Six Months in Paradise: Baia de Todos os Santos

The bus prices went up from 2.50 to 2.80 this week, so I've decided to walk the hour to school at least once a day to save money. This evening, coming home, I decided to stop for acarajé, a typical Bahian street food made from fried beans in dendê (palm) oil. It's been less than 10 minutes since finishing it and already my stomach is making strange noises. It has the same amount of calories that a normal human being consumes in one day.

This weekend I went on a boat trip for the day around Baía de Todos os Santos (All Saint's Bay), which is apparently the second largest navigable bay in the world. It was beautiful, even though it rained a bit, so I've put up a few pictures. Also, when we were docked at an island, another boat came by with a white cross on top. It was filled with women (and some men) dancing as part of a ritual in Candomblé, which is an Afro-Brazilian religion practiced by some here in Salvador. The video is below.

In other news, the teachers are still undecided about the strike, with a few already on strike and some completely against it, which leaves us students in a discouraging situation, some people having only one class out of five. The students here are talking about going on strike, some are saying to support the teachers, others in order to improve other aspects of their education, but everything is still up in the air and uncertain. One last little comment about the education here: Today I had a test and the teacher decided to put us in pairs! Another thing I've noticed during tests is that an enormous number of people cheat, about half the class (but it could be that just my class has an abnormal high number of cheaters). And also, there are almost no final exams. In Canada, after classes end, we have about three weeks of exam period, but here, the tests are during normal class time and when classes are over, that's it, there's no final exam that goes over everything you learnt that semester. No stress.