As much as you want to hear what is going on down here in Brazil, I want to hear about how your life is.

It helps a lot to get updates from friends and family, and anyone else that cares to email me.

No more one-way blog posts.  I am switching to email correspondence, and hope you will send me an update on your life, your day, some story (good or bad), or anything else.

ahessert@gmail.com

I don't know what to say. I am working in a very cool building. My job is still in its budding stages so I haven't seen the impact that I want to make there.

My life is moving here, but I am still very much a foreigner. My portuguese is very good, but when I get into more intelligent in depth conversation, I falter. I am trying to keep the momentum and keep plugging away everyday at various aspects of my life down here (social, professional, and probably some other stuff). When I am trying to forge ahead and make the most of my time, it is difficult to stop in the middle and write for an audience. But this could be constructive in some way.

I went to a book opening today and learned very interesting stuff about a local favela, and the new safety and peace that the Pacification Police Force have brought, as they have forced out the Drug Traffickers, which previously were the law. "Rocinha em Off" gives a resident leader's first hand account of an order of violence that might now be in the past.

Now a question.. please comment with any advice or insignificant idea you may have.

What should I do to make the most of my time down in Brazil?

(I know Bill. "It sounds like I already have the answer.")

I started my job last week. So far it is just orientation, and they are integrating me slowly. I now have a desk with a computer, and the six people that are regularly at the office are cool. I am also going to my boss’s class on family based research in the social service department. It feels good to have a schedule.

I am battling with English on the internet, in books I want to read, non-portuguese speaking family members, and English speakers down here in Rio. I am slowly cutting it out, and my Portuguese reading volume has skyrocketed. I want to try a whole week without using any English, but not now. Writing will definitely be the final frontier for me.

The waves were barreling two days ago. . . No I didn’t get barreled. The weather broke, and it is rainy and chilly. Weather.com says it is 86 degrees right now, and that doesn’t seem right. A cool wind is forcing me to wear a sweater.

I was at an isolated island south of Rio stand up paddling along the coastline with flippers and a snorkel on the front of my board. I stopped at a spot where a sea turtle was following me and jumped in with my gear. The silence of the ocean and surrounding nature was impressive. I paddled for and hour to this beautiful area full of colorful coral, fish, and squid. I came up from snorkeling and there was a wrinkled man in a dug out canoe paddling in my direction. He saw the board floating with no one near and thought something was wrong. He was surprised to see me pop up in the middle of nowhere. I showed him I was attached to the board by my leash and he was pleased.

He asked me if I wanted some water. I said no thank you, and asked him where he was coming from. His name was Orlando, and he was on the return trip from the supermarket ten kilometers away in a small mainland village. When I showed surprise at the distance he had gone for groceries, he proudly pounded his chest and with a big smile said “fifty years of paddling!”

He told me this was a good area for fishing, and he would come here later to spear fish for squid. His hollowed out canoe was named after the oldest of his three daughters, Bruna, and from the looks of the boat she was about a hundred years old. He must have named the water skis after the younger two, Beatriz and Barbara.

He invited me for lunch at his small home on the island. I had to get back to my hosts home so they didn’t think I was lost at sea, but he said to stop by any time. He informed me that there were only three small huts on that side of the island and I could recognize his by the brightly colored, yet weathered, canoe. It was clear, like mangroves that surround this region, Orlando had long grown roots at the edge of the sea.

Our floating conversation ended and we paddled our separate ways.

I didn’t listen to the address I was given, and screwed up the street name when I got in the cab. I reaffirmed the incorrect destination when the driver repeated it. “Near the center, right?” “Yeah sure.” After an hour of São Paulo traffic I finally got a text message with the street name number of the hotel I was going to for a Notre Dame Club of São Paulo dinner. The actual street was in the neighborhood that we had just passed. I let the cab driver know that the street we agreed to before was wrong and we did a U-turn. I watched the meter click for 15 minutes as we moved 50 feet. I saw that we were two kilometers away and decided to pay, get out and walk.

I attentively dodged the motorcycles that were riding down between the four jammed lanes and cursed the rain that caused my ride to bail earlier in the day. There was a downpour that blocked the tunnels of the city and made it impossible to swing by my neighborhood on the way. I was on my own.

It is amazing how predictable the São Paulo weather is and yet it is still one of the leading topics of conversation along with traffic. The mornings are sunny and cool, then as the sun gets more fierce the humidity shoots up and makes going out to get lunch a very sweaty ordeal. I hope lunch didn’t run too late because at about 3:30 the weather gets tired of how sleepy everyone is, and turns the city into a freaking hurricane. Then everyone prays that the afternoon downpour doesn’t roll into rush hour.

I am on my way back to Rio at the moment, and had a great week in São Paulo. I did some work, had a barbecue, went to two famous soccer stadiums for a samba concert and a movie premier, went to a home for at-risk children, ate some great food, and got caught in the rain.

I have determined that I prefer Rio to São Paulo, due to the size difference and the beach, I prefer smaller cities and I am looking forward to getting back into the water.

I am writing this on the bus to São Paulo, riding through green rolling hills and mountains. Seeing the huge landscape and lush tropical forest has helped me relax and think for the past few hours. I receive such a calm when I get into a vehicle and take my seat. At that point there is nothing else I can do, and I am going somewhere. I feel like I am escaping the crowd and craziness of life in Rio as I am headed to a city with 23 or however many millions of people São Paulo has. I envision myself returning refocused and ready to take on my job.

Holy week allowed me to try and focus my time on faith and prayer, which was a great way for me to connect with people from this culture, feel part of a group, and also to ask for patience in my day to day and long term operations down here. I went to the church on the evening of Good Friday hoping to run into a mass or at least get some quiet time with the hundreds of other people that would be flowing in and out to do the same. I ended up sitting there for about an hour amongst the quiet crowd, almost getting up to leave multiple times, but telling myself I had nothing else to do and that it was good for me to sit quietly and think (or unthink).

Well I was lucky that I stayed because now I have some culture to write about on this blog! I heard a noise outside and everybody all of a sudden got up and walked to the back of the church, outside there were hundreds of people lighting candles in the main street that was just closed off. There was a line of young people carry banners representing the stations of the cross, and as an old lady handed me a candle a group came out of the church with Jesus on the ten foot cross that was up at the alter.

Of course you could not have a faith filled Brazilian procession without music coming out of truck carrying huge speakers. A thousand strong walked down the main road with people in every apartment looking down at us on each side. As the voice from the speakers lead the stations of the cross in prayer and song we took a turn towards the beach, and came across another army of Catholics led by a bigger truck meeting us at a platform overlooking the water. I would have to say we, the Ipanema crew, had the advantage with the bishop leading our group under the cover of a golden cloth canopy carried by faithful followers.

They mounted the cross on the platform and the Catholics of Copacabana brought a statue of the Virgin Mary and set her looking up at her son. The leaders of the groups and the bishop led the last station and everyone sang as a robed group lowered Jesus from the cross and placed him in a wooden casket.

With half the candles still lit and a lot of melted plastic cups we walked back to the church where there was a slow motion mob rush to reach the casket holding Jesus, give your donation, and say a prayer.

It was cool.

Hey guys. This first world Brazil I am living in is starting to feel semi-american and normal to me as I sit with my starbucks iced coffee at a table in the middle of the mall. I am surrounded by a lot of consumers and posters of Katy Perry, the Statue of Liberty, Kiehl’s Body Cream, and Giselle Bundchen… oh wait! the couple next to me just started to make out. BAM! Brazilian Culture!

I haven’t really gone anywhere exceptional. I have been dealing with an ear infection and a pain in the butt translating assignment for CIESPI, but both recently took big steps in the process of being resolved.

The one thing I am actually getting excited about is reading and learning (woohoo!). I am very glad my job is at a university. Lot of good NYTimes articles are forcing me to pay the 99cent monthly web-subscription. Leaving the U.S. has had the funny effect of making me care more about what is going on there. Yet I am still very worldly in my choice of literature.

Sorry I haven’t gone on any worldwind adventures. We will see what happens when I start going into the favelas for my work. In the meantime, I will try to be more observant.

P.S. Just saw a little kid accidentally pop his balloon. His big brother then gave him his balloon. Power of the brothers!

This week I had the opportunity to meet some people who, like me, left the US to work internationally, and they have continued to work on international projects. They came with the Notre Dame Kellogg Institute and brought together some local academics with social initiatives.

A Sociologist named Marcio is studying two (k-12) schools in Rio. These schools are across the street from each other and they are both public. The difference between the two is that one school is all white and the other is all black. All the black students and teachers are from the “Community”** and all the white students and teachers are from middle class neighborhoods. The white school performs much better than the black school… Stopping here because I don’t know anything else, but I was not surprised to here about this situation.

I know it is not fair to Brazil to give this tiny excerpt without any context, but in the grand scheme of this blog (correspondence), I think it will even out. Anyways, this is similar to the stuff I’ll be studying, accept it will be less comparative and more focused on the particular challenges of the poorer of these two-examples. I am excited to meet and work with the people that are facing these challenges and their poverty with tons of courage and determination in the face of such a disadvantage.

I still haven’t gone into any of the favelas where I will work, but the vast majority of the people in the wealthier neighborhoods have never stepped foot in one. The farthest anyone can possibly live from a favela in Rio is about 2 kilometers.

** The shantytowns or slums have been called favelas since they started to sprout up in Rio around the early/middle 1900s. Now with over 600 (in Rio), from 3k to 70k residents, Favela is no longer a politically correct term due to the connotation of the word, based on stereotype and prejudice. They are now referred to as “communities.” The word “ghetto” is a decent parallel.