These past couple of days have been extremely interesting. Yesterday was our first day of class at the Universidad Federal de Bahia, and it was awful. I thought that we spent way too much time on useless rule making and class contracts, and not nearly enough time talking about what it is we were actually going to be doing for the next few weeks. In fact, I learned that the Rutgers Study Abroad Office sent me the wrong syllabus by accident, and we would not be working on environmental issues surrounding the Amazon whatsoever. I was a little disappointed upon learning this because I spent so much time after Europe preparing for this specific issue. It works out, though, in the end, because Salvador is nowhere near the Amazon and it makes much more sense for us to develop a project here where we'll be spending most of our time. So the idea now is that we will be working with Brazilian students to create an NGO to solve any one of the issues here in Salvador. Each group will have five or six members and work on any issue of their choice, and three weeks from now each group will present at a press conference. The best project will get funding towards the creation of that NGO.

I'm feeling a lot better about this new project today, but yesterday I was feeling rather frustrated that I didn't know the project was not going to be environmentally related before coming. After class yesterday (which ended at five thirty) we went to a cocktail party with the Brazilian students that was hosted by the University. We drank a lot of white wine and various Brazilian sodas, and ate many strange little hors 'd 'houvers. (One of these was a fried cinnamon sugar dough ball stuffed with ground beef and raisins, and another was a savory fried dough stuffed with all sorts of various vegetarian pastes and shrimp, which it turns out we were not supposed to eat). There was a guitarist at the cocktail party playing samba music, and a little bit of dancing, but for the most part the Americans were shy. The Brazilian students are a LOT of fun. Most of them have terrific senses of humor and a really great attitude about working with us towards a common goal.

After the cocktail party we hopped on the Mercedes vans that pick us up from school every day, and drove back to the hotel. A lot of us went to Kerry's room to party and listen to music, but then ended up having a pool party on the roof. There is a relatively small swimming pool on the roof of our hotel which looks out onto the rooftops of our neighborhood, which we'd been dying to check out since we first arrived. The water was FREEZING, but I was wearing a bathing suit and had absolutely no excuse not to jump in. Six of us played Marco Polo and created a whirlpool whilst drinking beer. I felt like I was twelve years old again, plus a beer, and I loved it. We hung out in the pool for quite a while, and then decided it was time to go back upstairs and go to bed.

Class today was much more interesting. We worked in our small groups for most of the day and practiced breaking down large issues into smaller causes that can be tackled on a community level. This was meant to be an exercise which would help us think about how to tackle the issue that we would ultimately be working with. I'm realizing now that this program will be great leadership and community activism training, and I'm getting very excited about that. I'm a very ambitious person, and I want my group to be the one to receive the funding, and I will work very hard to that end. I think I've got a great group and a lot of really great ideas. It looks like our issue will either be inadequate sexual education/HIV prevention, or inadequate public education in general. I've been trying to get some of my group members to come with me sometime soon to visit one of the local public schools to see what they're like and try to talk to some students.

After class a bunch of the girls went to go buy cell phones, to no avail, because cell phones are outrageously expensive here. We all ended up buying phone cards, which are much cheaper, and probably more practicall considering we will only be here for three weeks, and cell phones will probably not work in the Amazon. After this we relaxed in the hotel for a while and then went out to this GREAT neighborhood called Pelo Rino where there is live music and dancing every Tuesday night in the middle of the piazza. This neighborhood is GORGEOUS. It's still got all of the 15th century Portuguese colonial architecture with all of the modern Bahian flavor. There are street vendors surrounding the piazza, selling caparinas, meet on sticks, grilled feta cheese with roasted oregano, and many other Brazilian specialties. Everybody dances, and everybody drinks. At first we mostly watched, but by the end of the night ALL of us were dancing, and I learned pretty quickly that I can shake my ass just like a Brazilian chick. :D We spent about three or four hours just dancing out in the piazza, and intermittently running for cover when it poored.

Highlights from the day:

This morning two of the guys in the program, Kerry and Corey, almost drowned in the ocean because the waves were so enormous. They were saved by Brazilian surfers.

One of the girls in our program, Natasha, took a dead fish that Eli caught, and stuck it in his backpack. He didn't notice it was there until hours later, when the dead fish created a putrid stench that emanated from his backpack. It still smells awful.

Highlights from the evening:

A VERY drunk Brazilian man approached Aron and asked him if I was with him. Aron said yes (because the guy was obviously belligerent) and the drunken Brazilian took Aron's drink from him, drank his capirinia, crumpled up the plastic cup it was sitting in and threw it back at Aron.

A pregnant homeless woman who was begging us for money told us it was going to rain. It rained a SECOND later.

A barking transvestite hit on my roommate.

We watched a VERY talented 10 year old Bahian kid juggle four cocontus.

I learned that I can pass for a Brazilian :)

Our taxi driver on the way home ran SIX red lights and made it to our hotel without stopping ONCE for anyone or anything.