June 21st
Today marked the end of our first week in Brazil! We have been getting into a good routine with our classes and I really appreciate the low student-professor ration in our language class (about 10 students with a professor and two TAs). One of the TAs in our class, Mari, is very nice and she usually hangs out with us after class for lunch and helps us get off in the right direction for our excursions. At the end of class today we all went to eat a real lunch (only the second this week!!) in the cafeteria, before meeting up with our professors to walk to the Afro-Brazilian cultural center located in the neighborhood. We went there to learn more about Afro-Brazilian dance, one important one is happening tomorrow in town a few hours away as part of the Festa Juniha activities. It begins at midnight and goes until eight in the morning, not my cup of tea, but about half the people in our group are going to trek out there for the event! Today at the center we watched a documentary that the group had made about the community and listened to their lecture on the meaning of the rituals. It was a very interesting event, but unfortunately it was also located in a warm dark room after lunch…therefore it was very hard to pay attention to all of the lecture and stay awake! However, at the end of the lecture we all got up to practice the dance, called Jongo, that the community will be doing tomorrow. It was actually very hard! The steps were a bit complicated and the whole thing, music and movements, are based on the idea of competing rhythms, which for me was extremely difficult. I’m sure that you can all imagine me trying to keep up to fast steps with two drum rhythms in the background, while trying to clap my hands to yet another beat… it was fun but it was a mess.
At the end of the class our group milled around for a bit as everyone tried to figure out what people were doing that night and over the weekend. Our group is still in the early stages where everyone is very polite and wants to go with the majority, the only problem is that the groups lacks direction and it takes us a long time to get anywhere or do anything together. As is becoming a pattern, we split up by neighborhood (Perdizes and non-Perdizes) to head out. I went with Allison, Roxanne, and Genevieve to a good açaí place near Avenida Paulista and Consolação. Açaí is a Brazilian super fruit that comes from the Amazon. Here it is very popular in the form of a thick juice or like a frozen yogurt typically topped with banana slices, granola condensed milk or powdered milk (the last two very typical of the Brazilian desert palate which is very sweet!). Afterwards we walked home and decided to have a relaxed evening in the apartment.
Today marked the end of our first week in Brazil! We have been getting into a good routine with our classes and I really appreciate the low student-professor ration in our language class (about 10 students with a professor and two TAs). One of the TAs in our class, Mari, is very nice and she usually hangs out with us after class for lunch and helps us get off in the right direction for our excursions. At the end of class today we all went to eat a real lunch (only the second this week!!) in the cafeteria, before meeting up with our professors to walk to the Afro-Brazilian cultural center located in the neighborhood. We went there to learn more about Afro-Brazilian dance, one important one is happening tomorrow in town a few hours away as part of the Festa Juniha activities. It begins at midnight and goes until eight in the morning, not my cup of tea, but about half the people in our group are going to trek out there for the event! Today at the center we watched a documentary that the group had made about the community and listened to their lecture on the meaning of the rituals. It was a very interesting event, but unfortunately it was also located in a warm dark room after lunch…therefore it was very hard to pay attention to all of the lecture and stay awake! However, at the end of the lecture we all got up to practice the dance, called Jongo, that the community will be doing tomorrow. It was actually very hard! The steps were a bit complicated and the whole thing, music and movements, are based on the idea of competing rhythms, which for me was extremely difficult. I’m sure that you can all imagine me trying to keep up to fast steps with two drum rhythms in the background, while trying to clap my hands to yet another beat… it was fun but it was a mess.
At the end of the class our group milled around for a bit as everyone tried to figure out what people were doing that night and over the weekend. Our group is still in the early stages where everyone is very polite and wants to go with the majority, the only problem is that the groups lacks direction and it takes us a long time to get anywhere or do anything together. As is becoming a pattern, we split up by neighborhood (Perdizes and non-Perdizes) to head out. I went with Allison, Roxanne, and Genevieve to a good açaí place near Avenida Paulista and Consolação. Açaí is a Brazilian super fruit that comes from the Amazon. Here it is very popular in the form of a thick juice or like a frozen yogurt typically topped with banana slices, granola condensed milk or powdered milk (the last two very typical of the Brazilian desert palate which is very sweet!). Afterwards we walked home and decided to have a relaxed evening in the apartment.
Here is an example of some traditional Afro-Brazilian craft-work from the center
You should be super healthy after consuming all that acai while you are the!
ReplyDeleteI really like the artwork you posted, so colorful and happy. So how did Jonga dancing turn out?