It's All Over But The Cryin'

I am struggling to write succinctly and in an organized fashion, so please bear with me. I have not written in quite some time, and in the time being, I hope anyone who had been reading maintained the assumption that no news is good news. But now I will briefly try to wrap up the blog series about my experience abroad.

My exchange year in Brazil is over. It went by quite fast. It felt like a circle: starting at one point, making a wide curve and speeding up as it returns to the origin and coming to a close. In this final blog entry, I imagine that I’ll try to say either too much or too little. The odds are quite low that my words will do justice to my emotions and experiences, but I hope I can say more than nothing.

I like to imagine my body being dropped into Brazil, perhaps out of a helicopter and landing with a parachute, while the true essence of who I am stays in America and goes on a slow, ten month quest to find my body. I started out completely off balance. Take away friends, trust, and the ability to communicate, and you find yourself an uncomfortable person. As my essence - that’s what I’ll call it - approached my body, I became more comfortable. I rediscovered who I am. I made it back to the origin as a slightly older and wiser version of myself.

In retrospect, it’s funny to me. I didn’t like most of the exchange students when I first met them. I reckon it was because of my own personal insecurities. In the beginning I think I was a very closed person because I was experiencing emotions completely foreign to me, and I didn’t trust anyone enough to talk about them. I also came to Brazil with a certain standard of what a friend of mine ought to be like. It’s cute how I thought my standards were realistic, considering I was going to be surrounded by people from completely different countries, products of cultures completely different from New Ulm, Minnesota.

After a few months, I opened myself up. I became more comfortable with myself, and thus more comfortable interacting with other people.

Meanwhile, I was learning a new language. I won’t go into depth about it, but it went something like this. When I arrived I could convey very basic messages in an excruciatingly slow manner; after a short while I could understand the routine get-to-know-you questions that often came my way. Now I am at the point where I can understand when other people speak to each other, and I can not only communicate what I want to say, but I can also share my personality. Becoming fluent to a certain extent in Portuguese has been very rewarding. I believe that I have a much better appreciation for the value of language, not only as a means of communication, but also as a means of expression. The way I felt with the inability to speak compared to the way I feel with the ability to speak is the difference between night and day. After flirting with the idea of studying Spanish in college and praying that I wouldn’t forget Portuguese, I eventually decided that I will stick to Portuguese. I hope that some day I will be able to speak it as well as these foreign folks speak English.

Speaking English with non-native speakers for such a long time has extracted from my vocabulary. Due to the fact that I do speak English every day, I haven’t forgotten as much as I previously imagined I would, but I am noticing that I use the stutter word ‘like’ far too often and that I have forgotten American slang and perhaps have replaced it with Australian slang. (Australians talk to people from all corners of the earth as if Aussie-Slang were the universal language; as if everyone knows what “thongs, runners, Mackers, and chinwag” means.)

I will briefly discuss Brazilian culture. In addition to the warmth and hospitality, the most blatant thing I have noticed here is that everyone is nice to each other - all the time. It was interesting to discover that I never should have been worried about people saying nasty things about me behind my back; to me this seems like something that doesn’t happen in Brazil.

Brazilians are sweethearts. Today, the kids in my class threw me a going-away-party during intervalo (break, or recess, if you must). I was completely surprised and flattered. The kids in my class are really good in the way they are treating me now during the end of my run. It seems that they have put themselves in my position and have done their best to understand the complex emotions that I am going through. I cannot adequately express my appreciation for that.

Essentially my exchange exposed each and every insecurity I have ever had, and made me deal with it. Without the backup of friends and the ability to speak, I was a vulnerable person. But as time passed and I began to acquire these essentials which I had longed for, I re-learned how to be secure. I am willing to say that in the relationships which I have built, I have come to love the people I have met. It’s not the same way I love my mother. It’s not the same way I love my father, or my siblings, or my nephew, or my aunts and uncles, my grandparents, or our dog. It’s a different kind of love, but it is love nonetheless. The transition from mute to speaker, from lonely to surrounded by loved ones is something that I endured in the last ten months. And it is something that has brought about some changes in me.

I have no way of knowing who is out there reading this blog, but to all of those who have sat behind their computer screens and contemplated the words I have written, I give thanks. The idea that someone else takes time out of his or her day to read about what is going on in my life is humbling. Thank you for your patience and loyalty. I realize that to anyone who had any expectations, this final entry may have been a letdown. But nonetheless, I appreciate that it was read. I will see many of you this weekend, and I imagine I will see almost all of you by North American summer’s end.

The Northeast

It has been over two months since I last published anything, and it’s crazy to think that in under four months I will be returning to The States. So I reckon it’s about time to write something. I recently spent 30 days in a bus, traveling throughout the Northeast of Brazil with 43 other exchange students. It was awesome. We started in São Paulo, went north all the way up to Brasilia, and then made our way down the east coast of Brazil, until we reached São Paulo again. Essentially we would stay in one location for three days, then spend a day traveling. I now have around 1,700 pictures of the trip on my computer. They will be on the internet soon. We exchange students went to some of the best beaches in Brazil, visited small towns with lots of culture, saw famous landmarks like the Christ the Redeemer Statue, and got to know one another very well.

I’m fairly certain that my pictures will do a better job describing the trip than my words, but I will write anyway. I regret not keeping a journal of the trip because I know that I will leave out some things worth talking about. But nonetheless, here is what sticks out to me, in no particular order. In Rio de Janeiro, our final city, we ascended to the top of a mountain and saw the Christ the Redeemer Statue. The view was incredible. That same day, we went on top of a different mountain island by means of an air pulley system and had another amazing view. On the island, we found a tribe of small primates. I don’t know what they’re actually called, so we just referred to them as monkeys. There was a sign that said not to feed the monkeys, so of course we spent the better part of a half hour feeding the monkeys crackers from continental breakfast. They were adorable, and they would come up on our laps if we gave them food. It is incredible how something only 8 inches tall can resemble a human with its eating mannerisms.

In our first city, Lençois, we hiked a few kilometers through the woods and went to a river and swam there for a few hours. There was a natural waterslide, a natural jumping-into-the-river point, as well as rocks in the river that encouraged jumping to and fro. I suppose we could have pretended the water was lava, but we didn’t. Nevertheless, it was still a good time.

One day we took a boat to a near island in the ocean. It was a very pleasant trip. At the island, we took pictures and swam in the water. After I had applied my second layer of sunscreen, the trip chaperones looked at me and told me that I looked like I was already red, and told me that I must put a shirt on, lest I burn up and get a fever that night. So I reluctantly obeyed, and got teased by the people who had more melatonin in their skin than me (a.k.a. everyone). The important things, however, are that I did not get sunburned and that my shirt didn’t get ruined in the salt water.

While in Porto Seguro, we went to a beach festival event. Another excellent beach sat in front of a stage of dance instructors and a floor for everyone to dance on. We danced Brazilian funk style, and got sprayed with water. Three people in our group won t shirts. One American boy named Taylor caught one that was thrown in the crowd. A German girl named Johanna was given a shirt by the instructor. And Jack, an American, won the shirt by smooching the (male) instructor on the lips. Worth it. Another funny thing happened. At the end of the show, everyone went up on the stage, and Johanna got party-boyed by about four middle-aged, intoxicated Brazilian men - the same way high school boys just choose someone at random and dance around them. A few exchange students saw what was going on, so we joined in as well. Good stuff.

The best part of the trip, though, was meeting 42 new exchange students (I already knew Casper), and spending nearly every minute of thirty days together. I made some great friends. It was funny to notice how people remind me of friends from home, and to hear them say some of the same things about me that my friends at home used to say. Towards the end of high school, I was referred to by some as “Old Man Johnson.” On the trip, there were a few occasions when an American or two told me that I had old man-ish qualities. And because English was spoken by nearly everyone on the trip, it was nice to hear and be able to use slang again. Some things are just hilarious because they haven’t been heard in five months. Another thing that reminded me of home was being able to sing at the top of my lungs. I noticed that in my first five months in Brazil, I only sang out loud when I was home alone. But on the trip were Danish and American boys who played the guitar and sang, so it was nice to have some musical company. By the end of the trip, I felt like I had known some of these kids for a very long time. Saying goodbye was not a fun thing to do.

The 2011 school year has started, so I’m back to class. Going to school reminds me of my first month in Brazil. It’s kind of like being the new kid on the block again, except this time around I can speak and understand the language. In addition, I am now an “oldie.” Alejandra, a Mexican who arrived in February 2010, left Londrina last Saturday. She was the last former “oldie” to leave. Now, we just received a batch of Australians. I’m looking forward to making the most of the next four months. I’ll see you all in no time. Time is flying. Thanks for reading.