The city was surreal. I still don’t feel like I’m here. I’ve seen so many pictures and heard so much, but now those exact pictures of the water, the favelas, Cristo, the hotels, and the mountains are the backdrop to my actual life—pretty hard to wrap your head around. One by one the driver dropped off the kids in the van, and one by one the kids came back down from their apartments for various reasons, “my host mom wasn’t ready for me,” “there was no one there.” The driver laughed as he headed for a hostel, and said “Welcome to Brazil.” Fortunately, the housing system had failed me a month ago, when PUC kindly informed me I didn’t have a home. Thanks to the extreme generosity of the family I babysat for in DC, I had a place to go right away.
And what a place it is. Only about a block from the beach in Ipanema, it’s got a great location and is tucked away achieving what can be called peace in this crazy city. It has two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a grand piano and beautiful hardwood floors throughout. It’s so interesting because everything is a little different, the door knobs aren’t actually used for anything—I was turning and turning and turning until the doorman showed me you just use the key to turn. Oops. And the shower—using hot water ignites some gas filled appliance mounted on the wall which heats the water out in the kitchen. And it’s embarrassing how long it took me to learn how to flush the toilet.
I left for the day and met up with the other kids that shared my ride from the airport. We wandered around and emerged at Copacabana Beach. Again, it’s insane how much it doesn’t even feel real, I’ve seen it in pictures so many times! We put our feet in the “cold” water (given it’s the middle of winter here but it’s still 70 degrees), and then ate at a restaurant on the beach. I had caipirinha—the famous Brazilian cocktail of crushed lime, sugar, and Brazil’s take on rum, cachaça—and linguiça with rice and farofa. Farofa is kind of like a condiment that they eat on everything here. It’s a dry and course yellowish powder that’s made from flour, spices, and most notably ground manioc root from the Amazon.
After dinner I walked a few short blocks on Queen Elizabeth Avenue and was at Ipanema Beach. Right from the beach there is a beautiful view of the horizon ahead, and dois irmãos, ”the two brothers”, which are two of the distinct mountain-like rock formations that jut up out of Guanabara Bay. It’s so amazing that after seeing that priceless view for the first time I was back at the apartment in minutes. And this time, the doorman recognized me, so we skipped the duet of broken-English, broken-Portuguese, and he let me right in.
I went to the grocery store, called “Zona Sul <3,” literally. My biggest concern was pretending to be brasiliero enough to get away with using Mr. Moura de Castro’s Brazilian equivalent of a Safeway or Shaws member card. However, when I got there I realized I should have been more concerned with the fact that milk and meat are not refrigerated and that you have to weigh things like fruit before you get to the cashier. The latter cultural difference left me running through the store in search of a scale while a line of angry Brazilians took note that I was clearly not Mr. Moura de Castro.
I don’t have internet here, but hopefully I will soon at my actual host family’s home. I will call them tomorrow and see what arrangements can be made for us to meet—stay tuned! Thanks for reading, I miss you all.
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