Just getting up to speed...

Well, yesterday turned out to be way too long, so here's the update, finally – now with pictures! (but only a couple since my upload speed is horrendous)

Things have gotten into full swing in the last week and a half, needless to say. On the one hand, I'm doing a lot, so there's a lot to say. On the other, I don't have much time to write. I'll try and strike a balance, since I'm sure people will want to hear all about everything. For now, I'm going to summarise what's been going on.

I've now had the chance to familiarise myself a bit with Fortaleza. The city is pretty interesting: fairly concentrated, but spread out into neighbourhoods, and heavily split between the richer areas (including the heavily tourist-frequented bits) and the more poor spots. While the beaches are very pretty, none of the ones within the city proper are swimmable, so I haven't actually been swimming yet (no time!). There's also just a bustle of activity – lots of small shops and street vendors, people going every which way... it's pretty intense to be here, but I'm enjoying it. Except for the buses, though – not only are they packed all the time, but they're unstable roller-coaster rides. At least I'm probably getting muscle development from hanging on all the time.

My family is great. I've been spending a lot of time with Cleyton, my 24-year-old administration-student brother, who's an all around good guy and a lot of fun. I've also spent a good amount of time with Cynthia, my 20-year-old sister, too; the three of us, plus both my siblings' significant others, plus my fellow student Mike (who's my cousin here) went to a forro club (forro is the popular dance here in Ceará – Samba's not the thing here) this weekend, and it was great fun. I have only good things to say about my family. Oh, and here's their picture.

I've been having Portuguese lessons since last week (it's up to about 15 hours now), and I'm liking them as well as learning a lot. Our teacher is pretty fun, and she often sends us out to places to talk to people and report back, which is much more interesting than sitting in a classroom. I think I've learned quite a lot by now, and I've been using it pretty heavily with my family and many others. Just last night, we (the higher Portuguese class) visited a local university where our teacher teaches English, and had a long discussion in Portuguese with her class. It was interesting, to say the least – and I'm pretty glad I avoided identifying as American, as some others got yelled at for their perceived complicity with Bush, which I just didn't need.

We've been having courses in our Culture and Development Seminar too, and they've been pretty decent. Right now, they're mostly in Portuguese with Bill translating, which slows the flow a bit and makes interaction hard, but it's necessary. None of them have been massively enlightening yet, but they've been good for getting a feel for issues in Brazil and Brazilian perspectives on global social justice issues. We had a good spirited globalisation debate yesterday, too, which was enjoyable as always.

I'm also working hard on getting a topic together for my research here. I've changed gears a bit, and instead of shoehorning music in like I always do (I may likely do something music-related for my other term paper), I've found something very concrete I want to do. Specifically, there's a movement here called EMAUS (which actually exists in many places, and was started in France) which focusses on sustainability through reconsumption. Specifically, they accept donations of all sorts of used and/or broken things, fix them up, and sell them off for relatively low prices. The money goes to running the organisation, and whatever isn't needed for that goes to a wide variety of social projects. I really like their premise, and I'm probably going to work with them in Recife, where they have a strong presence and a wealth of social initiatives developing from their core values.

There's lots more happening, and I certainly have more to say, but that's enough for now. Last friday merits its own post due to being long and excellent, and I'll probably put that up tomorrow. Til then.