Scales Suck.

I made a realization today.



...



I was destined for greatness.



You would think that that statement would be accompanied by a smug recollection of all the times baby Allie completed a Rubik's cube or answered the Double Jeopardy question correctly. But no. I say that with a bit of disappointment in my voice, a sad lag in my typing.



For that, there's a two-fold reason:



First of all, I've grown very accustomed to the idea of being a Super Latina, growing up with nothing, doing my best, beating the odds, and striving for many years, until finally reaching my goal of Yale. I was just one of many like me, whether that be a Latina, or a person of color, or growing up in a single-parent household, or being told too many times that mommy couldn't afford that, or being the first of my family to make it to college. I imagine myself coming back to New York, to Queens, to Woodside, and being like, "You see?? You can do it, too!" In a way, I've already started, getting on every younger person I know when they doubt anything about their future. Semilla de la Excellencia Colombiana? A way for me to tell the entire Colombian community of NY that college, and in particular an Ivy League education, is feasible, doable, within reach! It's always been, "If I can do it, so can you."



But what if the playing field wasn't level to begin with? It's not that I discovered I've actually been wealthy this entire time (pfft). I sat down to debate with Shanah over what makes US different from all the other people in the same exact situations. Why we're where we are in life. And it came down to DRIVE. So now you're saying, of course, that's obvious. But I've always supposed you can will yourself to care about things. You can make yourself attribute importance to certain things because you're looking ahead and know you have to get stuff done in order to get where you want to be. You can develop habits of excellence if prompted by yourself or others.



But the difference between me and them, "success" and not, is the strength of the drive and willpower we're born with. Imagine a scale, 1 to 10. The average person, be they rich or poor, White or Brown, settles in at a 5. You, my friends, are most likely 10's. There are PLENTY of people with (a) parent(s) just as supportive as I had, with the same opportunities (or, rather, lack thereof) that I had, growing up in the same surroundings, being influenced by the same media and being fed the same ideas, that are just not where I am right now. Why? I am a 10, and looking back, I've always been a 10.



Score one for genetics in this never-ending battle of Nature VS Nurture.



Which brings me back to: I was destined for greatness. I feel like this takes away from my accomplishments slightly. I feel like the rich kid whose daddy always gets her out of trouble, who knows that no matter how many screw-ups she makes, she's destined to own daddy's company one day and marry a rich lawyer and buy the penthouse in the city (MY penthouse). I loved the sense of battling it out against the world, this injust world where we don't hear about Yale graduates unless they're the type of powerful family that later controls the entire country, much less Latina Yale graduates. I loved working ridiculously hard, knowing that my goal was to be the first Latina _______, knowing that it could, probability-wise, be ANY of us, but that I was gonna personally make sure that it would be me. But if I entered this world, ready and willing to fight, the number 10 unknowingly prominent on my list of traits, then I didn't start off like everyone else. And if everyone else starts off and remains a 5, a 3, or even a 1, then how can I relate?



Which leads me to point number two. How can I convince other people to "follow in my footsteps" if I KNOW that I have something that they might possibly never be able to cultivate? How can I convince a 4 they can become a 10? Should I even be trying to do that? Or am I expecting too much of people that don't even aspire to the things we do? Many are content with different, though not necessarily inferior, embodiments of success. I want to push students to continue, to aim high, to dream in the possibility of greatness, of my idea of success. But if they're not an upper-scale number already...



How do I make someone care?

The Good and the Bad. I don't deal with that Ugly stuff. =P

Ok, sorry in advance, this is gonna be a small and obnoxious post.

I had a dinner of crab yesterday, for the first time ever. FOR THREE REAIS A CRAB. THREE. REAIS. That's not even USD$2. =O

And now for the bad news.

...

...

My camera broke. Please mourn with me. Thank you.

<33

PS Heading tomorrow (finally) to Pipa Beach! Gonna steal Shanah's camera/pictures =)

PPS I have pictures of my kids up on facebook!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2003591&l=ecd95&id=1363560260

Not Precisely On Topic...

Hey loves!

Ok, so I haven't updated in a while, sorry! I've been using more of my free time for other things, like filling up my Japanese Kana Workbook (I learned all my Hiragana! Now on to Katakana haha). And of course I've also been seeing a bunch of things and a bunch of people =)

So first off, here's a link to my facebook pictures (I know you guys are lazy haha), in the hopes that they'll tide you over until my next, real post.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2003516&l=210b4&id=1363560260

and

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2003587&l=86447&id=1363560260

Now for the reason I'm even bugging you guys. I'm in the house, just chilling until lunch, so I decided to change my desktop background because I just talked to Chloe and I realized how much I missed her and my other suities! So naturally, I had to look through my entire "Vandylove" photo album on my computer. And then my "La Casa = Love" one, too.

And I could not stop smiling. I'm a complete camera whore--I love being in pictures, but I love taking them, too. Some people think it's annnoying or excessive, but pictures are the way I remember specific events or emotions. I have the customary oooh-let's-get-together-and-pose pictures, and the typical for-posterity's (and my Alianza Historian duty's, haha) sake pictures, but I also have tons of candid, i-didn't-realize-anyone-was-taking-a-picture-so-i'm-not-self-conscious-about-how-my-face-looks-when-i-bust-out-laughing pictures. And those are the very best kind.

I can't stop gushing about how I excited I am about returning to Yale in the fall. I almost wish it were right now! Don't get me wrong, I love Brasil, I just love Yale more than anything anything anything. It's times like these (which are on a almost-daily basis sometimes) when I realize how lucky I am. I've always been extremely lucky and blessed, but this time...it's Yale, man. And I'm so glad to say that I haven't gotten jaded or lost any of that pure love for my dream school. I'd say that's mainly because the people I've met there remind me everyday how lucky I am to know them. =D

I love you guys SOSOSOSOSO much!!!!!



♥

Yale Name = Limelight for Good

Helloooo my loves! I'm sorry about the lack of updates, this week has been veryyy busy. I've come to the realization that I don't know how people have 9 to 5 jobs and EVER have time for ANYTHING after work! I'm not 9 to 5 and I'm certainly not in an office somewhere, but still.

I'll give you a quick overview of the work we've done so far. And after tomorrow hopefully I'll have pictures to put up of the UNBELIEVABLY ADORABLE kids =D

First off, in a conversation with Shanah, I realized I am not in love with little kids. As in, I don't love all kids (or babies) unconditionally, the way most people do (and the way I love dogs lol). I taught at (and later ran) my karate dojo for 5 years, so I know it's not that I don't like children. I absolutely LOVED my kids--I would talk to anyone who would listen about Jonathan's latest antics (the kid is such a smart-ass haha), or how Fahim once told me, with the air of someone explaining 2+2 =4 to someone, that I was "SuperWoman" because I could fix anything. That's just it--they were mine. Once I get to know kids, I go crazy about them. Hence why I'm having such a good time at Cre-Ser =)

This Colonia de Ferias is a two-week long summer camp for Autistic children. The first session started this past Monday and is for kids between the ages of 2 and 7. The next starts when this one ends and is for kids age 8 to 14. We have 11 (soon to be 12, I think) kids enrolled in the camp, which allows most of the kids to have two interns each, who are from the local university, all majoring in things like Nutrition, Psychology, Physiotherapy, etc. Three of the kids are not Autistic; they are siblings of other kids enrolled in the camp. They are split up into three rooms based on color (YEAH, GREEN) and work on a series of activities with them, such as educational games, arts, sports, social interactions (trying to get them to play together can be hard haha), and other stimulating activities. The kid that I was assigned happens to be one of the few "normal" ones (once again, don't go PC on my ass)--his name is Carlos Vinicius. He's 6, really talkative, and has a great imagination. I really really like my kid, he just doesn't require the attention that the other kids, especially in the green room, need. The professionals at Cre-Ser said that they wanted me to experience working with an Autistic child (to which I was like, well, considering I came from the US to Brasil for that, yeah, that would be nice lol) so they told me to move freely around all the children and help and interact as much as I wanted without worrying about who I was assigned to. And by that I mean that Rose, who is the professional in charge of our room, would watch over Vinicius as he draws while I would go settle Gisele's tauntrum and get her to play with numbers instead. It worked out great the past two days, because the other children in my room are Gisele and Pedro Victor, two of the most adorable little kids I've EVER seen.

Gisele (Gee-zeh-lee) is a regular at the center (I'm sorry I switch between saying Cre-Ser and the center, they're the same thing), which she's been attending since it opened in February. She's 4 and she vocalizes (makes noises only she understands) but she's only just starting to form words; today, watching a DVD concert of Xuxa (DOES ANYBODY REMEMBER HER??) singing a song called Tchu Tchu Cao, Gisele sang along when Xuxa said "peludo," which means furry (the song was about a dog). We were stunned! That's like the 4th word in her vocabulary, the others being chi chi (pee), liçensa (com liçensa = excuse me), and cinco (five) hahaha.



As for Pedro Victor, I could gush about him for DAYS. He's either 3 or 4 and he has the most winning smile I've ever seen. He's really intelligent, can talk pretty well, knows every single animal that roams or has ever roamed this planet, and likes to draw on the dry-erase board. Actually, good luck getting him to stop haha. He draws the same thing over and over again, a circle with two eyes and either a neutral or a sad mouth and then a bunch of squiggles and bigger circles around it: Mamae, or mom. We have yet to understand why the non-happy smile, because he's smiling big all the time, especially when he erases something well by himself and I say "muito bom!" haha. He's like the world's biggest cutie =D



Vinicius is really intelligent and I'm only worried he's not challenged enough in this atmosphere. Not gonna lie, my heart goes out to him whenever Rose (Hoe-zee) makes the signal for me to leave him and she takes over. She's not a bundle of joy and fun all the time lol. He's actually come to ask for me when I'm not with him because he wants me to play with him or see something or just stay at the table with him =) Awwww my kid is sooo cute!



Okay, this is was supposed to be a really short post, haha, but I told you, once I start on these kids, I can't stop. Wait until I have pictures, you'll see what I'm talking about.

Until then, I only have this, which explains the whole Colonia de Feria thing (aaaand has a picture of yours truly with Gisele and two other interns), albeit in Portuguese. Put your language skills to the test, Nico! =)

http://www.farn.br/novo/navegacao/noticias/vernoticia.php?id=617


Hope your summers are making you as happy as mine is!

<333allie

PS I LOVE BRANFROSH!

Crê-Ser and How it Instilled in Me the Fear of Getting Attacked (and other such poorly-constructed English sentences lol)

Okay, so let me just say that this is the second post in the same day, because I have much much much more to tell =)

Um, first of all, I feel like Rio deserves more than the paragraph I’m going to give it, but ah well. Rio (pronounced “hee-you”) de Janeiro is wonderful. I loved it, it’s a real city! But it’s a beach, too, home to Copacabana and Ipanema. It gets its name because it’s surrounded by mountains, and when the Portuguese settlers arrived, they saw a large body of water from in between two mountains. They mistook it for the mouth of a grand river, and since it was January ("Janeiro" being January in Portuguese), they named it Rio de Janeiro (River of January). Turns out there’s no river, it’s a bay, jaja. But regardless, if any of you want to go to Rio with me when I go back in the hopefully near future, let me know—you’re officially invited =)

So today was our first official day of work, though it was still only orientation. This entire week is preparation for the first Colonia de Feria (there’s some kind of ^ accent mark in there somewhere, jaja), a week-long camp designed specifically for Autistic children. The first week is for children between the ages of 2 and 7 and the second for children between 8 and 14. There’s a team of professionals who have been working at Crê-Ser since Eliana founded it, a bunch of women who are really cool and are all either Psychologists, Therapists, or some combination—Talita, Manu (she surfs, it’s so cool jaja), Hellen, Ione (she’s a doctor), etc. Then there’s Shanah and I, who are presented as the equivalent of “special guests” on the flyer announcing the Colonia de Feria, jaja. There are also about 12 college students from the nearby Faculdade (don’t ask me to explain the Brasilian school system, it’s ridiculously complex, and though I’ve asked about 3847 people to explain it to me, I still don’t get it, jaja) who are basically interns along with us, though they are at least Psychology students.

This week, we’re getting familiarized with each other and the Faculdade students are also getting familiarized with all of the Crê-Ser staff and the building itself, along with all the different types of games and activities that we use to stimulate communication and understanding in the children (crianças). Since we’re going to have one intern (or more, read on) to each child, it’s important that we get used to learning how to deal with Autistic kids. A small group of us stayed with Hellen for more than an hour as she dealt with “her kid,” a 12-year-old boy named Yuri that has both Classical Autism and Down Syndrome. Can I just say at this point that I have already suffered my first battle wounds—though 12, Yuri is nowhere near his actual age in terms of mental development and not only is unable to speak, but has a fascination for beating himself and other people. Two people have to tend to Yuri whenever he is at the Center because he is ridiculously strong for his small size and grabs hold of people’s hair and hands, digging his nails in (I swear my pinky will now forever have a scar, jaja) and sometimes biting as well.

My job is not going to be easy, and I frankly did not expect that. Yuri is an example of the least developed child, which means my other encounters are far more likely to be more positive than having him move his hand so fast toward my hair that my karate reflexes kicked in and I blocked his movement without even realizing it. At the same time, though, none of these children are what society considers “normal.” Their world is so different from ours, I try to fathom it and have trouble and then feel incapable because I can’t relate and therefore I can’t understand. We are trying to teach these children to be autonomous, because right now most of them can’t write, seemingly don’t respond to the words we repeat over and over again, can’t brush their own teeth, and can’t communicate through speech, only grunts and occasional screams. I wish I could take these kids in my arms and shake them out of it and magically make them normal and able to participate and be accepted in society. Ignorance. They live in worlds so different from ours, and try as we might to improve their communication and teach them to play and interact with others, they will still see things differently and perhaps always be different. We can make improvements, but we can’t make everything better. I don’t think I’ve ever come across something that wasn’t possible. I remember in like the 4th grade, when our teacher asked us if we really thought anything was possible, to which I responded with an emphatic “yes!” I’ll never forget how my best friend at the time answered no, because you couldn’t be a Nascar driver if you were blind. I remember frowning at her pessimism at the time—obviously technology or something would figure out a way to do it, or the blind driver would just memorize the route and all the other drivers would be careful not to crash into him.

And though that was 10 years ago, I maintain that same innocence, something which I feel is likely to be taken away by the end of this internship. Because I can’t help but think about all the ways in which I could have ended up with a different life—say, for example, preferring to pull at hair and always biting down on my hand.


PS There are homemade mini fireworks (or attempts at fireworks) just about every night, and I haven't been able to get over them because they still sound like gunshots to me! Oh dear.

Rebels Already…A Week Vacationing in Brasil and the Realization That I Look Like I’m Ambiguously Raced

Monday, June 23, 2008


Ok. TONS to update on, but so little time. I could seriously write pages and pages in Microsoft Word about this past week, but I’ll spare you all. I’ll try to hit the major points and my thoughts on each.

First off, Shanah and I officially slept through our first day of work (::insert Skype partying smiley here:: lol). We got back to the house in Natal around 12:30 am, but Eliana, Breno, and their doctor friend Ione (who was with us in Rio) were on a different flight that had been seriously delayed, so they wouldn’t get back until later. Turns out they got back at like 4 am, but we were exhausted and fast asleep, and no one thought to tell us we would had to get up at 7 today to go to orientation at the Center. Until Shanah checked her email half an hour ago and saw she had an email from Eliana, who had had to go to a meeting thingy in another city 4 hours from Natal and told us we had to go to work today =\. I really hope it’s not a big deal, though I honestly can’t see how it’s our fault if we had no idea…

We left for Salvador last Sunday, the 15th, and stayed until the 18th, when we left for Rio de Janeiro. Salvador is pretty close to Natal, only like an hour or so by plane. On the eastern coast of Brasil, you come across the cities in this order from north to south: Natal (us!), Recife, João Pessoa (Oskis!), and Salvador. Salvador is in Bahia and is really really laid back. Salvador also has like 80% of the black population, so there’s a lot of African influence that can be seen in the abundance of Capoeira, Candomble (a type of Santaria), and food (moqueca!). We basically spent three days relaxing on the beach (really pretty beaches), hanging out near the Farol (lighthouse jaja), eating ridiculously cheap food (can you say, R$ 4,00 per person for a fabulous meal??...That’s like 2 USD), talking to all the really nice people we came across, and then later trying to evade the advances of those same really nice people, jaja.

My Portuguese got exponentially better in the time I spent in Salvador because we made friends with a group of Capoeristas who we spent a lot of time with those two days. Indio had picked up a fair amount of English (and his accent was very good) from all the tourists that came by Salvador, but other than that, none of the other guys really spoke anything but Portuguese, so it was either speak Portuguese or play charades. I played a lot of charades for a while, jaja.
Ok, now I have to interrupt my retelling to just tell you guys how amused I am right now, watching Benji the dog literally run in circles, barking, around the backyard. End transmission.
So Indio, Marcelo, and Anderson taught us a little Capoeira one morning, right on the grass in front of the big touristy lighthouse! It was sooo much fun, but so tiring, jaja. I bet we looked really awkward doing it since the movements are so different from the linear structure of Shotokan karate (and even different from the circular movements of Goju-ryu karate), but they insisted that we were really good, jaja. Because of my karate background and Shanah’s background in a ton of different sports, we were "naturals" lol. Right. But I really liked it, and really hope to start going to that Capoeira school we found near Ponta Negra beach.
In terms of evading unwanted advances, let me just say that that was our life in Salvador. Most of the guys were too nice. Nick, I swear I told them I had a man in my life, they just wouldn’t back off, lol. Ah well.

The only tour we actually did was to go see a Candomble ceremony, which was very long and very odd. I wish I knew more about what was going on, since I was completely lost during the entire two hours we stood there. It’s a type of religious ceremony with emphasis on ridding of spirits and such. There were three large drums (congas?) that were basically played continuously throughout the night and there was a Santo Padre that did several dances presumably to do different things, such as sweep the bad spirits out of the room. During the ceremony, random people would suddenly "catch spirits" and start shaking, only to be taken to an unknown "downstairs," from which they would come back, with cloths wrapped around their bodies and one around their head, in a seeming trance as they would mimic the dance moves of the Santo Padre. It was very odd, and I prayed to every god I know that that spirit wouldn’t touch me, jaja. Shanah and I also got attacked my branches, when the Santo Padre cleansed everyone in the room, one-by-one, by brusquely brushing everything evil off them with a big green collection of leaves. It was an experience, though I haven’t quite found the right adjective to put in front of that word.

I sadly don’t have any pictures of anything whatsoever from Salvador because I refused to carry my camera around—I realized the first day that people thought Shanah and I were Bahianas (me probably only because I was with Shanah, but whatever, I’ll take it, jaja), so I didn’t want to lose the protection that offered me. As long as we didn’t open our mouths, we could walk around as natives, free of the dangers that follow tourists around everywhere, but especially in Salvador.

In my life, I’ve been mistaken for just about everything under the sun: a White person (screw political correctness, that paper actually said WF—White female), a Mexican (not just by you, Julian, jaja), an Ecuadorian, a Brazilian, an Argentinean, an Italian, a Spaniard, a Greek, an Indian, a Filipina, a Chinese, and since I’ve been in Brasil, a Bahiana, a Japanese, a Hawaiian, and even Pocahontas (I assume "Native American" was the term he was looking for, but he was too drunk to care lol). That means I’ve blended-in every where I’ve gone, except Curaçao and Japan (since I obviously don’t look Japanese compared to actual Japanese people, jaja). It’s a pretty awesome feeling to be wandering aimlessly around Rome and have an obvious tourist (map and all) ask me where Via Nazionale is, just like it feels great to have waiters say after an entire meal has passed that they really thought we were Brasilian.

It feels kinda funny though, that I don’t look Colombian in Colombia because I’m too Americanized by now, but especially with my skin being darker now because of my tan, no one here can imagine me being American either. Everyone I know at Yale knows me as a Latina because of my constant talking about/doing stuff for Alianza and La Casa Cultural in general. And I’d say most people know I’m Colombian because I bring it up whenever I can and to whoever will listen to me.

So it made me really happy to encounter, at least in little ways, a bit of the Colombian-ness I thought people didn’t see in me here. In Salvador, when we were walking with the Capoeiristas to a different beach, we passed by an old man sitting on a stool-like thing on the sidewalk, one of the many that were all around Salvador so that we didn’t even look twice. And then I heard the man yelling something, but I’m accustomed enough to catcalls and random hissing from strangers, especially along Roosevelt Avenue back home, that I completely ignored it (never try to get my attention by honking a car’s horn lol)—until I heard something odd, which totally threw me off guard, but at the same time HAD to be addressed to me: "COLOMBIANA! CO-LOM-BIA-NA!"

What the heck?? Everyone spun around to stare at my astonished face; I couldn’t even say anything other than "sim" (yes, in Portuguese) in a surprised tone. This random old man, who I had never seen before in my life, was apparently SO sure of my heritage that he proceeded to yell it out for all of Bahia to here. And I checked, I wasn’t wearing any Colombian colors or anything identifying me as such. We all pondered and laughed about it, soo very confused about how that man knew. I couldn’t let it go, and even though I tried to look for him hours later when we left the beach, I knew I wouldn’t get a chance to ask him how he knew, and would just have to deal with the fact that I looked Colombian to somebody in Brasil =)

A Praia (The Beach)—A place to find love, seafood, and…fighting?

Thursday, June 12, 2008


I thought I wouldn’t have anything to update about until tomorrow night or possibly the weekend, after some plans we have (more on that later), but tonight, randomly, proved me wrong. I love it when that happens! =)

First off, today (June 12th) is Brasil’s equivalence of Valentine’s Day, known here as O Dia dos Namorados, or "The day of those in love" and any other rough equivalent of that phrase. Brasilian couples have been out in full force for an entire week, making this single girl slightly bitter because of their constant presence jaja. But since you all are my loves, I’ll wish you all a Feliz Dia dos Namorados! =)

Anyway. Eliana, our host mother lady person (don’t really know what I would call her jaja) asked us today if we liked shrimp, and said that we would go to a "shrimp festival" at night for dinner. Hmm? That’s what I said (not to be confused with TWSS jajaja). But hey, I love shrimp, so I went along with it. It turns out it was a legit annual shrimp festival they have near Ponta Negra beach here in Natal, complete with reallyyyyy cheap and reallyyyy yummy shrimp dishes. There were tons of people there and there was so much variety in terms of food, it sucked only being able to pick one dish! If I can get this picture-in-the-blog thing to work, I’ll post a picture of my dish, Penne alla Vodka e Gamberi (shrimp, duh jaja).



I feel like this was a very cool, random event, something I would imagine stumbling across in Midtown Manhattan or something (like that food-tasting thing, Sam, remember??). And it also meant that we went for a drive around downtown Natal, where Eliana pointed out some good-looking nightlife places (you João Pessoa people ready???) and drove us along the boardwalk of the beach. While we were driving along, we heard some music, people singing and beating drums and tambourines. We stopped and got out of the car to get a closer look, and we found a big circle of people doing Capoeira right there on the sidewalk! It was really cool, especially since most of the Capoeria-ists (don’t know the technical term here, someone want to help me out?) were just kids, and could do aerials, tornado kicks, and spins on their heads (I might be exaggerating that last one jaja). We watched until it started to rain, fighting back the urge to whip out my camera and seem like a COMPLETE touristy loser, instead settling for sneaking a picture from my phone, which I hope to insert here:



It’s actually funny though, because as long as I don’t say anything and in general don’t move around too much (for my gestures are too American by now), people think I’m Brasilian. That’s happened to both me and Shanah more than twice, and it always makes me feel good because that means I’m less of a target for people looking to do harm to obvious tourists. Yeah, I know, that’s the first thing I can see that comes from that jajaj—I’m a New Yorker, after all! =P
Oh, and can I just say the Shanah and I also discovered a gym like two blocks away from the house and…jesus, why did I ever stop doing karate and get out of shape like this?? I wince in pain when I walk or even think about moving my legs—I am SOOO sore right now because Fabio (yes, the trainer guy at the gym is named Fabio jajaja) decided that we actually were tougher than we looked and could do more sets than actual beginners. Ugh. Thanks for the faith, Fabio, but I’d rather be able to walk right now jaja.

Hopefully that doesn’t interfere with tomorrow’s plans, though. We’re finally heading off to the beach to be actual beachgoers! I’m excited; it’s gonna be a great picture-taking opportunity, especially since I haven’t had too much to take pictures of so far! And I hope it’s a 100 effin degrees tomorrow so that I can get a tan jaja. Or maybe just around 35 (since Celsius dominates everywhere in the world BUT the US, which is true for too many things), which is high 90’s. Breno actually called me branca (white!) today, and that coupled with people thinking I’m part-Japanese (though I don’t really mind that) is a sure sign I need to discover that fascinating thing called sunlight. Stay tuned for pictures of a sun-kissed Allie! =D

As for weekend plans, we will *hopefully* be going to down to Salvador and Rio de Janeiro for a week! Both places are supposed to be BEYOOTIFUL , and I’m ridiculously excited to see everything both cities have (aaaand hit up their allegedly gorgeous beaches!). I’m not too thrilled about the prospect of flying again so soon (and so many times in one week: Natal-Salvador-Rio-Natal), but I’ve done it tons of times, and I know it’s definitely worth it! More to come on that excursion, which will also sadly mean that I won’t have internet access for an entire week! =(
I will miss you guys a lot, though, you better know that!

I also just realized I write a lot. Hmm. Like husband, like wife =P


Muito muito muito love,
allieossa aka shakira to the brasilians. Ah, stereotyping at its best jaja.


PS Remember that party I mentioned I was going to last time? Well, Eliana’s niece Paulina (Pina) ended up taking us out with some of her friends, which was a lot of fun because Pina did an exchange program in Canada for a year so speaks fluent English (YES!). First we went to cheer-on one of her friends who was performing at an underground music competition thing (there was this HILARIOUS drunk guy dancing by himself jajaja) and then drove around trying to get into a lot of places (everything was so crowded, no tables!), finally ending up at a place across the street from a really annoying circus thing but having such a good time talking and just being random and goofy =)

Brasilians are just like us =)

Per Cominciare...Oh wait, wrong language. Mierda.

Saturday, June 7

I couldn’t ask for a prettier view/temperature right now. I’m in the patio/backyard of the house where I’m staying, and though the weather is warm (too warm for the jeans I had to wear today because I needed to look nice jaja), it’s very breezy and I LOVE the wind.

Natal is the main city of Rio Grande do Norte, a region of northeast Brasil, basically the easternmost tip (the easternmost city being João Pessoa, where the Bulldogs in Brasil are). I legit thought Natal was going to be somewhere in carajoland (butt-effin-Egypt for you gringos lol), but it’s actually a city! We even went to a huge mall yesterday to look for a bank that would let Shanah take out reais (Brasilian currency, pronounced more like heh-ah-ees) and I was impressed. The food has been amazing so far, so amazing that Shanah and I are frantically on the lookout for either Capoeira lessons or Samba lessons or something else that will burn thousands of calories jaja.

Now that I’ve actually visited the place where we’ll be working and met our co-workers, I think I can better explain the whole reason why I’m here (which, as most of you know, was fairly vague before this). There’s a Center called "CreSer" (word play on to grow and to be/human being) with a longer subname that basically lays out its focus on educational studies for children with developmental disorders, the main one being Autism. This entire project was started by a woman named Eliana, whose son Breno has Asperger’s Syndrome but was not diagnosed until his 20’s. She’s fought hard (and still fighting) for more focus and attention paid to Autism in Brasil, since there is not information out there for doctors to properly diagnose patients and for parents to properly treat their children. Though there are places where they will take care of Autistic children, they’re basically just watching them, not helping them in any way. That’s where the Center comes in. They have a team of specialized teachers that each concentrate on a specific child, and the whole program is ridiculously organized and well-thought out. They cater directly to the needs of every child and develop activities to help with motor skills, recognition of objects, and communication, while they also provide physical stimulation through massages and things like that. And one of the coolest parts of this (you would really like this, Nico) is that all the materials they use in their instruction, from boards to containers to games, are made using stuff that would normally go in the trash, like cardboard, poker chips (make great counters), bottles and shoeboxes (containers), etc.

Me and Shanah (if you hadn’t picked up by now, she and I are the two Yalies doing the program right now—and she just graduated) basically will be helping to do some organizational stuff before our main program, a summer camp in the Center, starts in July (I think jaja). We’ll also be working on getting attention for the program, since this is the first of its kind in Natal—and here is where the Yale name comes in handy!

Most of you by now will be like, "Does Allie even know Portuguese??" And the answer is…no jaja. I WISH. Yes, it’s very similar to Spanish and Italian, but that only means I can read it well, not necessarily that I can understand the spoken language. There’s one lady at the Center (by the way, they’re all in their 20s and one in her 30s so they’re taking us clubbing jaja) who speaks a little more slowly for me than everyone else does, so I can understand 90% of what she says, but not everyone is like that jaja. Getting myself understood is more the problem, I find, because no matter how much Spanish and Portuguese are similar, they don’t understand me. And forget English for the most part jaja. Luckily, Shanah came to Brasil last year and knows Portuguese very well, so she is my lifesaver.

I don’t want to make this too long or no one will read it =( but I have to say that I missed my first flight ever!! I’ve been close to it a few times, but this was the first time. Our flight was JFK--São Paolo—Natal , but our flight out of JFK was delayed by two hours due to fog, so by the time we got to Sao Paolo, went through Customs, got our luggage, made the line to check our luggage back in (stupidity), and got to the desk, our flight had left like 40 minutes before that. So they paid for our hotel, dinner (at one in the morning) and breakfast, and put us on a 11:25 am flight for the next day. It wasn’t too bad, except we were EXHAUSTED (we had gotten to the airport in ny at like 6 in the morning) and everything took FOREVER so that we were going to bed at like 2:30 am. And then we got to Natal the next day =)

Other than that, the only other thing of note is that tonight we’re going to some party, something because of Festa Junina (I botched the spelling, sorry), a month-long celebration of June. Don’t get too excited, it starts at 7 pm lol.

Okay loves, I’m off to go do something else, but I hope all of you are having amazing times wherever you may be, which I hope to hear about! Can’t wait to see you guys in August (or December for Matt A!)!

LOOOOOOOOOOVE! =D


-Allie(or as my host family says, Eli)


PS They have a dog, Benji (not like Genji jaja, more like Ben-jzhee if you can imagine that sound lol) who is the CUTEST thing in the world. Pictures to come =)

PPS I'm sorry if the buttons are in Portuguese or something. Before you complain, imagine me trying to create this darn blog with an entirely Portuguese (i.e. slightly unintelligible to me) website! =)