which is really nice, because I can decorate it, which I have been doing for the last 2 days. I always used to make fun of the obnoxious posters on my classroom walls, and now I’m straining to remember their quotes so I can make them for my own room. I’m resisting the urge to put up Mark Twain’s quote, “I never let schooling get in the way of my education.” I love that, but if any of my students deciphered it, it wouldn’t exactly encourage them to come back.

Here's what I've settled on instead:

Yep. There it is. Virgil supposedly said it, but it doesn't look very dignified in my bubble letters.

Brazil, Chapter 4: In which I Go Intentionally to Church, and Accidentally to a Spiritual Revival

I was proud of myself for finding the church by myself this morning, using only an address and Google maps.

Everyone was so nice! I was certainly an oddity, and people were shocked that I came here without any Portuguese. But they were so welcoming and friendly. The missionaries introduced me to some English speakers, including Jose Carlos and Valeria. With their help I followed the gist of the lessons alright. Afterward, Valeria was appalled that I had walked, so she offered me a ride home. How could I refuse? Look at this motorcycle! And Valeria is so cute on it:

She also gave me a mini tour around the city, which was not nearly as scary as I thought a cobblestone motorcycle ride would be. I'm excited to have another friend in Lins.

Diane and I had lunch at a buffet, because Donna Katarina doesn't cook on Sundays. Then we tried to go to the park. We went the wrong way and ended up seeing a lot of the countryside, but at least we got some good pictures from it.

The Clothesline

The River

The Place Where The Park Was Supposed to Be

We turned around at some point, and on the way back a group of teenagers stopped us. It took them a while to find a translator, and even when they did, we weren't sure what they wanted us to do. It sounded like they were doing a musical sort of play with their youth group, and they wanted us to watch. So we thought, why not? and went into a theatre-type room with them.

It turned out, though, we were sort of part of the musical performance. The kids all sat around us, and their youth pastor came out and led everyone through the meeting. He sang and talked throughout the hour, and a guy on the keyboard accompanied him. Occasionally everyone around us would stand up, with their hands on their hearts or in the air or on their heads, and their eyes closed, and start praying. Diane and I followed the motions and watched everyone else: they were so fervent, and I think we both had mini-crushes on the charismatic pastor by the end. Oh, the best part was that in between praying, everyone got up and did line dances.

Afterward, the whole youth group crowded around us, gave us bibles, and asked us which popular artists we knew. We talked about Lady Gaga, Queen, Michael Jackson, Justin Bieber, and other ones I can't remember. We're hoping that the kids in our classes are that sweet and eager to talk to us. Here's a picture of the youth group.

Uma Rosa com Amor

After writing yesterday, I got sick of being in our room and decided to try to talk to Donna Katarina. I'm curious about her life. Plus, I want to learn Portuguese. So I snagged Diane's dictionary and prepared myself for a conversation filled with long pauses and page-ruffling.

As it turned out, Donna Katarina was watching a telenovela, so I still don't know much about her as a person. But I do know about that one thick-necked actor in the hospital, and how he's cheating with another guy's girlfriend, and how another couple was recently reunited in the airport and they had a passionate afternoon while their son was at a birthday party. That was a little awkward to watch with my septuagenarian hostess, but otherwise it was really fun. Besides, she's the one that told me it was a telenovela de paixão.

Nur Ganz Schnell

This is my favorite thing that I've read about Lins so far. Why is this place not more famous?