Capoeira

I have decided to take a Capoeira class as a way to stay occupied with my time and explore the culture of Brazil while waiting for my permits. Capoeira, for those of you who are unfamiliar, is a Brazilian martial arts dance. The best word for me in there, DANCE! The scariest words in

there for me, MARTIAL ARTS. So as some of you may or may not know, I enjoy a good boogie on the dance floor now and then. And as many new Brazilians have found out, I will give a hilariously good effort at trying to dance Forro (country dancing), or Samba (fast fast fast dancing, at which I am hilariously horrible) or reggae dancing, where I do my best impression of Bob Marley. So after having seen Capoeira (pronounced ca-poo-era) only once in Australia of all places, when Caritas, the owner of my favorite pousada in Fortaleza suggested we start classes together, I thought well, why not. I should experience this culturally unique Brazilian activity. Let us all experience it together, in this super awesome video.

CAPOEIRA VIDEO

ok so there are a few differences between this video and what I am doing. A) I am not jumping around doing back flips, standing on my head, doing crazy things. B) These guys have been doing Capoeira for many many years, so there is a high probability that I will never be that good. C) Whenever I do capoeira there is most likely an incident which involves me being afraid of getting kicked or punched in the face, because I am still new to the process, and I duck down into a ball, the proverbial "fetal" position. And my capoeira partner sighs, and has to repeatedly assure me they won't actually kick me.

Capoeira is about a dance, where the dance moves are martial arts moves. The purpose is not really to hit the other person, but to "attack" and then "defend" with different dance moves. Or at least this is kind of what I have gathered. I still haven't been able to work out how people know which moves to do and when, but I'm hoping that comes with time.

Thank goodness that I have the ability to laugh at myself. So my first capoeira class was all about learning the basic dance move, called the jinga- no idea if the spelling on that is correct. The jinga is basically where you step back with one foot and then stand normal, then stand back with the other foot and back to normal again. Or that's kind of it. So this is the basic step, to which people add the kicking, spinning, cart-wheeling moves to.

Capoeira video part II

So capoeira is not just about learning the martial-arts type dance moves, but it's also about learning instruments. I got to learn how to play the tabaki, perhaps atabaque? I am good at this one. Here's what it sounds like.

The berimbaus, which according to me is like holding a fishing pole with a coconut on the handle in one hand, while with the second hand you use a chopstick to tap the fishing pole line. You also hold a rock in the hand with the fishing pole, which you occasionally touch to the fishing line, to change the sound of the instrument.

Fact: there are only 3 notes to learn how to play on the berimbaus.

Fact: I don't think any of them sound particularly pleasant to the ears.

BERIMBAUS!

The last class was very exciting and we got to play with what looked like drum sticks. My partner and I did our little jinga dance while tapping the drumsticks together in a certain beat. And at times, we would even hit each other's drumsticks to the rhythm. Then since we were really good at it, almost surprisingly so, the instructor tried to have us add in some spin moves, while keeping the beat and tapping our sticks together, and...well.....my partner and I rocked the simple stuff!

I also got to learn how to play the tamborine, which has a different name in Portuguese that I can't remember. So I guess to sum up, Lindsay is quite good at the musical parts of capoeira and is not quite so into the martial arts part. But I am a big fan of doing cartwheels, and spins. Another positive to capoeira is that it requires all my attention and I can't think about permits, house problems, Brazilian bureaucracy, boy dramas or anything else! Another cool think about capoeira is that is strengthens and tones, and improves flexibility, which is cool. All in all I like it because I usually wind up laughing at myself trying to do these crazy dance moves while spinning and doing cartwheels all to the music of a fishing pole and a chinese chopstick!

Prainha

June 1^st, a new month, a new me (?) here in Brazil. I have finally moved into my own apartment. No more having to worry if I am going to come home from a weekend away to find gay guys sleeping in a bed that wasn’t before in my room. I have this little apartment, in a tiny beach town that’s about an hour by bus outside of Fortaleza. My apartment is above a beauty salon in a building that is colored a bright orange/yellow. There a room to hang my hammock with two single beds, there’s a big bed to sleep in with a mosquito net, bathroom, stove, refridgerator. Awesome! Right? Uh… well in typical Brazilian style I’ve had some problems.

The common room, with desk, hammock and two beds/sofas.

My bedroom!

First problem I bought two celebratory bottles of wine to bring to my new apartment from Fortaleza. I thought toasting myself with a nice glass of wine would be a great way to start a new life, in a new town and have it be a positive Brazilian experience. Well, I put the wine to chill in the fridge, because no one drinks room temp red wine in Brazil, mostly because it’s so hot here, and the second time I open the fridge, the wine bottle falls off its shelf and shatters all over the tile floor. Welcome home Lindsay. I got to spend the first hour in my new apartment cleaning broken glass and red wine up from the floor. Oh well right? Then I bought a bag of ice for some cold water to drink. Stuck it in the freezer, and it melted all over the fridge and leaked out all over the floor. It turns out the fridge and therefore the freezer doesn’t work. 1 week later I am still not living with a properly functioning refridgerator, instead I have this tiny Styrofoam cooler, which I stock with ice twice a day. Except the ice isn’t edible ice, because the edible ice comes in bags that are too big for the size of my cooler. So the guys at the supermarket have agreed to put the ice they use to store meat and fish in my cooler, which leaves the cooler at times not smelling quite so pleasant. Ok, so living like this until the refridgerator is fixed isn’t too big a deal. But of course, the story and the problems get better.

My third night in the brand new apartment, after making myself my first dinner in my kitchen, the water gets shut off to my apartment. Yes that’s right I go to turn on the sink and no water comes out. Not even a trickle. I go into the bathroom and get the same response from the sink in there. No water for the shower, and yes it is really hot temperature wise, and no I haven’t taken my night time shower yet. And after an hour when desperately needing to go to the bathroom I realize there is no water for the toilet either. Well it’s a Saturday night, I think maybe there’s an official problem, maybe someone turned off the water because a pipe broke. Then I think well maybe the people who run the beauty salon turned the water off to the building when they left for the weekend and maybe they forgot I was living upstairs now. But I’m not too concerned yet, I can deal with no water for the night. Upon waking the next morning, still no water. I go downstairs to ask the neighbors if they have water and they confirm they have running water and I do not. Since the owner of my apartment lives in Italy, calling him to complain is not an option, so I try the number for the person who gave me the keys. Of course he doesn’t answer the phone……..for the next 3 hours.

Around 12 pm, now 18 hours and counting without any water, I make better friends with my neighbors and ask to use their bathroom. I ask in Portuguese if I can use the bathroom, and their response is yes you can take a shower. I am slightly confused by this so I persevere and try to explain I just need to pee, I don’t need to take a shower, but they continue to say yes you can take a shower. So quite perplexed I follow them into their backyard, where on the ground there is a concerete slab and a water pump. They tell me to fill the bucket up with water and take a shower. Once again I try to explain, no I just have to she-she, the Portuguese word for pee. Then they explain that I should wear my bikini and while dumping buckets of water over me, just pee right there in the backyard. Right? Right….of course, why didn’t I understand. So I strip down to my bikini, you know me I am always wearing a bathing suit, and did I mention that their backyard opens up to this little market area where the ladies of the town sell their wares? So everyone in the market area seemingly stops what they are doing to watch me strip down and “take my shower.” Talk about really getting to know your neighbors. Oh boy! So finally the water gets turned back on after about 24 hours.

The next day rolls around and I get up at 5:45 AM to head into Fortaleza for my capueira class (more on this in another blog). And it’s starting to drizzle as I leave. I go to capueira class, run some errands in the city, and it pours all day. When I get back about 3 pm, I come home to a flooded apartment. Oh the irony that just 24 hours before I was complaining about having no running water, and now the complaint is that I have too much water. So I do my best to mop up the water, with only two towels, that are disgustingly dirty, and a floor that is equally dirty, it’s not so pleasant to “mop” up the floor. After this fiasco, I leave for a bit to write some emails, then I return after dark, go to turn on my lights and guess what? There’s no electricity in the house! I don’t know whether it’s from the rain or not having paid an electricity bill or any other reason except that I am in Brazil and I still don’t have luck on my side.

So I call my trusty friend who gave me the keys and turned the water back on and we discover that the electricity wire to the house has been cut, and while there are lockboxes on other electricity meters for the other buildlings, mine has no lock. My trusty friend said it could be the power company, or someone just playing a trick on me. Sigh, great. Did I mention the apartment also flooded that day? So I deal with a night of no electricity, I buy some candles, cook dinner by candle light, and it turns out I kind of liked spending the night by candle light. It made me think of simple things and how it is easy to forget to appreciate them, such as flicking on a light switch and enjoying the fact that the lights go on. Like turning on the tap to discover water comes out.

So yes, these are all the crazy things that have happened in my new apartment. The electricity is now on, turns out there is a different electricity box than the one with the cut wire…..although still not sure what happened in the first place. I have running water, but the fridge still doesn’t work. Supposedly someone is coming today to fix it, although I think we all know the likelihood of this working out is small. Regardless of these setbacks and headaches, I still like my small town. Everyone knows me as the American that lives in the yellow house on main street. It’s cute. And yes I get to walk on the beach everyday, it’s about a 4 minute walk from my place to the beach. It’s awesome. Let’s hope after all these disasters this first week, that it’s smooth sailing from now on!

so update from when i last wrote this blog to posting it. I also encountered a gas leak, but that is now fixed, the fridge is now also fixed! SWEET!

Ponta D'Leste, Uruguai

Yay! Finally the Ocean! In Uruguay! It does exist! Uruguay is situated mostly on a river, but the river eventually meets the ocean here in Ponta D'Leste.

Ponta D'Leste is known for its famous statue here of fingers sticking out of the sand. I'm sure it has a more formal name, but I can't remember what it is. I think it looks pretty cool though!

The waves were pretty big with all the rocks and the meeting with the river. I wouldn't want to go diving here! Thank goodness they don't have seahorses here!

Although, I did get in the water a little bit.....it was cold!! Like Boston temperatures in the spring!

The statue of the hands was very detailed; you could even see the fingernails!

Beautiful Uruguaian sunset along the coast while heading back to the hotel!

I wish I could stay longer in Uruguay! It's beautiful!

Gaucho Ranch, Uruguay

The last day of our Fulbright reunion in Uruguay we went to Gaucho ranch to spend the day relaxing and reveling in all that is amazing about Uruguay. When the bus pulled into the ranch, we were met by a man riding a horse carrying a large Uruguaian flag that rode us up to the main building. There we were greeted with men dressed as Gaucho's holding platters of wine and soft drinks to welcome us! Wow! Talk about being treated like royalty!

There were large pasture areas, fences, and wild animals. We could ride horses, play soccer, swim in a pool, go for carriage rides. It was an amazing place!

Anyone for a horse back ride? Many of us jumped at the chance to ride horses through this wide-expanse of pastureland, including me!

Here are some of the sheep they had at the ranch. One fulbrighter got in the pen and tried to herd the sheep in an effort to try to touch one. It was hilarious watching all the sheep continuously run away from him. They look so fuzzy!

There were also llamas! That were easier to touch and just as fuzzy!

The Gauchos performed some horse tricks with us that were kind of amazing and also a little unusual. The one guy in the red hat actually snuggled up to the horse, while the horse was on it's side almost like they were a couple spooning in bed! It was unusual to say the least!

Aside from eating more delicious food, including the best blood sausage (ok the only blood sausage), I've ever eaten, there were also hammocks to relax in, if playing on the ranch got a little tiring.

Uruguay is known for it's hot, tea-like drink, called matte (ma-tay). It looks like this (shown above) but the taste is a little bitter....

as you can see by my face after trying matte. But matte is served in this little wodden cup, you put the tea-like matte leaves right in there and add water. Then you drink it out of this metal little straw. Matte is supposed to bring people luck. So you pour the hot water in, and you are supposed to drink all the water up, and in Uruguaian culture, this means you have drunken the luck you will take with you in life. If you leave any matte left in the cup, it means you are leaving your luck for someone else. So despite my not liking matte too much, I tried to drink as much matte as possible to change my luck relating to my project in Brazil.

Ah yes, they also had these houses that were made by Gaucho's back in the day with mud. I think they lined an animal trough with sheep wool to sleep in at night. Anyway as a marine biologist is totally creeped me out to be in this structure, surrounded by dirt and earth, and far away from the ocean.

The whole day was really picturesque. Great open landscapes, hammocks, wild animals, a soccer game and great food. It was a wonderful last memory of Uruguay before heading back to Brazil! Thanks Fulbright! Uruguay is my favorite!

Uruguay

I went to a regional Fulbright seminar in Montevideo, Uruguay recently, and not knowing very much about Uruguay, ashamedly not even really where it was located aside from in South America, I was fairly skeptical of visiting. I mean who decides of all places to go to Uruguay? (sorry Fulbighters who choose to go to Uruguay, nothing personal) And let's face it Uruguay is not exactly a must-see destination for a marine biologist. However, I was pleasantly surprised by my entire trip, leaving me to say GO TO URUGUAY. Anyone and everyone. It is awesome!

The coast in Uruguay, outside the hotel!

Uruguay is the Switzerland of South America. It's very neutral there. It's friendly. It feels safe. They take the following currencies, US Dollars, Brazilian Reais, Argentinian Pesos, and also Uruguan Pesos. The entire city has a very european feel to it. People dress nice (this is a shocker coming from the Northeast of Brazil). It's cold. Yes that's right, I spent a week with temperatures as a high in the 60's during the day and a low in the 40's at night and I loved the contrast from my day -to-day in Brazil. I got to wear my peruvian immigrant coat a lot.

(Brooke, studying environmental health, and Annalia, studying the management of monkeys, at a meat and wine restaurant in Montevideo). One of the things I had wanted to know about Uruguay was about their wine. Do they have wine in Uruguay? If so, is it good? Is there a national grape of Uruguay just like there's a national grape of Austria (Gruner Veltliner) or other places? Brazil-not known for it's wine, it is horrible. Argentina- well known for wine, delicious! Uruguay? Also good. And while it's no Argentina, the national grape/wine is Tannat and it was mighty tasty. They are also very proud of their beef, in more kind of a gaucho cowboy, let's raise all natural meat kind of way. It was delicious!

OOh but my favorite thing about Uruguay is that you can get really good croissants there! Yum! I had been dying for the last 3 weeks to have a croissant for breakfast, crispy, buttery, and alas being in NE Brazil there's none to be found. But they had them at the hotel for breakfast in Uruguay and it was like a dream come true! We saw the equivalent of the Brazilian White House (above), where the President works.

This is the main plaza, with a famous statue and nice looking buildlings.

Uruguai was filled with pretty parks in the city and a beautiful rambla (long bike path), along the beach.

We went to a famous Urugian poet's house.....

and even found a delicious Korean restaurant in downtown Montevideo!

Does this not look like a little european city street?

And book stores? AMAZING! These do not exist in northeast Brazil!

In between all the adventures of exploring Uruguay we gave presentations on our research to our fellow fulbrighters. Here you can see my buddy Ross giving his presentation on agr0-energy in Northeast Brazil. This meeting brought Fulbrighters together from Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Argentina and Brazil. I was the only Fulbrighter studying ecology of any animal and the only marine biologist. Other people's projects were really interesting with one kid from Argentina studying cosmic rays and another from Chile studying traffic!

For a special end of the week treat, Fulbright Uruguay, took us to a Gaucho Ranch for a day of relaxing and fun. Read the next blog entry to see photos about the Gaucho Ranch.

Icapui

In a crazy, jumbled, spontaneous Brazilian-like fashion I found myself in Icapui this weekend. Icapui is a beach town about 3 hours south of Fortaleza and the last stop on the east coast of Ceará where I am doing research. Right as the weekend was about to commence, my big weekend of actually starting my own research here, several things happened. First, in organizing my research and my first visit to my first study site, I was informed that it was rather dangerous to go there. And by rather dangerous I mean I would have to have a police escort. So with visions of Ricky Ricardo in a speedo as my escort, I began to try to organize. However, as with trying to organize anything in Brazil, I was met with bureaucracy that slowed the process down. I would have to write a formal request asking the Nature Police (Policia Florestral) for an escort to these areas, specifying dates and times, with no guarantee that they would get back to me. Ugh, another logistical nightmare on my hands. Then came several scary stories of scary things happening to people that were accompanied by the Nature Police in these areas. Let’s just say the police ran running for the hills when it came time to stop sun-bathing and start law-enforcing. But thankfully, (thankfully?), I got a call from the professor, saying that although my permit had been submitted I wasn’t allowed to start until it was approved. This was news to me, as I had been advised differently from her several weeks before. Alas, this should not be a shock. Brazilian bureaucracy gives one a headache worse than a migraine. But it did mean that I would not be conducting field research this weekend and hence I would not be requiring Ricky Ricardo speedo and all to accompany me. (side note: I have since decided not to go to these two most dangerous research sites because they require a police escort and although at times I complain, I do enjoy living my life—so mom you can rest easy danger associated with research is not in my near future)

However as all this was unfolding late on a Thursday afternoon, I was also following up on a lead that there was someone in the Aquaculture Department at the University Of Ceará that was raising seahorses. I called, well ok not me, Carol- think the new Gabi if you’ve been following the blog, aka potentially my new research assistant) she called to see if this seahorse aquaculture guy (Koba, short for Kobayashi) had any interest in talking to me. He did AND he also invited me down to his beach house in Icapui for the weekend! Now I wasn’t sure if it was so I could do research down there; if I was going to be helping him do research, or if we were just going to get to know one another and see how we could work together.

It turned out to be the latter but I spent the weekend at his gorgeous home, hidden amongst the sand dunes with a spectacular view from my hammock in his home. He also invited another girl, a brazilian, who had just finished her doctorate and had recently returned to Brazil from a year of traveling to come along. This girl and I became good friends and spent one day walking 14 km along the beach, seeing some fantastic views and colors of the sand and ocean. It was amazing to see how many houses were hidden in amongst the sand dunes.

Koba turned out to be an excellent source of information for learning about how to do research in different beach towns in Ceará. I got to know some local fishermen who will help me with research when I head down to Icapui in July and Koba offered for me to stay at his house too! It was an interesting weekend filled with beautiful vistas, new friends and new details of how to go about my research here in Ceará. Not the weekend I had hoped for (actually starting research), but a great one none-the-less!

Top 20 of Joao Pessoa

Some of you know and some of you don't know that it's been a tough last month for me here in Joao Pessoa. And now that I'm leaving tonight, I thought I would focus on the things that I enjoyed most while I was here.

1) Field excursions looking for seahorses with Gabi and the girls from the lab

2) Running by the beach at night

3) Morning breakfast at Pao de Praia with fresh squeezed orange juice, pao (bread) com ovo (egg) and coffee (without sugar!! they put sugar in almost all coffee here so it's great to find it comes with no sugar!)

4) Finding the fruit market after 2 months of looking for it

5) Getting my first piece of mail (It was my CPF card or Brazilian Social Security number card)

6) The special bike lane in the road that runs along the beach. Great for biking with a view and also safe!

7) Discovering Acai na Tigela (Acai sorbet served with granola, dried berries, sliced bananas, seemingly cookie crumbs but probably something else, and honey)

8) Finally going diving in Brazil, seeing 3 giant sleeping turtles at night and discovering I love my new BCD (scuba vest).

9) Walking on the beach from Tambaú to Bessa (6 K) with Muri

10) Learning that there is free wireless internet at the mall while wondering why there is free wireless internet at the beach (yes that's right, in a certain area at the beach, if you bring your laptop, which I personally think is asking someone to steal it, you can get free wireless internet. although it won't work at any of the retaurants or beach bars with tables, so good luck keeping the sand out of it)

11) Recognizing someone on the bus and realizing Joao Pessoa is indeed a small city

12) Giving my first powerpoint presentation on my research in Portuguese!

13) Singing the Beatles and Mama Mia songs in the car late at night with the Professor!

14) Finding out I can watch GLEE, here in Brazil, yes this one's a bit pathetic, but GLEE rocks!

15) Talking politics and teaching/learning portuguese and english words with my roommates

16) Going to the movies and surprised by the fact that the movie was in English!

17) Buying an inflatable kayak for research purposes

18) Finally getting a Brazilian cell phone

19) New beach clothes- sarongs and dresses of course!

20) Being able to swim in the ocean, even though Joao Pessoa is a city with over 1 million people. I'm always leary that the beaches in downtown Fortaleza are dirty and polluted but in JP they are always nice and never give off that feeling!