looking back on my progress

last week marked my first time here not being the one everyone referred to when they said "gringo(a)" with the arrival of our newest trainee from canada, david. it changed my position a bit since up until now the only trainees had been myself and lina, our colombian trainee that´s already been here for 7 months. even though i wasn´t the only trainee, i still felt kind of alone since lina had already been here so long, understood how things worked, knew everyone, and spoke portuguese...she felt more like one of the brazilians to me, which is guess is good for her that she´s adapted so well :D lina´s awesome.

anyway, david, like me, arrived not knowing much about brazilian culture and knowing nothing about the language. it was me, really, a month and a half ago. especially since we work at the same company and everything, i really wanted to help him with things that were hard for me when i first arrived and just be understanding kind of, you know? lots of people helped me when i arrived but no one had really quite been in my situation so there were certain kinds of things that i felt alone in, like adjusting to the cultural differences, not understanding when people talked to me, etc. i guess i´ve now been here long enough that i´ve fallen into the routine of living here, how things work, and have begun to understand more, but it´s been so gradual that i hadn´t noticed until i saw a little bit of my former self in david.

he´s picking up things fast and getting along really well with everyone and we get along well too, which is good, but his appearance here i think has projected me in a different light not only to myself but to my co-workers too. all of a sudden i became the "translator" and the one that knew things and the one that could speak english (they´d never heard me speak so fast before, ha ha) and the one that would understand what was going on...when did that happen??? in t-minus 1 day i had gone from the clueless trainee to the trainee with all the answers...just goes to show you how much familiarity can influence your perception, ha ha :)

so i´m kind of a dual role right now until he completely adjusts as a trainee and an icxer...i somehow feel underqualified to be explaining things that i just learned myself to someone else, but i really like having the chance to help when this person in turn can help someone else...that´s what this organization is about anyway, right? well, life really should be like that, it just doesn´t always work out that way, unfortunately :(

the whole experience has inspired me to keep challenging myself and helping to ensure that others have the opportunity to do so as well, not just in the form of a traineeship, but in many ways...there are so many things to experience in the world that are unfamiliar, amazing, and challenging, from places to music to dances to art to food to ideas to methodology to problem-solving to relationships, etc. realistically, i won´t be able to experience them all, but i can try - i love being inspired by the situations and people i´ve encountered here, and i can only hope that one day i´ll have the chance to inspire at least one person too :)

embracing vs. living

i named my blog "abraço." it means either "i embrace" or "embrace" (the noun form) in portuguese, the motherland language here. i knew it would be a challenge to come here but just figured as long as i was open-minded and embraced what was thrown at me it´d be all good, very easy, and an easy thing to explain the differences between brazilian culture and other cultures...here´s the thing though, you have to do more than embrace something to truly understand it.

it´s hard to explain. you embrace a culture when you travel there and see all the amazing things it has to offer. i do that here too :) trainees and ex-pats and anyone that´s spent a lot of time in an unfamiliar situation does this...but when you live something, make it part of your life and how you think and how you act and how you approach situations and problems, you do more than embrace it...you become it.

i thought i was being creative and having foresight when i named my blog "abraço" by offering a glimpse of what i thought i´d be doing here in the midst of brazilian culture...maybe i really should´ve just named it "vivo."

fancy seeing you here...

*i wrote this on june 17 and didn´t publish it for some reason at the time. now that i´m not in the same mindset 2 weeks later, i can´t bring myself to finish it. take it as you will, and know that this is me 2 weeks ago, coming to grips with the fact that maybe i´d adjusted and changed in more ways than i had thought, except i don´t think i knew that that was the challenge at the time.


so this past week has been very different in a lot of ways...

- lina, the other trainee currently here in salvador left for colombia (her motherland) to take care of some visa things before returning for another 6 months making me the only trainee here

- i had my first attempt at trying to contact members of the lc by myself to organize something...a little difficult when my phone portuguese isn´t so great, ha ha :)

- i was a pseudo tour guide?

- i saw megan and firdaus...here in salvador!

- i realized that i´ve started acting bahian in some ways

- i got back in touch with an old friend and realized how possible it is to start in one place and end up in completely different places years later

- i have translated a couple of documents with limited use of a dictionary, yay!

- i noticed that i think i cling to some of my habits from home to comfort myself somehow but don´t really need them

- i realized how much more i´ve come to love and be comfortable with this city since i first arrived

- i´ve noticed how much i still don´t know about this country...brazil is huge and diverse

- i have seen the beauty in the aiesec traineeship system in that everyone´s experience is completely different...totally.

- i haven´t felt the need to eat chocolate every 2 seconds (i felt this way last week and the one before, no joke)

- i haven´t felt the need to write in this blog all the time like i did before...i´m not unispired though for sure, not sure why yet i feel this way yet...

speaking of this last thing, it´s not just me. almost every blog i´ve read starts out strong, especially at the beginning of the traineeship when everything is strange, new, scary, amazing, breathtaking...basically extreme. and then, we all trail off into oblivion until we come back and have to try to put into verbal words x months/years of our lives that are basically impossible to explain as they feel and happen. and you can´t predict it before you go either.

never an ordinary day

at about 9:00 this morning, everyone in my office became distracted by police sirens, screaming, and firecracker-type noises outside...we work on the 6th floor (7th floor in the u.s.) of a building in one of the commercial districts of the city (called comércio, oddly enough, ha ha). everyone turns to look outside and what do we see? people marching down the street chanting. turns out they were having a protest about hourly wages or something, i wasn´t quite sure...anyway, it wasn´t violent or anything like that, but i can honestly say that i´ve never seen a protest before. well, i guess there´s a first time for everything (or most things anyway) :D

now it´s 1:45 though and instead of hearing shouting and police sirens i hear a fergie song blasting from someone´s car...

brazil´s "capital of happiness" - must be true :)

all you need is love

"there´s nowhere you can be that isn´t where you´re meant to be..." - the beatles

good thing to remember.

beijos :)

things i take for granted

here are just some random thoughts about realizations i´ve had about things that i take for granted, both here and in the u.s. (note that they´re different sometimes and the same sometimes):

in the u.s.
-having people around me (or close to me at least) that have known me since i was born and that i´m still close to
-speaking/writing/reading/understanding english (and all that goes with that, which is a lot)
-knowledge of my surroundings and how to get around
-a car (and so mobility independence)
-my family
-my boyfriend
-my friends
-financial support
-my culture
-my routine and habits (ie working out, buying my favorite foods, etc)
-credit cards and debit cards that work everywhere
-blending in
-familiarity with temperature and distance
-my music
-personal accessibility

in brazil
-my uniqueness
-the newness of everything and the adventure that comes with it
-financial support
-the beach!
-the pace of the culture (everything and everyone is super relaxed)
-my opportunities to learn
-the power of words (i think i lost this appreciation doing an engineering degree for 4 years, ha ha)
-the love i feel from everyone back home that seems to mean so much more because it comes from so far away
-my music
-discovering new food, music, dances, ideas, etc
-meeting new people
-the amazingness of the people that have helped me so so so much here
-the internet (its how i keep in touch with a lot of people and things going on in the world)
-skype!!!

there´s more, i´m sure, for each list, but i think these give you a good idea of what´s up. i feel that i´ve learned so much more about myself, about the culture here, and even more about my own culture since i´ve been here. as sean once described in his blog, too, i´ve learned more about other people, not just becasue i´ve met such a variety here, but about people at home...actions in the face of adversity (in this case location and communication) can tell you a lot about a person and your relationship with them...i´d have to say that i´ve only seen positivity in this area :D i´m also glad that i didn´t line up a real job for myself to start after this experience ends, becasue i´m just now starting to realize what i want to do (i´m not for sure yet, but i finally have a direction) as a result of lots of factors here...i very easily could´ve made myself miserable in a job i didn´t like, and i´m glad i didn´t rush. i´ve learned to relax a little more and to not be afraid of my thoughts, my words, and my emotions when i´m alone (which isn´t often yet always here), and being comfortable with yourself is one of the most important things to being happy, i think.

you don´t have to think you´re perfect, but you have to accept things.

wow, i just rambled a lot. if you made it this far, i hope this made sense :)

getting into the swing

the past 3 weeks have probably been the hardest of my life for various reasons...i left home for a strange country and a strange culture, and with it my family, friends, boyfriend, and the comfort they offer whether they mean to or not. everyone here was (and still is) completely amazing and helpful, not to mention that the land here is gorgeous - and yet i felt as alone and conspicuous as i´ve ever felt in my life. not an inspiring feeling when the only people you can talk to about it #1 probably don´t understand and #2 are 4000 miles away...well, that was the past 3 weeks anyway.

this past sunday marking the official close of my 3rd week here, i finally felt comfortable here, i realized. it was the craziest thing, just very sudden, you know? it´s like when you´re learning to drive and it never feels natural even though you know what to do until one day you just get in the car and it feels...right :) it was kinda like that. i´m a little disappointed because i thought myself to be more adaptable that this, it took way too long. i can´t help but ask myself "why?" but then realize that there´s more to it than me, there always is.

good thing, too :) i definitely don´t know everything, as evidenced by my failing to drink enough during and after 6 hours in the hot sun of a bahian beach on sunday...let´s just say i was very very sick yesterday, ha ha...i´ve realized that no matter how independent i think i am and how logical my ideas, i can´t do things alone, no one can. that´s what living the dream is, really.

i think my biggest misconception before coming to brazil was that "the dream" would be perfect, my experience here would be flawless, i wouldn´t feel a day of lonliness or sadness nor a twinge of misunderstanding...you know, perfect, as people usually assume dreams to be. that´s what we all mean when we say we want this "dream job" and that "dream guy (or girl for you guys, ha ha)," right? well, here´s the thing that has become very apparent to me over the past 3 weeks and that i think we´d all do well to realize so as not to have unrealistic expectations for ourselves and other people...dreams, when lived, will never be perfect - and that´s what makes them so amazing. if i had been dropped into this country and the second i hit the ground become brazilian, what good would that do me? i´d learn nothing, just go on as i do anyway and everything would work out...what kind of dream is that, to continue on as you have forever and ever and ever with no opposition to your point of view and therefore no motivation for it to expand?

it´s a type of irony then, i guess, that "living the dream" isn´t perfect, as i thought it would be...but it´s been more perfect for me than i ever could have imagined.

beijos :)