Salvador, Brazil
“How do you say, hada?” asked Fernando. “I’m not sure what you mean, sorry,” I replied. “For example, there is a plane flying late at night..” he says. “Oh a radar!”I said. “Yes, yes, that’s it. Every time I read it on paper I imagined you say it “hada. That’s very good to know.””
Fernando was a friend I met on the boat ride over to Itaparica. He learned English because he does geology type work (I couldn’t exactly understand, but something like that) and he said the American science journals are much better than Brazil’s.
“You are courageous,” he said. I asked him what he meant by that. “What you all are doing, traveling around the world. That takes a lot of courage. To go places where you don’t even speak the language, I don’t think I could do that. Someday I do hope to travel around South America,” he said.
Once I explained that the other girls I was with were people I had just met, that we were all from different places, he said again, “See? Courageous.”
Our conversation was interrupted by a phone call. “That was my dad,” Fernando said. “I told him that I was talking with some friends and he said he was coming to pick me up right away from the dock. He’s very….I don’t know how to say…” “Protective?” I asked. “Yes, very much. I was going to say that I could show you the way to the beach but since he’s worried about me, I guess I can’t,” he explained.
“The government, I don’t know what it does with its money. On the island of Itaparica the people’s only way of earning money is from the tourism. It seems like they should build a bigger dock. Everyone feels like they are wasting their time since it takes so long to get out there,” he said. “American’s are so much more concerned with time in general. In Salvador, everything is slow. Even the rest of Brazil is fast paced, always on the go. People in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo always make fun of people in Salvador. They say we are slow, lazy, we don’t want to work. We just call them gay!” he said, laughing.
I talked with Fernando all the way over to the island where his family lives. He was only visiting for a few days. He said he didn’t even go to Carnival because it isn’t new for him. I gave him my e-mail address and he told us where to take a cab to the beach. He was a very friendly and helpful guy, and just one of the wonderful Brazilian people I met.
Not every Brazilian is wonderful, obviously. The warnings about thieves held pretty true. Semester at Sea wasn’t just exaggerating. The first night we went out to Pelourinho, we were three girls in a mass of people. Dancing, drinking (not too much, since we were just three girls in a mass of people), and just having a blast walking down the street. The mood changed slightly as the night went on and people just got drunker and crazier. Everything was cool until a group of six to eight guys had me in their clutches, with hands in all of my pockets at once. I had absolutely no control, I was defenseless. They took my money, my shipboard card, my disposable camera. Whatever, that’s fine. They can have that stuff, it doesn’t matter. I just never want to feel that helpless again in my life. Luckily my friend Naveena had my hand so that we could stay together, and when she heard me scream she pulled me out. I almost slipped from her grip, though. It was terrifying.
What else do I choose to write here? There are millions of stories that I could be writing about, and it was just one port. I can’t even imagine the number of things that my friends back home will never know or understand about this trip. It’s just bizarre how different things are here. Having never been out of the country before this trip, I still feel like I must be joking around that I’m going around the world.
It’s amazing to think about the differences in cultures. Puerto Rico felt like a warm up for the other places we are going. Brazil, though, that was a culture shock. Not being able to understand what people are saying is so humbling. Why didn’t I try harder to learn some Portuguese before I left? What an American thing to do, just go to a country and assume you will be able to get around speaking English. No, Jessica, they speak Portuguese in Brazil. That’s a completely different language. The whole world doesn’t speak English. Of course I knew that, but knowing and experiencing are not the same things. Not at all.
I’m already beginning to learn that it’s not the things you see in countries that really matter. Sure, museums and churches are interesting to see, but they are just things. What matters are the people. The Brazilians that my friends and I met were so incredible, and even though we couldn’t understand everything they were saying, we got along pretty well between my friend Brittany’s Spanish and Luciana’s limited English vocabulary. We met up with them a couple of times after the first night we met, and my friends went around the city with them the last day and even met their families. Unfortunately (very unfortunately, in fact. ugh!) I missed out on that, but I still feel like they are good friends of mine now. I at least got to say goodbye to them before we left. If I ever go back to Brazil, I’m sure we would meet again.
Semester at Sea seems like a good deal, for tuition and travel. But now we are all going to want to come back to all of the countries, so we will probably be spending three times as much on travel than we would otherwise. Semester at Sea is such a tease.
One night after we made a cab driver very angry by not getting in his sketchy looking truck, a guy named Carlos came and said he would walk us to the elevator. “We are not paying you money to walk us,” we kept trying to clarify. “No, no, it’s no problem. Three girls walking down the street, it’s not good. Three girls and a boy, that’s ok. I’ll walk you.” While he was walking in the front with Brittany, practicing his English, Naveena and I talked about how we were so worried he was just going to want money from us when we got up there. “There’s no way he’s just doing this out of the kindness of his heart, right?” we wondered. “If I was just at home and someone offered to walk me I would be creeped out, he’s got to want money from us.” “That sucks that it’s like that. Why do we have to question it so much, and never believe that people are just genuinely nice?” I asked. So then we got to the top of the elevator and said we would be fine from there. “Ok, it was very nice to meet you, be safe!” he said.
As we were walking away we felt so bad that we didn’t believe him. He was just a very nice guy looking out for us. We met up with him the following days and he was very helpful to have around since he spoke English, on top of just being a friendly guy. “I’m like superman!” he said. “I’ll protect you girls.”
Although I had an excellent time, and I’ve got plenty of stories to share, I feel like I still need to break out of my shell a little more and really try to talk to people. Meeting people is hard for me to do in every day life, but being thrown first into the ship situation where you meet hundreds of kids, and then into countries where there is a language barrier, I feel almost exhausted by it. Sometimes I feel like I don’t have anything to say. Sometimes I don’t want to put in the effort to be friends with someone new. I have really got to work on that. I hope I’m not the only one who feels that way. What a ridiculous semester.
*again, wrote this for writing about travel. ive seriously got a ton of stories to share, for instance, a woman squirted us with her breast milk. i will tell you more when i see you in real life, or in emails. but this blog is not the best way to relay all information, I dont think. ill probably just continue with the things i write in writing about travel.
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