Our work here is done. I can’t ever remember being so tired. But also content. I don’t know if tourists like Salvador. Much of the city is dirty, old and broken. 57% of the population is destitute.
But we have seen it through different eyes. We have become friends with the house staff here; also with the Madre Tereza staff who work so hard and with so much love I don’t know how they do it. The children have stolen our hearts. We live in a neighborhood where we can walk around, day or night, eat the local specialties cooked to order on the street corner and speak enough Portuguese to make our way. We may look like tourists, but we are more.
As for the cultural exchange part of the program, I don’t know how much they learned about us. It seems that Brazilians don’t like the US government, but they don’t hold that against its citizens. We were treated well and welcomed everywhere we went. I hope we were good ambassadors.
I know that we learned much about Salvador and the Bahian culture. The history is largely defined by slave trade and the culture is Afro-Brazilian which is the basis of their love of music, dance, drumming. And then there is soccer. We learned about the fusion of candomble, an African religion, with Catholicism, about the evolution of capoeira from a fighting technique of the slaves to a dance form; we enjoyed some of the most interesting and delicious regional cuisine imaginable, even though we often did not know what we were eating because the ingredients do not exist in our culture.
We learned about dental floss bikinis and seat belt skirts. We learned that men don’t wear the tiny Speedo bathing suits these days because board shorts are the rage. Surfing style is hot. In Salvador, the third largest city in Brazil with a population of 2.6 million people, you need no shoes other than flip flops.
Our time here was too short. The work was hard, but rewarding. I think it mattered, even though it was only a week. Maybe the children will know we cared. Cindy, who was here last year, swears that Jade recognized her. Maybe they’ll recognize me when I come back.
Judy
But we have seen it through different eyes. We have become friends with the house staff here; also with the Madre Tereza staff who work so hard and with so much love I don’t know how they do it. The children have stolen our hearts. We live in a neighborhood where we can walk around, day or night, eat the local specialties cooked to order on the street corner and speak enough Portuguese to make our way. We may look like tourists, but we are more.
As for the cultural exchange part of the program, I don’t know how much they learned about us. It seems that Brazilians don’t like the US government, but they don’t hold that against its citizens. We were treated well and welcomed everywhere we went. I hope we were good ambassadors.
I know that we learned much about Salvador and the Bahian culture. The history is largely defined by slave trade and the culture is Afro-Brazilian which is the basis of their love of music, dance, drumming. And then there is soccer. We learned about the fusion of candomble, an African religion, with Catholicism, about the evolution of capoeira from a fighting technique of the slaves to a dance form; we enjoyed some of the most interesting and delicious regional cuisine imaginable, even though we often did not know what we were eating because the ingredients do not exist in our culture.
We learned about dental floss bikinis and seat belt skirts. We learned that men don’t wear the tiny Speedo bathing suits these days because board shorts are the rage. Surfing style is hot. In Salvador, the third largest city in Brazil with a population of 2.6 million people, you need no shoes other than flip flops.
Our time here was too short. The work was hard, but rewarding. I think it mattered, even though it was only a week. Maybe the children will know we cared. Cindy, who was here last year, swears that Jade recognized her. Maybe they’ll recognize me when I come back.
Judy
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