I’d like to open with a quote:
‘Me colaram no tempo, me puseram
uma alma viva e um corpo desconjuntado.’
‘They glued me into time, they dressed me up
in a live soul and a body in peices’ (Map, Murilo Mendes)
That’s the beginning of a poem that I happened upon today in a Brazilian poetry book left here by another student. The only other English speaker in the house, now gone, taking with her my only effective means of communication. I have become again the mute tenant, obrigado (thank you) being the only portuguese I have that doesn’t make me feel even more like a bumbling ignorant fool.
I have a pile of books from her now, some in English and some in Portuguese that will hopefully help my stay here. There is a novel in Portuguese that I will use as my goal for the end of the semester. Imagine being able o read in another language!
I gotta be honest, it’s been a bit much so far, but if your going to be overwhelmed this is the city that will do it. It’s stupidly big for starters… I mean big in every way. Larger than life. Almost all the buildings are skyscraper tall and there are hundreds ‘pon thousands, most of them are apartments. The mind boggles at population (actually wait I’ll google it: upwards of 20 million). Listen to me: the original Brisbane bumpkin. It’s just that I’ll stand on any given street and look up and feel overwhelmed by the sheer no. of people who don’t give a shit that I’m standing there. Most of the time the light of day doesn’t reach the street…no wonder it seems like the sun goes down early here. The physical size of the city isn’t massive: I walked most of the length of the main beaches, which is pretty much length of the city, the other day in about and hour and a half. In saying that, it would take many years to really get to know this place.
The mountains that wall the city quiet literally meet the sea, and spill out into it, squeezing their way into every vista. It’s as though the whole place is allergic to being horizontal, even the mosaic pathways undulate under your feet.
It makes me feel like my spirit of adventure just might not be up to the task at hand.
On the plus side you can buy beer at the beach kiosks (about every 500m) for R$3 (about $2), and on the down side Havanas are not any cheaper and I’m having trouble reconciling myself with being spending 2o bucks on a pair of thongs… not to mention sunscreen is about R$16 at it’s very cheapest and tiniest. The two things I didn’t buy because I thought they’d be cheaper over here. You live and learn.
I start class tomorrow. I’m really looking forward to it. The sooner I learn Portuguese the sooner I’ll feel less like a very awkward rude, foreign fish out of water.
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- Beach at Leblon, after first orientation session. about 15 minute stroll (slowly ) from uni
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- As Above
I didn’t say I’m not really please and lucky to be here. I am.
And I didn’t say it wasn’t spectacular. It is !!!
