Delicia Delicia

Some of you may be thinking that all of Latin America eats beans and rice on a regular basis. Well, I definitely cannot counter that argument. What I can argue, however, is that Brazil does the whole beans and rice thing better than the rest. What do they do differently from the other countries? The make feijoada.

Feijoada is composed of mainly: feijão (beans - in Rio they're usually black beans), arroz (rice), farofa (grainy substance made of manioc flour), and meat. Various other ingredients are often included, but due to the fact that I do not know the names nor how to make them, I will emit them from this post :) Anyway, the things I listed are the basic components.

The maid who comes to my host mom's house on Wednesdays and Fridays came today and tought me how to make feijoada. We went to the grocery store so she could show me how to pick out some good dried meats and to grab a few other things we needed. When we got back to the house she showed me the whole process. Basically we cooked some cut-up onion and garlic, and added some beans that had been dry/hard but were soaked for a while in water. Then we rinsed and boiled the meats various times to get some of the salt out. While the meat was boiling, we made the farofa. The farofa was extremely easy - just cook up the manioc flour with onion and garlic, oil and some margerine, and eggs. Once the meat was done we tossed the meat in with the beans and added water. The feijão is cooked in a pressure cooker - otherwise it takes way too long and wastes a ton of gas. Then finally we made the rice. The beans we used were a kind that my host mom already had in her house, but apparently they weren't quite the right kind because they didn't yield much caldo (broth) like the beans are supposed to. So since we used the wrong kind of beans it took a while longer to cook than usual, but once it was finally done it was delicious! I've already eaten about 2.5 servings and I'm about ready to go grab some more. I probably shouldn't though if I want to be able to move at capoeira tonight.

Yesterday I learned how to make Brazilian desserts! I went to the apartment of a friend from capoeira and she showed me to how make bolo de laranja (orange cake) and brigadeiro (the most amazing and easiest dessert). I'm kinda sorta dating a boy from capoeira and it's his birthday next week, so I'm going to make him a bolo de laranja for his birthday, and I'm going to add some caldo de maracujá (passion fruit dressing) on top. The orange cake is pretty easy, and I like it because you use entire oranges - peel and all. I'm thinking also of making some brigadeiro with suco de maracujá (passion fruit juice)... just because learning to make these things make me all giddy. So brigadeiro is essentially condensed milk heated in a pan with whatever sweet ingredient you want to add to it. The most common addition is cocoa powder. The kind I made at my friend's house was with cocoa powder, and I also made some more when I got back to my house when my friend Ellie came over. This time we made them into the little balls and added sprinkles. Brigadeiro can be eaten in various forms (cake frosting, as-is, bombons, ice cream, etc.) but I think the little balls - bombons - are the most fun.

All of these things are fun to learn and delicious to eat but also very dangerous because I have no self-control when it comes to good food. But I'm really excited to get better at making these things so I can come back and share with you guys :) [By the way, I will start taking pictures of my own soon, I promise.]

Entendeu?

Sooo I've been here a month now (!) and we have a two week break before the semester starts so I'm finally getting a chance to catch my breath. Even without classes this week and next, I've still been keeping pretty busy with capoeira and running and figuring out my life. By "figuring out my life" I mean I'm thinking about things beyond whether or not I'll go to the beach today, but not as extreme as what I'll be doing in the next few years. I guess I'm trying to figure out what I want to make of my time here. I could spend all my time going out with friends and getting crazy and having adventures that will make really exciting stories to tell. Or I could spend all my time studying and volunteering and being as productive as possible in my time here without saving any time for myself. OR I could find a balance somewhere in between and have the most real experience possible while I'm here. That's what I'm trying to do. It seems like it should be an easy task, right? Emphasis on the word "seems." Either way, I'll figure it out, and I'm enjoying myself in the meantime :)

So today's agenda:
1. Laundry
2. Speaking in Portuguese

1. Laundry
While I was packing for my trip here, I saw on the packing list that it had a note about hang-drying clothes. The note said to pack only things that will dry quickly because clothes dryers are very rare here and almost all clothes will be hung dry. This immediately made me dread having to do laundry here. What they forgot to mention, though, was the fact that everything dries quickly here. I can hang up a pair of jeans at 9AM and have them ready to wear by around 1PM (though here we use 24hr time so it'd be more like 09:00h and 13:00h). I'm really surprised by how well the detergent works here, too. I bought some powder detergent on sale at the grocery store and wasn't expecting it to work very well, but after handwashing my disgustingly dirty capoeira shirt I am actually very amazed. It's like a powdered miracle. Hanging the clothes is kind of a relaxing task, too. I'm sure I'll get sick of it after a while, but I kind of look forward to doing it for now. The apartments here all have wire racks that are held up by ropes. You can raise and lower them by setting the ropes on different knotches on the wall. So you lower the racks, hang the clothes as efficiently as possible, and then raise the racks so you don't have to walk through your clothes every time you want to go through that area. It's kind of cool looking into the surrounding apartment buildings and seeing racks of clothes in almost every window. It's kind of a reminder saying, "Hey, look how much energy we're saving while back in your country there are probably 8,000,000 dryers running right now!" And honestly, my clothes dry much faster on those racks than they eeeeever did in the dryer at my apartment in Berkeley.

2. Speaking Portuguese
In case you didn't know (please tell me that you did know...), Portuguese is actually the language spoken in Brazil. Not Spanish! Though I usually end up speaking what lies somewhere in between the two languages, known as Portunhol. Portuguese is a beautiful language, but it is proving to be very difficult to master. I have some days where I feel extremely confident speaking and understanding, but I have others where I just have no clue. I think this probably has a lot to do with how tired I am on a given day, and which people I am surrounding myself with. I've found that the people who have traveled to other countries tend to be easier to understand because they know that they need to slow down their speach a little bit for me to really distinguish the words they are saying. Those who haven't traveled or experienced a necessity to try to speak in another language tend to have trouble understanding why I can't follow their rapid-fire speech.
The thing I've found to be more annoying than anything else, though, is when people try to correct me. Granted, it's great to be corrected when I need it so that I can learn how to speak properly. I shouldn't go around saying the wrong thing over and over again - in that case it's great to be corrected. It gets annoying, though, when I am talking about a complex subject and someone corrects me on a simple grammar error. Imagine you're speaking in English with a group of friends about a heated topic like slums in a big city, and someone stops you in the middle of a good point because you said "me and him" instead of "he and I." That would be annoying, right? So I appreciate when people correct me when it's really necessary, but when I make a simple mistake while I'm talking about something difficult as it is, it gets really frustrating. After being corrected in instances like that, it makes me want to stop talking all together. But I guess I need to just learn to embrace it and keep talking.
Some of my favorite words/terms/phrases that I've learned so far:
*Nossa! = "Oh my!"
*Logico que nao... = "Obviously not"
*Isso e um absurdo! = "That's crazy!" (I'm not sure if I have that one quite right, but my friend says it all the time and it makes me laugh every time...)
*Entendeu? = "You know?" (It took me a while to learn the real meaning of this, because at first I kept thinking that people were actually asking me if I understood. Entender = understand. But people here use it the same way as we use "you know?" or "get it?")
*Cara = "Dude" (It's kind of funny hanging out with different groups of people and seeing who uses this term and who doesn't. When I hang out with kids my own age, it's used at least 15 times within 3 sentences - even more often than we use the term "dude." When I hang out with anyone of a slightly older age group, it doesn't even exist in the vocabulary.)
*Caracas! = "Whoa!"
*Pra caramba = "extremely/a lot/really" (This doesn't quite translate directly. But here's an example, Tenho um dor de cabeca pra caramba = "I have a really bad headache." At least I think that's how it works.)
Anyway, I'm still learning.

Capoeira Video

[If you have loud speakers you might want to turn them down before starting this video because the sound quality isn't very good!]
Ok so in that last post I talked a bit about capoeira, but you really can't get a feel for what it's like unless you see it. I searched online to try to find some good videos of the group I'm in... but I have yet to find one that is of very good quality and that demonstrates what I really want to show you. But this one is the best I could find because it shows how the music is played and aspects of the etiquette of the game. The person playing the berimbau that the camera zooms in on in the beginning is Mestre Joao do Pulo. The whole group of people playing instruments is the bateria. Notice how the players stay crouched listening to the music for a good while before actually entering the roda... this is all part of the etiquette and the respect the players hold for the mestre, the music, and the roda itself. The video is pretty dark so I can't really point out all the people I know, but I think one of the first two people playing is a friend named Pinto, and then the boy who enters later on is Petroleo. When Petroleo comes in, he is "buying" a game. This means he's entering the roda and starting to play with someone already in motion. The same etiquette rules apply when you're buying a game as when you're entering to begin the game; you have to get permission from the mestre and you have to get the attention of the person you are playing against. Both of these modes of entry confuse me to death and are some of the main reasons I'm extremely reluctant to enter the roda so far. I've gone in quite a few times already, but I look silly and timid trying to enter when I really don't know what I'm supposed to do. But all of capoeira is a learning experience and trial and error are really the only way to advance the learning :)

Estupidamente Gelada

Well hello friends and family. It is currently 9:06AM here in Rio de Janeiro, and that means one thing: I am the only non-working person in this city who is actually awake. No one around here wakes up any earlier than they absolutely have to, and I'm not sure if I'll ever get used to it. I went running around 8AM the other day and it was bizarre to see how empty the Lagoa was, considering how many people live around here and how many people are usually out and about in that area. For whatever reason in this city people like to start and finish their days much later than what I'm used to in the US. Unless they have to be at work at a certain time, most people wake up at their own leasure and stay out until their bodies can't handle being awake anymore. When I'm out at the lake at night finishing my capoeira training there are still always tons of little kids out and about, rollerblading or skateboarding in the park... and I'm talking like 10 or 11PM. I haven't decided yet if I should resist this lifestyle and continue to wake up early, or if I should give in so that I can handle staying up late when I need to keep up with my friends.

I think I'm going to try to start organizing my blogs in a way that might make them a little more reader-friendly. I know that not every word I write in this blog is interesting in the least, so maybe if I give you a little heads up about what I'm going to write about you can pick and choose which parts you actually want to read. So here's the line-up for today's post:

1. Cold things
2. Capoeira


1. Cold things
The weather has been consistently hot in this city since I got here. The other day it was around 37 degrees Celsius, which according to my calculations is about 98.6 degrees Farenheit. That temperature doesn't quite dictate how hot it actually is, however. For example, on the weather website right now it says that it is currently 27 degrees Celsius. Underneath that, it says "Feels like 29." This means that while it may be 27 degrees at the moment (81F), it feels more like 29 (84F) because of the humidity, etc. Plus, most of the activities that take place in this city involve being in the sun, which after beating down on you for maybe ten minutes can make you feel almost dizzily hot, sweaty, and thirsty. So naturally, inhabitants of this city really value anything cold. The men and women who walk down the beach selling food and drinks yell at the top of their lungs exactly how cold whatever product they're selling is. This is with the exception of foods such as "esfirra" - an "arabic" food sold by men wearing "arabic" clothing (large white robes with headdresses that I'm sure have caused obnoxious amounts of dehydration and heat-stroke cases). The other day I heard someone yelling what is now one of my new favorite phrases: "Estupidamente gelada!" Meaning "stupidly cold," this is apparently a line from a Chico Buarque song. Anyway if beverages, etc. are not stupidly cold, most people will not buy them or they will buy them and then complain about them not being cold enough for the entirety of their consumption. I have a friend who refuses to drink water unless it is cold. This boy does capoeira all the livelong day and gets a ridiculous amount of exercise, and even when he is nearly at the point of dehydration he will not accept my offers of water that he considers to be "quente" (hot). So water, cerveja (beer), acai, sorvete (ice cream), suco (juice)...... everything must be cold for a Brazilian to consume it willingly. Also, if you are considering coming to visit me but are reluctant to because you just can't get away from your frozen yogurt addiction, fear no more. They have just as many, if not more, frozen yogurt shops all around this city. I haven't tried any yet, but if their frozen yogurt standards are as high as their ice cream standards, then we're all in for a treat. The "cheap" ice cream that my host mae always has in the freezer is honestly better than what might be considered "good" store-bought ice cream from the states. Sidenote: there's no better pick-me-up on a hot and tiring day than a mug of espresso with a few hefty scoops of that ice cream mixed in. Yummm. Anyway, cold things are very highly valued. Air conditioning is definitely included in this mix as well. People here will pay more and wait longer to get on the air conditioned buses. The classrooms at my school are always freezing cold and we exchange students have to pack extra clothes and blankets in our backpacks because we can't even handle how cold it gets in there.

2. Capoeira!
In case you didn't know, capoeira was actually one of the main reasons that led to my decision of studying abroad in Brazil. When I was around maybe 12 years old I saw a capoeira demonstration at South Clairemont Rec Family Day, and I was immediately intrigued. For a long time I wasn't really sure how to go about finding information about this activity, so I kind of forgot about it. Toward the end of high school, I saw a flyer for capoeira classes at the YMCA and decided to check it out. I immediately fell in love. I took classes at the Y for a while, but when I left for college it was harder to find the time and the money to continue taking classes. But for the short time that I attended the classes, I started to fall in love with the lifestyle and the music and the culture and the language. All of this led to my interest in Brazil.
So what is capoeira? It's a martial art, a dance-fight, a lifestyle, a body-language, a discourse, an attidude, and an exercise (among still many many other things!). The exact origins of capoeira are a little bit hazy, but as far as I've collected it was an alteration of a compilation of African traditions, used and modified by African slaves in Brazil. If you really want to know the history of it, your best bet might be just to Google it because I really don't want to dive into it and give any misinformation. But nowadays it is what I would consider to be a sport, practiced by people of any age group or sex. I joined a group a the lake called Lagoa Azul. There's probably an even number of girls and guys, all ranging from the ages of 15 to 65ish (I can't figure out how old the mestre is!). Everyone differs in experience, and there are different levels dictated by different color cords. Since I just began in the group, I have a white cord. So if someone of a higher levels wants to play against me in a "roda" (the circle where the game is played), they know immediately that I'm a beginner and they need to take it somewhat easy on me. There are more advanced players who teach less experienced players and are called "professores." Then, the most experienced and most respected of all, are the "mestres" (masters). The mestre of my group is named Joao do Pulo, and while he no longer actually plays capoeira, I can tell he's had a lifetime of experience and he really knows the ways of the game. So when we play in a roda, the mestre usually begins the game by hitting the "berimbau" (a one-string instrument made of a wooden rod, lining from a car tire, a gourd, a small stone, and a thin wooden stick). The other members of the "bateria" (literally translates to battery - the other instrument players, there are usually around 6) then begin to play their instruments to the beat set by the mestre. When the music starts to dictate a strong rhythm, two players ask permission from the mestre using eye contact and body language, and enter the roda usually by doing a cartwheel or a similar movement. The players then "ginga" (the basic movement in capoeira... basically like the main step in a dance) together and then begin throwing kicks and escapes. The kicks can be powerful and fast or they can be soft and controlled. The players very rarely actually hit one another, however. If someone is actually kicked, it is usually because either someone wants to start a real fight, or because one of the players was too quick or too slow for the other. It's very very very very rarely an actually malicious fight. You can google videos of capoeira and see that for the most part, the two players move together in a way that allows them to almost always avoid actual physical contact. (Side note: my host mom is putting her reading glasses onto her cat as we speak. This is a very normal type of thing for her to do.)
In addition to the awesomeness of the game itself, capoeira brings a whole new lifestyle and group of friends to anyone who plays. Since I started with this new group, I've spent a great deal of my time with my new friends. It's great practice for my Portuguese (especially slang), and it's also really fun. Yesterday one of them, nicknamed Petroleo, took me into the Centro of the city to buy some shoes for capoeira. It was definitely a good thing I went with him because if I had gone by myself I would have been lost "pra caramba" (pra caramba = very much). He also showed me a good place to get some food and some acai when I'm in that area, and a cool relaxing park in the middle of the city.
Everyone in capoeira has an "apelido" (nickname). A couple examples are "Petroleo" (because he has very black skin... while this may sound racist, in this context it actually is not for some reason), "Manga Rosa" (means pink mango, because her cheeks get really pink when she plays in the roda), "Fada" (fairy), etc. It gets pretty confusing too because I'm meeting all of these people for the first time and I'm introduced to them either by their real name or their apelido or a combination of the two. I don't have an apelido quite yet, but I'll let you know as soon as I get one. I'm guessing it'll be something along the lines of "Super Super Forte" or "Bonitinha" ...you know, something that really applies to me personally ;) Just kiddingggg.

Ok well there are many other things I wanted to get done today, such as searching online how to make my own acai, figuring out my budget for this year, going to the beach, buying some groceries, uploading pictures, going for a run, and washing and hanging my clothes. Hopefully I can get at least half of those things done. Ate logo!



The EAP program set us up on a boat trip on Saturday where we cruised around Guanabara Bay and had free churrasco and good music. This picture was taken from the boat and you can see the Corcovado/Chris the Redeemer, Praia Vermelho, and a bondinho on its way up to Pao de Acucar. (I'm learning how to efficiently post pictures on here so expect more of these!)



Hello! I have been fairly busy recently, so here a few quick updates:

*This is my last week of Portuguese class. So after this I'll have a two-week break before the semester starts. I feel like I've learned a lot in my Portuguese class, but I feel like I do a ton of learning outside of the classroom so I'm sure the termination of this class will in no way hinder my learning of Portuguese.

*I started capoeira classes last week! I joined the group Lagoa Azul and we practice at the lake right by my house. It's 3 days a week, so it'll hopefully get me in shape pretty quickly. I adore the other members of the group. I spent a large amount of my weekend with a bunch of them and I already feel like I fit in... even though I only understand why we're laughing approximately 20% of the time. It's really really fun though. Most of the members are somewhere in their 20s, and they all have a ton of energy. We were walking last night after class to a juice place to get some acai (YUM), and they randomly stopped in their tracks to start dancing to some live music by the lake. They're a really really fun group and I'm excited to get to know them better and to train with them.

*I bought a bike! It definitely wasn't cheap, but I got it new for a price similar to what I probably would have gotten a used one for. I figure it's worth it because I'll be here a year, and it has already really come in handy. The building I live in has a gated storage area for bikes and another woman in the building is letting me use her bike space since my host mom already has a bike in our apartment's spot.

So my mom was asking me on the phone today about the neighborhood I live in. Honestly, the only way to get a real feel for this place is to come visit (!!!), but I figure I might as well attempt to explain Leblon. To begin, Leblon is a neighborhood (portuguese: bairro) in the city of Rio de Janeiro. I don't know very much about the history of the neighborhood or anything, but I know that it was named after a French man named Le Blond. It is one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the area, and is much less crowded/dangerous/touristy than Copacabana and Ipanema. The beach is much less crowded and I can easily ask a family or a couple on the beach to watch my things while I jump in the water (though I still only do this when I don't have any valuables with me!). It's a very trusting and friendly neighborhood.

In the above picture you can see the beaches of Copacabana, Ipanema, and Leblon. Beginning from the bottom right of the photo, we have Copacabana beach. I'm sure you've heard of it - it's probably the most touristy beach of all of Rio. I honestly don't have much to say about it though because I have only ran past it and haven't been on the actual beach there. Then, moving up, we have the big rock thing that juts out, called the Arpoador. Google Translate tells me that Arpoador means "striker" but I still have no explanation for the name. It's a kind of cool spot though because during Summer they have a ton of free concerts there. After the Arpoador is Ipanema beach. Ipanema is slightly less touristy than Copa, but it still gets pretty crowded. It's a fun spot though, and my friend Gustavo's parents own an apartment right across the street from the beach so I usually meet up with them there. Finally, after a canal (which you can't really see in this photo) that separates it from Ipanema, is the Leblon beach. I live just about two and a half blocks from the beach. On the other side of my apartment, only about a block away, is the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas (if you look closely you can see a piece of it on the right hand side of the photo). It's a beautiful lake with a bike/running path that runs around it and tons of other random activity areas, including Parque dos Patins where I practice capoeira. Around Christmas time, they light up a huge Christmas tree that people from all over come to see. I didn't get to see it lit up this year but since I'll be here till Christmas time comes around again I'll get to see it.

There's a picture of the lake at night. Eventually I will actually have pictures of my own to show you all, but I have yet to really take any. But I have plenty of time to do so! Anyway the lake is beautiful especially at night, and it's also really great at sunset. The stadium-looking thing on the right hand side is a jockey club... I don't know too much about it but I'll check it out one day because it's very close to my house.

Here's a simple map of Leblon. Praia do Leblon = Leblon Beach. See that green circle near the lake toward the top right? That's exactly where I live! If you can see the four small streets that connect to the circle, those streets are gated and guarded at all times. The green circle itself is a park known as Selva das Pedras (Jungle of the Stones), equipped with a pretty fun-looking playground, benches, gardens, chess tables, and more guards who are also present at all times. This park is almost always full of little kids and nannys and elderly folk and anyone who wants to play/sit in a comfy park. And it is literally my front yard. On the other side of my building is the Flamengo stadium. The famous soccer player Ronaldinho came to visit a couple weeks ago so the streets were full of Ronaldinho fans. My host mom said also that there was some famous soccer player at the bank while we were inside, but I didn't see him nor know who he was. I should probably learn my soccer players if I want to try to fit in in this country... Anyway the street that is lined in green in the top left of the map (you can only see a tiny piece of it) is the street that leads to the school I go to - PUC-Rio. It's only a 15 minute walk but with my new bike it's just a quick ride!

Ok hopefully you have a better idea now of where I live. I have to go do homework! Tchau, beijos!