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Capoeira

Oi!

We´re in Salvador right now and it´s been good. After some fun times in Rio, we flew to Salvador. We immediately saw the differences- wowah colors.... Last night we went to a capoeira, dance and music class. We got to do percussion and rock it out dancing... the Brazillains are not only gorgeous but incredibably friendly...they r always smiling...

I´ve been trying to talk to them in Portuguese, but it´s hard sometimes. Our group is getting closer and we have a lot of fun...

many laughs...it´s interesting to meet people from all around America and i´m loving it!

already- gotta go... lunch!

much love,
Gracie

this is erika

so this is erika .. today was fun, i liked talking to the brazilian group even though i would be kinda confusedddddd most of the time .. thank God for Gracie who translated .. it was cool how they were really interested in what we had to say since they were asking questions about college and how you get in and jobs and the minimum wage and things like that..it was cool the way we compared brazil and the united states when we shared information about each others countries. what i also found interesting is that they said that they dont have a lot of abortions here in brazil and if they do, the girls do it in secret clinics since it is illegal to hav abortions or htey do it in their homes, but since its dangerous to do it, they often times dont. the only thing is that i wish we could talk to them more and share more experiences and information about each other

so this is jenna blogging because my im having email isues. anyways so far this trip has been a huge eyeopener into another culture and new experience. I am in a school right now where we just finished getting to anwser and ask indepth questions on intense topics such as abortion and what we would do in that situation, racism and if it is present in our comunities, 9/11 and how it effected us, and education levels in America. I thought it was interesting to compare the two very different lifestyles. I am really sore all over my body because our group has been learning a type of dance called capoeira. Im feeling muscles I didn´t know I had. And on top of that a couple of us went running in the morning. That was so beautiful.We didnt get hot because there was such a nice breeze from the ocean and the sunrise was beautiful. We saw a huge puffer fish washed up on the shore. Ive never seen a puffer fish that big in my life.lol

Bahia

so im in a Brazilian school computer lab after talking to some brazilian students. It was very interesting to know about how they lived and fun to answer their questions. It made me think a lot about what happens back home in New York like the 9/11, hiphop, the gov´t, etc. Soo yeaa Bahia is a very nice and relaxed place, with not much hustle and bustle. I enjoyed the capoiera A LOT, the afrobrazlian dance was alright, and the precussion was great too. ALso, i´ve noticed that Im having trouble with Portuguese somewhat b/c i dont speak much and use translators? who knows, but im going to study when i have free time. As for the group activites and social conversations, id say im being pretty quiet, which i don´t want to be. I came on this trip to become more social, outgoing, enlightened, and have a blast of a summer. Hopefully that will happen and I´ll loosen up as the capoeira teacher says all the time.

-David Tse

Jovens Aprendizes chat

Today Vika, Martha, Ronald, Alewa, and I went to one of the social projects in Bahia. The organization is called the Jovens Aprendizes and the group prepare the youth in job training. The organization also gives the youth a way to learn hospitality and and develop there special skills and talents in a safe environment. When we enter the project, we saw some of the students rapping, learning stage presence and performing a skit. All of those activities help the students learn what there special talents are and how they can use them in a job environment and to bring awareness to there communtiy. I watched attentively so that I could get a feel for the project. When they they were finished we all gathered in a cirlce and we had a question answer session. We covered basic Stereotypes that the youth had of Americans, politics, PARTIES, community service, ethics, and the reason behind each of us coming to Brasil. It was interesting to me that they knew so much about American culture but we hardly knew anything about theirs and we hardly know what our own goverment is doing. One of the boys brought up the issue on Americans trying to come into Brasil and take parts of the Amazon. When he said that we were all caught of guard because we never heard of such a thing going on. It brought a new persective of how we are hidden from or our country really does not care about other countries. And from that conversation we went into politics. Basically we stated that other countries know so much about our politics and our president but we know nothing about theirs and because of that I realized another reason why i am here. Yeah, the arts scratches the surface of being here but the real culture is way more than just that. And that starts with knowing as much as I can about their culture, politics, economy, and ethics as I can and thats when a true global citizen emerges. I believed that the chat was a very good learning experience, not just to get rid of some stereotypes but to also bridge the gap of knowledge ( the stuff that we know) between what we assume about Brasillian culture and what is the truth about the culture.....PS there was a party at the end...YEAH SAMBA!!!!LOL