People here love Obama. I went home for lunch today, and Diego’s mother’s husband was there to eat with us, and I think I was actually able to more or less understand what he was talking to me about. He was asking me where I’m from, how I like Belém, what Philadelphia is known for, and so on. Then, suddenly, he just whips out this Obama pin and smiles. I thought it was hilarious. Plus, Brazilian TV likes to take pot-shots at McCain, it seems. Of course, it isn’t at all fun trying to explain how elections work in the United States to my Brazilian family either…
Last night we were actually able to 1) buy cell phones and 2) GO OUT. I’ve been looking forward to actually getting around Belém at night since the moment we got here. I was going to meet up with a friend at the Bosque and then hitch a bus (the friend speaks Portuguese, eu preciso de entender mais bom…), and we worked it out so that if we had trouble finding each other, we’d at least have cell phones. No dice, they didn’t work. After wandering around the meeting spot for 15 minutes, I decided to just take a leap of faith, and went onto the first bus that stopped nearby. I asked the driver if it was going to Nazaré Ave, seeing as people were going to get a ride from the Basilica, but he rambled something off in Portuguese so of course I had no idea what was going on. I figured it meant “Not now, on the way back”, so I had nothing else to lose and went for the ride. Lucky for me, it went up to the Ver-o-Peso Market, which is right along the entry to Cidade Velha, the old part of town, where the jazz club we were going to is located. So, using my grand Portuguese skills, I randomly asked people who didn’t look too sketchy where the Casa da Onze Janelas was, or, “Onde fica…” Needless to say I felt pretty lost, but eventually found the club. After that is was all good, about 10 of us or so showed up, and ended up having a few choppes and listening to some awesome music, and then went out to walk around near the river. Muita bonita.
In the end, my friends and I struggled with why our cell phones weren’t working for a copious amount of time. Eventually though, we embarrassingly discovered that we had been reading our numbers wrong on the package and mistook the 3 for an 8…wonderful. So, now, everything is in working order.
Today we all met with Gustavo to talk about initial ideas for our ISPs, and I actually feel pretty good about mine. Basically, a quick glance at my notebook from our meeting:
- Look into the Health and Happiness Project some more
- Works with about 140 communities along the river with linked health, forest economy, and community empowerment issues
- Communication infrastructure programs to improve access and delivery of healthcare
- Hospital boat (!sweet)
- Look into the FEA, small NGO dealing with modes of sustainable/appropriate technologies as a mode of community empowerment
- Do some research on health side of large industrial/technological projects and displacement/health/culture loss or gain
- Turuci (spelled wrong) Dam
- Large number of mining projects forcing caboclos off land
- Belemonte Dam in process of being developed (will be third largest dam in the world)
I also picked up Health Ecology: Health, culture, and human-environment interaction from our library to browse through over the next few nights, just to get a general overview of the subject. Right now, all we are supposed to be doing for the next 2 weeks is researching and zoning in on our ISP. I first need to understand the based of ecology-human health interaction before I can get into the specifics. But it’s all very interesting, and I also found an article called The Political Ecology of Famine in the Third World in the Liberation Ecologies book. Lots to do, so for tonight I’m just laying in the hammock reading. But its nice. And I’m sure there will be plenty to keep me busy this weekend.
Today is officially week 3 (maybe 4, I can’t quite remember) of my malaria pills. They’re illegal here in Brazil, only given out by the government in extreme outbreaks. The Brazilian doctor we met with basically told me that under his medical advice they are very dangerous and aren’t even that effective. Fantastic. Luckily I haven’t been cursed with any terrifying hallucinations, just one or two very surreal and sporadic dreams.
The funny think about living in another country is that not matter where you are, the sky always looks the same.
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