Helplessness is seeing photos of your flooded hometown on the BBC News, New York Times, and Washington Post websites and wishing you could take a 5000 mile red-eye home to help clean up after the damage.
Hang in there Coralville, Iowa City, Cedar Rapids, and the rest of Eastern Iowa! While it hurts not being able to be there, seeing you fight through the damage of this lost summer makes me that much more proud to be an Iowan!
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Milestones
Two milestones are within view of where I stand on this Brazilian path. The first is the end of my first semester at PUC-Minas, which will happen sometime later today after I finish my last couple pages for a group paper due online later tonight. The second won’t happen until another two weeks from now. Remember in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the book or the movie, when Sam stops Frodo at a certain point on their journey out of the Shire and says, “If I take one more step, it’ll be the furthest away from home I’ve ever been.” On June 26th, I’ll understand just how Sam felt. That Thursday, which will find me soaking up Rio de Janeiro with some friends from home and from here, will mark 144 days since leaving Iowa, 1 day more than my fall 2004 undergrad study abroad experience in Spain. And that will still be a week or so shy of the next milestone: the halfway point of this trip.
All this talk of milestones and their relation to how near or far I am from home must make it seem like I’m just itching to fly back to my nest. It’s certainly true that there’s much about home that I miss. I left cold February Iowa feeling closer to it than perhaps at any point in my life. At least once a week I have a recurring dream of walking into the Cedar Rapids airport terminal and seeing the faces of family and friends. More than anything from home, I miss all of you. And not only because of the love and warmth and fun that emails and chats and Skype just can’t quite fully capture. Equally because of the challenge that awaits my post-present challenge of how to share with you what I will have learned in my 308 days here. Because of this especially I am itching to fly back to the nest, but by the same token I know that even one day earlier would make what I have to share with you incomplete.
Then again, this is a blog, and thus there’s no time like the present to share exactly where my mind is at as it nears the next mile-marker. Let’s begin with that one; even if it is technically still a few hours in front of me yet, by all intents and purposes I have passed it already.
This last semester has been harder than anything I had ever before experienced, at Iowa or in Spain. Of course there’s the obvious reason: language. My Portuguese is good, but not that good. My mind has a tendency to wander, and while I’ve always been able to get away with this in a class conducted in English, here I have to scramble after missing ten seconds from taking a break in the clouds. Classes here are predominantly based on lecture, though professors and students here still share a quite close-knit relationship (at least at private universities like PUC—I’ve been told that federal university professors can be even scarcer than UI professors…). Because of this bond, lecture and discussion go hand-in-hand. A professor will frequently be interrupted by questions and comments from her students. And insightful questions and comments at that. Many of my Brazilian classmates are (or at least seem) very well-read. My classes here remind me a lot of the “Law in the Muslim World” class that I took my senior year through the UI law school. The professor from that class, Adrien Wing (an absolute treasure of UI), would lecture on a topic, and students would feed off her lecture in a frenzy of questions and comments based on all their past reading and life-experiences that had got them into law school. It was like watching sharks in a pool after someone had put a drop of blood in it. What my well-read Brazilian shark friends are well-read in is, of course, literature critical of the United States in some way, shape, or form: economically, culturally, politically, etc. There’s a difference, however, in criticism and downright bashing of the U.S., and the latter is what is more en vogue here in Brazilian classrooms. Thus, if I let my head drift into the clouds, I’m likely to miss a bite from one of the sharks around me. The attack almost always comes indirectly, as if I weren’t even there. Of course I don’t expect Brazilian college students to hold back their rampant anti-Americanism just because I’m in their midst, but there’s no denying how cowardly it is for a student to throw a comment out into the classroom and not confront me directly with it. Yet, I’ve still been bitten, and the Brazilian rule of argument says I’m supposed to bite back. But in 80% Portuguese, having been attacked from behind, and not having nearly the knowledge base of my own country as my attackers, there’s not much I’m able to say before another shark moves in for the kill, or the topic gets changed.
I will happily admit, though, that my good humor has made me less of a bull’s eye and more of a confidant that many of these students never thought (or perhaps wished) they would’ve had. Yet, in the struggle over exactly what image the U.S. and its people deserve in this world, I’m still simply a Sam, a little person armed only with his wits and talents and entrusted with saving the world from being destroyed by hatred. Really, the first day I walked into a classroom here was “the farthest away from home I’d ever been.”
This end to the semester is the perfect opportunity to reflect on the person I was with this scholarship in my hand and this trip still in front of me, and who I am now, 130 days into it. Even after traveling several times already before this trip, I was honestly pretty naïve, believing that my sheer presence would automatically bring about “goodwill and mutual understanding”, the goals of this scholarship, wherever I went. Instead, I have had to work extremely hard, and I’m still no match to stem the tide of hatred and ignorance. I was also naïve enough to think that I would be just the person Brazil needed to have its story (or rather, many stories) shared with its cousin to the north. I do know that what I will share, through words and pictures, will go far in increasing the understanding of Brazil back home. But that’s simply because we don’t have a great understanding of Brazil back home. Brazil needs me because we are blind and deaf, not because Brazil is mute.
If there’s anything this trip has reminded me of, it’s that. We are a blind and deaf nation. But I believe that this, miraculously, is changing, and I am proud to be a part of the generation that is opening up our nation’s eyes and ears. Our generation, perhaps more than any other before us, realizes that we are not, nor have we ever been, alone in this world. Soon we may all realize that we are not on top of this world anymore, but rather one of several blocs of global powers. Brazil has taught me that Brazil likely will not be what defines my life once I return home. Rather, my post-present challenge of sharing another world with my own will become my M.O. Exactly how? That’s for the next 178 days—and then some—to determine.
All this talk of milestones and their relation to how near or far I am from home must make it seem like I’m just itching to fly back to my nest. It’s certainly true that there’s much about home that I miss. I left cold February Iowa feeling closer to it than perhaps at any point in my life. At least once a week I have a recurring dream of walking into the Cedar Rapids airport terminal and seeing the faces of family and friends. More than anything from home, I miss all of you. And not only because of the love and warmth and fun that emails and chats and Skype just can’t quite fully capture. Equally because of the challenge that awaits my post-present challenge of how to share with you what I will have learned in my 308 days here. Because of this especially I am itching to fly back to the nest, but by the same token I know that even one day earlier would make what I have to share with you incomplete.
Then again, this is a blog, and thus there’s no time like the present to share exactly where my mind is at as it nears the next mile-marker. Let’s begin with that one; even if it is technically still a few hours in front of me yet, by all intents and purposes I have passed it already.
This last semester has been harder than anything I had ever before experienced, at Iowa or in Spain. Of course there’s the obvious reason: language. My Portuguese is good, but not that good. My mind has a tendency to wander, and while I’ve always been able to get away with this in a class conducted in English, here I have to scramble after missing ten seconds from taking a break in the clouds. Classes here are predominantly based on lecture, though professors and students here still share a quite close-knit relationship (at least at private universities like PUC—I’ve been told that federal university professors can be even scarcer than UI professors…). Because of this bond, lecture and discussion go hand-in-hand. A professor will frequently be interrupted by questions and comments from her students. And insightful questions and comments at that. Many of my Brazilian classmates are (or at least seem) very well-read. My classes here remind me a lot of the “Law in the Muslim World” class that I took my senior year through the UI law school. The professor from that class, Adrien Wing (an absolute treasure of UI), would lecture on a topic, and students would feed off her lecture in a frenzy of questions and comments based on all their past reading and life-experiences that had got them into law school. It was like watching sharks in a pool after someone had put a drop of blood in it. What my well-read Brazilian shark friends are well-read in is, of course, literature critical of the United States in some way, shape, or form: economically, culturally, politically, etc. There’s a difference, however, in criticism and downright bashing of the U.S., and the latter is what is more en vogue here in Brazilian classrooms. Thus, if I let my head drift into the clouds, I’m likely to miss a bite from one of the sharks around me. The attack almost always comes indirectly, as if I weren’t even there. Of course I don’t expect Brazilian college students to hold back their rampant anti-Americanism just because I’m in their midst, but there’s no denying how cowardly it is for a student to throw a comment out into the classroom and not confront me directly with it. Yet, I’ve still been bitten, and the Brazilian rule of argument says I’m supposed to bite back. But in 80% Portuguese, having been attacked from behind, and not having nearly the knowledge base of my own country as my attackers, there’s not much I’m able to say before another shark moves in for the kill, or the topic gets changed.
I will happily admit, though, that my good humor has made me less of a bull’s eye and more of a confidant that many of these students never thought (or perhaps wished) they would’ve had. Yet, in the struggle over exactly what image the U.S. and its people deserve in this world, I’m still simply a Sam, a little person armed only with his wits and talents and entrusted with saving the world from being destroyed by hatred. Really, the first day I walked into a classroom here was “the farthest away from home I’d ever been.”
This end to the semester is the perfect opportunity to reflect on the person I was with this scholarship in my hand and this trip still in front of me, and who I am now, 130 days into it. Even after traveling several times already before this trip, I was honestly pretty naïve, believing that my sheer presence would automatically bring about “goodwill and mutual understanding”, the goals of this scholarship, wherever I went. Instead, I have had to work extremely hard, and I’m still no match to stem the tide of hatred and ignorance. I was also naïve enough to think that I would be just the person Brazil needed to have its story (or rather, many stories) shared with its cousin to the north. I do know that what I will share, through words and pictures, will go far in increasing the understanding of Brazil back home. But that’s simply because we don’t have a great understanding of Brazil back home. Brazil needs me because we are blind and deaf, not because Brazil is mute.
If there’s anything this trip has reminded me of, it’s that. We are a blind and deaf nation. But I believe that this, miraculously, is changing, and I am proud to be a part of the generation that is opening up our nation’s eyes and ears. Our generation, perhaps more than any other before us, realizes that we are not, nor have we ever been, alone in this world. Soon we may all realize that we are not on top of this world anymore, but rather one of several blocs of global powers. Brazil has taught me that Brazil likely will not be what defines my life once I return home. Rather, my post-present challenge of sharing another world with my own will become my M.O. Exactly how? That’s for the next 178 days—and then some—to determine.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Brazil in the News, aka Buying Some Time
This next week will be my busiest yet here in Brazil. Papers due Monday and Wednesday, final tests Monday and Tuesday, and a presentation to give at a local military school Wednesday (which I will definitely write about afterward) all spell long hours of studying and short hours of sleep until 8 days from now. Thus, serious writing won't get done here until after the storm has passed. Yet, I can't deny that I have been neglecting my audience. So here is what I'll do. Below are some links to interesting news articles related to Brazil that also have relevance for us Gringos. I hope you find them enlightening, or at least something a bit more than a cop-out for me buying another week-and-a-half's worth of blogging time.
June 2006 Washington Post article about how Wal-Mart is trying to dip into the Fair Trade Coffee market, starting with specialty coffee growers in the south of Minas Gerais. The location in the article reads "Poco Fundo" though it should instead be "Poço Fundo," meaning "Deep Well."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/11/AR2006061100813.html
April 2005 article about Brazil's dominance in the Ethanol Market, domestically and internationally.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0417-23.htm
February 2007 National Geographic article about the environmental downside to the bio-fuels market.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070208-ethanol.html
July 2007 BBC News article about the "trade row", as the British would call it, between the U.S. and Brazil.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6920189.stm
July 2007 NPR News report about the unorthodox alliance between the U.S. agro-biz corporation Cargill and environmentalists working toward the common goal of curbing the deforestation of the Amazon.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11375220
May 2008 BBC News report on Brazil's dilemma of how to simultaneously develop and preserve the Amazon. On this page there are a dozen or so links that can help clarify the "Amazon Paradox" facing Brazil and the rest of the world. Basically, as I stated in an earlier post ("Anti-Americanism in Brazil"), the battle over the Amazon goes like this:
The Amazon is "the lungs of the world," absorbing vast amounts of the world's carbon and producing between 1/6th and 1/5th of the world's oxygen.
Brazil has legal sovereignty over a good 2/3rds of the forest, the rest belonging to Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana.
Deforestation of the Amazon is increasing at an accelerating rate.
Wealthy and powerful agro-businessmen, many of whom are prominent politicians in Brazil, are behind the deforestation, following behind a "manifest destiny" banner of pushing the frontier that has existed in Brazil's national identity since it was a colony.
Brazil does not have the infrastructure nor the political integrity to take on the developmentalist agro-biz interests.
The world, led primarily by the U.S. and the E.U., wants Brazil to hand over some of its sovereignty of the Amazon so that international measures can be taken to help stop deforestation.
Brazil, forever caught between "1st and 3rd worlds", interprets this international plea as a neo-colonialist trick that will see American and European MNCs strip Brazil's forest of its valuable resources.
Brazil has retorted that it will internationalize the Amazon only if the world agrees to internationalize the oil fields of the Middle East, all museums throughout the world, and while we're at it--as one Brazilian columnist put it--how about we do away with all international boarders for good.
The conflict thus ends in a bitter stalemate.
But that's just my interpretation. You can read for yourselves below.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7399109.stm
Until next "real" post! I hope you enjoy!
June 2006 Washington Post article about how Wal-Mart is trying to dip into the Fair Trade Coffee market, starting with specialty coffee growers in the south of Minas Gerais. The location in the article reads "Poco Fundo" though it should instead be "Poço Fundo," meaning "Deep Well."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/11/AR2006061100813.html
April 2005 article about Brazil's dominance in the Ethanol Market, domestically and internationally.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0417-23.htm
February 2007 National Geographic article about the environmental downside to the bio-fuels market.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070208-ethanol.html
July 2007 BBC News article about the "trade row", as the British would call it, between the U.S. and Brazil.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6920189.stm
July 2007 NPR News report about the unorthodox alliance between the U.S. agro-biz corporation Cargill and environmentalists working toward the common goal of curbing the deforestation of the Amazon.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11375220
May 2008 BBC News report on Brazil's dilemma of how to simultaneously develop and preserve the Amazon. On this page there are a dozen or so links that can help clarify the "Amazon Paradox" facing Brazil and the rest of the world. Basically, as I stated in an earlier post ("Anti-Americanism in Brazil"), the battle over the Amazon goes like this:
The Amazon is "the lungs of the world," absorbing vast amounts of the world's carbon and producing between 1/6th and 1/5th of the world's oxygen.
Brazil has legal sovereignty over a good 2/3rds of the forest, the rest belonging to Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana.
Deforestation of the Amazon is increasing at an accelerating rate.
Wealthy and powerful agro-businessmen, many of whom are prominent politicians in Brazil, are behind the deforestation, following behind a "manifest destiny" banner of pushing the frontier that has existed in Brazil's national identity since it was a colony.
Brazil does not have the infrastructure nor the political integrity to take on the developmentalist agro-biz interests.
The world, led primarily by the U.S. and the E.U., wants Brazil to hand over some of its sovereignty of the Amazon so that international measures can be taken to help stop deforestation.
Brazil, forever caught between "1st and 3rd worlds", interprets this international plea as a neo-colonialist trick that will see American and European MNCs strip Brazil's forest of its valuable resources.
Brazil has retorted that it will internationalize the Amazon only if the world agrees to internationalize the oil fields of the Middle East, all museums throughout the world, and while we're at it--as one Brazilian columnist put it--how about we do away with all international boarders for good.
The conflict thus ends in a bitter stalemate.
But that's just my interpretation. You can read for yourselves below.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7399109.stm
Until next "real" post! I hope you enjoy!
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