"The
human mind is, for the most part, set on being in the know. We don’t
like being uncertain or confused and seek answers and explanations to
make sense of what’s happening around us (but of course within the
framework of our pre-existing experiences).
In developing
tolerance for ambiguity however, we often have to ficar
com nossas dúvidas
or remain in a state of uncertainty, despite the discomfort. It
requires giving up control and developing humility to make room for
new experiences, including learning a new language and cultural
customs. Doing so also entails an acceptance that any human issue or
experience can be approached in multiple ways, with no solution that
is necessarily superior to the rest.” (Stolen and paraphrased from:
http://knowinnovation.com/tolerating-ambiguity/.
Thank you, Maggie, for letting me use your material!)
Anyone
who has spent at least a few months outside of his or her home
country is likely very familiar with this link between adjusting to a
new place and relinquishing control. In my own experience, the
tighter I attempt to hang to doing things as I am “accustomed”
and already find “normal,” the more my own stubbornness is
capable of intervening with properly adapting. Learning to let go is
critical. This process is NOT easy, in fact it is VERY challenging.
Nevertheless, I always I find the reward of developing a new sense of
understanding ultimately more powerful and beautiful than the
frustrations and growing pains that come with it. (In writing this I
am reminded of a quote from C.S. Lewis' The
Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
:
“Ooh. Is Aslan quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about
meeting a lion"..."Safe?" said Mr Beaver ..."Who
said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's
the King, I tell you.”).
In
the first two weeks after arriving in Araguaína, I felt I was
holding back from completely engaging here. "I'm not fluent
enough in Portuguese," "I won't be understood,"
"People won't have the similar interests" all of these
doubts plagued me and I realized I was not being myself. Spending
another night isolated in our apartment caused me to do some
soul-searching and reflect on things I CAN control. The next morning,
I woke up early and went to a free trial class for Zumba at a
gym-like corporation next two our house. It was both hilarious and
beautiful to me to be a part of a group of thirty Brazilian women,
some of them very well-endowed, who were enthusiastically shaking it
in the name of getting some Bewegung at seven in the morning (though
I'm glad I tried it, I felt ridiculous!). Nevertheless, this got me
out of my funk. I love exploring new places and taking initiative on
my own, but because of my perceived linguistic disadvantage with
being a not (yet!) fluent Portuguese speaker, I chose to seek refuge
in Ben’s (my co-ETAs) shadow these first few weeks. It has been
really positive for me to branch out and be reminded of my capability
these last few weeks. After the Zumba class on that particular day,
I wandered into town and ran a few errands. As I was walking back
from the center (about 1.5 miles away), it started raining, and this
time, instead of being a nuisance, it felt quite refreshing,
reminding me of the refreshing energy Portland rain would bring on
the days I needed it the most. As the rain pounded down harder and
gradually soaked me to the bone, my smile spread wider. This
relatively mundane downpour (rain is an almost daily occurrence here
at this time of the year), was actually highly instrumental in
reminding me of the fugacity of my time in this place and the
importance living in the moment at all times.
Since
then, I have settled into a bit more of a routine and have begun to
wrap my head around the concept of Araguaína being my home for the
next nine months (it is crazy that on Monday, April 6th,
it will have been a month since my overnight in the São Paulo
airport leading up to my arrival here)! In the spirit of providing
some form of organized framework for the rede
(pronounced
“hedgie” and meaning web, as in internet, as well as hammock, a
very important word here!) of convoluted thoughts regarding my
experience thus far, I am listing my experiences into two generic
categories: the amazing things, and the challenges. I would like to
emphasize though, that the things discussed under these dichotomous
and overly simplistic labels by no encapsulate the entirety of my
experience thus far.
Things
I LOVE about Brasil (specifically Araguaína):
-The
FRUIT!!! I try different exotic Amazonian fruits that I have never
heard of on a weekly/sometimes daily basis... so far it's been
goiaba,
ate
(atemoia),
maracujá,
açaí,
etc! They can be found in grocery stores as well as at municipal
marketplaces and are so cheap and delicious! I had my first coconut
cut for me for about 40 cents and then walked home drinking fresh
coconut water (Karah, you would love this). I am equally crazy about
picolé,
roughly translated to "popsicles" but these are nothing
like popsicles sold in the US -- they are made of fresh fruit and are
incredibly delicious and refreshing (and cheap -- about 30-40 cents).
These have become an almost daily indulgence for me.
-Mototaxis!
In the first few weeks since arriving in Araguaína, I was really on
guard and aware that random men on motorcycles kept honking at me.
Each time I got honked at, I became slightly irritated and thought it
was some form of catcall (though overall I was still relieved at the
lack of catcalling here compared to my experience in Buenos Aires).
It wasn't until a particularly hot day when I was attempting to walk
the 2.5 miles back from a local supermercado
with handfuls of groceries that I got close enough to one of these
honking motorcycle men to realize that on the back of the orange vest
he was wearing was "MOTOTAXI" in big black letters. I
quickly pulled one over and rode back to my house feeling quite proud
of myself. I especially enjoyed passing Ben as he was trudging back
from town in the heat and smugly waving to him. (Haha! Despite
initial hesitation, the next day he was easily persuaded to take his
own mototaxi.) Rides are really cheap – within Araguaína city
limits, for example, they cost only about $1.50. Taking advantage of
these services has been a great way to feel less trapped in our
kitnet
(kitchynetchy)
because of sketchy safety after dark in this area, and this way we
have access to the center at night,
-Going
to the Gym! I have never been a "gym person" and always
will prefer to exercise outside, but the amount of things one has to
watch out for here to go on a run along with the intense heat anytime
between 9 AM and 5 PM make it sometimes not very enjoyable. There are
days when I feel adventurous and get an extra burst of adrenaline
from nearly being run over a half dozen times, being gawked at, and
hurdling over random street debris and trash on the uneven
"sidewalks", but I also enjoy having the option to run
around a track or a treadmill and just be able to zone out on the
days when running in Araguaína feels daunting. The "gym" I
am going to isn't really a gym like the rest in the city that are
enclosed in buildings with walls, but this one is an open-air place
that is part of a multi-faceted corporation that includes a swimming
pool, outdoor soccer fields with a dirt track around one of them, and
sand volleyball courts. I enjoy being part of an active community and
being held accountable (through my payment of $16/month! So
reasonable!) to go 5 days a week. I have started getting up early,
going on a run, and then ending it at SESI to do resistance
exercises. The people are really welcoming and warm, and though the
gym I have found out about other opportunities, such as a 5K race
that I participated in last weekend and a program already in
operation called PAF
(pronounced 'pafi') "program for future athletes." SESI
already gives free basketball, soccer, and dance classes to kids
through this program, and I have been in contact with them about
potentially piggy-backing on that idea and starting a running club
for girls, perhaps implementing something close to a Girls on the Run
club. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9_PC-fvdXA
-Breakthrough
Teaching
Moments
and Breaking
Down
Stereotypes!
As
an aspiring educator, I get a big kick out of the moments when I am
able to bring fresh perspective to a classroom and facilitate student
“aha” moments or witness students having fun using English,
especially if they have already been notoriously labelled “students
who don't like English” by their professors. All Letras
(literature) students here are required to take two years of both
English and Portuguese, even if they already know that they only want
to study one or the other. This can cause frustrations for both
groups of students (those who are really motivated with English and
those who aren't) as they are kept in the same classes together. The
professor also is required to do a lot of juggling as he or she
attempts to cater and
relevantly teach to these differing needs, while also covering the
required material. It is a challenge. I find that I am the most
effective teacher when I can talk about “American” culture and
put some pre-existing assumptions into a realistic perspective and
also use basic games that get the students speaking English (many of
these are the same icebreaker and introduction activities that worked
wonders with 12-year-olds at summer camp).
-Peoples'
Warmth and Friendliness! Because we (quite obviously) look and
behave differently than most people in this city, Ben and I attract a
lot of attention. I sometimes really hate this (see my discussion in
the challenges section, below), but I need to realize that almost all
of the time, people do not have malicious intentions in asking many
questions about us and where we are from. Because we are
extrangeiros,
we
have actually received extra attention and invitations from people
who we would least expect. For example, when we went to get our CPF
documents (sort of like a social security card that you need to do
anything legitimate in Brazil), we got to talking with the public
workers there and they ended up inviting us out. Similiar situations
have happened with people at the gym, at
university, etc. and they are really sweet!
Desafios
(Challenges)
-Feeling
Constantly Otherized! Before
I write this, let me openly acknowledge that a lot of this is related
to my (sometimes negative) interpretation of a gesture that is
actually meant out of innocent curiosity about me and done
in an
effort to be friendly. Still, being approached from a distance and
being asked multiple times a day "Você
é de onde?"
(Where
are you from?) merely based on the way I look really rubs me the
wrong way, and my most natural reaction is to become defensive and
sassy. (I have gotten to the point of even making up random answers
with strangers because I get tired of answering!) I think part of
the reason that this question is so triggering and frustrating for me
is that my TCKness does not allow me an easy answer, and for most of
my life I have always been placed in a category of “other,” even
within the United States. In
my German elementary school, even after gaining fluency in German, I
was “the American girl from the state where everyone plays tennis”
(first graders thought that Tennessee was a funny name), then upon
returning to the US, I was called “the German girl” throughout
the rest of elementary school – this sort of repeated itself with
moving to Greece, and it was not until college that I found a
community where this multifaceted aspect of my belonging was more
normal and accepted.
My feeling on
“where
are you from” is
that this is an arbitrary question
that does not come
close to encapsulating
the
places
people I love live, describing
the
places and people I have a deeply emotional connection to, and who I
am as a person. Here,
when I make an attempt to give a someone an earnest answer, I usually
say “California” or “The West Coast,” but then the next
question is usually something on the lines of “Então, você nasceu
lá?” (“Oh, so you were born there?”) and internally I want to
scream “Actually, no! But how is the place were born related to
where you are from?! To be honest, the amount of time I've actually
“lived” in California amounts to less than seven months (not
including the
many visits I had there while I was growing up).”
DAH. It isn't easy, but
I am being challenged to be more patient with others and myself on
this issue. I realize that it would be healthy to decrease my
defensiveness on this subject and use it as a chance to spread
awareness that “not all people holding a US passport are the same.”
I
am thankful that my foreignness actually facilitates the implementation of classroom standards like “putting away your cell phone when you are
in class,” “not interrupting your peer while he/she is sharing
something with the class,” etc. that are not always the norm here.
I
have so much to be thankful for and it is always positive to be
reminded of these things.
Today,
I am especially thankful for Easter and the deeper meaning behind it!
I am free! I have been forgiven!
I
enjoyed having the chance to skype with my family as they drove to
Sugie's house. It was really special to be greeted (virtually) by
many members of the Reed family once they arrived!
Happy
Easter to all of you!!
