Fazenda Real

Yesterday two of my students who are a couple invited me to go with them to a place called Fazenda Real.  They said I could invite a friend so I invited Vilma to go along with me.  I was really excited when I got there to be in this super tranquil, relaxed, foresty place with a lake, tons of trees and no city noise.

Fazenda Real is about a 30 minute drive outside of Salvador and is going to be a gated community.  Now before you get a bad picture in your head with the words "gated community", let me explain more about this place.  It used to be a huge farm that was then sold to a developer.  The plan is to build a huge fence around the perimeter of the property, divide it into lots, but then also have a huge area of natural preservation that the residents can enjoy.  There is a huge, natural, fresh water lake, lots of virgin forest that will remain in place, and is being advertised as a place for environmentally minded folks to live.

Once completed there will be trails, a bike/horse/pedestrian path that goes around the lake (6KM), pools, a gym, a riding ring for horse-jumping, horses for anyone to ride, free fruits from all of the fruit trees there, and a lot more.  I'm not one for gated communities, but I was really impressed with this one.

In Brazil, well at least in Salvador, you have to live in a secure place.  People from the middle class and up live in buildings with 24 hour doormen and a security system to keep people safe.  So the idea of a gated community here is one of necessity, not luxury like in the US.

If I was going to stay here, I would definitely consider moving to Fazenda Real. It's going to be a little oasis for the folks who live there...a way to retreat from the craziness of the city.  

A snapshot of Brazilians

Here's another video by Os Tribalistas that I think is amazing. It really shows a snapshot of a wide range of folks here in Brazil...gives you an idea of the variety of people's lives. If you only watch one of these 2 videos, watch this one!

Amazing song

This is one of my favorite songs by a Brazilian band. It's a song about love and the band is made up of a group of folks who don't normally sing together, they just got together to record a couple of songs. They're called Os Tribalistas. I just love this woman's voice, and if you want to check out her solo stuff, her name is Marisa Monte.

Trying to stay sane

How does one stay sane amidst chaos? How can one be happy when there is so much craziness surrounding her? How can someone live life fully when she feels like she has no freedom?

These are some of the questions I have been asking myself recently. Do you have the answers?

Here are some statistics that I've seen in the news or heard about lately...
-50 murders have taken place in Salvador since January 1.
-There were over 2,000 murders that took place here last year.
-Every day at least 3 buses in Salvador are robbed. This means that robbers enter, armed, and steal money, cell phones and whatever else from everyone on the bus.
-Last Friday at 6:30AM on the hill by my house a woman was robbed by a couple. I walked down that hill on Friday at about 6:10AM.

I'm trying my damnedest to think positive, but it's becoming increasingly difficult when there is all this negativity around me. I'm going back to the US on March 5 and really want the rest of my time here to be spent in a positive manner, but it's been really hard on me. The only place I feel safe is in my apartment, and I feel like I'm experiencing symptoms of agoraphobia, not wanting to leave and go walk around outside.

I'm taking as many precautions as I can...taking more taxis, only walking with someone (usually Vilma), not staying out late, keeping to areas where there are lots of people around, and still I feel unsafe. The thing that is most frustrating is that you can never predict when some kind of crime or violence will occur. Any time of the day it could happen. I could get on any bus and that bus could be one of the three that day that get robbed. I could walk from the bus stop to my house and that could be the day that there is robber hanging around waiting for someone to rob. I hate the uncertainty of it all.

So if anyone has any suggestions, I would certainly appreciate it. I feel like I've tried everything I can think of and still feel really stressed out.

Goals for 2009

I don't like the words "New Years Resolutions" because they seem so black and white. Like you either do them and succeed or screw up and fail. Many a year I've promised myself to do all the cliche resolutions: lose weight, get more organized, save money, etc and have done ok for a couple of weeks and then just totally fell off the wagon. A few years ago I decided that I preferred to have goals for the new year. Things that I could work on and have in mind, but that if I mess up I don't just throw in the towel because I didn't fulfill the resolution. I like the idea of using the beginning of a new year as a new beginning to try to improve things about myself, I just don't want the pressure of a resolution to have to live up to.

That being said...here are some goals I have for 2009 in no particular order of importance:

-Drink more water
-Eat healthier
-Lose weight
-Make some positive steps in the direction of figuring out what my next career move will be
-Start learning Spanish
-Exercise more
-Save money
-Spend more time with friends and family
-Focus on things that make me happy, avoid things that don't

I think that's good for a start. I don't want to put too much pressure on myself as then I won't work towards any of these goals.

Happy 2009 everyone!

Naked guy

Just when I think I've seen everything and that nothing more here could surprise me, I see something that is just unbelievable.

Today I left my house at about 6AM to go teach an early morning class. There is a hill from my house down to the bus stop that goes along the border of a favela (slum). I generally avoid this hill because of safety concerns, but will walk down it early morning since usually everyone is still sleeping.

Anyway, at the bottom of the hill there are two ways you can go to get to the bus stop. One way passes the entrance to the favela and the other goes around a building so that you can avoid the entrance. I usually go this way to avoid the favela entrance. Today though, I got to the bottom of the hill and was looking at both routes and noticed that the non-favela route had a naked guy standing on the corner. I was faced with the decision: favela entrance or passing the naked guy. Which is worse?! i chose the favela entrance route. I just didn't want to walk anywhere near the naked guy.

So I walked the favela entrance route with no problems, got to the bus stop and was waiting for my bus, when I saw the naked guy walking along the street that runs parallel to the street I was standing on. Now let me say that this guy was absolutely naked and carrying nothing. No shoes, no underwear, no backpack or bag, just walking along as if being naked on the street was a perfectly normal thing to do. He also looked like he was flying an invisible kite....he was making arm motions that suggested this.

I want to point out that while Brazilians are a very laid-back and relaxed people in general, they are pretty conservative about nudity. Foreigners who think it's all free love and partying on the beach and who take off their tops to go topless swimming are met with strong stares and usually someone who quickly goes over and tells them to put on their clothes. It's just not accepted here to be naked in public. And yet here was the naked guy walking along like he did it every day (maybe he does?!) and that it was no big deal.

He passed by and my bus came, so I don't know the fate of the naked guy. But it was certainly an interesting thing to wake up to.

Bowling

Yesterday was another first for me here in Brazil. I went bowling. Now I´ve bowled on a number of occasions in the US, but I didn´t even know that there was a bowling alley here in Salvador until yesterday.

I called up my friend Mark to see if he wanted to hang out and he invited Vilma and I to go with him and his kids to a park that is right on the beach. He graciously picked us up in his car and off we went. The park we went to is a great place for kids (and adults!). There´s a basketball court, a place to skateboard or roller skate, a craft fair that is always there on the weekends, and a couple of large, plastic playground toys for the kids to play on. We hung out there for a while, drank some coconut water, and let the kids play around on the toys and in the sand. After some time passed Mark asked if we wanted to go bowling! It didn´t take a lot of arm twisting to get me to agree.

The Portuguese word for bowling is "boliche" and that´s what the sign said on the side of the building as we went in. The bowling alley is located a short drive from the park we were at, in a mall called "Aeroclube". Apparently back in the day Aeroclube was considered a really fashionable and fancy mall, but has been in various stages of remodeling for some time now and is basically abandoned. Folks still go there for the movie theatre, but that´s about it, or so I thought. Now I know that they still go there to bowl as well.

Bowling here is pretty much identical to bowling in the US except that all the lanes use gutter-ball-proof gutters and instead of paying by the game, you pay by the hour. But the computerized scoring, people jumping up and down and screaming, and that sound of the balls hitting the pins is exactly the same.

And I scored better than usual, 100 points!

Will I go back to bowl again? Probably not because it was kind of expensive, but it sure was fun!