Um Livro estau sobre um mesa

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translation of the title is "The book is on the table." apparently this is what people here say when they want to pretend like they speak English. They will just say this phrase over and over again to try to impress their friends that don't speak English. We have been having a good time harassing our Portuguese teacher by saying it in Portuguese

it seems that during those rare occasions when I have the time and the energy to write in my blog, the internet does not want
to work. Things are going well. Today we visited the favellas (sp?) or slums. One of the girls here is doing research on the
relocation project the govt is doing in the slums to move them into something more like the projects. She met a gentlemen at
one of the capoeira classes that has lived there for 20 years and he showed us around. It was something else. they have built
their homes over the water in sort of an artificial mangrove style out of what scraps they can find and many of them do not have electricity. Originally I am told they
were stealing electricity, but when the govt found out, they installed a meter and began charging for it. the toilets here usually
go right into the river, where many people also fish and swim. There is lots of trash everywhere. at certain times during the day the tide takes the water very
far from land and you can see people out in the rio catching shrimp by hand with nets. We found out that the govt has started
a relocation project to clear out all of the makeshift housing and move everyone into a sort of free condomonium. we spoke with
some of the people being relocated and everyone seemed to be pretty happy about it saying things like "it is hard but worthwhile."
brasilians it seems do alot with a little and despite very serious corruption in the govt have alot of social programs that
help the people and dampen the violence. Also food here is very cheap and you can find all classes sometimes eating together, which
is another thing that perhaps helps to dampen violence. racism is not so prevelant, but a sort of class and nationality prejudice is and that class
prejudice (because of the history of brasil) is often a noticable difference in race. despite these small differences there is
the overall concept of "we are brasilian and we are proud to be." the people here do alot with a little. for instance the classes we attend have run down
buildings and often times no a/c. the facilities have been very poorly maintained (they are currently going through renovations though)
with some buildings not even having clean drinking water. And this is at the college level, I cannot speak for anything below this.
One very nice thing though is that the school has a cafeteria where everyone (students, teachers, campus police, etc.) eats together and the meals are subsidized so it is only
$R 1.25 or about $US 0.75 per meal and they provide a balanced meal that changes each day and has more food than even I can eat.
the cafeteria is also one of the places on campus where one can obtain clean drinking water. I think this sort of program is
a very beneficial one. Perhaps even one of the reasons the teacher student relationships here are so much better than in
the states. I am learning alot about how food brings people together and the effects of removing something like slavery from
an economic plan without something to replace it. This reminds me greatly of the war on drugs. we want drugs off of the streets
but offer no alternative economic plan for the poor communities. If you remove an injustice you must put a justice in its place
to fill the void or you can actually make the problem worse than it was to begin with. I am learning so much so fast on this trip
and I know I have said that many times before, but it is just hard to process it all and then regurgitate it into writing.

many people can be seen sleeping on the streets or selling things like hand caught shrimp or hand picked coconuts from on the corner
and the govt doesnt give them hassles so long as they are not violent. In fact the police do not really bother much of anything
around here so it would seem. Alot of this I have come to realize is my own romanticized version of my surroundings seeing as
how this is all so exotic to me. There is a major lack of organization here and while it has its disadvantages and hardships
because of it, it also has some upsides. People here seem to be alot less greedy because of it. businesses don't think only of
the bottom line. things here are more people oriented than money oriented. that is not to say that we forget the people and they
forget the money, because this is not the case. I am just saying that the emphasis seems to be a little different. well I am going
to bed now, the internet is still not working so I will post all of this later.

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Photos

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corn flavored ice cream
It is actually really good

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Jessie isn't feeling well

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our homie josh we went dancing at the club and we got up on the speakers and danced... don't have any pictures of me up there though

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Kate and Erica on top of the speakers at the club

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the sloth that lives in our hotel