I traveled this past week from Fortaleza (northern most pushpin on map) to the city of Sao Paulo (second yellow pushpin on map) to attend Fulbright Orientation. The coolest thing about Fulbright Orientation was finding out that I have an all expenses paid trip to Uruguay (southernmost pushpin on map) in May. Apparently once during the Fulbright process there is a regional meeting of students to share experiences (I think?) and network. In South America there are three meeting places this year, Uruguay, Salvador, Brazil and Argentina. I never thought I would go to Uruguay- it’s not high up on my super cool marine destinations to travel to- but……. an all expenses paid trip for a week = SWEET! This Fulbright appears to be getting better and better.
Orientation was a lot of meet and greets with the other Fulbrights in Brazil. Everyone was nice and people had some interesting projects that were definitely different than mine. There were really only two other scientist Fulbrights there- both of them being based inland. There were a group of students studying music in Brazil- forro, hippy hop (as it’s called in Portuguese) and reggae. There were also many people studying cultural stuff relating to Brazil, everything from history to politics to favela (ghetto) literature, poetry and one guy is even making a movie! I felt a little out of my league as almost everyone had been to Brazil before and many other Fulbrights spoke like natives! But I think that just adds to my adventure and everyone seemed to be jealous that I’d be spending my Fulbright snorkeling away looking for seahorses.
Sao Paulo is a crazy big city, flying in from Fortaleza, the last ten minutes it was sky scraper after sky scraper after skyscraper looking out the window of the plane. Sao Paulo has a population of around 14 million people. It feels a million times bigger than NY city. My ride from the airport to the hostel was mostly through the city and took about 2 hours, with not much traffic. SP has the largest population of Japanese people outside of Japan, the largest population of Italian people outside of Italy AND the largest population of Lebanese people outside of Lebanon. That’s a lot of people! I went out one night to Japan Town, yes where the largest population of Japanese people are living outside of Japan. I went with a group of other Fulbrighter and we had really good sushi! We even found Tofu, which as far as I can tell is almost unheard of or really expensive in the NE of Brazil. SP also has I think the largest city park in the world, the equivalent of central park in NYC but so much bigger! Unfortunately it was raining and mostly cold (ok yes relatively cold at around 64 degrees) while I was in SP, so I didn’t venture into the park.
During orientation we had a professor come in and talk to us about Brazil, and one of the interesting things I learned was that this year is an election year. President Lula da Silva will no longer be head of Brazil come the end of this year. He has already completed two terms, a total of 8 years and he has an approval rating of about 80%! I think that’s almost unheard of in the US. It’s not official but apparently Lula has chosen something like his chief of staff, who is a woman, to replace him. Or almost everyone knows Lula will support her candidacy, which with his 80% approval rating, according to this professor, almost guarantees this woman as the next President. However, Dilma (I think that’s her name) is relatively unheard of and apparently she has never been elected to a governmental position. Ooh, another interesting fact about her is that during the 70's when there was some civil unrest in the country, she was arrested and tortured for protesting against the government. She has been given amnesty under an agreement back in the late 70's or early 80's as part of a truce on both sides of this unrest in Brazil....isn't it crazy that a once thought of as criminal person is running for president? Her competition, and once again this is all unofficial because the Brazil nominations of the candidates are in July or thereabouts, against the governor of Sao Paulo, which is also a state and not just a city. But the city of SP is in the state of SP, and so this guy is already starting off with a strong base. Apparently as elections get closer, the candidates and parties start to get air time on TV to run their campaigns. The ads are not to bad mouth each other like they are at times in the states, but to talk about what they support, what the party stands for etc. I feel like kind of a dork but it should be interesting to see that process unfold. According to this professor, the election is up to Dilma to lose. The Sao Paulo governor has a strong hold in the south, and Dilma has a strong hold in the Northeast because this is where Lula’s government has the most support. There are two rounds of voting during the Brazil election. The first round I there can be many candidates, this professor suspects there will be four, and the top two move on to the second round of elections. The winner is by popular vote, not an electoral system as in the US. The winner is declared by whoever gets 50% of the popular vote + 1 vote. It should be interesting, relatively speaking, to see how the election gets talked about in the different towns that I visit, or by the people I interact with.
So those are kind of the highlights from SP and Orientation. Uruguay, other cool Fulbright projects, the enormity of SP and it’s an election year!
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