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. 

Feeding Your Auto Pilot

Coming back to my hometown after another school year in Brazil, I started to notice how automatic some things are. For example, arriving to my grandpa's house, albeit 45 minutes away, I could have sworn that I just blinked my eyes. Or playing soccer with my brother, I noticed how the motions to trap and kick a ball were automatic. Playing the piano came back with more difficulty but after some searching I was playing the same tunes I learned back when I was taking lessons. Finally, the one that surprised me most, as someone very interested in languages, I turned on the radio to the Southern California Spanish radio and found myself singing the songs automatically in Spanish. This is big because I thought I had replaced all of my Spanish vocabulary with Portuguese, having lived in Brazil for a majority of the past two years. I was in awe at these examples of muscle memory, just by being back in the context and cuing the activity, my muscles responded.

Of course, all of my readers have experienced this, even if it was just writing, but it got me to thinking about what things we are training our body and mind to do. How important it is to input good stuff! By setting a good foundation, we can then trust our muscle memory to perform accordingly in the future. What actions do you want to be habitual or natural? Positivity, helpfulness, humility, honesty, chastity. You pick, but you need to start and continue to form that muscle memory.

As I was out to lunch with my grandpa who will turn 100 in a few days, I realize that he himself has been practicing this for quite some time. Some information he repeats enough so that his brain muscle responds when needed. Not saying anything bad about anyone is also a practice; going to daily mass is a practice. These things he wanted to do, and at some point he must have decided to begin these practices. Of course, he would say that these things are only by God's grace! Indeed we can all learn a bit from focusing on how we would like to form our muscle memory. Thanks, Grandpa, for an excellent example in how to feed our auto-pilot. 

Perspectives: the poet and the artist

The good thing about having friends from different places is that you learn new ways at looking at situations, obstacles or even trees. I have an artist friend who calls me a poet and boy, our perspectives couldn't be more different. The poet in me wants lengthy and embellished explanations whereas my artist friend seems content with a glance. The poet screams in obstacles, wants to talk about her fears, goes on a roller coaster of emotions to make a decision and finds herself only content after exploring all of the options. The artist observes and patiently works away towards one goal, one outcome, and gives a few words to put a caption on the obstacle presented, as if it were a portrait in an art gallery. Things like, time will tell and if something is unresolved, it is not the end yet and Brazil will always be here. Let me tell you, it's nice to have an artist's perspective for a change to soften the poet's loud internal voice.

Perfect Timing

"You called at the perfect timing!"

"I got your message at the perfect time."

"Speaking of the devil!"

A lot of my loved ones are scattered around the world. And that is just how it is when you like to invest yourself in people wherever you go. I have several loved ones within my reach here and a handful more sprinkled across the States, in Europe, and even further- in other states in Brazil (in terms of hours traveled by bus, yes further). So it doesn't always happen that I can talk with them every day or be on wifi at the right time to chat. But there have been several times where I am down and out, or in need of an energy boost or a quiet ear and there he or she appears. Is that a coincidence in the connection or...God? As a Spanish friend once told me "No hay coincidencias, solamente Diosidencias." We'll leave that up to the heavens to decide.  

On the contrary, there are several times of silence, when I can't get in touch with anyone that I want or need to, and it is just left to me to decide, to figure out the next step. Now there also is a blessing in disguise. 

Where Does Advice Come From?

These past couple of years I have started to recognize a really bad habit of mine. I will listen to someone's advice and I will wholeheartedly accept it as the truth, immediately. Then I listen to another person's opinion on the matter and my truth changes on the dime. Just like that Tilt-a-Whirl ride at the carnival, this pattern will cause any level-headed logical person's head to spin. Let alone, a kinda kooky ginger!

When in doubt, stop and watch the sunset: Salvador, Bahia

So, where does all of this advice come from actually? From the speaker's own experience and beliefs. But that took me awhile to learn. Not the fact that advice comes from the speaker's experience, but more so that it is not the listener's experience. Advice has its limits. Giving advice can be dangerous. Taking advice can be even more dangerous if not done with care.

I still find myself in that Tilt-a-Whirl trap, especially when I have some big decisions & unknowns on my mind. Ever since I kissed the Blarney Stone, I just need to talk about what is on my mind and get my close friends' and family's morsels of advice. In fact, I crave it.

That being said, I am learning to listen objectively and not take everything someone says as truth. This means no disrespect to the advice-giver, I am not suggesting to avoid giving me advice. Just don't be surprised when I don't follow exactly what you said. I am going to think about it, take what I want from it, and do my own sweet little thing. I am learning to take advice objectively, take some soul-centering time, and then acting accordingly. Just as our English and history teachers always emphasized the importance of understanding our sources, so do we as advice-takers and givers.  It breaks down to this: there's a big difference between Wikipedia and Jstor, no denying it.

Next time you are giving advice, think about your audience and choose your words wisely. Next time you take advice, think about the source: How well does this person know you? What parts does s/he know about you? And a crucial one: How well do I know him/her and what experiences have they had to give this advice morsel?

Creatures that Captivate

Keeping a safe distance

 I never had a dog...or a cat for that matter. But at the ripe age of 25, I had my longest and most endearing experience with a couple pets of "my own". Okay, I will cut to the chase. One bright sun-shining day, my two beloved roommates decided to adopt a couple of kittens. As I have never been fond of cats ever since I had to babysit some kids and by default a very sassy cat that wouldn't let me stop petting it without hissing, I was a little hesitant to the idea of having not one but two kittens running around our small apartment. Little did I know what great company they make. While the girls were out of town one weekend, I was faced with the ultimate challenge: cat-sitting. At first, me and the kittens started out at a distance. They stayed in Gi's room; I stayed in mine. Then, well, I thought they could use some fresh air and I let them join me in the kitchen while I cooked. But I was still warming up to the idea of them crawling around in my room. As it was just me and the cats this lonely weekend in Viçosa before university classes started up again, I gave in to their cute purrs and let them explore. By the end of the weekend, we were all watching "Hart of Dixie" in my bed and cuddling together.

Pandora & Cenoura matched my blanket

This story is unique for me, but it's just another story in the world of human experiences. I'm sure every one of my readers (yeah, that's you Mom & Dad) have had a similar one of captivation. Just a week after the kittens and I became buddies, I reread the first book I read in Portuguese over a year ago: The Little Prince. He gave me the words for what had happened between us creatures: captivation. In fact it was the fox that teaches the Little Prince how one is captivated by another. It is not an immediate trap, but a slow and gradual process that takes patience and effort. Each day you get a little closer, you open up yourself a little more, and you make yourself a little more vulnerable in the process. Here the other trusts you, and if the other receives it well, the other will do the same. Next thing you know, you are captivated by the other and the other is captivated by you. Now the fox isn't just any fox, it is your friend the fox. The kittens aren't any kittens of the millions on this Earth, but Cenoura and Pandora, one a little more feisty and the other a little more curious. That girl with the smily pearls isn't like the all the others because she is your friend, and you are captivated forever.

Attempting to snowboard in Big Bear

The irony of this story is my beloved roommate Layssa discovered she has an allergy to cats and the closer they got to her, the more swollen her eyes got. Thus, lesson two from the Little Prince's fox. Once that creature is gone, things that didn't have any purpose for you before can now mean the
world to you. For example, for the fox who doesn't eat wheat but is surrounded by it, he has no interest in the wheat. But after the fox and the Little Prince depart, the wheat will have new significance in the fox's life because it will remind it of the Little Prince's blond hair strands blowing in the wind. Layssa may not have been a fan of Garfield, or had any connection to ginger cats before, but every time she sees one now she will remember the kitten named Cenoura that captivated her before she had to give him away. I had no affinity to grape juice before, but now I will always think of my good friend Sabrina Louise, that spunky Brazilian that captivated me about a year ago. 

Coca-cola Waterfalls

Cachoeira da Capivara

Coca-cola waterfalls- that is how to summarize my trip to the Chapada Diamantina mountain range in
inland Bahia. An hour onto our first day of the 3-day trek, our guide brings us up to a river and shouts out, "Coca-cola!" There it is, acting just like coca-cola does in our stomach, as it erodes the rocks into different shapes and sizes. Rich in trace minerals, it is the color of coke too, making it difficult on our depth perception of the waterfall lagoons. What looks like 100 feet deep is actually just shy of 3 feet, imagine. Okay so maybe other people have already experienced some nature adventure as such, but this was my first time. You could imagine the ohhhs and ahhhs coming from my mouth for three days straight. Figuring out the puzzle of what rock to step on while still making sure to stop and take in the scenery, eating our guide Flor's delicious home-cooked meals from a makeshift rock formation stove, and with no wifi, thus every excuse to be detached from this keyboard, I was in heaven.

Yup, we drank that coke water

Hopping from one Coca-cola waterfall to the next, I sunk into an inner peace that defined my month of July. My parents came and went, same as my friend Raha. A few close Brazilian friends left for the States on their own adventure. In the past months I have had many people come into my life and then I've had to say goodbye. Let me say, packing may get easier but goodbyes never do. That being said, the one person we don't say goodbye to is ourselves, right? Alone in your own skin, what more is there? Lately I have been at the brink of feeling whole alone, which I don't think I've ever fully felt before.

Cachoeira da Fumaça: Smoking Waterfall

What is shocking about the waterfalls is their prominence in nature. Out of nowhere, we would see one in the distance. Rushing water, one whole entity, alone in nature. Or, we feel its mist well before we would come up to the base of the waterfall. Loud, boistrous, charging water, washing away trees, crushing rocks, and singing nightly lullabys to those dosing off nearby. Supported by its environment, and yet sprung across a cliff, these waterfalls have a mind of their own. Forever thinking in metaphors, these coke falls got me thinking about my own feeling of whole alone. To be whole alone is an empowering feeling with intoxicating potential. Whether or not what we give back to our environment is made of something toxic like coke or of something nurturing like trace mineral water is up to us. Depending on how we nurture ourselves, how we develop our individual characteristics, and how we act when we are alone will form what we share with the world. Wholly alone. Seek out this peace and share with me what you find. I'm dying to learn!

Can you see the monkey face? Morro de Macaco

A Test of Love

On a Monkey-Watch Picnic in the Park

My parents have shown me their love and support for my 25 years of life, so consistently and strongly that I have nothing to ever complain about. (Remind me if you ever find me complaining, because I really shouldn't be.) From teaching me to ride a bike, to teaching me how to drive, to driving me off to Berkeley for my freshman year, they have always so openly given me wheels of love and support. So there's this great song by Cristina Ballestero that talks about a test of love between God and man. I didn't quite get it at first- I thought, can and should you really test love? But my mom said so simply, Maggie what do you think we are doing here in Brazil?

Duh. I don't think I've tested their love limits as much as I have these past two years, and especially these past two weeks, as they made the long trek to come visit me in Brazil.

Test number one: One of them who is deathly afraid of flying and uses grandpa's old cough medicine to help her get through the flight, and another who perhaps tore his ACL just before the trip, and these two still got off the plane in São Paulo with twinkles in their eyes and big grins. Or where those grimaces? Test number two: Letting their daughter drive them all over Brazil's winding roads up and down mountains, and worse- out of Rio. We still have all our body parts. Test number three: taking a pit stop for a couple hours to let their daughter renew her visa for another five months. Cringe. Test number four: Surrendering to their daughter's ability to speak a little bit of Portuguese to navigate from one place to another. Test five: Learning a few Portuguese phrases to alleviate their daughter's translation work. (Also, boldly speaking English looking for anyone to just please understand.) Test six: Meeting all of their daughter's friends and talking their heads off night after night, being social chatterboxes. Test seven: Trusting their daughter when she said, "Oh try this, you will like this!". And not saying a word when they really just wanted a Pinot Grigio and not a Chardonnay. Test eight: Saying goodbye to their daughter, once again, at the airport. And many many more quizzes in between. But hey, who's counting?

Selaron Steps in Rio de Janeiro

I've learned these past few years that love isn't a feeling, it is an action. Love is a choice. And as I see many of my friends getting hitched, I understand how that is just the first choice in many acts of love. I can't count my blessings on my fingers and that is mostly because of the constant loving support my parents have given me in all my adventures and decisions.

You may see an independent girl stomping through Brazil, but that is only because of two people that decided to make a vow 30 years ago to grow and nurture a beautiful family and try to add something good to the world. The least I can do is share their love with everyone around me. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for you truly have passed this test of love with flying colors. 

The Head and the Heart: Where Lies Your Allegiance?

I am trying to think of a way to wrap up my Fulbright-in-Brazil experience, and yet...where to start? If there is something that I have learned over the past year, it is the fine difference between expectations and hope. Entertain me for a bit as I play with the idea.

Expectations come from our head. Hope comes from our heart.

Expectations are fixed images of how things should turn out. They can be as concrete as a responsible 5-year plan. They can be dreamy, colorful, lofty images with the man and the house and the job all intricately designed already. You find yourself expecting the presentation to go perfectly smooth and the transition from one job to the next to give you just the right amount of vacation time in between. And yet these expectations can be, and are often, slaughtered in about half a second in any given moment. It is so easy to get lost in our minds with how we imagine a situation to turn out. I do it all too often. And all too often my expectations fall short.

Hope, a beautiful virtue, should not be confused with expectations. Although there can be an image or idea of how you'd like a situation to turn out, hope lies in the heart. Hope lies most freely in an open heart, where ideas, feelings, logics, and outcomes are malleable and come and go freely. Hope is open to change but stays consistent in the action of patience, in the action of a longing gaze forward for what is to come. Hope does not expect anything to happen but imagines the best.

Semana Santa in São João Del Rei, MG

The 10pm candlelit Mass in Berkeley was a very prayerful hour for me in the midst of the college craziness. I remember a very practical priest saying to us: "Patience is the action of hope. We are called to be hopeful people." That line has stayed with me to this day. And yet I don't think I fully understood it until I leaned on the virtue of hope these past nine months in Brazil. I gave myself the pep-talk of "no expectations" the months before leaving. During the nine months I had plenty of things come and go: opportunities, friendships, relationships, my family, ideas, future goals, conversations, trips, nights out, nights in, presentations, classes, stormy weather and -my personal favorite- the wifi in my apartment. Rather than using patience to keep hopeful, I learned that hope actually inspires patience. Patience results from the having of hope. Us hopeful beings thus act patiently.

As should be expected, people and situations are bound to fall short from time to time. In the failure, we can also find unexpected growth and healing. But that healing comes when we can empty our head, and open our hearts. If we can do that, we can change our expectations into hope and our forceful efforts seem to become more graceful. Our ambition morphs into a peaceful dance. Our dreams and aspirations become less significant as we patiently hope for whatever is greater to come, for whatever God may will.

Maybe this is vague for a wrap-up blog post for the last nine months. But I hope it is vague enough that you can apply the concept to your own life and see whether you are getting lost in a mind of expectations or relying on your open and hopeful heart. Either one is sure to bring growth in one way or another, but from my experience one way can be more disappointing than the other. Such is life!

Here are a few of my favorite photos from the trip:

Peat & Repeat

Peat and Repeat were in a boat. Pete fell out. Who was left? Repeat. Pete and Repeat were in a boat. Pete fell out. Who was left? Repeat. Peat and Repeat were in a boat…A silly children's joke that was repeated to me enough times that to this day I remember it.

There's something to be said about repetition. Some people seem to have an aversion to it, thinking, "oh please, not the same restaurant, or "not this movie again", or "I've heard this song on the radio 10 times...today!" But I think this repetition has more value than it is given. We need it to fully understand a concept. For example, my good old grandpa repeats some stories to me, and I would't have it any other way. For when the day comes and he leaves this world, I won't be able to forget the first lines of Momento Mori, Remember Death. Or the story of how he met his bride. Or where to get the best bread in town- Amy's deli, off of Washington Street in Pico Riviera.

My strategy for learning Portuguese in Brazil was repetition. To remember a new word, a new name. It didn't stick until I've repeated it about 1,000 times. The Brazilians I learned from also found it kind of funny or weird, depending on the individual, when I would always repeat the last part of what they had just previously said. I was doing it subconsciously, until a good friend pointed it out to me. It seemed as if I was clinging on to every word she was saying. Whoever disliked a good listener?

Conversely, this repetition can create a monster as we also find ourselves repeating the same mistakes over and over. For example, in learning Portuguese, up until the day I left Brazil I made the same grammatical mistake that would have translated to sounding like a little kid saying, "he is more big than you" or "she is more small than he is"...ugly right? These repetitive cycles of mistakes can become ugly habits, as was the case with the above example.

Some say practice makes perfect. I've also heard the modified phrase: perfect practice makes perfect. But at the end of the day, we are human. Perfection never made anyone chuckle. Little kids' speech always does. Enough said. 

A Change of Heart

When I graduated from grade school, I cried like a baby. I couldn't imagine a world without the same best people in my life. Those best friends I had made, all the good times, all I had learned- all of that was going to change dramatically. That was my first moment of accepting change. I didn't do a great job at it, crying as I walked down the aisle.

Grade school friends still meeting up for the
Sacrament of Confirmation, 2006 

But since then, I've become quite good at it. Change doesn't bring the tears out of me. It makes me kind of quiet and giddy at the same time- hopeful for the future but not sure what to expect. It's an anxiety indeed. Oh, but change. It is now accepted as everyday life. Now I've come back to California for my friend's wedding. It's my friend from my childhood, the friend I was crying over when I was walking down the aisle ten years ago. When would we see each other again? Won't we be so distant going to different schools? Now, I am a part of her wedding and it turns out change isn't as permanent as we may think. It's just a blink of an eye and we're back to where we started- crying like a baby. But this time, my friend will be walking down the aisle gleaming at her husband-to-be. So excited to be present physically and emotionally for my beautiful friend Kristen!

Viçosan Street Dogs, Capivaras & Cigarras

Viçosa is not the first image that comes to mind when you think of Brazil, but it is a captivating city. It doesn't have a beach, coconut trees, or music on street corners. But it does have a beautiful forest on campus, a new tree blooming every week, and a drum circle that announces the end of the day around 6pm and that mysteriously echoes through the city walls. It's a captivating city.

Like most college campuses, UFV (Universidade Federal de Viçosa) has its quirks. There are two main cafeterias on campus: RU or MU. Every student has their preference. Are you an RU student or MU student? You can break it down even more: What side of RU do you eat on? One side apparently has more hippies and the other has more cowboys. Quirky.

UFV has its quintessentials as well. Ever been to a mud party? It's exactly as it sounds: a bunch of college kids sloshing around in mud and listening to some bangin' music. A quintessential party that only happens in Viçosa.

Viçosa also has an awesomely diverse community, down to the animals and bugs that inhabit the city. The amount of street dogs is incredible. These dogs rule the Viçosan world and have all the freedoms we humans want. We rush to class as they sleep basking in the sun. They enter whatever class they want. They enter and leave church at their leisure. They stay up late and walk us home from parties. They are fed by the sympathetic veterinary students or those that miss their dogs in their hometowns. These Viçosan street dogs are living the dream.

The capivaras contribute additional diversity to the Viçosan community. As pictured you can see these animals have the hair of a donkey, the snout of a hog, the shape of a guinea pig, and the mystical element of a...unicorn? They dip in and out of the lake on campus and live a tranquil river life, taking the advice of CCR in "Proud Mary". The first time I saw these creatures, I couldn't help but laugh out loud in awe.

The most recent biodiversity I discovered here in Viçosa is the cigarra bug. As the summer heat arrived, so did this strange hum at twilight throughout the city. I asked someone about it, and he said it's the cigarra bugs singing. They sing until they explode! This myth was recently debunked, as a student told me the truth. But I will continue with the mythical story because I can't think of a better way to die. Unfortunately with the arrival of the summer heat comes the buzzing mosquitos that can drive any strong-willed mind crazy while trying to get some beauty sleep, myself included.

In conclusion, I have about three weeks left here in Viçosa and I am just now writing about this city I've learned to love. I will leave soon, but the captivity of the city will not. I am sure to return.

One Tall Glass of Grace, Please

Walking the streets of Viçosa, I trip at least three times a day. It's actually become a game with my friend. It is a subtle exchange: "So, what number was that?" ..."Oh, just the first one of the day!" or "Yikes, you don't want to know," or even, "Hey, that one doesn't count." Mostly it's because I'm so intently listening to my friends while walking, language barriers abound. I just can't seem to walk and look sideways at them. Hey, a girl's gotta prioritize when she can't do two things at once! So much for feminine grace.

Besides the more visible feminine grace we may have seen on the city streets or in the movies, I discovered different kind of grace. One that is patient and accepting, that moves much slower than the pace I would like. If only it was as simple as going up to a bar and ordering a tall glass of grace. No, but this grace takes more work and care. A grace that weathers all storms. A grace that continues to grow through hardships and thrives with a little bit of sunshine. If metamorphosed, this grace would be a tree. Have you ever stopped to consider how graceful they are? Joyce Kilmer has, as she admiringly describes God's graceful creation in the poem to the right.

The same friend who teases me for tripping also told me a beautiful tree metaphor when I was expressing my worries for the future. Just as a tree has one strong trunk, or one main direction, we also grow as such with one main focus. With that strong trunk, that one focus- whether is it agronomy, languages, or medicine- we can branch off to other things in which we may be interested. Cooking? Dance? Rock climbing? These are other branches we can grow and nurture once we have that strong trunk. I liked this metaphor because it assured me that I don't need to feel limited to one thing in life, as I am truly a woman of endless possibilities.

Tree in the "Central Park" of São Paulo. Now those are some branches!

I think this metaphor ties into how someone once anecdotally described grace to me as the following: One branch broke and I miraculously made it to the next. In our lives, many branches break. Many opportunities fall out, and yet at the moment when we think we will fall, we find another branch to cling to. Going from one thing to the next, the only way this could happen is with the grace of God.

Why all this talk about grace? In my seven months here in Brazil, I am gaining a type of grace in the process. I have learned to accept the pace of life that is not aligned with my normal speed of efficiency and productivity. I came in with lots of ideas and motivation. I've slowed down a lot since, as I haven't seen things materialize. Accepting that my program is new for the university, I've been able to adjust my priorities and pace into something more patient and experimental. I've learned to accept that things don't happen as quickly as I may hope. I've become willing to accept that things may not even happen at all.

Tree pose on top of Pico do Bonê, MG

I could force things to happen, but I don't think the experience would be as fruitful.
I have found there is no point in forcing things here in Brazil. Instead, we go with the pace and flow of the world, seeing what plays out or what branch to jump to. This is strictly speculation, but perhaps they are more productive in the end. Knowing well who they are working with, perhaps they have more concrete results and more sane people. This is where my lesson in grace comes in. Accepting as a gift whatever comes or does not come, I can more gracefully attend to what actions I am called to do and to what is right in front of me. There is no use being stuck thinking the grass is greener on the other side.

They say good things happen to those who wait, right? As it turns out, seven months in and I am finally seeing a few projects materialize. With a couple conferences on the horizon, a storytelling workshop at an after school program, and a Q&A video project featuring both Brazilians and Americans, I am in full swing until November! I'll take that tall glass of grace now, please... I know, I know- it's not that easy.

What Do You Get When Opposites Attract? Of course, PB&J

Romeo e Julieta: A Deadly Combo

But how about in Brazil? Something the Brazilians call Romeo e Julieta, which is the perfect combination of cheese and guava paste.

One great thing about having my siblings visit was hearing their perspective just after a couple weeks. They confirmed a few observations I had myself in the past months, relieving the doubt that I could be crazy. For example, my sister loved Viçosa and found it to be a great tight knit community. Not every university student would say the same, as I usually hear groans of not having anything to do in Viçosa. My brothers got sick of the salgados, the salty snacks, at every bus stop. We siblings indisputably come from the same tree.

My brothers getting their brew on.

Kenny, my older brother, expressed something that I had been trying to process for the past months. Brazilians receive so much information about our American culture, so much so that it is a distorted view. While visiting the Bohemia brewery in Petropolis, Kenny perceived a detail of the story of hops that he said had been misinterpreted by the tour guide. I am not going to remember exactly what it was, as I am not the bartender in the family. The point is that varying views and interpretations are bound to happen, as information crosses overseas, even into the brewery world.

I have seen this in the classroom environment too, as Brazilians know so many TV series that I have never seen, and sometimes never heard of. Some students have asked, "are parties in the U.S. really like those in American Pie"? Oh goodness...Then again, some American college parties may be like that? A little boy asked me the other day, "Is it true that you can get arrested if your boxers are showing?" Undoubtably he heard the news from some city that tried to enforce that rule. I doubt myself here thinking, "Maybe I am the one out of the loop here, maybe he is right?" That is the feeling I get sometimes- I am the American with less information about my country than a ten-years-old Brazilian. These examples clearly show the difference between what the news and media delivers to the Brazilian people and the realities of life in the United States.

As much as the Brazilians know about the U.S., Americans have a limited view of what is happening in Brazil. Before coming to Brazil, I got questions and comments from friends and family like "Do you know how to samba?" and "Ohhh Carnaval!" My personal favorite dialogue was, "Do you speak Spanish?"..."Yes but that won't help in Brazil." Beautiful people. Soccer. The Amazon. Favelas. These are the things we know about Brazil. Being from the States, we don't automatically hear Sertanejo music or Brazilian funk on the radio stations. Those interested in hearing have to seek out Zezé Di Camargo e Luciano or Valesca Popozuda. We don't hear about Brazilian politics because our news channels are full of debates between Republicans and Democrats. We get snidbits of their culture. American culture infuses Brazil, from music to movies to university lifestyle, to science articles, to names of stores, to hamburgers, to English class starting in grade school.

Maureen and Sabrina, two kindred souls.

That being said, my sister Maureen noted that it is an easy culture to adapt to for Americans. There are a lot of parallels between our cultures and the Brazilian people are so warm and welcoming, there's no wonder why I've been able to adapt quite fluidly. As for being an American here, there's not much else to do but hear the Brazilians' questions and try to give a glimpse of the reality of American life- beyond Hollywood glamour, beyond Washington drama, and beyond New York finances. My mission (oh, boy, here comes my power trip) is to clear up the misconceptions Brazilians have of Americans, one conversation at a time. I also will have the same mission in November- to bring back some Brazilian culture and expand the view my community at home has of Brazil. Mainly, that involves making tapioca and playing some Skank for everyone.

To start, listen here: