Back in the USA

Awww... I made back to the US of A yesterday. Parting with my host family was definitely harder than I thought it would be. Our flight out of Salvador was a 1 pm, so the whole day up until that hour was so tense. I kept trying to keep myseldf occupied so I wouldn't have to think about the moment I had to leave. But, the hour finally came, and I couldn't handle it. I tried to be so strong because I didn't want my family to see me balling. However, as I began to walk out the door, giving hugs to my family, I broke down. And then I cried even harder because they began to cry. It was so dramatic. As my Brazilian brother would have said, "Que drama!"
As we flew out of Salvador to Sao Paulo, the sun was setting. The orange and red rays of sunlight kissed the clouds and the horizon of the ocean. It felt as if Bahia was giving us a farewell, but the good-bye did not feel terminated. Bahia was offering an embrace with an open door to "volte sempre" (return always).
My experience in Salvador was priceless. I definitely feel that one day life will call me back to that amazing, colorful, vivacious, peculiar, yet precious city. Thanks to all who took an interest in my journey. God Bless! :-D

Pics of Aracaju!

Aracaju

Hey everyone! Well, I´m in a different city right now called Aracaju!! My friend, Mara, and her family are from this city so she wanted me to come and visit her. It has been wonderful so far!! The beaches here are absolutely beautiful! Everything is so nice and clean, every one is so nice! My colleague, Sarah, and I are staying with Mara´s family here. There are 11 people in one house!! It´s a little crazy but at the same time it is great because the company is so comfortable.
We are going to the downtown historic part of Aracaju today. It´s kind of like a market I guess. After that, Sarah and I will travel back to Salvador by bus.
Some interesting things have been going on lately. I was sick the past week with i don´t know what. I finally got over it, praise be to God! Our last culture class was last Friday; we also had our final exam Friday. Last week´s topics were very interesting. We had a priestess of Candomblé come and talk to us about the Afro-Brazilian religion. I will have to explain later about the orixás. Orixás, by the way, are spirits worshipped by people who pratice Candomblé. The religion is very colorful and very focused on the present circumstances of a person. i can´t explain it right now because I´m pressed for time. I hope every one is doing well! TTYL!! God bless! :-)

Good news...and bad news

Well, hello everyone! I hope this finds you well. Everything here in Bahia is going fine. I have been studying a lot, ans I cannot believe that 3 weeks have already passed by. So, some interesting things that have been going on here: I went to see this play called "Balet Folclorico." That was pretty amazing! It was a dance that described the culture of the slaves in Brazil, specifically Bahia. The performers were so talented! The first scene was a depiction of the different gods/spirits of Candomblé. They are called orixás. There used to be hundreds of them but when the religion was transfered from Africa to Brazil, some of the lesser important orixás were forgotten. So now there are only about 27 orixás remembered and celebrated in the Candomblé ceremonies. Well, throughout the rest of the show, the dancers displayed scenes from everyday life, for example, fishing in the ocean with nets and the common practice of capoeira. All in all, the presentation of spectacular!!
I have not really been going out at night because I truthfully just don´t enjoy it too much. It is just a little bit scary at times, especially when you bump into a drunk person. But oh well.
The other day I went to this arket called the Mercado Modelo. It is this huge two-story building that only sells hand-crafted art and accessories. It was amazing!! I bought a traditional Bahian outfit that many women wear here. It is all white and usually the women wear petticaots underneath the skirts to make them poof but I decided that wasn´t for me. But it is still beautiful!!!
Well, I need to let everyone know that my family (in America) is going through some hard times right now. Please keep them in your prayers and thoughts. My little sister, the one we just got guardianship of is going back to Brazil because her biological mother wants her back. The story is really long and complicated; I don~t have time or the strength to write about it. But please pray that Elishani has strength because all of this is really confusing her...and us as well. I have to go to capoeira class right now, so hope everyone is having a great summer!! Tchau!!

sincerely,
Esther

Life so far...in Brazil!!

Hey everyone!! So sorry it has been so long!! This entry is long overdue!! But everything here in Salvador has been great! So, I have done some really awesome things in the past week!! First, I went to this concert in the Heart of Salvador, Pelorihno. Pelorinho is like the center of Afr0-Brazilian culture! Ther are so many cool shops, artists, musicians, museums and random things like that all related to the history of Brazil´s foundation and progession in relation to its African ancestry. At any rate, we went to this concert by a group called Olodum. They started in Bahia and are now really big here in Brazil and around the world!! They play drums while doing some very awesome choreography! That night was great!! Lots of dancing and getting to see the Brazilian love for music!!
The next big thing that I have done: i went to this place called Ilê Aiyê. It is a grass roots organization to help the poor children of Salvador. It´s main purpose is to help Afro- descendants learn to appreciate their heritage. It started in the home of a woman called Mãe Hilda and now has expanded to a 5 story building in the center of one of the poorest districts in Salvodor. As we toured the facility, the director gave us statistics and testimonies of some of the students that Ilê Aiyê has helped. They were amazing! For example, they offer cooking courses; it´s kind of like going to a mini-culinary school. Well, they offered one of the students to go to France for about 3 weeks to study cooking there. While in France, the culinary school this student visited loved him so much that they offered him a full scholarship to attend the school along with a job!! That is just one of the many amazing success stories we heard!! I am going to go back there and volunteer. I talked with the coordinator and he was very pleased to see how interested I was in the program. Some day, I hope God allows me to open something like Ilê Aiyê to help children.
So, for the past few days I was on vacation. Funny, isn´t it? You guys thought I already was on vacation!! Haha!! We went to this little island of the coast of Bahia called Morro de São Paulo. It was amazing!! The beaches were great and the people were lovely!! Oh, I bought a bikini...something I never thought I would ever do in my life but yeah, it happened. Oh well, it was my first time to go to the beach!! Ok, I have to go now. I hope everyone is doing great!!! Love ya!! Tchau!!!

Esther

Yay Bahia!!

Ok folks! Hello there! I mean... Oi! Como vai? Tudobem? Eu, muito bem!!! So, I am loving my classes here at ACBEU!! I have a language class every morning from 9-12 and every Mondays and Wednesdays I have cultural classes. My culture classes, so far, have been wonderful!! My favorite experience was the capoeira class!! I have pictures of the capoeira, but basically it´s a martial art/dance. It´s very intense, and when it is displayed sometimes it is difficult to distinguish whether the capoeiristas are playing or actually fighting. At any rate, I will be taking capoeira classes now every evening!! Yay!! I also am taking samba classes! I have found that actually samba and capoeira can at times have related movements; this makes perfect sense since both developed from the social and entertaining practices of the slaves here in Bahia! The history of this place is absolutely mind-boggling!! But it is wonderful to be able to perceive the culture externally yet also immerse myself into the culture to understand it.

So, get this. I´m having a little bit of trouble writing this because everytime I think of a word, my brain immediately repeats or tries to say the word in Portuguese. I guess that´s a good sign that I´m learning the language. I don´t know. Now, here are my pictures that I have told you about over and over again. Enjoy! :-)

In Salvador!!

Well, today is now my 2nd whole day here in Salvador. After a trying time at the airports, we finally made it here! First, our flight in Dallas was delayed. Then, after flying for 12 hours, we could not land in Sao Paulo because it was too foggy. We circled around the airport for a long time until the fog lifted. In the Sao Paulo airport, we thought that our luggage was checked through to Salvador, which now seems like a ridiculous notion to have since we entered the country in Sao Paulo. At any rate, we thought we were going to miss our flight to Salvador because we had to stand in a line at the TAM airline desk to exchange our boarding passes. When we finally got to the gate 5 minutes before the assigned departure time, we discovered that our flight was yet delayed and no one seemed to know when we would be leaving. So we waited and waited. Then, we had to change gates. Afterwards, we were all put on buses and taken to the aircraft. Finally, we took off and made it in Salvador. We did not have our luggage though, so Dr. Ladeira talked with many different people to try and have our luggage delivered to the school in Salvador, ACBEU, either that night or the next day. We were informed that our luggage would arrive at 2 pm the following afternoon. Clara Ramos, the program coordinator for ACBEU met us at the airport and it certainly was a pleasure to meet her there! What a relief to see a familiar face! She took us to the Hotel Bahia Tropical. It as absolutely beautiful!!

Everyone was a little upset because we didn´t have our luggage, therefore no clothes to change into after our long journey. However, I was blessed because I had packed a couple changes of clothes in my carry-on. So, after dinner that night, we all showered and got ready for bed. 6am the next morning, we received a call from Dr. Ladeira; he had recieved our luggage at 4am. He also had not slept since 2 am because he was so worried about the luggage. Yet, he was persistent on obtaining the baggage and I´m so thankful!!

We had a city tour of Salvador on Saturday and that night we met our host families! I have two brothers, Fernando and Ricardo, but Ricardo is the only one living at home right now. My parents are so wonderful! My father works at the maternity ward at the hospital and my mother is a stay at home mom. This Sunday morning, my father took me on a private tour of the lower part of Salvador. I will put pictures up later. I don´t have them at this moment.

I have a test tomorrow morning. It is only a diagnostic test to see how much Portuguese I actually know. Thanks for reading this. I wish I could write more, but I think you would be reading a book then. Haha!! Hope everyone is doing great!! Bye! or Tchau, rather!

In Salvador,
Esther

4th of July

Wow!! This 4th was insane!! I woke up at 6 am to go set out flags with the Golden Kiwanis Club of Lubbock. Then I went to the 4th of Broadway parade. I wore the wrong shoes so I got blisters on the bottom of my feet. Well, then I danced at 12:30 (only 2 dances) and again at 2:45(this was 5 dances plus a ceili dance). I was pretty exhausted from the heat but also from hunger because I had not eaten anything for 9 hours! So, we get home, I shower, my father makes me eat something; I didn't really have much of an appetite. I try to take a nap, which successfully fails due to the ruccus caused by my younger siblings. Then, we are getting ready to go to my uncle's house for fireworks, and I realize that my throat hurts very much. My father takes a look, sees white spots, so we assume that I am getting strep-throat. Wonderful! I'm leaving tomorrow to a foreign country and I have strep-throat! All I can say is...Oh Well!! Although I'm not feeling to great, I am happy!! I'm so excited!! Last night's show was so awesome!! Plus Benjamin and Eli were able to light up some sparklers, which became a big hit among the youngsters! Independence day was magnificent!! I wouldn't have changed anything!!

Sincerely,
Esther