A new adventure...

Hello! Thank you so much for reading this blog! I am hoping that my next adventure will be to Tanzania, where I applied and have been accepted to be a volunteer for One Heart Source, a nonprofit+ grass roots organization with a mission to build a home for Tanzanian children who have been orphaned by AIDS, and help them grow to their full protential. We will also be working with local schools to raise awareness of AIDS and help the education programs for the youth, to guide and educate the youth in hopes of bettering the future leaders of Tanzanian society.

Any help would be much appreciated! 100% of the proceeds go to One Heart Source.

ええ〜？！ブラジルへ行ったんだっけ？！

So, it's already been a week since I've left Brazil.. and I'm still amazed that I was actually THERE!

My plane rides were pretty uneventful (unlike the Rio-Houston plane on the same day?! ouch!) - although I sat next to some pretty interesting people...

*Recife --> Miami : there were a ton of Christian volunteers (sounded like they were from Southern U.S.) on the plane, which was pretty.. hm. An experience. I sat next to a mother and daughter who started arguing/crying/telling their whole divorce/relationship history on the plane.. BEFORE the plane even departed!! Let's just say that the plane ride was a pretty quiet 8 hours...

* Miami-->LA: sat next to a hair stylist from LA who had flown out to Miami just for the weekend, in order to work on a People magazine Bahama shoot?? I haven't seen the magazine yet (pssh... NOT an avid reader of celebrity gossip, haha!), but the hair stylist couldn't tell me who the celebrity was because of privacy issues with the magazine.. haha!

Being home.. was SO nice, yet made me miss Brazil. At home, I do admit that I was in HEAVEN with all the Asian food that I requested my father to get: dumplings, baos... and going to eat Thai food... YUMM! But, then again, in Brazil, I did basically have a never-ending supply of my favorite fruits.. haha..

[ Actually, one thing that I had a hard time breaking-habit-of / getting used to (in the US) was throwing my toilet paper into the toilet bowl.. aha! It's so weird not having a trash can right next to the toilet!]

I held a little photo-viewing party with my friends, and served fruit juices and coffee (with milk, of course! haha!) and grilled plantains (with cinnamon&sugar)... and even though we had about 3 hours together, there were still SO many things that I wish I could've said about Brazil - I've realized that even though so many things in Brazil seem so normal to me now ... they're still memories of Brazil that I'll never forget and I know I probably won't experience in any other location. Which makes me miss Brazil SO much. But, anyway, thanks to those friends who came over to my house to look at the photos with me - even though I'm a pretty bad story-teller and probably made the whole experience pretty boring, haha!

But, alas, I'm not at home right now! Well, that just depends on how you look at it, actually, because right now, I'm in Japan - which is kind of my second home - and actually, I was missing Japan more than LA when I was in Brazil. Although I really don't have any right to claim that I'm "Japanese" and "know" what it's like to actually live in Japan - I've found that culturally/socially, I respect/connect better to how it is in Japan. Perhaps I'll make more efforts to better my Japanese (my mom would like this, I'm sure.. haha!) so I can make my dream come true to live in Japan..

anyways. It's nice to be in a place where I'm comfortable. But I'm definitely going to miss Brazil just because I wasN'T in my most comfortable element. Part of learning, in general, is to be challenged - and unless you're put outside of your element, you're not going to know what it's like to be "on the other side of the fence," to learn that there's so much more than just your own little bubble where only YOU matter.

Obrigada para tudo.

Tchau, Brasil

Eu vou sentir a falta do Brasil...

Fruit, over-confident/desperate men PSST-ing to get your attention, Brasilian obsession with Indian culture, gigantic ants, getting knocked out by caipirinhas, acarajé and other severely UN-healthy foods, dancing the night away until 5 am, not being able to understand Brasilians´ pronunciation of English, listening to American R&B music with Portuguese lyrics, living in a Havaiana/sandal world, eating jaw-droppingly good icecream, hiking one of the most beautiful views, being courageous by fashioning a Brasilian bikini at the beach, feeling goosebumps at the thrill of having connections/common ideals with people from a whole different continent/hemisphere/culture?

Tchau.. obrigada.. eu estou a caminho.

Tudo está terminando

Officially, as of today, my program is done! We had our Portuguese final exam and Brazilian history take-home paper, yesterday... and today, we gave little 10 minute presentations in our Portuguese class on whatever topic we wanted... then at 12, our HM´s came, we had a cocktail (or.. cah-kee-tail) reception with the distribution of our certificates of class-completion... then, all was done!

I´m ready to come home (ah... ASIAN food withdrawal to the MAX!), but at the same time, I still can´t believe that my 6 weeks in Brasil have passed by SO quickly, and there are still some things that I could´ve taken advantage of! But then again.. my wallet is kind of crying in a corner, in agony, so... perhaps it really IS time to leave, haha!

Meanwhile... I didn´t talk about/show some things that I found to be pretty important parts of my trip - or, at least, things that I´ll remember distinctly. So... here they are!

1. Candomblé - although we couldn´t take photos (see the photo for a doll-representation, haha!), we went to this Candomblé ritual last weekend (at night, pretty late!), which is the only ritual that `outsiders´ are allowed to see. Everything else is done in secret.

We got there around.. 7pm. First off, people are supposed to wear light coloured clothing (preferably white) to this ritual- since dark colours are associated with just, being dark/not welcoming the orixa´s presence. Women are supposed to wear skirts, but... haha, we got away with wearing shorts.. When you enter the building in which this ceremony takes place, men sit on one side of the room, women on the other.

During this ritual (which... probably FINALLY started around 8pm.. it´s Brasilian time, what do you expect? haha!), ladies dressed in `tradional´ attire (big white skirts, blouses, jewelry/bangles on their arms, coloured little cloth/sash tied around waist or shoulders, hair tied up or in a little head wrap) first come out, dancing with special arm movements in a circle, while drums are going, people are singing chants (Yoruban?)... singing about different orixas..

After a while, the ladies exit the room, then re-enter the room with food on their heads, still dancing, and eventually putting their plates of food onto a table in the center of the room. This part of the ceremony was very impressive, not only because of the crazy amount of food that they had (which they eat at the END of the ceremony, probably around 2/3AM!), but because it´s during this part of the ceremony that some participants just, suddenly start jerking around a bit, yell/moan out a bit, and are put into a trance - because they´re being enspirited by the orixas. One women, in particular, I remember, because she was carrying this CAKE on her head, supporting it with her hands, but at one point - this other woman started assisting the cake (by lending a hand), but, all of a sudden, the woman (originally holding the cake) just got into a trance, that the cake nearly FELL! Fortunately, the supporting woman caught the cake, and the woman (in trance) was successfully/safely enspirited by her orixa.

Anyways. There were about more than 10 people or so who were put into a trance (eyes closed, some people´s lower jaws were quivering, some people would randomnly yelp out) - including these two little (9-12 year old?!) girls. What´s kind of freaky/cool, is that once these people are enspirited, they start dancing according to how their orixas dance - so, you can tell who some of the people are enspirited by, based off of how they carry themselves/arm movements, etc. These people/orixas just, dance and move around the room, freely, so when they came towards a person, the person would hold up their hands (palms facing the orixa), `absorbing´ the energy of the orixa, or else, if permitted, hug the orixa person.

This part of the ceremony went on for a long time, as it seemed like each orixa had their own special song to dance to, and there were a lot of orixas. But, finally, all of the orixas exited, then came back into the room with their special clothing on (wearing their colours, holding their symbols/tools, wearing head-dresses), which makes it much easier for viewers (like us!) to distinguish each orixa from one another. However, by this time, it was already 10.. 10:30 pm, so we left RIGHT at one of the cooler parts of the ceremony!! oh well... it was still, a very impressive event, all the same.

The following day, we visited another Candomblé community, which was a bigger/more established Candomblé community/village than the one we saw, the night before. It´s crazy, because - the candomblé religion believes heavily in nature´s power, so there´s a ton of greenery around the village, yet... this village is seriously, in the MIDDLE of the city/urban area!

Currently, it´s safe for the villagers to practice their religion - however, they still need to alert the police when they´re going to hold ceremonies. Back in the earlier 19/20th centuries, candomblé rituals were highly scrutinized, and police forces used to raid and severely punish people for holding them (just like how police forces also used to raid/arrest people who practiced capoeira!). However, one of the Candomblé leaders (Mãe.. Nina?) approached Pres. Vargas, who at least understood a bit, the importance of this religion to its practicers.

2. Social programs, especially for African-descendants: Unfortunately, we didn´t visit an African-descendant-support-organization until this week... and I definitely wish we had visited, earlier, since the experience was just so... inspiring.

The organization that we visited is called `Omi-dùdú´, and they provide after-noon classes for Afro-descendant youth. We went to a school of this program and stopped by two classes, I believe an Ethnomedia class and Ethno/gender class. While we in the classrooms, we were asked questions / conversed with the students (about high school age?)... and the whole experience was just, so... empowering, since it just (at least for me) made me feel like, despite our origins, we all as human beings just want to have equality/justice in the world... and it made me feel good again to be put into a setting where people were questioning society´s stereotypes on people (racially, with gender, as well). Although I´m not interested too much in education, this experience made me just want to spread my wings to connect to people around the world (and in my case, extend medical outreach) even more.

What´s even more inspiring, is that these teenagers/participants of the program are from very poor neighborhoods. In fact, the school was RIGHT next to this type of `favela,´ and I just.. find it so heart-warming that these youth were actually, interested in trying to improve their futures by seeking programs like this to question the world and educate/empower themselves in order to make change. It just makes me so mad/sad/disappointed in individuals who aren´t thankful for their educations, spend their days just wasting time on nothing, or just, not putting their education/skills to use.

Another organization (there are several, but we only really looked at Omi dudu, this one, and Ilê Ayê) that´s important here in Salvador, is Olodum. Olodum was created in 1970´s soon after the first all-African `block´, or, group, was created to participate in the Carnavál that is held in Salvador every year (February). The group is distinguished as being a drumming group that involves Afro-descendant youth, kind of as a way to incorporate music in youth´s lives and keep the youth away from bad influences. Olodum´s mission is basically to spread the word of Afro-Brasilian pride, empowering minorities, and of course, unity - and it was helped greatly by Michael Jackson, as MJ (and Spike Lee) came to Salvador to film his music video, `They Don´t Care About Us´ with Olodum. The photo to the left was taken when we went to Pelourinho, and I believe that this is the same courtyard area where MJ filmed his music video...

So, as you can expect, it was a pretty big deal when MJ passed away - even though I´m.. HOW many miles away from the states?! - since, many Salvadorans loved him as being a supporter of Olodum.

Frutas fabulosas que sentirei a falta de... ou... não!

Top right, clockwise: Avocado, pinha, cacau, tea cup (for size reference!)

People have been asking me about what exotic fruits I´ve been eating here... and... to tell you the truth, I haven´t been eating too many `exotic´ ones, since... I´m not such a fan! BUT! I´ll still talk about them, anyways...

I guess I´ll start off with the ones I dislike, haha! (Even when I eat foods, I tend to eat the bitter/blah-tasting things first, then save the best things for last, muaha!) Onwards, ho!

* Papaya - self explanatory, we have this in the states, as well...

But, just in case, let´s call on our buddy, good ol´ wikeeee: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papaya

Interesting thing that I just found out on this link - Papaya´s also called `paw paw?!´ I always thought that Baloo from `Jungle Book´ was just making up words in his song, Bear Necessities, but.. I guess that`paw paw´ actually meant something! Good to know...

* Mango - eeeyeah. I´m not a HUGE fan of this, but, I admit - with the Thai dessert, Coconut-flavoured sticky rice, mango is so-so. Although I don´t really like the taste, I love the colour and how people (like my dad, aww!) cut it up so it looks like an orange sea-anemone.. haha! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mango Brasil is apparently the top 7th producer of Mangoes..

* Maracujá - aka.. Passion Fruit, but... MAN.. am I NOT passionate about this fellow.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maracujá It´s made into a lot of desserts (pudding, with the seeds floating on top), juices, mix with cachaça... yeah.

* Cacao - yes, the fruit of my lover-for-life, chocolate! My HM´s friend has some cacao trees, so she brought one over, and we cut it and ate the `meat´ surrounding the seeds (which are dried/roasted for chocolate), and.. yeah. Not too much of a big deal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cacao Just as a sidenote, in Brasil, most of the chocolate is made by Hersheys, Lacta, and Nestlé (actually.. Nestlé seems to be EVERYWHERE here... as well as Kraft!!)

*Cajú - aka, the fruit of cashew nuts (castanhas de cajú)! I was pretty amazed when I first saw these, since they´re so odd-looking, yet beautiful! I also couldn´t believe that there´s really, only one cashew nut per cashew fruit! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cashew I love Cashew nuts, but.. cajú juice is... not my preference. A lot of other people like it, though!

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Fruits that eu ADORO (yes, this separate list deserves a WALL to separate it from the others) hah!:

*Bananas - normal and terra (aka, plantains) - I´ve been eating bananas practically everday, in smoothies (with chocolate), with cake, boiled, grilled with cinnamon sprinkled on top, or as my favourite breakfast of all time - nutella spread onto toast with sliced bananas on top. I´m actually afraid I´m getting tired of bananas, since I sometimes eat 2-3 per day... oh no! Actually, did you know that eating bananas potentially increases your risk of being bitten by a mosquito?! Those buggers are hungry for shweet blood... eeks! dun dun dun!

* Coconut - Coconut yogurt, coconut in cake.. coconut in icecream, mixed with chocolate icecream.. mm!

* Pineapple - aka, abacaxi - love! We usually have 3 pineapples in the fridge at a time... mwa!

* Kiwi - I notice that this list seems VERY boring so far, since these fruits are pretty common in the US, but.. they just taste, SO good, here! Okay, I´ll try to be more interesting, now...

* Guava - aka, goiaba - yummy slightly-sour skin with slightly sweet-gooey-seeds, inside... is seemingly everywhere: juice, jams, in candy, in cookies (like, fig newtons!), with chocolates... I especially liked having guava jelly/paste in a beiju (http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapioca Basically, a tapioca tortilla, folded over filling, like a crepe, almost) with melted fresh cheese.... mmmm...

* Jenipapo - not to eat, but to drink. Naturally alcoholic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenipapo Apparently, in the West Indies, it´s called a `Marmalade box?!´

* Pinha - it looks like a green pinecone.. and has mushy things attached to each `scale´ of the fruit, inside. Each mushy thing is basically the `meat´ of the fruit surrounding an elongated oval-shaped black seed (that you spit out). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annona_squamosa Apparently in English, it´s a `custard/sugar apple?!´ mm... gostoso..

* Rambutan - yeah... not too commonly eaten here, but... delicoius, all the same! I always love seeing piles of rambutan... so pretty! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambutan

* Avocado - aka, abacate - So, when I first started eating this during lunch/dinner with my salads w/lime sprinkled on top, my HM´s friend kind of looked at me funny. Apparently, in Brazil, Avocado is seen as a fruit, so, it´s weird for some Brasilians to imagine eating avocado as a meal/non-sweet thing. They probably do this in other cultures, too, but, I did enjoy eating it as a dessert, as my HM prepared it: mashing up or blending the avocado, adding sugar, lime juice, and milk (or, milk powder, which is more commonly used, as I´ve mentioned). Just as how avocado is sometimes used in American sushi (I stress this, since Avocado is not used in real Japanese sushi!!) to add a creamy-factor, this dessert is pretty creamy, and I want to say that it almost tasted like a cheesecake that used lime... mmm...!

Uma Otra Lembrança (médica) do Brasil...

Perhaps this is just a SIGN that I shouldn´t go into anything health-related, since obviously I´ve been having such good luck, medically, on this trip. OR, perhaps this is more of a sign that I should go into medicine, to help others so they don´t `suffer´ from the same mistakes as I? haha!

So, I guess that dancing all night until sunrise wasn´t really such a good idea, or perhaps it was, because... A few hours after I woke up on Saturday, I began to notice some bruising on my foot and pinky toe area, even though no one really stepped on me, the previous day. My foot felt fine (just a little pain when walking up and down stairs), but I finally decided that, since my foot was bruised, that I´d just go to the doctor to see what on EARTH was wrong with me!

Off I went to the medical clinic with my HM (host mom, btw. I feel like Rachel Ray with her overuse of, yet re-defining of `E.V.O.O.´, haha!), which was pretty close by. This was my first time ever to go to anything emergency-health-related, and.. hey! My first time was in Brazil, cool! (Well, not really, haha!).

So, after waiting for about 20 minutes, my HM and I went to see the doctor, who not only helped a previous study-abroad `daughter´ of my HM (when the daughter apparently BROKE her toe), but also when my HM broke HER toe, too?! I guess my HM has a lot of experience with broken.. feet?! Anyways, the doctor examined my foot, and said that he couldn´t really determine what was wrong with it by sight/touch, so he sent me to get an X-ray.

Onward to the X-ray room to get a couple shots of my foot taken... and when we got the X-ray back (about 10 minutes), we discovered a couple interesting things:

1. My pinky toe is indeed, slightly fractured.

2. Apparently because of either my genes or because I didn´t spend enough time in my mother´s womb (ahha, premie, oh yeah!), one of the bones in my big toe apparently never completely formed? Rather, the pieces are there, but 2 pieces aren´t completely conjoined?? Apparently I will have feet problems in the future because of this. Wow. Good to know, sim? Haha!

So, anyways. I then got my foot bandaged, and was told to just keep it easy on my foot (no dancing, darn!), but still walk on it. hurrah!

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I´ve been wanting to go to this church in Salvador, Igreja de Nosso Senhor do Bonfim (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Nosso_Senhor_do_Bonfim,_Salvador), since it´s a pretty important landmark of Salvador. This is the church that is pretty important for the Afro-Catholic syncretism-religion, and every year, there is a Festival of Bonfim, where tons of ladies (in traditional Afro-Brazilian dresses) wash the steps of the church, amongst other things to celebrate Oxalá, the most important deity of the Orixás. This is also the place where the colorful ribbons with `Lembrança do Senhor do Bonfim´ originate, and you´re supposed to tie it around the fence poles around the church, or else tie it around your wrist in a knot 3 times or so (for 3 wishes). These ribbons have become a pretty... what´s the word (I´m losing my English!!) ... stereotypical (?) or, well-known image of Salvador, so these ribbons, as well as other souvenuirs with depictions of or usage of these ribbons, are sold everywhere in Salvador. Anyway, this was one of the places I HAD to go to before I left Salvador.

PLUS. I had an even better reason to go, BECAUSE... the Igreja has a room where people buy/leave wax or wooden depictions of body parts, in order for the gods to heal their bodies - in exchange for their devotion. As you can see, the ceiling in this little room was covered with kind-of-eerie body parts (legs, hands, babies, heads..). The walls were covered with photos of people who had come to the Igreja with various (and sometimes really serious) health problems, and later were cured!

Anyways. I don´t know what to believe, but! At least I can say that I´ve visited this beautiful church, and that I´m doing my best to heal my foot!

Cheers!

O sol nasce á cinco e cincuenta horas

Just as an update from last time -

* I spent the following day at home, all day, just resting my foot (icing, hot water baths, bandaging), since I couldn´t really walk on it. After much debate with both my HM and my sister (on skype), as well as my parents going a little frantic about my health over a plentitude of emails (I have never checked my emails SO many times in ONE day here, in Brazil!), we decided that I´d probably just be bandaged and iced (aka, misma coisa as in the apartment) if I went to the doctor, anyway, so.. didn´t go to the doctor.

* 2 days after it happened (aka, Friday) my HM drove me to school, and I was able to limp around school a bit, then gain confidence to not only walk home for lunch, but walk to the shopping mall, afterwards. Right now, I have a little bruise on my pinky toe, but.. other than that, not much swelling, only slight pain on my pinky toe, still...

It´s walkable, but, yes, I will see a doctor when I get back to the states.

So, even though I knew that I still shouldn´t really put too much pressure on my foot... this is my LAST weekend, so, I´m sorry to my possibly-future-crippled-self, but, I think I´d agree in the future that I´d regret NOT having fun than having some crazy night but ending up with a potentially crooked toe.

The first week that I came to Brasil, a friend of mine said that her friend from a local hostel mentioned a TIRE STORE as one of the best places to hang out...

Intriguing, right? So, this whole time, I´ve been wanting to go to this famed `Borracharia´ (`tire store´, in Portuguese), but we haven´t really had the opportunity to do so, because Borracharia is only a dance club on Friday and Saturday nights (apparently, it really is a tire store during the day?!), and we haven´t had many free Friday or Saturday nights - because of program events...

So, 3 of my friends and I met up at 11pm or so on Friday night at McDonalds (aka, Mah-kee-doh-nahl-jee, which has become a good meeting place for us, haha!), caught a cab to Rio Vermelho for 20$R (I just had to ask the cab driver if he knew about the Borracharia in Rio Vermelho. he knew. muaha!), but when we got there, the club wasn´t really open yet!! *note* - Clubs in Brazil typically start really late. This place apparently started at 12... so long for beauty sleep, haha! anyways, we sat around a bit in the accompanying bar area, sipping caipirinhas (well, not me, since I´ve had enough of those, bleh!) watching this weird Brazilian singer´s concert on the TV... his costume was very questionable, almost Cleopatra-esque, but for a guy??

Anyways. The club started at 12, but we didn´t go in until probably 12:30 or so (15$R for girls, 20$R for guys), and it was funny, because as soon as we walked in, they were playing a lot of hip-hoppy... aka non-forró, samba.. or any Brazilian music that requires a lot of hip-shaking and foot-work. So, we were like, `Thank GOD!,´ we can probably dance to this music, and one of my friends was even very confident to say that we´d be the dancing champions to this music, since apparently Brazilians can´t dance to this music (that we´re used to in the US) to save their lives.

meh. Some of the Brazilians were okay.. but, I must admit, we were at least creative with our moves and had fun. It was certainly entertaining to watch some Brazilian guys wave their hands around a lot and do other moves in order to try to look `ghetto´ with some of the songs.. buaha! It definitely was refreshing to hear some remakes of the `Strokes,´ `the other one bites the dust´(haha!) and other US music, but I think the club kind of overdid it with some of the older US hits and techno-ey modern Brazilian music. Oh well! We met and danced with some Brazilian university students, and... yeps!

Long story short. Lots of dancing, typical overly-confident/insistent Brazilian guys, people drinking and smoking, losing my voice.... the club ended at around 5AM, and we could start to see the glow of a new day.

Came home around 5:30. Took a shower to wash off all the cheiro da Borracharia. Looked out the window.

Bom dia. Uma semana mais. Amargodoce.