Pelourinho and Mercado Modelo

In front of the Elevador Lacerda, with view of Bahia de Todos os Santos

Looking out from Mercado Modelo

Boats in Bahia de Todos os Santos

Bahia de Todos os Santos

Looking up to Cidade Alta from the Cidade Baixa

By Elevador Lacerda, Forte de São Marcelo and Mercado Modelo in bacground

Walking down the streets of Pelourinho

Pelourinho, next to Casa de Jorge Amado

Casa de Jorge Amado (blue) in Pelourinho

Fire Ants

Taken from Fire Ant Sting Allergy - ACAAI on March 30th, 2012:

"The severity of a fire ant sting reaction varies from person to person. One of the main differences between fire ants and other insects is that a usual sting event consists of multiple fire ants stinging. This is because when a fire ant mound is disturbed hundreds to thousands of fire ants respond. In addition, each ant can sting repeatedly. Each ant will bite and hold on with its mandibles (jaw) and sting several times. If not removed, this results in a little semi-circular pattern of stings. Since fire ants hold on with their mandibles, they often have to be pulled off individually and are not easily brushed off when they are stinging.

Almost all people stung by fire ants develop an itchy, localized hive or lump at the sting site, which usually subsides within 30 to 60 minutes. This is followed by a small blister within four hours. This usually appears to become filled with pus-like material by eight to 24 hours. However, what is seen is really dead tissue, and the blister has little chance of being infected unless it is opened. When healed, these lesions may leave scars."

http://www.scottsdale-pest-control.com/fire-ants.html

So this is what I got while at an outdoor show on Saturday night. Up until now, it hasn't itched too much, but for whatever reason, tonight my feet are itching like crazy. If I were to put down a list of reasons why Canada is better than Brazil (or vice-versa), lack of fire ants would definitely be one of them. But, after doing some research, I've quickly found out that a species of European fire ant has already invaded Canada. See link: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2010/06/16/f-fire-ant-faq.html

Well, now that I know there's fire ants in Canada too, no reason to come home now!

UFBA Law Students on Strike

Just to give you a quick update on some news in Salvador:

UFBA Law Students on Strike

The link is in Portuguese, but basically it tells you that the law students at my university (Universidade Federal da Bahia) are on strike. Not because of the rising tuition rates (which are 0$ because it is a government funded state university), but because of the failing infrastructure. I think they have complete reason to be on strike (and not just the law students, I would support a strike if the rest of the faculties decided to strike as well). The Polytechnical school isn't as bad, as it's a newer building, but in some of the faculties it's pitiful. The bathrooms are ... not always hygienic. It's strange, but in most of them the toilet paper is outside of the stall, so in the bathroom, for the five stalls, there is one big roll of toilet paper that everyone takes a piece of before going into the stall. I have no idea why they don't just put toilet paper in each stall, because it just means that we run out of toilet paper more often. The other thing is that the toilets don't always flush, and as I've said previously, we can't put toilet paper down the toilet, it has to go into the garbage next to the toilet, which of course adds to the unpleasant smell in the bathrooms. Another issue is the lack of soap - not all bathrooms have it - which is why I have a constant supply of sanitizer on hand.

Other issues: electricity (lights don't always work), there are cracks everywhere in the walls, lack of water in certain buildings on certain days). At least most of my classes have air conditioning (most, but not all).

In the commentaries of the articles, some people said that it was an embarrassment for the students to be on strike, while one student said that they had to strike before the ceilings fall down, and another said God bless these students! At least things are moving in the right direction (I hope) as Tuesday they will negotiate with representatives of the university.

Sunday Morning

For aesthetic purposes, I've decided to put more pictures of Brazil from my first exchange up, since I still can't upload them from my camera (but I'm working on it). My Saturday was spent at a beautiful house in Lauro de Freitas (a city just outside of Salvador) listening to guitar-playing and singing, while accompanying on drums (more specifically, tam-tams, I'm intent on becoming a professional tam-tam player by the time I get back to Montreal so I can spend my Sunday's at Parc Jeanne Mance). I think we spent about four to five hours straight of just playing music (after a delicious lunch of course: Brazilian feijoada, which is a typical dish of black bean stew with beef and sausage poured over rice). Later on, we went to the "Lavagem de Arembepe", a party that normally occurs 15 days after Carnaval in the small municipality of Arembepe. It was a bit like my Carnaval replacement, since I arrived too late in Brazil for Carnaval. There was a lot of people, and a lot of arrocha-style dancing. If I were to have taken a picture, it would look more or less like this: 

Walking back to the car after the festa, I managed to step in an ant hill. It was a good reminder for me to never walk relatively close to bushy areas, and that ants in Brazil (the ones I met, anyways) bite. Today I was planning on trying some body boarding for the first time, but it is pouring outside right now, which might even be a good thing because I am already starting to have a lot of schoolwork to do. 

Despite the title of my blog, and the fact that my exchange is going really well, I'm still missing everyone in Canada and feel lucky to be born a Canadian. So for some of you, don't worry, I don't plan on living here forever (just a very long time). 

Houses in Cidade Baixa (Low city)

Praia de Jaguaribe (Jaguaribe Beach)

I haven't been updating my blog as much as I'd like to this past week, partly because of my frustration at my camera (it won't let me upload pictures onto my computer), and partly because the days seem to fly by. There isn't too much exciting news to report anyways: today I had my first meeting with the professor at the Polytechnic University. He gave me a very broad mandate of researching as much as possible on the geology of Bahia, that will be of interest to engineers.

For example, in 2008 in a small city in the interior of Bahia (Lapao), there was a geological event causing a number of cracks and fissures in the town, as well as damage to several houses. This area covers a karstic aquifer formation, in simplified terms, the types of rocks in the area are susceptible to forming underground caves. It's actually quite similar to the geophysics project I worked on in Quebec, where there were large sinkholes forming in the region, in close proximity to houses, and many people were evacuated while the city investigated the causes. I'm expected to work a minimum of two hours a day on this project, and presently it's not remunerated. I've heard from other students that sometimes to start there's no pay, but afterwards the professor manages to find funding. Even then, the average pay for students working part-time at the university is only 300 reais (around 180$) per month.

There is an obvious lack of funding at the university. The good side is that tuition is free for Brazilians who get accepted into the state university and no one pays for their school books (the main method to get the reading material is either illegal downloading or the library), whereas the bad side is that the books at the university are very outdated; 85% are from the 1950-60s, and the few good ones they have are for reference only, so you can't take them out. I really enjoy all of my classes however, and my only complaint is the few teachers who show up late and end their class an hour early without reason. Also, today I discovered the RU (University Restaurant). Before this, I always ate lunch at the Institute of Geosciences (which cost me between 5 - 10 reais a meal), but today I discovered that lunch at the RU costs only 2.50 reais and is an all you can eat buffet which includes juice and dessert! The lineup is pretty long though ...

This last weekend I went to the beach and to the historic part of town called Pelourinho. I would put pictures up, but as I mentioned earlier, my camera is broken.

Two Weeks

Now it's been two weeks since arriving in Brazil and the time is starting to fly by. So far, I haven't had too many cultural mishaps, at least I think not, except for two that I'll mention here.

1) The kiss on both cheeks: I'm still not sure when and where it's appropriate, and it's even more confusing because everyone is different. Sometimes it's when meeting people at school, others will just do one cheek and a hug. I made the mistake of greeting the maid with a kiss on the cheeks, which of course is a no-no. You don't kiss the help!
2) Putting toilet paper in the garbage bin, and not the toilet: I really should have remembered this from last time, but it took me a full week before I remembered that the Brazilian toilet plumbing system cannot handle toilet paper.

Besides that, everything is going extremely well. The only frustrating thing is coming to school at seven in the morning only to find that the class has been cancelled, or the teacher coming thirty minutes late (which is surprisingly common). But as long as I adjust my schedule to Brazilian time, I think I should be fine. More good news is that I already have work helping to translate a Master's thesis, and am going to be helping the professors at the Polytechnical School with a project they are working on to unify the Institute of Geosciences and the Engineering Department.

And to the delight of my host grandfather, I am gaining weight at a considerable rate.

It's like he told me tonight:

"Sò cachorro gosta de osso, Susi!" Translation: "Only dogs like bones, Susi!"

The First Week Comes to a Close

I guess it would be pretty dishonest of me if I pretended that the next ten months are going to be pure paradise. Sure, I could stay in the apartment I am presently at, with personal trainers for the gym, for swimming lessons, tennis lessons, and spend the rest of my days (at least when I'm not at school) sunbathing by the pool, having breakfast served to me without even having to lift a finger, my clothes washed and folded and returned to me daily, watch Brazilian soap operas while on the treadmill. It almost feels like a resort. But I didn't come here to go to a resort.

View from my bedroom window

This first week hasn't exactly been paradise either, despite the luxurious living conditions. I've had my painful sunburn to deal with, a bad case of pink eye, and some unpleasant food poisoning. My host family seems to think it was the acai I ate that day, but I'm not so sure. Acai is a fruit which grows in a species of palm tree in the Amazon. I've tried it at Booster Juice in Canada, but it is so much more delicious in Brazil. It's eaten in a bowl and tastes a bit like a berry smoothie, and often comes with sliced bananas and granola on top (see picture below). 

Acai in Bowl (Source: http://www.sabetudo.net/tudo-sobre-o-acai.html)

Here is another picture I forgot to put up with my last post, it's a close up of coffee beans from the coffee plantation in Fazenda Bonito.

And to end this post with some interesting and informative reading, I've included a link to an article from the New York Times a friend shared with me. It goes to show just how real the Tropa de Elite II movie is (a must-see film on the corrupt police force in Rio de Janeiro!)

In Brazil, Officers of the Law, Outside the Law

The First Day of School

The first day of school consisted mainly of me getting lost various times going back and forth, walking around  hoping not to get mugged and finding out that class had been cancelled for the first half of the day. Not only that, but it was 36 degrees Celsius and although I had put sunscreen on, my sunburn was getting a lot worse.
Here's one last picture from my weekend at the Fazenda Bonita, after this I'll try to take some pictures at school. Even though the university is a bit rundown, I really like the campus. The entrance into the school of architecture is beautiful, lots of tropical trees, flowers and little monkeys running around.

Me with a coffee plant at Fazenda Bonita

One of the many beautiful trees at the fazenda (farm in Portuguese)

The view coming into Sao Paulo

Tractor at the Bonito Fazenda

Future Coffee (to be planted in July)

Red dirt road

Lime tree

Elevante flower (supposedly good to make tea)

Close-up of flower, it smelt delicious

Orange tree

I believe this was an avocado tree

It's 12:55am and I'm sitting here contemplating my first weekend in Bahia. The plane ride wasn't too long, even though I only slept about two hours during the 25 hour trip (they had a really good selection of movies ... if you ever get a chance to watch the Brazilian movie Tropa de Elite II you should watch it - it's an amazing movie that's based on the military police unit based in Rio de Janeiro). On the plane ride to Salvador I sat next to someone who will be married in a few short weeks. She was in Sao Paulo to pick up her custom made wedding dress, and she actually bought an extra seat on the plane just for her dress (I didn't have the courage to ask her how much it cost - but if it was worth an extra seat, it must be quite a bit).
Arriving in Salvador, I was hit by a wave of humidity - I really forgot how hot it gets - and the amount of traffic there is. There is also a lot more construction and buildings then there was last time I was there. There is a lot of development going on (probably in part related to preparation for the big wave of tourism coming for the Fifa World Cup and Olympics in 2014/2016) and a lot more cars on the road. The metro however, which has been in the makings for over 10 years, is still not finished.
I ended up going to my host father's coffee farm for the weekend which is by the little city of Bonito (roughly 5000 inhabitants), a 5 hour drive outside of Salvador. We arrived Saturday afternoon, and I ended up learning a few things about the start up of a coffee farm (it's best to plant in the rainy season, etc.). It's a beautiful farm, roughly 550 hectares of land with lots of coffee plants and eucalyptus trees, but also mango, avocado, and lemon trees, horses, peacocks, and chickens. I've attached some pictures to better captivate the beauty of the area. That night I dreamt of cockroaches the size of small rats, after waking up to the sound of scurrying feet on the floor. The next day was another day spent working on the farm, helping the workers dig the trenches where the new coffee plants will be put. I spent four hours out in the sun, and, not surprisingly, now have a very, very bad sunburn. Next time I will definitely wear sunscreen. I should probably be going to sleep as it is getting late and university starts tomorrow.

So here I am, in the Montreal airport, with 50 minutes to go until take-off.

I think I will begin this blog with a brief introduction of the history and culture of the area. So if you are purely interested in my day to day experiences and perspectives on the Brazilian culture, don't read this entry.

On second thought, Wikipedia can probably give a much better description then I can, so just click on the link if you're interested in details.

Salvador, Bahia

This isn't my first trip to Salvador, it will be my third. The first was during a Rotary Youth Exchange after high school. I spent eleven months going to a Brazilian high school and living with four different Brazilian host families. During that year, I truly felt as if my heart was Brazilian. I fell in love with the culture, the people and their way of life. I remember thinking, how I have never felt so much that I belonged somewhere, and that I had found my place in Brazil. I'm not the only person that this has happened to. I met many different people during my exchange year that had visited or worked in Brazil for a short period of time, and who had decided on moving there shortly afterwards.

A few people may have felt a bit frustrated after hearing me go on and on about how great it is there, as if it were the best place on earth. Now, five years have passed since that first trip. I wish I could say that with my new found maturity I have learned to move on, but instead I find myself returning back to the very same place I first set foot on after leaving home.