Ok, two weeks here and I'm updating my blog for the first time. I have a feeling this may be a short lived endeavor. Anyway, not much news on my research front - everything has been on pause for Carnaval. I'm meeting with Dr. Lima tomorrow to talk about a research plan, etc. I'm also going to enroll in his class, which is about "Work Organization" - a combination of philosophy, psychology, economics, engineering. Should be very interesting, and pretty different from my US education experience.
Carnaval was an absolute blast. I had so much fun going to block parties and other events here in Belo Horizonte. Minas Gerais is famous for its small colonial towns outside the big cities, and I went with some friends from the hostel to big Carnaval parties in Nova Lima and Sapara. Nothing crazy on the scale of Rio or Salvador (or even Ouro Preto, the most famous colonial town and the center of the Minas Carnaval scene), but it was still a huge party all over the place. Got to see some Axe concerts and Samba schools, combining the two most important flavors of Carnaval.
Living at the hostel has been pretty fun actually. It's an incredibly social environment (Brazilians are crazy friendly) and I've met a lot of great people. But I'm definitely ready to move out into an apartment. My friend Thyago (an Italian who is going to live in BH for a year) is going to room with me, and we start searching tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be out of here within a week or so, but until then I'll enjoy it here.
Thoughts about the city:
Belo Horizonte is an incredibly beautiful city, especially now that the rains have finally stopped (I came right at the tail end of the wet season, it was really awful for a bit). The sidewalks are paved in artistic designs and there are trees everywhere along the roads, so many that in some points they form a canopy over the street. The weather is incredibly beautiful (70s all the time) and because the city is so steep and hilly there are incredible views all over. Nature is incredibly abundant here, and there are so many parks both in the city and in the surrounding region that you never feel trapped in a big urban environment. The architecture here is incredible - tons of old school colonial buildings pop up all over the place, fitting in neatly next to modern skyscrapers. It is easily one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen in my life.
The culture here is also very fun. Compared to the beach cities of Rio and Salvador or the economic powerhouse of Sao Paulo, BH is very calm. The city is very chill - fun and cool, but calm. BH is famous as the "bar capital of Brazil" - walk down any block in the central area of town and you'll see a bunch of people sitting outside, drinking and talking. The city's nickname is "A Roça Grande" (the big country town) and it certainly lives up to that. So far, I've found that BH combines the best of both worlds - the natural beauty, familiarity and relaxation of country life with the diversity, sociability and dynamism of the big city. I can't wait to get outside the city a bit too and see some of the nearby attractions: waterfall parks, caverns, and more colonial towns.
Some random first impressions about Brazil:
1. I've really been struck by the strong sense of community here in general. People always talk about life in the big cities as very isolating - everyone walking by each other on the streets, oblivious to the world around them and focused on their own personal bubbles. But Brazilians here really do seem to connect with each other in a much stronger way, striking up casual conversation, cracking jokes, making connections with strangers in an effortless way. Of course, I'm sure some of that has to do with Carnaval season, and somewhat with the fact that so many people here are transplants from small country towns. And in the one robbery I witnessed from afar so far (yes, Brazil is dangerous), no one seemed to do much to help. But overall, at least so far, I've really been struck by how tangible the Brazilian community really is.
2. I read a lot about race relations in Brazil before coming here, but it has still been fascinating to witness in person. Especially after reading two books about the black community in the US and reflecting a lot about the issue of race relations, it's remarkable to come to a country long hailed as a model of racial harmony. For those of y'all who aren't very familiar with Brazil, the country is a very diverse blend of African, indigenous and European heritage, with a huge Japanese population as well. The diversity I see walking around is striking, arguably as diverse as any city in the U.S. There really aren't "races" here the way we think of them in the US. Everyone is just a different shade, some are lighter, some are darker and it's really hard to draw a clear line. In many ways, this is what the US may come to look like in the future as interracial couples continue to skyrocket.
In a lot of ways, diversity in Brazil seems a lot better. There is way more interaction between people of all colors and backgrounds, and the blatant stratification of society that was all too painfully visible to me in the U.S. doesn't exist. Part of that simply has to do with the size of the relative populations (you can't really talk about "minority groups" as easily here because there is no clear majority/minority), but there is also something fundamentally different about the way racial relations developed through the history of this country.
But at the same time, there is visible racism here. The whiter you are, the more likely you are to be well off, and the darker you are, the more likely you are to hold lower positions in the labor force. Even just by looking at ads on TV and billboards or watching men chase girls around at the Carnaval festivities, it's clear that whiter is considered "preferred" in many ways. The problem with racism in Brazil is that it is kind of a taboo topic - no one really wants to talk about it because it's so much harder to draw any sort of clear categories between groups or to discern any specific forms of overt discrimination. Being here, I wonder in many ways if this is the future of the US. Will we hit a point where race relations have improved to the point where nobody wants to talk about it, but not enough to actually solve the profound inequalities in the system? Part of me thinks that we are already headed in that direction...
3. I've also paid a lot of attention to gender relations here, partly because it's something that bothered me almost right off the bat. Just like a lot of places I've visited in Latin America, the guys tend to be really inappropriate toward women. They will shout at them, grope at them, harass them in an attempt to pick them up. Several times during Carnaval I saw guys walk up to girls and just grab them to kiss them and continue to try even when the girls were resisting. (I even went up and split two people away at one point when I saw a girl trying to pull away.) While I do believe to a certain extent in cultural differences, the sort of harassment women go through here on a regular basis really bothers me. Hanging out in groups of guys that act the same way, I've almost felt complicit in it. But at the same time, women here also can be incredibly direct. (I can't even count the number of times I got groped at Carnaval...) And in some of my personal experiences, they actually try and get you to grab at them in a sort of back and forth flirt-and-pull-away game. So to some extent, I really do believe it is a cultural difference. And in Brazil's defense, they have a female president already whereas in the US neither of our major parties has ever even nominated a female candidate. In terms of daily interactions though, I think this is something that will continue to bother me throughout my time here.
Ok, that's all I got for now. This blog post is so long! I'm gonna try and get better at this, making shorter, more interesting (note: funny) posts with pictures and all that good stuff. Until then, you'll just have to put up with my boring stream-of-consciousness rambling.
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