Recife, some insights.
Door: Hilda Alberda
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Hilda
20 Januari 2006 | Brazilië, Recife
I am great, really enjoying my stay here in Recife. I am now settled, feeling at home here and enjoying it very much! I thought it would be nice to give you some insight information about the place where I am living right now and my life here in general. I am now living in a sort of pension (that´s how they call it here). This means that I have my own room with a small bathroom (I love that!) and that I share the kitchen with about 20 Brazilian girls. Besides the kitchen there is a big picknick table to eat at, a ´tv-room´ with a tv that broadcasts about 2,5 different channels (which are terrible to look at, while the images keep moving/ it´s noicy if you know what I mean) and also to tables to do some study or so. I have already been cooking 2 times (wauw!), doing my wash by hand... and my room is being cleaned two times a week! How´s that?! Furthermore, the street that I live at has no asfalt (is that an English word?!), it´s bumpy (what about that) and trashy and I am obliged to stay at home when there is nobody to pick me up by car after 5.30h or so, when it gets dark. The university is at the end of my street. The building where the anthropology department is located is about 15 to 20 minutes away (by foot). When I am walking there I ralise how organised Holland is... the sidewalks are a mess here, it is like a ´hindernisbaan´ to get to uni! On these sidewalks there are many many small ´shops´ (as far as you can call them shops) of which most of them sell any kind of food or drinks (coconutwatter is very popular here and supposed to be really healthy to). Whenever I don´t want to go all the way to uni (walking in this temperature is tuff... hihi), there is a small LAN-house (I guess they call it like that here) where I can use a computer for R$ 2 per hour (about € 0,80). It is always crowed with little boys playing computergames, shouting and playing load music! So when I enter one of them has to stop playing his game and make room for me... Alexandre helped me to find this place, because it is just a door somewhere, it has no signs or anything. Besides this, close to my house there are many little restaurants and different shops. The big supermarket is unfortunately quite a long walk from home, so I try to do my shopping at the smaller stores in my neighbourhood.
What can I tell you more... it is very difficult to give a good impression of the life here. Everyting seems to be so differen here... ofcourse you know that Brazilians are huge footballfans. I am already invited to watch a game of the local football club, that would be nice! Furthermore, Brazilians are crazy about music. There are many different kinds of music here and they have a different dance on each! At the graduation party of Catarina I learned some more moves... Playing load music on the street is normal here... no one will bother. In Brazil, the streets are always crowded with people hanging around or doing something or nothing. It is amazing how the Brazillians create their jobs in order to get some kind of income. Things like pretending to watch your car/ helping you to park it with some handwaving... It seems to be very normal to pay these guys for the Brazilians I hang out with. It is just a part of their life although they don´t like the fact that there are so many poor people living in Brazil. When I was walking at Boa Viagem (the beach of Recife) the other night, I also saw so many people living/ sleeping on the street, that´s the reality. Richer people manage to keep their lives somewhat seperated from the poor by living in secured buildings, driving cars with security, visiting upperclass places, etc. All the houses I have visited till now are secured by a vence with a security guard to open the door. But, till now this way of living and the distances between rich and poor do not appear as weird or huge to me as we (as anthropology students) read about in texts about Brazil. My house actually has a vence with locks on it, but no security guard. But, there are many of those secured buildings around here. Which brings me to another great job, which is the security guard in my street. He drives around on his bike at night blowing a wistle... I wonder what happens if there is really something going on... During the day many men go around shouting something that I cannot understand... but they are selling water (it is not safe to drink water from the tab here) and other things they transport on their bike or in a car that they pull through the streets.
Uhm, what more... ohw, about eating and the food. When you go to a restaurant, you order together, plates are for at least two persons and huge... Till now I have only been able to try some of the food here, there are so many new things for me to try! It seems to be more normal to go out for lunch, while Brazilians are used to having a big lunch instead of/ besides their dinner. The empty bottles are saved near your table and counted when you are ready to go/ pay.
The weather... ofcourse, something we Dutchies love to talk about... Well it is hot and sunny here! Although there are some clouds sometimes (which are actually welcome, it´still hot then) and I have also seen it rain a few times, but always very shortly. I keep waking up very early (at 6am), but that seems to be normal here, so not a big problem. Any later it will be to warm to stay in bed anyway. At this moment, my daily life exists of studying Portugues, working on my research and I usually go somewhere at night. There haven´t been much nights that I have spent on my own. And if I do stay at home I talk with the girls in my pension (as far as we can understand eachother) or I watch one of the great soaps on television! The girls have invited me to go out tonight, to Bar da Kelly (the one I have been to last Friday), but I am not sure if I will go. I am having a cold right now (there seems to be a virus around here) and I will be picked up tomorrow morning to go to Itamaracá with Alexandre, Amanda and family, and furthermore... some other invitations might turn up. Itamaracá, is supposed to be a beautiful island which is most famous for its beaches... we´ll see! So that is where I will spend my weekend.
On Monday I am planning to make my first visit to the favelas with Amanda. Yesterday I had dinner with Amanda and we agreed that she would (at least for the start) help me out with my interviews. Amanda has experience with doing research (also in the favela) and she is a good translater as well. So, I am really happy that she is helping me out. Furhtermore I have little idea of what to expect of my research, I´ll inform you about that later... Proff. Scott just walked in here and it seems that he (probably) has some time for me at 4pm. I´ll go and have lunch now!
Well, that´s about it. I hope you´ve got some kind of impression of my life here, although you have to be here to really understand it. I am still planning to put some photo´s online... I´ll do my best.
For now I wish you all the best in Holland, is there anything exiting going on there? I haven´t been following any news or so.
Tchau tchau,
Hilda
What can I tell you more... it is very difficult to give a good impression of the life here. Everyting seems to be so differen here... ofcourse you know that Brazilians are huge footballfans. I am already invited to watch a game of the local football club, that would be nice! Furthermore, Brazilians are crazy about music. There are many different kinds of music here and they have a different dance on each! At the graduation party of Catarina I learned some more moves... Playing load music on the street is normal here... no one will bother. In Brazil, the streets are always crowded with people hanging around or doing something or nothing. It is amazing how the Brazillians create their jobs in order to get some kind of income. Things like pretending to watch your car/ helping you to park it with some handwaving... It seems to be very normal to pay these guys for the Brazilians I hang out with. It is just a part of their life although they don´t like the fact that there are so many poor people living in Brazil. When I was walking at Boa Viagem (the beach of Recife) the other night, I also saw so many people living/ sleeping on the street, that´s the reality. Richer people manage to keep their lives somewhat seperated from the poor by living in secured buildings, driving cars with security, visiting upperclass places, etc. All the houses I have visited till now are secured by a vence with a security guard to open the door. But, till now this way of living and the distances between rich and poor do not appear as weird or huge to me as we (as anthropology students) read about in texts about Brazil. My house actually has a vence with locks on it, but no security guard. But, there are many of those secured buildings around here. Which brings me to another great job, which is the security guard in my street. He drives around on his bike at night blowing a wistle... I wonder what happens if there is really something going on... During the day many men go around shouting something that I cannot understand... but they are selling water (it is not safe to drink water from the tab here) and other things they transport on their bike or in a car that they pull through the streets.
Uhm, what more... ohw, about eating and the food. When you go to a restaurant, you order together, plates are for at least two persons and huge... Till now I have only been able to try some of the food here, there are so many new things for me to try! It seems to be more normal to go out for lunch, while Brazilians are used to having a big lunch instead of/ besides their dinner. The empty bottles are saved near your table and counted when you are ready to go/ pay.
The weather... ofcourse, something we Dutchies love to talk about... Well it is hot and sunny here! Although there are some clouds sometimes (which are actually welcome, it´still hot then) and I have also seen it rain a few times, but always very shortly. I keep waking up very early (at 6am), but that seems to be normal here, so not a big problem. Any later it will be to warm to stay in bed anyway. At this moment, my daily life exists of studying Portugues, working on my research and I usually go somewhere at night. There haven´t been much nights that I have spent on my own. And if I do stay at home I talk with the girls in my pension (as far as we can understand eachother) or I watch one of the great soaps on television! The girls have invited me to go out tonight, to Bar da Kelly (the one I have been to last Friday), but I am not sure if I will go. I am having a cold right now (there seems to be a virus around here) and I will be picked up tomorrow morning to go to Itamaracá with Alexandre, Amanda and family, and furthermore... some other invitations might turn up. Itamaracá, is supposed to be a beautiful island which is most famous for its beaches... we´ll see! So that is where I will spend my weekend.
On Monday I am planning to make my first visit to the favelas with Amanda. Yesterday I had dinner with Amanda and we agreed that she would (at least for the start) help me out with my interviews. Amanda has experience with doing research (also in the favela) and she is a good translater as well. So, I am really happy that she is helping me out. Furhtermore I have little idea of what to expect of my research, I´ll inform you about that later... Proff. Scott just walked in here and it seems that he (probably) has some time for me at 4pm. I´ll go and have lunch now!
Well, that´s about it. I hope you´ve got some kind of impression of my life here, although you have to be here to really understand it. I am still planning to put some photo´s online... I´ll do my best.
For now I wish you all the best in Holland, is there anything exiting going on there? I haven´t been following any news or so.
Tchau tchau,
Hilda
