Fenadoce

A while back, the ETAs in Pelotas told us about a festival of doces that was going to occur in June. At the time, they did not have a lot of information, but I was excited. A festival of sweets? Count me in.

Pelotas, RS is famous for its sweets. Since Rio Grande is about an hour from Pelotas, doces de Pelotas are everywhere. Even the three snack shops at FURG sell a variety of them. Catherine and I have decided that doces de nozes (it is like a pecan truffle thing) is one of the best. The doces de amendoim (peanut truffle thing), is at the top of the list as well. Of course, I was excited to go to the festival, but I had no idea what to expect besides lots of sweets.

After waiting in line, two friends, Jake, and I entered Fenadoce and we were met by carnival rides, a giant building, and food tents. It was incredible. The building alone was gigantic. It housed booth after booth of people selling food, books, all things Gaúcho, clothes, blankets, and more. Additionally, other booths had travel and business information. Behind the booths sat the Cidade de Doces, the city of sweets. Set up as a mini town with little storefronts lining the indoor streets, place after place were selling doces. It was amazing. Our friends even bought us a cuia (the chimarrão cup), and engraved it: Lembrança dos amigos do Alegrete (A reminder of your Alegrete friends).

Jake and me in front of Cidade de Doces.

Cidade de Doces
I forgot to mention that the mascot of Fenadoce is an ant...

Jake found a giant cuia that he wanted to take home.

Doces
The doces de nozes are the milk chocolate and white chocolate covered sweets in the middle.

The doces even look like the Brasilian flag.

Once we had eaten our weight in sweets, we moved to another small building. As we sat and drank quentão (warm, spiced wine), we watched a group perform typical Gaúcho dances. Although the entire event was incredible, I was done eating doces for a while.

The Brunch Bunch

I love Brasilian food. However, I have been missing U.S. food lately. Additionally, I wanted to do something nice for all of our friends here. So, I decided to have a Saturday morning brunch for everyone. (First, I had to explain what brunch was.) 

I was not sure what to expect, but we heated up the griddle once people started to arrive and made batches and batches of French Toast and pancakes. I also made cinnamon apple syrup and heated up some strawberry syrup. Since the house used to be a restaurant, the griddle was relatively big (six lines of flames) and we made enough food to feed 17 people within a few minutes. Amazing!

 

Everyone at Brunch

Afterwards, I taught the Brasilians that were over to play B.S. and Slap Jack. My hand was definitely red for a while. Then, we moved outside and played a giant game of Ninja. Once everyone had the hang of it, we played several games, getting quicker each time. By the end, the best ninja was Wesley, and all you saw were hands flying everywhere.

I AM THE NINJA!

Who is the Ninja?

Ninja dive!

Definitely would call the day a success!

It's June...?

Wow! It's already June. The last month has flown by, and a windy, humid cold has started to settle in. Coming from Michigan, I thought maybe I would be able to handle it. I was wrong!

The weather fluctuates between cold and freezing, which is intensified by our non-insulated house with no inside heating. We finally got heaters, but because of the lack of insulation, the rooms don't really stay warm unless the heater is on, meaning we live in a house that stays between 55-65 degree Fahrenheit. The rain also makes it colder. The colder it is, the harder it is to dry clothes and everything else.

Jake and Catherine both didn't believe that it got cold here. Jake didn't bring a winter coat, even though I told him it would be freezing, if not drop below, during the month of July (since the seasons are reversed). So, Catherine and I have been on multiple expeditions to find warm clothes. For some reason, it is harder than it seems. We've made our way to the mall in Pelotas, and walked around Porto Alegre.

Other than that, work has been great! My students are amazing, and they seem to be enjoying the conversational class and are motivated to learn English.

Additionally, I have started to take Libras (Brazilian Sign Language) classes, as well. I am thinking of even starting a research project looking into Deaf culture here in Brazil.

Jake has also made a new friend. The friend does not really speak English, and Jake has only been learning Portuguese for about a month. Yet, somehow, the two are constantly talking about something or another. The met on a Thursday night, went running together on Saturday, and then had an impromptu churrasco. By the end of next month Jake will be speaking Portuguese and his friend will be speaking English at this rate.

Chui

Today, a group of friends and I headed to Chuy, Uruguay. We had been hanging out the night before, watching movies, and talking. But, we were planning on leaving at 7am the next morning. So, by the time I went to sleep and woke up, I had slept for maybe 45min. Let’s just say I slept almost the entire way there. Along the way, we only stopped to grab some food once. I was surprised that we didn’t have to stop anywhere for customs. When we arrived, it began to make a little more sense. Chui/Chuy is actually two towns in one. Half of the town is Chui, Brasil; the other half is Chuy, Uruguay.

Standing on the border of Brasil and Uruguay.

I had been so excited to finally pull my Spanish back out, that I was confused when people started speaking to me in Portuguese. Also, I was thrown off by the fact that most of the stores were “Duty-Free” stores that used USD for the price, but mainly worked with reais and Uruguayan pesos. Anyway, it was a lot of fun, and definitely an experience. 

All of us eating lunch.

Work Hard, Play Hard

After a week of classes, working, and little time for a social life, we finally were going to have time to relax and hang out with friends. Friday was one of our friend’s birthday, so after some chimarrão and work, we headed over to our old living accommodations, the hotel, to say happy birthday and celebrate. It turned into amazing pizza (the second day in a row, because I made homemade pizza the night before), and Happy Birthday being sung in three languages, five different ways. After, we headed to the store to buy ingredients for sobremesas (desserts).

Catherine and I had been craving desserts all week, so I decided that chocolate fondue with fruit was in order. However, this is not exactly what came out. Instead, as some friends met us at our house, I made chocolate and coconut covered bananas to eat with our vihno tinto. Chocolate and wine, the best combination ever. In addition, we played some music and ended up dancing bachata, which I had been missing a lot.

Chocolate and coconut covered bananas.

The next day was spent relaxing before heading out to celebrate our friend’s birthday again. We went to watch several bands play forro, and had a blast! However, as Catherine and I were tired we decided to head home. About an hour later, Catherine received a phone call and life got crazy.

Catherine comes to my room and explains we had 7 guests on their way over. We frantically starting counting beds and figuring out where everyone was going to sleep. By the time everyone arrived, we were all set to go, only to find out half decided to head home and there were only 4 guests.

Sunday was relaxing once again, and I decided I needed to read. We felt bad that we were unable to see our friend that had just returned from break (a week into the semester), but due to timing, we hung out at home, and I stayed up till 7am Monday morning reading. Obviously, that hadn’t been the plan. So, Monday was a little more difficult to work than I had anticipated. But, I started and finished two books. So, maybe it was worth it…

By the time we made it to campus, it was lunch time. We ran into our friend and ended up following him to the mechanical engineering office. (Yes, most of our friends are studying mechanical engineering.) Surprisingly, the office was fun. We hung out and I ended up seeing Wesley’s project, a go-kart that he is building. Also, he made sure that I received one of the best gifts from his mom! After being made fun of for putting hot sauce on everything in Maceió (and apparently more in one sitting than anyone they know), she made me my own bottle of hot sauce! We have to wait to try it, but I cannot wait!

See all the peppers? So excited!

At the end of the day, I was exhausted, and passed out for a while before having the strength to go home. When we arrived home at 10:30ish, we decided it was a good time for bauru. Earlier in the week, we found an amazing bauru place at the beginning of our road. Let’s just say, if we don’t watch it, we are going to get fat quickly. 

Bauru Number Two!

Language Barrier

How do you communicate when facing a language barrier?

After a five hour bus ride and half of a day flying, I finally arrived in Maceió to visit my friend, Wesley. One of the first things he told me was that his mom wasn’t sure how we were going to communicate.

When we walked in the door, a lot of laughing ensued. Every sentence was followed by gestures of some sort. And, every time I was confused I looked at Wesley and everyone started laughing. Later, I met some other family members. Let’s just say meeting his family included a lot of head nodding, laughing, translating, gestures, and repetition.

Nevertheless, his brother and I found a way to communicate. Starting with shushing him, because he was being very loud (as in not speaking a word), we began a game trying to make the other person laugh or say something. We made faces at each other and then started having conversations in gestures. There were so many times we both wanted to burst out laughing. The ending score was 4-3. I won. I now know he loves everything on his hot dog. Additionally, his parent’s think we are crazy.

The first two days here were eventful. We were in the car a lot, and, apparently, I fall asleep every time. Now there is a running joke about me sleeping in the car. In addition, we ate tapioca (by the way, tapioca is not a pudding here. It is like a sandwich), watched the clear crabs run across the downtown area beach, and continued to meet more and more of his family (his grandma is hilarious). And, the next day everyone, including some of his extended family, headed to a house with a pool near some beach somewhere. We went to the beach, Wesley, his brother and I had freestyle swimming contests, and hung out in the ocean and pool all day.

Barra de São Miguel

As we were packing up for the day, Wesley’s mom asked if I thought the whole family was crazy. Honestly, everyone here is funny and super sweet. They might be a little crazy, but who isn’t? Haha.

Wait...What?

“Hi! What is your name?” A boy, about 9 years old, asked as Luan and I waited at the bus stop. Luan and I were on our way to Cassino to look at some potential houses, and we were discussing the prospects in English. After telling the boy our name, and finding out his was Wesley (I tried really hard not to laugh at this because I was thinking of our friend Wesley), the boy asked me for an autograph (which I though Luan was joking about), and if Luan would take him to the US.

“But, you are her husband,” the boy responded, as he gave Luan a strange look.

“No, we are just friends,” Luan laughed.

“But, you are in love with her. I can see it in your eyes,” was the response we received. Luan was laughing so hard that he couldn’t translate the comment. At the same moment the mother turned and yelled something about respecting others at her son. Of course, the next question we got involved me knowing origami. What a strange question and funny kid!

After getting on the bus and being told to follow him, Luan and I took our time paying the fare and sitting down. Still laughing, Luan explained some of the comments the boy had made, saying, “See, you are kind of like a famous person here.” And, apparently, I needed to give the boy an autograph. I ended up writing always follow your dreams on a piece of paper and handed it to him as we got off the bus.

Seeing the houses was another story. The first place we saw was amazing, minus the location. It used to be a variety of business before being turned into a house. And, we would have access to everything, including the restaurant kitchen and all the appliances inside (you should have seen my face when I saw it), a fire/stone pizza oven, a churrasqueira, a bar area, and then everything in our respective house. The lady was amazing and told us, even if we didn’t rent the house, we should go over there and have a churrasco. Her husband spoke Chinese, and she is teaching him Portuguese (she doesn’t speak Chinese by the way). It was an amazing experience! The second house was horrible, and I never want to go back. However, today ended with a plethora of stories that I am sure I will never forget!

On a serious note:

Today the ETA's were sent an email about remembering to be safe. In the last month, several crimes involving ETA's in Brasil had occurred. Hearing about this made me realize that anything is possible, and realize how grateful I am to have the friends I have here, and the life that has been given to me in this southern city. My friends always walk Catherine and me home at night, take bus rides with us early morning or late at night, help us find housing, etc., just to make sure we are safe. We are picked up all over town and sometimes I take for granted the kindness and generosity we are shown. Moreover, I hope that all the ETA's that have been victims of crimes in Brasil are doing better!