An unexpected vacation home in Pirapora

I'm taking so long to write in between posts I feel like I need to apologize to my readers - sorry Mom and Dad. For the past few years in Brazil, I've been going on mini-vacations to a city in the north of Minas Gerais to visit my boyfriend and his family. Though most people would describe the city as a small town with nothing to do, I have grown fond of it over the years. As a foreigner in Brazil, there is some charm to everything. For me, Pirapora represents not that touristic, historic city built from the bottom up by the slaves mining for gold like Ouro Preto or a beautiful beach city with dramatic landscapes like Rio de Janeiro. Pirapora represents a pretty common small town in Brazil. To have some insight into the daily life of these residents has been enriching, to say the least.

Araticum - the way to my heart.

In Pirapora, fruits come in every color of the rainbow and driving is not necessary. Walking and biking suffice. On that point, Pirapora has given a new definition of bike share for me. That is, two people on one bike. Thank God for my extra cushion in back. Friday nights are down by the river, where you don't need to make plans to meet up with anyone, rather, you just need to show up. The São Francisco river bank may host an outside mass, a zumba class...or the party bus route? I've yet to try that one. Now, did I mention the fruits? They come in all shape and sizes, and every season I visit, I look forward to discovering some new fruit I've never heard of, nor tasted, nor imagined could exist. Pequi? You either love it or hate it. I love it. Murici? A small yellow berry that looks like a mini guava. Buriti? Mama Maria makes a great sweet with it. Araticum? Only the best fruit in the world. I've never tasted a sweeter mango but for Ilan, it's nothing special, since he ate so much in his childhood, picking it up right off the streets when in season. All the better - more mango for me.

Ilan and his plants

We study identities and their construction in social sciences and we understand a person's identity by who s/he is and also by who s/he is not. That is the enriching part of being exposed to a new culture. You get the chance to look at your own culture in a different way - to see the difference and similarities, to understand how things can be done differently, and to reflect on the ways you have been doing things. Pirapora is a very different lifestyle than that of my childhood hometown. To see where Ilan grew up helps me understand a bit more about him. This is all so obvious, right? But to sustain a relationship between two people from such distinct contexts and cultures, it is essential. Needless to say, it's been a wonderful escape from my busy college town lifestyle in Viçosa. Thanks to fancy smart phones, I bring you a glimpse of Pirapora in less than a minute:

Rites of Passage

This past week, I have been especially reflective as my dear friend cautiously and yet fearlessly welcomed her newborn baby son into this world, two months too soon. The complications caused by the pregnancy has left everyone on edge and on their knees praying to our good God to show His true colors and grace Levi with attentive doctors and miraculous progress. At the same time, my 101 year old McGrandpa found himself in the hospital for some fractured bones that were preventing him from walking without excruciating pain. These two lives at bookends of my time scale, being the oldest and youngest people I know, made me think of the challenge that it is to enter and leave this world. Birth and death have never been easy or graceful things, as much as we would like them to be. But perhaps this is part of the rites of passage in order to prepare for the new world that we enter upon birth and upon death. The cycles of life continue, whether or not we stop to appreciate the moments. Yet I don't see these cycles of life as graceful as the sunrise and sunset, as smooth as a baby's bottom or as calm as my grandpa's spirit. Rather, I imagine these cycles of life as erratic as exploding volcanoes, as rough as the bottom of my feet and as boistrous as a Palmer Family Christmas party. For what purpose? To prepare us for the next life perhaps. Levi is a fighting warrior, in the words of his father, and my grandpa continues to joke from the hospital bed about being able to tune his dentures with a fork. Indeed, they are gaining their rites of passage as we speak.

[Viçosa] Time

Viçosa is nice. On Saturdays, there is some movement in the center, some people shopping for groceries, new shoes or just out to be in the crowd. There's sometimes a band playing the main square, too. Sundays, though, it's quiet. And the holidays, too. Only the bakeries are open. Oh and the churches. A couple of restaurants. Mondays at 8am there is traffic. And at noon. And then again at 2pm when people are returning from lunch. But the most traffic is at 6pm when everyone is out - leaving work or school and eager to get home. However, the most traffic on the running trail is at 7:30pm, as if everyone had planned that. Coming home at night, it is best at 10pm when people are getting out of their classes and you can walk home with a group of students. Biking in Viçosa doesn't have rules - just don't get hit. Playing soccer happens on Friday nights on that nice astro-turf, as long as it doesn't rain 3 hours before. How could I forget, for lunch on campus, there are two choices but at both of them you will eat rice and beans and salad and meat. There are all vegetarian options. Flowers bloom at different times and dusk brings a sound, smell and light across the campus lake.

Viçosa is a nice place to live, to study, to work, to have fun. But mostly, what gets me are the people. I think I could live anywhere in this world with some good people in my life. With that, I have been blessed. Good people hug away homesickness, funny people make you laugh at yourself, fun people get you to dance, determined people get you to study in the library, crazy people make you feel better about yourself, Hospitable people give you a comfortable bed and hot shower. Selfless people help you move apartments. Fit people share recipes with you. Loving people let you be yourself in whatever form. Faithful people get you to retreats. Understanding people listen without trying to solve. Needy people ask for help. And the best people make you food.

For me, people are what make a place and [X place] is nice, because indubitably there's one of these good people there, too. 

McDreamy meets McReality

You know, good friend, my dreams have been fickle in the past couple of years. They have been evolving, accumulating and proliferating. Some days these dreams are vibrant and full-pixeled. Other days they are cloudy with a chance of meatballs. Some days they involve writing for National Geographic. Other days they involve being a Portuguese teacher..no, maybe a Spanish teacher...or an English teacher? Or a tour guide? With a travel blog? One outrageous fantasy involves setting up a Brazilian food truck and selling exotic, gluten-free treats all over California, considering the nutty-granola customer base.

As this New Year begins, I set goals to write more often in my blog, replace the pudge for a six pack (no, not of beer) and pay attention to my own voice more acutely. I also find myself fumbly answering my dear friends and family when they ever-so-delicately ask me what I will do after I finish my Master's in Brazil this upcoming year. Well, with my loving boyfriend and I both in big job transitions, I don't have a better answer than the following: surrender. Surrender to the mystery of God's plan, surrender to the motion of life's dance, and surrender to what it really means to live one day at a time. Easier said than done, is it?

Now, this mesh of fickle dreams comes into question. Do they have to be full of unicorns and singing trees? Would they lose their McDreamy quality if they actually became attainable? What if once-distant dreams begin to surface and materialize? And if they are becoming more realistic, does that mean that I am coming closer to living the dream? One day at a time, Maggie, one day at a time...

(S)Winging It

I start this post with not a topic in mind, but a feeling. As I write, I'm not sure where I'm going exactly, but I'll just take a swing at it. Or maybe I'll just wing it.

It's my third year in Viçosa now and sometimes people are so surprised to still see me here. I myself surprise myself when I pause to think - what am I still doing here? I think I've been winging it for the last few years, taking it one step at a time and walking through the open door. That being said, I still have my moments where I'm not sure what I am doing here. I didn't expect this 9 month trip to turn into a third year, but here I am. When I get too lost in the thoughts of the future, when people ask me - so after you finish your Master's, what are you going to do? - when I just don't know, I like to pause and feel my pulse. It's a simple gesture that brings me back to the present moment, a moment that doesn't involve anyone but me, myself and my pulse. This pulse can go anywhere and as long as it goes, I am also going to go. I have my moments where I want to stop pedaling, where it feels like it would just be easier to stop pedaling, but then it wouldn't be as easy to feel my pulse would it?

Swing, batter batter, I may be winging it, but I'm still up to bat! Maybe after all is said and done, my greatest talent will be making terrible wordplay posts. If I got you to smile, I've at least done something with this keyboard.

Shitty First Drafts

I am reading a book recommended by my Auntie Kathy called Bird by Bird, Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Author Anne Lamott has been keeping me company on my return to Brazil, making me chuckle, even laugh out loud with her insights. Speaking of which, Lamott discusses how every writer's first draft is shitty. But the beautiful thing is that nobody needs to see it. We just need to write out our ideas and get them down on paper, no matter how ugly or shitty it may look. Great, I agree, but what about in life? Does this work in the same way? Can we write a second draft? A final?

I have come to find that I pretty much do everything wrong the first time. You know, like putting the car into reverse instead of first gear when I was first learning shift...on the freeway...three times. Or, bringing a new activity to my class and half-way into the lesson, seeing it not working. Or, saying things without thinking that really offend good friends. Or giving too much attention to a guy who could care less. Oh the list goes on! So, do we get a second draft? Can we scratch that out of our memory? We can't really, but we do get chances to do things again. If we can be a little easier on ourselves, a little more lighthearted about it all, we can shake off those first drafts and try a second time. If I can remember that life isn't about only me, but that I make up a piece of this Life game, it's a bit easier to try getting on the freeway again. It's easier to stand in front of a class again. It's much easier to be humbled and ask for an apology from a friend. And it's darn refreshing to open your heart to another lucky boy.

All this being said, we are all writing first and second drafts, all the time. Rather than in writing, we also expose these drafts to everyone around us, leaving us in quite a vulnerable place. So I say, be easy on your colleague, neighbor, friend, brother, lover, and help them make that second draft better. Encourage them to keep improving their drafts over and over. That is, we could all help each other be better-versions-of-ourselves day in and day out. Who's in? 

How Do You Take Your Coffee?

Most cultures that I can think of have a coffee culture. And every culture interacting with another's coffee is quite the comedy act of facial expressions, from pleasant surprise to masked looks of horror. Or, for example, my mother had a coughing fit after tasting Spain's coffee as she sips on a half-coffee, half-milk combination regrettably dismissing her lactose intolerance.

In my case, it was the pleasant complimentary coffee-shot offered after lunching in a Brazilian restaurant. A fan of anything free, I gladly accepted unaware of the sugar bomb about to hit my tastebuds. Yes, Brazilians take their coffee black with tons of sugar in it.

After spending almost two years of my precious 20's in Brazil, I must remark on how appreciative I am to have experienced how they take their coffee (described above), how they address one another (tudo bem?), how many types of dances other than samba they have (I lost count), how many baths they take a day (usually more than one), and how they feel about their government (no comment).

I had learned some of their cultural traditions by a repetitive practice of identifying through difference. They do it this way and we do it that way. They as Brazilians typically eat a larger lunch, we Americans typically eat a larger dinner. They eat rice and beans at lunch and we eat sandwiches or salads. They are relaxed about timeliness, we are punctual. They value time-off, we value overtime. Now these were ways of identifying a group of people in order to try and begin to chip away my understanding of what it is to BE Brazilian.

But what happens when you meet a Brazilian that doesn't take sugar in her coffee, that doesn't eat rice and beans everyday, that is very punctual and that is a workaholic? Now, there we start to get confused again of Brazilian identity. I would argue that these moments of confusion are more important than understanding the "typical" Brazilian. Perhaps that is obvious, but I feel that each time I learned a friend had atypical Brazilian practices (from my topical understanding), I learned more about the human condition than anything. That is, how quick we are to categorize, and how quick those categorize can be broken down! So, in fact, the question "How do you take your coffee?" is a rather personal, defining moment. Tom Hanks says so himself:

And in the end, I must admit, I rather enjoy that coffee-flavored sugar bomb after a nice full lunch of rice, beans, meat and salad. Thank you Brazil, for ever so politely introducing me to new ways of doing things and ultimately expanding my horizons.