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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

Jovens Aprendizes Group Discussion

> This morning Martha, Ron, Erica, Alewa and I met with 15 members of the Jovens Aprendizes Organization. We first sat in and observed them rehearse parts of thier performance for Saturday. Their material had an underlying message, like use protection, or personal experiences, some of which was expressed through acting, or rapping. > The graffiti teacher, Demison was very active with the group. He was showing them how to engage the crowd, and how they could express what they were saying through body language. >After they were finished, we all gathered in a circle, and a group organizer for J.A. named Martha joined us while we basically discussed any topics that we thought of. Alewa translated everything we covered, like body image, the Brazilian Amizon, sterotypes, dance, social class, propaganda, global knowledge, American, Brazilian, and interracial relationships. It was amazing to hear how the American culture is perceived. Mainly because of the media´s influence. Although we discussed a variety of things, what completly schocked me the most was how much the Brazilians knew about America, and how little [us, as students in] Americans knew about Brazil. >Toward the end of our visit, we danced Samba, and some of the Jovens Aprendizes members demonstrated their dancing skills. So far, I´ve noticed that at any given moment the majority of people, if not all, are willing to dance. It was like 11 am and we basically had a little party in the middle of their classroom/studio. I loved it. I adore how open they are with their culture, and how willing and patient they are in showing and teaching us their dances.
~

and so i just realized this didnt need to be so formal.

so next time i wont spend like 20 minutes trying to spell words right, cuz it doesnt matter.

[Padre cant even read this anyway.]

Grrr.

xxoo

Vika

Jovens Aprendizes (da tlk wit the teens)

Da tlk wit the teens 2day was kinda kool. Even wit the language barrier we managed to get sum info into thier heads that we arent wht the media portrays us being like. We arent the stereotypical lazy potato that sits infront of the TV and lets life pass em rite by. We gave Coppy a work out 2day. we really participated and they participated; it felt good to have a mature adult convo wit a group of students from another country and show them how WE are not how AMERICANS are. i think we really gave them the main idea the not all americans are the same, matter fact alot of humans arent alike. we also took alot of knowledge from this convo; they really think that we agree wit out government, the we are the bad guys. i liked how we pointed out the fact that we have similar conflicts in both of our countries just the one is worse than the other. the lady next to damison also tlked about immigrants and how its all a cycle that makes the world go around. after this i doubt they think the same way as they did b4 we came in.

I loved the lil dance session we had. It came to mind the essay i did for my EIL application wit the question...is music a universal language. eventhough we dont have much experience in samba(xcept 4 vika n erica who b gettin it.lol. ) or capoeira we were able to bond a bit wit them.
i really wanna learn fogo. i think ill b good @ it since i knoe bachata.

PS. Grrr Coppy. u put me on the spot. i was all xtra nervous n wht not. lol.
-Ronald G.

im hungry!!

So... we just talked to a group of boys and girls our age.... its weird talking to them and hearing what they think about America because i know that they have opinions about the USA but i never knew what they were in detail. being here has opened up my eyes to many things. one of those being how America only thinks about America- and no one else .... unless its beneficial to them. it was really interesting to me that these boys and girls go to school for a specific purpose because in America our education is so general- unless you go to a school that is specifically for something like science and math or the arts. but the focus of education in America is to be ``well rounded`` and know a little bit of everything before you go on to find your vocation and specialize in something. it was very apparent to me that to get a job here it is important to be good at one or two things- and that is the focus of their education. however, it seems that these kids really have their lives together and they are working hard to be successful... it´s inspiring to me to see these kids who use what they have to achieve what they want- i respect and admire their efforts to get a job and take control so they can lead a better life.
however, more on the overall trip so far-- ITS BEEN SUPPAhh fun!! we´ve seen so much and learned so much already. Portuguese is coming slowly but i´m learning to pick out important words to get the basic idea of what someone is saying. its definitely hard but i think after 5 weeks i will be able to understand some of it... if not most of it. capoeira is going well, i feel sort of awkward doing it but um.. hopefully that will change too. i just never know what to do! and i´m scared i´m going to get kicked in the head- like the boy yesterday who got donkey kicked in the mouth (that looked like it really hurt a lot)... i´m really enjoying myself and i´m glad that i chose to do this- i know that after 5 weeks i will have a completely new view of the world. even after one week i am inspired to go home and make my community more aware of whats happening around the world and the ideas/opinions of people... outside of the US. i mean, its astonishing that people here in Brazil keep up with our election and i don´t even know who their president is... so, i am definitely going to try harder to keep up with the world and be aware of what is happening... I'm excited for the weeks to come and i think that this trip is going to definitely make me a ``global citizen``.

-martha aka mj aka crackhead

Cross Cultural Experiences

We began our trip in Rio exploring the city and going to two social projects within two favelas in Rio de Janeiro. Each place was different, yet the feeling in the communities were the same... pride and concern for the well-being of their community members. The social projects that we visited were well aware and informed of the influences and behaviors that change lives in both positive and negative ways. In our interactions, we were able to understand some of these difficulties and how the social projects have helped the communities.



We arrived in Salvador a few days ago and have been learning a great deal about Baiana and Brazilian culture. Today part of our group visited an organization called Jovens Aprendizes. This organization helps black adolescents to obtain professional experience and to help them on their journey. Our conversation began with the typical introductions and coming to know one another questions. Once we were all comfortable, the conversation changed to the more serious topics. We began by explaining why we were here in Brasil and what we planned to do with our time. We were clear that our intentions for being here in Brasil go deeper than being a tourist to a new country. We were here to learn and to understand Brazilian culture. The ideas that were shared were that as Americans, we did not want the actions of our government to dictate how people thought about us as people. During our conversation, we came to realize that in general Brazilians knew more about our culture than we do about theirs. The unfortunate part is that how they learned about our culture is from TV, movies and music. These are not the best examples of our culture considering most of it is for entertainment purposes (which means it can be far fetched). What we were adamant about was the we had come to learn so that in the future we will be better informed global citizens. How does one become a global citizen without traveling to locations and talking to people? The truth is, you can read a great deal about a place, but unless you have been there and experienced it with the people, you can not fully understand the culture.



Our conversation continued with topics such as what is considered beautiful in the US and Brasil, immigration, the upcoming elections, race and class and how they can be connected at times and the implications that has on society and stereotypes. In the end, we realized that our two countries have many things in common in regards to race and class and we have much to learn from each other.



I must say that I really enjoyed the fact that the teens were all so open and willing to share with us their perceptions and ideas about their culture, our culture and the world.

More to come...

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