New Country, New Life

Well, it's finally time for a real update from Brazil. I guess I could theoretically have posted during orientation, but I was rather booked up and waiting for any number of the 20 people on this trip to finish with the one computer wasn't enticing. Regardless, here's an introductory update.

I've been in Fortaleza just under a week now. Actually, that's not true: I've been in Fortaleza proper about a day. The rest of the time, I was sequestered in a guest house just outside the city. Thus, I have only a few things to say about the city: it's big, flat, chaotic, coastal, and has a stark division between modern skyscrapers and ramshackle, well, everything else (meaning it ends up looking a lot like Accra). It's not as hot as you might think: the temperature's only around 27 Celsius most of the time. It's humid, though, and so the mosquitoes are out of control – fortunately, there's no malaria here. I'm sure there will be a lot more to say about the city soon enough.

Orientation week was fairly enjoyable. Being in a small compound outside town was a little confining, but the reasoning is clear enough. We got a good chance to learn essential facts about our location and our course, get acquainted with the people sharing our experience (who are a great group, I have to say), and do some introductory activities. There were two main highlights. First off, the “drop-off” (in which a group of people gets deposited somewhere to find out about the place) I was on, to an organisation called EDISCA. They're a school dedicated to giving children from very poor backgrounds an opportunity to develop themselves – humanisation, in Freire's terms – via the arts, primarily dance. They also serve as a wellness centre for those kids, in that they give them hearty, healthy meals (which their families often cannot afford) and provide health services. Their purpose is nice enough, but their practise is even better: they have fascinating experimental dance performances, some of which are composed by the children themselves; they provide reinforcement for basic school teaching, and they have programs to teach mothers ways to supplement their incomes. We spent a long time talking to Gilano, one of the members of the family that founded EDISCA, and an extremely interesting fellow. Besides being an excellent dancer and choreographer, he has a lot of ideas about aesthetics and their place in the world, humanisation, and international culture; he's the sort of person I feel I could spend the entire program just talking to. Between his fascinating discussion and the excellence of EDISCA itself, the visit was great.

The other major highlight was a capoeira performance, but not just any performance. This was put on by a group which works with “risk kids” from the favelas, children who are in danger of being sucked into violence and so on. The performers were mostly rather young kids, and they were excellent. They performed three parts: a very West African-styled dance piece, a fire-dancing bit (which was far more exciting than the baton-twirling found all over Europe these days), and the well-known fighting/dancing capoeira style. Eventually, they had us join them in their mock-fights, with us knowing nothing of what to do, which was rather amusing and very, very fun. After that, they taught us a few raw basics of capoeira, which would have been nice to know when doing it, but oh well. Besides giving us some highly needed exercise, the night was simply massive amounts of fun. We're likely to get one of the instructors to continue to teach us as the semester goes on.

Anyway, the biggest noteworthy factor is of course moving into my homestay family. I got here last night, and already I feel extremely welcome and extremely happy with my family placement. My family is relatively middle-class: they have a car, a large house, and a fast internet connection. That doesn't bother me that much: I've lived in poor conditions before, and it's good to see the side of things opposite to the one we're studying intensely. Besides, the family is wonderful. The mother, Iris, is exceedingly good-humoured, the father, Carlos, is simply a massive character, and three kids are all great. Most of my interaction has been with Cleyton, the 24-year-old brother, and Cynthia, the 20-year-old sister, who both speak quite decent English (though we've agreed I shouldn't rely on it too much, so we always start with Portuguese) and are very fun, and the 13-year-old Carolina is nice in a 13-year-old's manner, too. We're in a great neighbourhood: it contains a stadium, two universities, several lively squares, a military base, and much more. I should have an excellent time. And the fun is just beginning, believe me.