I'm in a city called Caruaru, slightly into the interior of Pernambuco. The coast here is beautiful; green, rolling hills, cane and coconuts swaying in the breeze. It's only a short trip inland before everything turns brown, rocky. But this isn't the sertão, yet. That doesn't truly begin until Arcoverde, further interior still. The city survives on clothing. Yesterday was the day of the Tuesday street fair, and epic weekly event that the city lives and survives on. The night before, there was an energy in the streets of anticipation. Push carts lined the sidewalks and sleeping bodies lin [View Full Entry]

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The past (month?) has blurred together in a whirlwind of traveling, as I crossed through Bahia, from Bom Jesus da Lapa to Chapada Diamintina, to Salvador, and exited into the northern coastal state, Sergipe. The common thread that ties these experiences together is tourism. Bom Jesus da Lapa, my first stop. A long one. I waited here for the arrival of a new camera, and due to some difficulties with the mail in the interior, ended up stuck there a week. The city is a Catholic tourism destination, the second largest in Brazil, and during certain festivals recieves millions of tourists. [View Full Entry]

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Foremost. The other morning I lay dreaming. In the dream, I was traveling and reflecting on my experiences, transcribing my thoughts onto paper. Gradually, the sunlight filtering in through the mosquito netting draped over my bed and the ongoing calls of roosters brings me into consciousness. And I realize that reality is far stranger than anything I could have possibly dreamnt. My location, a small village of roughly 300 people called “23,” deep into a rural zone of southern Bahia. How I arrived here. Wednesday morning, I awake in Manga, make a mad dash to the river bank to cli [View Full Entry]

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I bang out these words on a beaten keypad, in an internet café in the city of Manga, named for the mighty fruit, the manga (or mango). The region is full of said fruit, albeit it early in the season, and they dangle like green potatoes or giant lima beans. Popular myth suggests there is a danger in approaching the mango at this time - in Itacarambí I met a woman who claimed her 4 year old cousin died last Sunday from just this. Temperamental fruit, it should never be eaten with pork, eggs, of milk. So I wait, and unfortunately [View Full Entry]

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Traveling without an itinerary is freeing. At the same time, it can be exceedingly difficult to buy your bus ticket without a destination. I left the uninteresting town of Capelinha and headed to Turmalina, 40km north. The further I travel in this direction, the hotter it gets, and the city was toasty. I spent most of my time in the city sitting around the central plaza - which always contains at least 3 elderly men passing the time. One directed my to the Hotel Turmalina, an old building built behind a residence. Maria and her husband run the hotel. Maria is [View Full Entry]

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I left Diamantina headed toward a point on the map- the city name was in bold which meant that it was a muncipal, larger then a village, but smaller then a city. It appeared to be a short distance on the map, so needless to say, 3 hours later chugging along a dirt road, I realized it might be more then I bargained for. After arriving I sought out the local pousada and wandered a bit around town. The place was dark and empty, and the people I passed on the street (some on foot, many on horseback)stared at me with [View Full Entry]

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I left BH after a wild night out, culminating in me wandering through the worst neighborhood of downtown Belo at midnight - at one point a man wandered past me, clutching at a towel wrapped around his arm, soaked in blood from a recently inflicted wound. On the bright side, this has imbued me with a heightened confidence that some may call naiveity. Thursday was Brazilian Independence day, so for the holidays, some of my friends had planned to visit a fazenda belonging to a friends family. Only 100km North of Belo, the countryside took a drastic change. The lush rolling [View Full Entry]

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After more then 4 months here in Belo Horizonte, I'm departing. In due course, I´ve spent the past days saying my goodbyes - and realizing exactly how many people I know here. My work has brought me into contact with a huge number of people as I found myself working with some 200 children. Perhaps it speaks to the hospitality of the Brazilians, or perhaps it´s just my good luck that I´ve had the opporunity to meet so many fascinating people. But let's rewind. A quick summary of "what I did on my summer vacation." I arrived in Brazil without any [View Full Entry]

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I´ve been here in Brazil a little over 3 months now. I´ve tried to avoid writing too many of my subjective interpertations here, and let friends and family draw their own conclusions from the observations. But true objectivity is a myth. Suffice to say that everything here is so drastically different that it´s impossible to communicate, even between my own eyes and brain. This drastic difference could be most accurately described as differences in culture. With everyday allowing a further grasp of the Portuguese language, I´m understanding more. It´s neither good nor bad, but the experience of [View Full Entry]

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I woke up today covered in bugbites from some unknown critter that lives in the room and feeds on me everynight. No one else in the house has this problem - it must be my rich foreign blood. But immediately it calls to mind the expression of sleeping tight and not letting the bedbugs bite, to which I´ve been puzzling over how one sleeps tight, and how exactly you can not "let" them bite you. I guess eventually the bastard will get full. I´m trying to eat lots of fat to clog his little bloodsucking head. As everyone is probably aware, [View Full Entry]

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