Advertisement
Published: December 11th 2005
Edit Blog Post
Finally, finally, finally!!! I’ve finally returned to Brazil! And it has been a long time coming, too long really - it’s been seven years since I was last here as an exchange student. Even though I was very excited to return, as each mile passed by the more nervous I became about seeing everyone again and having to speak Portuguese. What will I recognize? More frightening, what won’t I recognize or remember - people, places, customs...?
We arrived at the airport in Recife with no one to greet us, which was a little disconcerting, despite having made arrangements with my Brazilian family. As we anxiously waited, Ben pointed to everyone in the airport questioning whether I truly remembered what my own family looked like! Twenty minutes later and starting to doubt myself, my two sisters showed up (seven years later, but they looked the same to me).
Well, it’s never fun when one has to confront disillusionment, but one just has to push on. Less than a minute after greeting my sisters, I had to come to terms with one of my own. While speaking Portuguese had become difficult for me (as I’ve had little opportunity to exercise it
these past years), I had hoped I would be able to get by with listening and understanding. That disappointingly was not to be the way. In fact, it feels as though I must relearn this language I once spoke fairly fluently - very frustrating!
Before I get any further, let me introduce you to my family that we have been staying with and then tell you about some of the fun things we have done during our first week.
Photo - Top Row (left to right): Arthur, Antonio, Silvinha, Aninha, and Junior. Bottom Row (left to right): Heather, Renata, and Ben.
Parents: Antonio and Silvinha Guimaraes
Children:
Aninha- 25 years old and works for Ernst and Young
Junior- 22 years old and is leaving for Disney World in a couple days to work there for 3 months
Renata- 20 years old and is a school teacher for a kindergarten class in a public school
Arthur- 15 years old and is in secondary school
After 36 hours of traveling, Ben and I didn’t wake up until 12pm on Sunday, and we woke up to a house full of people! The family had organized a large gathering for
our arrival with lots of great company and good food. Ben was able to try one of the most common and traditional dishes of Brazil called Feijoada. It is a bean dish (like a stew) with meat and tripe served over rice. With past experience, I learned to avoid the tripe, as for Ben, what he thought was a big piece of beef, turned out to be tripe. He tried it, said, “Ok I tried it,” and didn’t try it again. :-)
That night we gave gifts to the family that we brought over from the US. We bought Nalgene bottles and filled them with candy and trinkets for my siblings. We included some Bertie Bott’s Every Flavored Beans (from Harry Potter) and they were a big hit! They did have every flavor from blueberry to sardine and vomit to buttered popcorn. Ben wanted to share a part of his herritage so we brought "Some Dude's Fry Sauce" (a mayo/ketchup condiment famous in Idaho) and "Idaho Spud" candy bars. We also put together a photo album for them with pictures of Ben and I over the last few years and pictures of our family.
Monday we got out
of the house and Junior took us to the Mall - the second largest in Brazil with five different banks and a cash exchange store - and would you believe it, not one place would exchange our AAA Visa traveler’s cheques. Apparently, the only place to exchange our traveler’s cheques in Recife (a town of 1.5 million) was at the airport. Once we got that taken care of, we stopped off by the beach to check out the view of the ocean. Unfortunately, there are shark warnings for Recife’s beach so swimming isn’t highly recommended! However, there are many beaches not too far away that I’m told are shark free. After that we went home and had Jaca (Jack fruit), one of my favorite Brasilian fruits! Ben thought it was a little unusual at first, but he enjoyed it. The picture here is the fruit cut in half. When they cut it, there is a milky substance in the middle that is as sticky as tree sap, so you usually wear gloves when dealing with Jaca (or you have to use oil to get it off your skin!)
Tuesday we went to a city about 10 minutes north of
here named Olinda (which means “the pretty one”) and it was absolutely gorgeous. It is home to one of the world’s most known places to celebrate Carnival. We stopped off at a couple of beaches and checked out the center of town, which was on top of the hill, and we bought Ben his first água do coco or coconut water (and these are not just for tourist, locals drink them too). The coconuts are pick young and left unhusked so the liquid inside is still clear and the consistency of water - sweet and with a slight coconut flavor. Afterwards, you can open it up and eat the very tender coconut inside…yummy! We enjoyed the beautiful views and hit the road to our next destination. We hadn’t gotten very far when another driver shouted to Junior, to find out he was shouting that we had a flat tire. So we stopped the car in the middle of the road, Ben jumped out, took charge and changed the tire. I know I keep him around for a reason.
Our next stop for the day was a 30 minute drive to Forte Orange. It is a factory where kids of
the age of 4-9 squeeze oranges…just kidding - Sorry, Ben had to put that joke in. It is an old military fort right on the water that was to protect Recife from European invaders. Recife, which translated into English means “reef”, has an abundant reef system on the coast. So in order to get close to the city, ships had to traverse north past this military base and if the flag of the ship was not recognized, boom! - End of history lesson.
We have been thoroughly welcomed by the family, relatives, and friends - and let me tell you it’s a big family! So this first week has been overwhelming, exhausting, and wonderful. Ben’s sickness is still lingering, maybe it was the traveling or the change in climate, but he is slowly getting better. One thing that helps is an afternoon siesta (nap time) - It’s common in Brazil that after you eat lunch (the biggest meal of the day) you take siesta. With a full belly and the warm weather, it’s just what the doctor ordered - It’s great!
Slowly but surely my Portuguese is getting better. Ben is picking up new words day by day,
and it’s amazing how much he understands already and follows the conversations that go on around him. With only being able to say little, he’s already charmed everyone with his humor.
Well, thank you all for your comments thus far on our website, we have enjoyed hearing from all of you!
Love Heather and Ben
Advertisement
Tot: 0.075s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 6; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0446s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Morgan
non-member comment
I love your new travel entry heather!! Plus the pics are great!! Keep them coming and have a great time!!