Recife

Our first stop on our two-week group excursion was Recife, and in all honesty it kind of sucked. It rained almost the whole time, it was really hard to go anywhere independently, and almost all of the lectures were long and boring. So I'm going to exclude all of that and tell you about the interesting parts.

We saw a cool church.

I would tell you where in the city this was, but I really have no idea. We didn't get to know the city very well. It was disappointing.

One of the coolest things we did was going to this cultural center and school for youth. They attempted to teach us to drum and dance, and then we watched them perform. They were really, really good.

This kid's hat fell off because he was drumming so hard. That's Oelito putting it back on.

Later that day a few of us decided to take a cab to the Sinagoga Kahal Zur Israel, the oldest synagogue in the Americas. We were supposed to have a guided tour, but the dude was out of town and he wouldn't let anyone else do it, so we went sneakily on our own. It's run by a private group, and it cost five reais to get in.

Most of the building is not the original structure. It's now a museum, and it's not used as a synagogue anymore except on very special occasions. You could see the original floor, though, which was cool, and the written information was in English and Portuguese.

I don't know anything about synagogues, but my friend Dan said that this one was set up differently than the one's he'd seen before. 

The ceiling was pretty.

We decided to take a few minutes and walked to the harbor. It was pretty.

Our plan was to go back to our pousada and then return to Recifie Antiga, the area we were already in, for a concert that night. Unfortunately, not leaving immediately after the museum turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes we made. As we found out later, there had been so much rain that the city had decided to release water from the dam on one of the rivers. This was going to flood a portion of the city, and so all of the cab drivers were going home to either rescue things from their houses. There were cabs everywhere, but none of them were taking passengers. It was incredibly irritating at the time. Ultimately, we split up into two groups and each spent about an hour and a half trying to hail a cab, before giving up and going to the shopping mall to eat dinner, which was also not ideal. Finally, we walked back to where the concert was going to be and bartered with one of the street food ladies for a bottle of rum and an enormous bottle of Coke. The concert was awful, but we were just happy that it wasn't raining yet and that we had stopped looking for cabs. At long last Oelito and our bus arrived on their way back from Olinda, which had also been a bust.

So there we go. Posts on Olinda, Salvador, and the interior to come.

Back in Fortaleza, for about a second.

Recife was mas o menos, Salvador was awesome until the last day when a bunch of people got money stolen at the pousada we were staying at. Fortunately I had all of mine with me that day, but it definitely put a damper on the end of the trip.

Real post with real photos forthcoming, once I get the half a million photos I took onto my computer.

After tomorrow, I'll be in Prainha with the lacemakers for three weeks. I'll have access to internet through an internet cafe, so shoot me an email if you want to Skype and I'll be there!

Struggles.

So I have until Friday to finish my independent study project proposal. We then leave for Recife and Salvador for two weeks. When we come back, it's ISP time for four weeks, and then I go to Argentina. I feel academically and emotionally unprepared for all of this, so here's some video of a nice old lady making lace.

I really wish I'd gotten her later when she had this enormous cigarette dangling out of the edge of her mouth. It was pretty good.

I received a lovely letter from Evelyn this afternoon, which brightened up my day! She sent it March 30 and it arrived in the P.O. box on the 18th, and made it to me today. So probably it's not a good idea to send letters after the beginning of June.

I'm feeling sort of stupidly homesick right now. I'm okay, but I'd appreciate any words of advice!

Jericoacoara, yes please.

For the long Easter weekend, fifteen of us went to Jericoacoara, a small beach town about four hours by bus plus one hour across dunes by precarious pickup truck to the west of Fortaleza. Please prepare for gorgeous beach picture overload.

This is what most of the beach actually looked like the majority of the time. It was a little cloudy almost the whole time we were there, but it didn't rain until the day we headed home.

We walked up onto the enormous dune to watch the sunset, where we found that looking away from the beach we could see a double rainbow! It was not, unfortunately, all the way across the sky, and the second one is faint in this picture, but it was so cool. We were way excited.

The sunset was gorgeous, both from the dune...

 

...and from the beach.

A pink tinge appeared a little later...

We got in some more dune-jumping the next day, which I have no pictures of and which ended in minor tragedy for one of our number, who sprained her ankle. It was a bummer.

Later in the afternoon, a few of us took a long walk down the beach, casually searching for a lagoon that we'd heard about. We walked down the beach, and then took a turn inland, inadvertently heading through some really thick and unpleasantly textured algae-puddle-water. We then realized that the large grove of palms we'd been heading for seemed to be private property, but were confused because Jericoacoara is a national reserve. It had a fence, which was falling apart, and no signs anywhere about not trespassing, so we decided to go for it. We walked a little ways and encountered a very friendly man with about twenty dogs who lived there. There were a couple of houses, one which he rented out, and a seeping spring. The place was gorgeous. We talked with him for a few minutes and he pointed us in the direction of a lagoon, which turned out not to be the one we were looking for.

 It was pretty, but the edges were a little foamy, and we decided to forgo swimming in it. Instead, we walked to the top of the adjacent dune.

Awesome. We headed back towards the beach, again through the algae water, which seemed to be unavoidable, and took a quick dip in the ocean. After that, we headed back home to our pousada. 

It was another sunset-from-the-dune evening, this time accompanied by the best caipirinha I've had so far.

I'd gotten a really great sunburn the day before, so most of the next day was spent applying aloe, lying in a hammock, and reading Brave New World. In the afternoon, a few of us went for a horseback ride to the Pedra Furada, a famous landmark in Jericoacoara. The horses took us to a cliff above the rock, which we thought looked kind of like Northern California, except for the cacti.

Most of the group had been to the rock the day before, and I ended up not walking down to see it from the beach. It was down there, though.

A quick family-style portrait. And names, for Mom especially, who I know will want to know - from left to right, names are Ben, Caitlin, Emily (who hurt her ankle), and Emma. This photo and the next are borrowed from Micah Ross, another friend on our trip.

I really did ride a horse.

I cannot apparently get it together enough to write a real blog post, but I did hang out with some lacemakers last week.

This weekend, I went to a forro dance class, the beach, and a fashion show. I did it all in Portuguese. Note: Even when you're doing things that seem like they should be really normal, like getting in a car and driving to the beach, people still don't speak English. Whoa. I have no more brainpower, so here are some photos.

I spent last Thursday and Friday in Prainha, an area in the municipality of Aquiraz, about an hour and a half away from Fortaleza to the west by bus. 

The purpose of this little excursion was to get to know the community of lacemakers, or rendeiras, with whom I will be spending three weeks in May and June to do independent research.

They work in a large circular area near the beach, known as the Centro das Rendeiras. It's shaded by trees and receives a delightful breeze in the afternoons.

They produce many types of lace, but what strikes me as the most beautiful is rendas de bilro, or bobbin lace.

It's made in solid colors and with many colors.

These aren't real rendeiras, but they're making real rendas.

I spent the night in Dona Lourdes' house. This is her kitchen. I loved the color of the walls. I also loved the running water, which is not a given in Brazil.

The beach on my cloudy Friday. Gorgeous.

Dona Lourdes' booth in the Centro.

One of the rendeiras made this dress for her daughter's wedding. The entire thing is lace. This strikes me as completely impossible.

I sincerely hope that I will have my head on straight enough to give you all an actual post with real live thoughts in it soon, but I can't promise anything. I miss you, United States!

Go, Johnny, Go.

I've been meaning to post a link to this reggae version of Johnny B. Goode that I heart at Freedom Bar when we were in Canoa Quebrada. Not only was it in English, but it's a song that I love. I don't think I've ever been so excited to hear any song in my entire life.




I've just found out that I'll be spending Thursday and Friday in Prainha, in the municipality of Aquiraz, where I'll also be doing my independent research project. I'm staying there Thursday night and coming back to Fortaleza on Friday. It's about an hour and a half away by bus. I'm part terrified and part thrilled.


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Look at that. It's so close to the ocean. I am so excited.

It's Fortaleza's 285th birthday today, and there's an enormous free concert on Praia da Iracema to celebrate. So much to be excited about today!

And we're back.

Made it back from MST, sem problema. There is never time for anything on this trip. I'm sorry for the lack of substance in this post.

Enormous toads, known as sapos or cururus.

The MST encampment 15 de abril. We spent most of our time in another settlement, 25 de maio, which has had land for a long time and has houses and a school, all made out of what a North American would recognize as normal building materials, but this encampment has only existed for a year and is still trying to obtain the land adjacent to their settlement. 

My host family for the two nights we were there. The little girl does some mean capoeira.

More of my host family. The mom said she has eight kids but they didn't all live in the house. I wasn't actually all that clear on who did live in the house. It was a rough weekend, comprehension-wise.