Impending Press Conference and Work Summary

Tomorrow is our last day at UFBA, and the day of our Press Conference. We will be our presenting our projects to the press and to various NGO's in the hopes of gaining media attention and support. Funding will not be allocated to the best group because GPACT is a liar, but I have a feeling that by noon tomorrow my group and I will be feeling quite accomplished.

Below I've pasted the Project Description which we will be sending in a huge file along with the rest of our Global Pact Final Packet to the trainers tomorrow. It's a good summary of what we've been doing over the past three weeks and where our project is now in case you would like to read it.

I'll write more tomorrow about why I've been frustrated with a couple of our group members and a few of the complications our project may experience when we leave Brazil.

I am proud to say, however, that after three weeks of solid work in Saramandaia and in Salvador, our project CAN work and is ready for implementation:

Project Description

Our group has come a long way since the first few days of the Global Pact program. Our project began as we tried to tackle the problem of unemployment within the favelas. Unemployment was extremely broad and difficult to break down because initially we could not see past the issue of a lack of government funding for the development of underrepresented communities. Finally we realized that we were thinking too generally. Upon thinking more specifically, we realized that the lack of skills and the lack of community awareness about work opportunities could also be a problem. We believe that both of these issues could be traced to the lack of a steady flow of information about how to find employment and how to learn valuable skills. By implementing simple communications technologies within Saramandaia, through which information can be shared and passed on, we believe that eventually people will be able to create employment opportunities for themselves as well as learn skills from others within the community. This network will eventually lead to a better overall reputation for Saramandaia, and serve as an inspiration for other underprivileged communities. After listening to and learning from our Brazilian group members, we came up with a much more specific and feasible idea. We decided that it would be more effective to help a project that is already being implemented.


In order to learn more about local development projects, we met with Professor Genauto, a professor at Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA). One of his many projects includes working together with students at UFBA to stimulate economic solidarity in and working with projects already in existence within Saramandaia, an underrepresented neighborhood in Salvador. Our research began by traveling to Saramandaia to see first hand where we could be of assistance. After attending a few community meetings, we learned that the project ideas being discussed at the meetings were not being shared with the rest of Saramandaia because the people involved did not have the means to advertise. After some deliberation we decided that we could truly assist this community by initiating a communications project by which Genauto’s project members could spread their ideas to the rest of Saramandaia and to Salvador as well. By tackling a smaller issue like the lack of communications within Saramandaia, the people of Saramandaia will become better equipped to confront larger issues such as unemployment.


At the first community meeting, we learned that there are currently many developmental project ideas being proposed and initiated through a partnership between active community members and Genauto and some of his students. Project goals include organizing the cooperatives already in existence to help stimulate the economy of Saramandaia, to establish a community bank and community currency, and to create an information center through which the people of Saramandaia can have easy access to computers and public information. We were in awe of these incredible initiatives, but we learned that in order for these projects to be successful, the rest of Saramandaia must be aware of them. A community bank with its own currency cannot be successfully established if the people of Saramandaia do not know about it and approve of it. We also learned at this meeting that the radio is the most widely utilized source of information, and that Saramandaia has its own radio station. We realized then that we could potentially partner with whomever runs the radio station to provide the community projects with air time to announce their project ideas and involve the rest of Saramandaia. We also thought that if we could use this radio station to announce community project updates, we could also teach the youth in Saramandaia to use media technology to market their own skills and talents and help engender a new generation that is actively involved in the development of the community.


To continue with our action research, we realized that we needed to meet with associations that already specialize in communication. We first met with CIPÓ, an NGO that trains youth how to advertise and market their skills and talents. We spoke with Bruna, who coordinates communications workshops in various communities near Saramandaia, and asked her for community marketing advice. We told her our project ideas and although she really liked our radio station idea, she said we did not have nearly enough time to implement a youth training program. She also said she would be glad to provide us with various marketing materials, but that CIPÓ does not have the resources to work with Saramandaia because of the many communities it is already involved with.


After the meeting with CIPÓ we decided to focus our efforts on finding the person in charge of the radio station in Saramandaia. We learned through our project member,Ingrid, that Fabio, one of the community youth instructors, knows Antonio, the man who runs the radio. We called Fabio and scheduled a meeting with Antonio. This meeting was the final step in developing our launch project.


Ícone will begin a partnership with Saramandaia´s local radio station to make weekly announcements regarding community meetings and projects. These announcements will hopefully incite community involvement, which in turn will stimulate economic growth within Saramandaia. We have a space in the community where we can establish an office to act as our central headquarters; this is where our group plans to grow and become more of an active catalyst in the communications program. Antonio is very interested in our project idea and is willing to help us become involved in an effort to impact the entire neighborhood consisting of 40,000 people. With the help of Antonio and the cooperation of Saramandaia our organization hopes to develop and explore different educational avenues. Our main long-term goal focuses on educational communications workshops. These workshops will be open to all youth in the neighborhood and will teach them the skills necessary to communicate their ideas in an effective manner. Antonio wants the radio to be very educational and thinks that with our help we can make a difference in the development of Saramandaia.

Bossa Nova

The past few days have been quite frustrating. We have a week to finish up our projects and prepare materials for the Press Conference, which takes place next Friday. Yet we sit in class from 9-5, and I feel that most of that time is spent unwisely. Our trainers spend hours explaining concepts that could be understood in a few minutes; I understand that they're trying to be creative in their long-winded examples, but I think that since we have such limited time to implement a good project, that time would be better spent either working in small groups or going out to do action research. A couple of days ago the Professor noted that a lot of the groups were experiencing frustrations, and so we spent the last two hours of class time that day in a Circle of Truth, where everybody express their aggravations, as well as what they like about either their group members or the program. Most American students voiced that class time was being used unwisely, that a lot of the Brazilian students do not show up every day, and that the program is not as organized as it should be. Many Brazilians complained that the incentives for the Brazilian students to participate are different from the incentives the Americans have. It seems to them that we are there only to get a grade.

This part really bothers me. The program is set up in such a way that the Americans have assignments to complete and presentations to make during the course of the three weeks. Many of the assignments are discussed during class time, and the presentations must include the Brazilians. Yet the Brazilians are not graded for making or participating in the presentations, and they are not obligated to hand in the assignments, so time spent discussing assignments is a waste of their time. I did not come to Brazil for a grade; if I were simply interested in receiving credit, I could have taken summer classes and it would have been much less expensive. So I was doubly disappointed that the Brazilians thought all we care about is grades (especially considering how much commitment I know the Americans in many of the groups are putting into these projects) as well as how uninvolved many of them are being considering its their communities we're working to improve.

A few days ago our group lost an essential group member, Ingrid. Ingrid is in her 30's and has already established an NGO with her husband, which aims to involve street kids in sports as a means for getting them less involved with drugs. She's had tons of experience networking with NGO's and collecting contacts, so she was a very crucial member of our group and contributed a lot of great ideas for NGO's we can contact. She also spoke pretty decent English and helped translate the other Portuguese-speakers. She suddenly told us a couple of days ago that she only has six more days to complete her Ph.D discertation and that she can no longer work with us or with the program. I encouraged my group not to dwell on her absence too much because we can still get a lot done. After the Circle of Truth I think we were all feeling a lot better about the situation, and talked it out the next day. We have a meeting with Antonio, the Saramandia radio man, on Tuesday.

Last night the trainers had a party at their "apartment" and invited us for pizza and drinks. We took a cab over, and I fought with the cab driver because he was trying to heinously rip us off. We walked into their green house and realized that their "apartment" is a gigantic town house with three floors, four hammocks, and an enormous balcony overlooking the ENTIRE city and river. We spent the entire night drinking and dancing on the enormous balcony (large enough to accommodate 40 people) to 70's and 80's music, The Beatles, and Girl Talk. I thought it was a great bonding night for our group. We couldn't stay too late, though, because this morning we took an excursion to Saramandia and had the locals show us around. It was kind of bizarre because they had pretty much rolled out the red carpet for us. They were very proud of the progress they were making in their community, and after our tour they took us to the church where my group and I usually go for meetings and fed us with all sorts of baked goods. As we were leaving the church we were greeted by a small drum troupe which performed for us, and then accompanied us, drummig, all the way to our vans. When we arrived at our vans we were greeted by a very young Capoiera dance troupe. They, too, performed for us before we left to go home. Capoiera is a very popular style dance here. It's a bit difficult to describe, but I think the most accurate way would be to imagine how martial arts would look if it were a dance. Two people enter the circle and shake hands, then they kick over one another's heads and perform all sorts of acrabatic tricks to avoid the other's strike. Then they leave the circle and two others enter. All of this is played out to drumming and singing at the edges of the circle. It's really quite impressive.

Tonight I'm just going to stay in and maybe practice some drawing. James has been trying to teach me to draw cross-country via e-mail. He drew an amazing sketch of Nick from a photograph I sent him, and sent me an instructional e-mail about how to draw Nick. So I attempted it and actually didn't do too bad of a job (for my first time). I've included his version and my version below.

I've also uploaded the first set of Brazil pictures onto my Picasa Website. Check them out: http://picasaweb.google.com/yoolka.d/FirstWeekInBrazil

Oh yes, and in other news, Brazilian Chinese food is superb.

My drawing is on the left, and James's is on the right. I laugh as I look at them side by side; I'm such an amature :P

World at Large

Holy SHIT do I wish I could speak Portuguese. I think I'm adding that to the list of things to do. Portuguese is a beautiful language, and though it is often said that if you speak Spanish you'll be able to understand/speak Portuguese, this is not at all the case. Portuguese sounds like a mixture of French, Spanish, and Italian, but does not sound much at all like Spanish when spoken. I can only see the similarity when it's written down.

My project is going EXTREMELY well. Two days ago our group had an awakening. We knew we wanted to work with unemployment in the Favelas, but our trainers kept telling us the idea was too broad and we were getting frustrated because it almost seemed as though we would have to switch our topic to something more generic. (A favela is a Brazilian shanty-town, where make-shift houses are constructed on public property). As we were mulling over whether or not to switch topics, which I was adamantly arguing against, the trainers informed us that we were receiving a new group member, Ingrid (pronounced Ingridje) who had just joined the class and had the choice of choosing which group to work with. She heard that we were hoping to work with unemployment in the favelas and she joiend our group. As it turns out, she was a Godsend. Not only does she speak very good English and has been a great contribution to our bi-lingual communication efforts, but she also has experience working with NGO's; she and her husband started an NGO to keep children who live in favelas involved in activities to keep them away from drugs and crime. We explained to her that we were having trouble nailing a project idea, and she told us that one thing her NGO has a lot of trouble with is advertising to the community. We thought about this for a while, and decided it might be a really good avenue to try. We spoke to one of the professors at the University about or project ideas, and he told us of a meeting in one of the favelas called Saramnudaia, which would be going on that same night at the favela. The meeting would go from 6-9 and we would have a ride there if we so desired. Without question, we all decided to go to the meeting.

Camila's dad drove us to the meeting right after school. The favela is about a half hour away from the University, and located on an enormous hill looking over all of Salvador, and ironically, the largest mall in Bahia. Driving through the favela for the first time was incredible. On the one hand I looked out the window and saw this gorgeous view of the beautiful city, and on the other I was driving through narrow dirt roads with roofless tin and mudbrick houses on either side of the car. Camila's father dropped us off and we walked to the community Church and meeting house. The Church has two floors; the bottom floor is used for community meetings, and is basically just a room with benches on it. The 2nd floor is the actual Church part of the building, and has a small mural, some candles, and a bunch of benches. Windows adorn the walls with their brilliant views out unto commercial dreams. People were congregating downstairs to discuss a plan initiated by Professor Gianalto and some of the community of Saramundaia to stimulate the economy WITHIN the favela. The idea is to create their own community bank and their own currency in order to ensure that the economy within the community grows, generating both producers and consumers, so that people who were formerly living in absolute poverty could not only eat, but have enough money to start their own small business within the community. The project has been on its way for three months. The room was filled with men and women of all ages, all eager to make the project a reality. They all introduced themselves to us in Portuguese ( after which one of the University students translated to us in English); all of these people were heavily involved in pushing their community forward and creating cooperatives which would spur their economy. Each person in the room was either involved in the agricultural production effort, the Community Bank effort, The Informational Center Research effort, or the Embroidery effort. There were a couple of young guys who were swimming coaches, trying to keep kids off the streets by teaching them how to swim and involving them in fun activities.

I realized at this meeting that my passion is to work with community building. It was unlike anything else I had ever experienced to see these people, with the help of Gianalto and the students, making a solid effort to help themselves. And it was an even greater feeling to know that I could be a part of that. It was absolutely exhiliraitng because I'd never really felt completely passionate about any career-related thing before this meeting, in Saramundaia, in Brazil, on a Tuesday night.

One thing we learned after the meeting was that they definitely needed help communicating their efforts to the rest of Saramundaia, because approval of the whole community would be necessary in order to start up this Community Bank. The problem is that door-to-door canvassing would be too invasive and town newsletters wouldn't work because the majority of the community is illiterate. As I was walking to the car on the way back from the meeting, I noticed a radio in almost all of the make-shift houses. The next day as our group was discussing the previous night before our project ideas presentation, I told Ingrid about the radios I'd noticed. I suggested the possibility of creating a pirated radio station where the Cooperatives can communicate their developments to the rest of the community, so that the community can stay informed and get involved. Everyone REALLY loved the idea, and Ingrid even said there may already be a pirated radio station, which would make things even easier. We are going back on Tuesday night to learn more about how the radio system works in the community. I am SUPER excited.

Last night we went back into the Pehlourinho, met a crazy British dude whose been traveling through Brazil for the past five and a half months and told some increidble stories, hung out at a bar for a few hours, and then came home. There wasn't any dancing in the streets last night. There was one really strange, memorable incident, though. Our large group was gathered around a long table in the main square, and Kristen was eating a sandwich on the corner of the table. One of the begger kids came up to me and started snorting in my ear, then made his way around the table, snorting, to Kristen and asked her for her sandwich. She refused to give it to him, but naiively gave him the paper it was wrapped in. He started licking the paper, and then stuffing it into his mouth, all the while pointing to the sandwich Kristen was holding. She kept refusing, and he stuffed more and more of it into his mouth until he had chewed up the entire paper. Finally, as Kristen was taking a bite of her sandwich, he regurgitated it back at her and walked way.

Today was the first day we havent had any class, but we had an excursion go Playa de Foche, which is a beach about two hours from here where they also have a Sea Turtle Refuge. So we checked out the AWESOME turtles and then hung out on the beach all day. It was a LOT of fun, and I think I'm getting a pretty good tan.

In other news, I have some sort of inefction in my mouth. Hopefully it's going away now that I have antibiotics, but yesterday it was maximally bad. It was really adorable, though, because a few of the Brazilians whom I've befriended were helping me call doctors and getting the phone numbers for hospitals and medications.

I love Brazil!

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.

La Primera Noche

Tonight I shall be spending my first night ever in South America. It's been a long and interesting couple of days, jam-packed with travel and a few cultural shockers.

Yesterday was an EXTREMELY hectic day. I woke up at around 8 AM to drive to New Brunswick and pack up my room so that Moe's friend can take my place. Packing up my clothing and books took me about an hour and a half, and including driving to and from New Brunswick I spent three hours on this one task. At noon I came home, took a quick shower, and ran a couple of quick errands before driving over to my dad's to wish him a Happy Birthday. I arrived at my dad's to find that he and my stepmom were both supremely busy; my stepmom was busy cooking for his birthday celebration later that night, and my dad was in his library going through his archive of old letters and correspondences from old friends of his youth. I got a little caught up in my dad's archives and lost track of time (and my airplane ticket), and as I was about to leave I asked my dad if he had seen my ticket. We spent an hour searching for it to no avail, and by the time I left the house (without a plane ticket) I was running very late for the airport. I drove home as fast as I could, finished packing with Wendy, and met Stan downstairs. A few complications later, I was finally on my way to the airport with Stan and Wendy, and running late without a plane ticket.

Wendy walked into the airport with me to make sure that I could make it onto my flight okay despite the lost ticket, and stood in line with me until I filled out a Lost Ticket Application and had my ticket reissued to me for the ridiculous price of $100. I said goodbye to Wendy and booked it over to the check-in lanes, which took me about an hour and a half to get through. Security took me about a half hour, and by the time I made it to my gate it was just boarding. Perfect timing. I met up with Jen (my roommate for the Brazilian program) and we boarded together. The flight was extremely pleasant and relaxing. The food and service were great, and I slept like a baby for a lot of the flight. I used the remaining time to write my Expectations Essay for the program, going through pictures from Europe and reminiscing, and listening to music on my lap top. I sat next to an old missionary couple who have spent years of their lives traveling all over the world to help all sorts of causes. They were traveling to Brazil for two weeks to help organize a school for orphans in Northern Brazil. The man sitting next to me told me they had been to Guam, Vietnam, Japan, Thailand, and the Middle East through the missionary program already. I thought that sounds like a great way to spend old age.

Jen and I missed our connecting flight fro Sao Paulo, because our JFK flight got into Sao Paulo much later than expected. It took me a long time to get through customs because I speak no Portuguese, and as it turns out, the customs official I had to get by spoke no English. It all worked out in the end, though, and Jen and I ended up relaxing at the airport for about an hour before catching the next flight to Salvador. The flight was only about two hours long, and I sat next to an interesting middle-aged man who shared a lot of his music with me and introduced me to some of the most popular bands from Bahia, Brazil (which is where I am currently). The view from the airplane down onto the Eastern Coast of Brazil was gorgeous. Below us we could see the large waves breaking along the rocky shore, and snow-capped mountains seemingly only miles away. As we got closer to landing, the lush foliage of Salvador became more and more apparent.

The Salvadoran airport is very tiny, and it didn't take us long to collect our luggage and meet Victoria, one of our trainers who picked us up at the airport and took us to our hotel. The taxi ride to the hotel was incredible. We drove past Banks, barrios, beautiful houses, the Brazilian version of Walmart, gas stations, delapidated houses, all surrounded by enormous lush trees with tortuous trunks such that I have never seen before. Our hotel is located in a very artsy area, where public works and sculptures are plentiful and musicians play on many street corners. Salvador is on the Northeast coast of Brazil, and the beach is only a five minute walk from our hotel. The waves here are the largest I've ever seen in my life, and Salvador is a very popular surfing destination. For those just lounging on the beach, there are many shacks selling fried fish, french fries, and Brazilian beer.

At the hotel Jen and I are sharing a small apartment; it has a tiny kitchen, a living room, a bathroom, and a bedroom with two twin beds. We also have TWO balconies looking out onto the streets of Salvador. It's not a view of the beach, but it's still very pretty and colorful, as many of the houses here are made of vibrantly colored adobe.

Jen and I were quite tired when we arrived at our hotel, and we rested for a while before going to dinner to meet the rest of our group. The group seems really great! There are only four of us from Rutgers and the remainder of the group is from Northeastern, which is kind of a pleasant surprise. The food at dinner was alright, but the grilled pineapple with limejuice and honey custard for dessert were delicious.

Tomorrow we attend our first class at 9:30 at the Universidad Federal de Bahia where we will meet our Brazilian partners for the first time.

The Time Has Come, the Walrus Said, To Talk of Many Things...

The day of departure is quickly approaching, and in two days I will be on a plane on my way to Salvador, Brazil. I am going to be there for about three weeks and will then spend four days in Manaus (on the Amazon) for a Cultural Immersion Program. The time in Salvador will be spent creating a new NGO to fight the effects of both climate change and new industrialization on the Amazon. I am planning to document as much of this one woman adventure as I possibly can in this here blog, and hope y'all find it interesting.

"Now here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to stay in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that."
- Lewis Caroll