Opera in the Middle of the Jungle

Amid the bustling city of Manaus (once the largest exporter of rubber in the world, I'm not sure if it still is) that is surrounded by rivers and jungles, lies a little bit of high-brow culture - the Teatros Amazonas - Manaus' famous opera house.

Opened in 1896, the theater was built with Italian and Scottish influence, and the only influence of Brazil is a rubber roadway outside the entrance so that late arriving carriages didn't make too much noise.  It's really pretty and we have an amazing view of it from our hotel room.

The opera house offers almost daily shows ranging from free to $R60 - plays, opera, orchestras - you name it, and Danielle and I were lucky enough to experience a free performance last night.  Plus it was a nice reprieve of cushioned chairs and air conditioning (as opposed to the wooden planks of the row boat we spent four days sitting on.)

How good can it be if it's free you ask?  Sooo amazing.  We saw the Amazon Philharmonic put on an hour and a half performance, playing Mozart and a bunch of other composers whose names I cannot spell off the top of my head.  Anyway, we might as well have been at Lincoln Center - it was that good.  And the conductor was cute...


Today after spending the morning at the open market buying random hand made crafts, we ventured to Parque do Mindu - what has got to be the crappiest park I've ever been to...


It starts off pretty nice - you think you are going to have a nice stroll in the woods with a pretty river rumbling through.  But this river is now a garbage dump, filled with trash, and surrounded by disgusting couches and broken TVs and emits a pungent smell.  The maps telling you where you are have large missing chunks, and the trail signs are broken or non-existant.


But...this park is also the home to an endangered species of primate called the pi-faced tamarin, and we were lucky enough to find a few.  They only live in areas of secondary forest, and cannot be found in other areas of primary jungle in the Amazon.  But if they are living in parks like this, no wonder they are endangered.


Overall I have had an amazing experience exploring 4 different states of Brazil.  Each state has its own distinct culture, and it was great having the opportunity to visit cities, rural areas and jungle!


Now if only we can get home!  I cannot wait to take a real shower and hit up a yoga class!  Unfortunately there seems to be a hurricaine in NC on its way up to NY that might interrupt our flight from Atlanta to NYC - but at least if we get stuck we wont't have to apologize for our crappy Portuguese!


Hope you enjoyed reading!
April

Me Tarzan, You Jane!

Yes everyone, my guide through the jungle's name was Tarzan, and he did actually refer to me as Jane at one point...

I made it out alive!  There was one point when we were camping out in the jungle that I thought I may be eaten by a jaguar or puma, but luckily we only heard them from afar. And yes - we did actually hear the cry of a black puma - while being woken up multiple times throughout the night by animals walking around our camp (don't worry - most likely they were only armadillos...I hope...) we heard a sound unlike anything else we had heard so far.  After waking up Tarzan for the 9 millionth time because of the animals (this was Danielle really, although I was definitely a bit freaked out, I was trying not to show it as much) he told us it was a puma.  Eek!

The Amazon is so amazing!  There are no roads at all - you have to take a boat everywhere through the different river estuaries, and are surrounded by jungle.  They even have a school boat instead of a school bus.  

So other than freaking out a bunch of times at the sound of crunching leaves, and trying to calm Danielle's fear of the many bugs we saw, hear is the lowdown:


Day 1:

• 3 1/2 hour trip into the jungle.  We indeed were in the middle of nowhere, and it was soooo amazing to feel like you are the only people on earth.  This trip consisted of an hour and fifteen minute boat ride across the meeting of the waters (black and white water meeting for the first time - you see the actual split in the water - very cool), an hour car ride through dirt roads in a VW van from like '72, and another hour and fifteen minutes through the channels of the amazon rain forest. 
• A quick swim in the river - yes I went in, and the piranha do NOT nibble at your toes.
• Dolphin watching - fresh water dolphin - both pink and gray!
• Piranha fishing - I caught about 3.  Their teeth are INSANE!
• Caimen hunting at night.   

Day 2:

• Paddling in the river at sunrise (so beautiful!) and bird watching.  Soooo many different birds - including toucan (totally kept thinking of Fruit Loops) and parrots.  Saw a fire eagle too.
• Monkeys jumping in trees.
• Hike in the morning through the jungle.  Saw mostly some cool looking bugs and lizards.
• In the afternoon headed to our campsite - about an hour ride from the lodge we were staying in - the middle of nowhere.  Set up our hammocks.  Yes we slept in hammocks with mosquitos nets, and definitely were out in the wild.
• Caught a fish for my dinner.
• Cooked dinner over the campfire. Tarzan is a good cook!
• Attempted to sleep, but didn't really.  Was counting down the hours until day light!

Day3:

• Morning bird watch.  Saw two tapirs eating breakfast.
• Breakfast over the campfire.
• Morning hike through the jungle to do some turantula hunting.  Found a lot.  Those things are  HUGE!
• Lunch by campfire.  Danielle and I actually started the fire on our own!
• Short afternoon hike to find some monkeys, but failed to do so.
• Packed up our campsite to head over to a local indigenous family's home, where we ate dinner and spent the night.  We might as well have been in the jungle, except this time we were woken up by the many farm animals roaming around.  We also toured their land where they have a pineapple plantation and various other trees...

Day 4:

• Sunrise bird watch.
• Breakfast with family.
• Visit to a rubber plantation, and made a condom...well a jungle condom...and it probably wouldn't do any good...
• Back to lodge to finally take a shower and use a real toilet!  Danielle and I were under the impression that we were going back to the lodge in between the camping and family's home, so did not bring an extra set of clothes = we were GROSS!
• Lunch.
• Three hour boat/car/boat ride back to Manaus.

So that's all folks.  I'll follow up with one last post soon.

Tchau!

I Think It Is My Destiny to Have to Go to Two Different Airports Each Time I Travel

I started out my trip to Brazil by going to Laguardia airport (correctly) and ending up having to go to JFK (the full story is in my facebook notes if you haven't already seen it.) 

Today, or yesterday really, I had the lovely experience of realizing that my flight to Manaus was out of Sao Paulo, and I was in the beautiful city of Rio de Janeiro.  

After having a slight panic attack, and not being able to get a hold of anyone who could help me attempt to change my flight, I decided to make the 6 hour bus ride trek to Sao Paulo.  So I hopped on an 11:30 p.m. bus, and arrived in SP by 6:30 a.m. - perfect timing for my 9:30 a.m. flight.  There was of course an hour delay where our bus literally sat at a standstill, making me think there was going to be another China like delay, but all of a sudden traffic was moving again.


This was a strange experience.  Typically in NY, when you are sitting in traffic, you are at least creeping along slowly.  We were literally completely stopped, and then all of a sudden traffic was moving at full speed.  I am not exactly sure how that happens, but I'm not sure I care either.


This is also not the first time I've had this lovely two-airport experience.  A few years ago, while travelling to New Orleans with my friends, we had a connection in D.C.  and of course we landed at Reagan, and our connection was at Dulles (or the other way around, I can't remember.)


Such is my life of airport travel.  Only me...


Next post will be from the Brazilian state of Amazonas!!!!

P.S. - the bus system in Brazil is absloutely amazing!  The terminal was waaay better than any airport I've ever been to, and when you borad the bus they give you a box of snacks, a juice box and a blanket.  The seats go really far back so you can sleep, and there is a full leg rest thingy, so it's like you are in a bed.  And this only cost me about $50 american dollars.  The U.S. should take some tips!!

Private (For-Profit) Universities as an Option for Brazilians

As we've seen, the public/free universities of Brazil are equivalent to the Harvards and Yales of the U.S. and obviously are not accessible to the majority population of Brazil.  Today we visited Estasio de Sa - a for-profit, private university based out of Rio de Janeiro.  This is the largest private university in Brazil with, with 78 campuses in 17 states throughout Brazil.  But like I said - it is for-profit (as opposed to PUC-Rio or NYU - private, non-profit universities.

If you can pay for it (average tuition is $R500/month for two years, but the medical degree is $36,000 US dollars a year - quite tough for the average Brazilian to handle), the degree is basically yours.  The vestibular is a breeze (confirmed by both the professors and students we met with) and there seems to be a high job placement.  But it is definitely run like a business.  They have an org chart like any other big company and are a publicly traded company on the Sao Paulo Exchange.  They are all about the money.  This was even seen through a mis-understood question asked by one of my classmates.  She had asked about their perspective on the affirmative action initiatives within Brazil, and rather they perspective, they heard the word prospectus, and started talking about future performance of the company. (They missed the affirmative action part completely.  Unlike some of the other people we have met, they were not avoiding the question, they are just that hung up on money.)

Affirmative action is not their priority.  Why would it be if the people who affirmative action is targeting cannot pay the tuition in the first place.  Of course they offer scholarships through the government sponsored Pro-Uni system (they get tax breaks in return), but they do it to save face.  How could they not when Affirmative action is a public initiative right now.

But maybe this is the answer for those people who cannot get into the public schools, or even the high-rated private schools.  They seem to have a really good track record and have been around since 1970.  In 2008 alone, nearly 22,000 positions were filled by Estacio grads.  Estacio also partners with other companies and programs, like Walt Disney, and or the Alain Ducasse Culinary school in France.  They also offer distance learning programs that can be accessed online anytime/anywhere.

So maybe this is ok.  Of course if an employer is considering between a candidate from UNICAMP vs. Estacio de Sa, they are going to go with UNICAMP (its like NYU vs. U. of Phoenix), but someone coming from Estacio is going to be employed way quicker than someone with just a high school degree.  So is a private, non-profit university so bad if it is filling a need of the public?

How Do You Have Affirmative Action in a Country Like Brazil?

Is affirmative action even necessary?  Is it about social class or race?  Or both?  I think part of the issue surrounding this topic is that everyone's version and thoughts around affirmative action is different.  There is no general consesnsus of what the problem is in the first place.  If you speak to the general white upper-class population they will tell you the issue is social class, but if you speak to a person who identifies themselves as black will say it is about race.  Ans as I keep saying, yes there are many many poor whites in Brazil, but there is a very tiny minority of blacks in even the middle class - is this not a racial construct?

The issue of race in the United States is a social construct firmly ingrained in our minds.  This is not the case in Brazil.  There is this myth of a "Racial Democracy" still stuck in the minds of many Brazilians.  And this idea truly is a myth.  Yes, many Brazilians have multi-racial friends and family members, and they hang out in the same bars and listen to the same music.  But take a look around in the universities, or at a more expensive restaurant or shopping center,  and you will see there is a clear racial divide.  As I keep saying in my past posts - there is the saying in Brazil that you cannot tell who is black or white, but ask the doorman or a police office, and they can absolutely tell you.  

I also feel like the idea of a "Racial Democracy" is a generational construct.  While visiting the Getulio Vargas Foundation (basically a think tank), the director of the organization, made some interesting comments.  He basically said, "there is no race in Brazil. I can be white, black, Japanese, Lebonese - I don't know.  There is only one race - the Human Race...and dogs..." (I am not kidding - he said this!, and by the way - he is cleary white.)

Immediately after he said this, three grad students/researchers who were in the room, had a completely opposite opinion.  They said that there is a clear racial divide in certain places.  They confirmed that, yes, people hang out together, but there is no representation of blacks in politics, business offices (unless they are part of the cleaning staff or kitchen, and there are no black soccer coaches.

We also had lunch with some grad students from PUC-Rio (the Pontifical Catholic University of Brazil - a private, non-profit university) and the student at my table made an interesting comment.  He said that he believes there is a race issue in Brazil, and that his parents and grandparents were definitely racist - they make racial jokes, and look down on people who are darker than them.

One last comment that was made that I found quite interesting - Angela Randolpho Paiva, a professor we met at PUC (who I ABSOLUTELY LOVE, and think I might have been brainwashed to become a sociologist just hearing her speak!) told us that when her daughter was young, she said, "I don't even know if I am prejudiced, because I am only surrounded by whites." (Quite an astute comment made by a young child btw.)

Going to leave you with that for now.  Tomorrow we visit our last organization - a for-profit university.  Should be interesting.

Tchau for now.

There is Actually a General Education/Liberal Arts Degree in Brazil! (Who Knew??)

After spending a day playing tourist in the countryside of Bahia on Saturday, and shopping and chilling poolside on Sunday, Monday we returned to our scholary quest of visting the universities and NGOs of Brazil.

Our first visit Monday morning was with Livio Sansone, the author of "Blackness without Ethnicity."  It was really nice to hear from someone who is removed from the universities/administration, but rather than go too much into what he said, I am going to list a few quick bullet points that I found interesting:

• In Brazil you are not born black, you become black.
• There is no Brazil without the United States, and vice versa - we live off each other's mistakes.
• In a way, segregation in the U.S. and S. Africa allowed blacks to ascend within society, at least within their own groups.  For example, having an all black university allows for a black person to be dean.  Segregation of shops or doctors offices, means you have black shop owners and black doctors.  (This is a really interesting point - I have never thought of segregation in this way.  This does not mean that segregation was by any means a good thing, but compared to Brazil, where there was no segregation, and where even in Salvador the population is 85% black and they've never had a black mayor, it makes you wonder...)
• In Brazil, only 50% of the population have access to credit cards, whereas in the U.S. everyone has access (maybe too much, as we have seen in the last two years...)
• Brazilians now want to become citizens, and as the U.S. has taught us, in order to be a citizen you need to be a consumer.
• There is a law in Brazil requiring all schools to include Indigenous and Afro-Brazilian education as part of there curriculum (I believe I mentioned this in another post), but due to the tremendous lack of resources in the public school systems, the wealthy, mostly white, student population of the south receives more Afro/Indigenous education than in the north where it is prdominately black.

And finally,

• The way Sao Paulo is handing issues of affirmative action is anachronistic because while the rest of the country is focusing on race, they are only focusing on "public school" quotas.

Ok, that wasn't exactly quick, but hopefully you can see how some of Sansone's ideas are very radical compared to what we've heard so far.

Later that afternoon we visited UFBA - the Federal University of Bahia.  This was the first school in Brazil to initiate quotas and is the fastest growing university in Brazil.  We had the amazing opportunity to meet with the president of the University Naomar Almeida-Filho (well until today anyway - immediately after our visit the school was inaugarating a new president!)  You could tell how big of a deal this was because as we were walking around, I swear all the students were looking at us like we were celebrities.  One student came up to me as we were walking into the classroom to ask who we were - I think he was slightly jealous that we were getting face time with the president, but he'll get his chance soon enough - President Almeida is returning to the faculty, and I am sure the students will be flocking to his classes.

NYU Students Chatting with the President of UFBA

After hearing from this man, I can see why he is such a hot commodity.  He has some extremely radical ideas, and is changing the way university education has taken place in Brazil since the 1930's.  Keep these points in mind:

• One of the arguments against racial quotas was that the quality of education would decrease.
• One of the arguments of increasing the size of universities to keep up with demand would, again, decrease the quality of education.
• In Brazil, you decide what you want your career to be prior to taking the vestibular.  Kids are making a life changing decision that is extremely difficult to change once you start (to change your major, you would need to drop out and take the vestibular all over again.)

As I believe I have mentioned previously - the first argument has been disproved by data showing that many of the students who have been admitted to university through an affirmative action program actually perform better than those who have not because they work harder.  UFBA has implemented a quota system that includes both social and racial factors - 50% of the students admitted must come from public schools, and within that 50%, the quota is broken down even further to include race.  Becuase of this system, 70% of the students at UFBA are now black/pardo/indigenous.  Walking around the campus we were clearly able to see the demographic difference compared to USP and UNICAMP.Naomar also mentioned that a solely racial quota would not work in Bahia.  Becuase the population of Bahia is 85% black, this also means they have a larger black middle class, so a solely racial quota wouldonly increase the number of wealthy people at the school.

In terms of increasing the size of the school, Naomar believes the exact opposite of the argument above - if you want to increase quality, you need to grow.  You should open doors for more people, which allows for more/different ideas.  In 2002, UFBA had 3,700 openings for new students and in 2010 they have 8,000.

Now here comes the really radical part.  UFBA has a general education program!  This is unheard of!  Who knew!  In the traditional way of doing things, if you entered into a medical program, you would have a very strict schedule of what you had to take, and when, and you would ONLY have medical classes. Now there is an option the enter a general program, where there are only two required classes, and then the rest of the classes are electives. (These electives can be profession specific if you want.)

There are for general themes within the new program that you can "major" in if you want to call it that.  These are Arts, Sciences, Humanities, and Health.  Each major has there own application process in a way.  You still have to take an entrance exam, but if you want to a music program within the art major for example, you would need to audition as well.  Or if you wanted to enter for art, you would submit a portfolio.

Similar to the U.S., even if you are in the arts program, you are required to take some gen. ed. classes in language and contemporary science.  Also similar to the U.S., many of these students complain about taking, say, a Biology class, but then they actually end up enjoying them, and maybe even decide to change their focus of studies.  They still have the traditional program in place, so it's not completely off the charts radical, but its there.

I can go on and on about this new program.  I think it is absolutely amazing, and it has nothing to do with the fact that it is more "American."  I think it is ridiculous to ask a 17 year old to decide what they want to do with the rest of their lives.  How can you know?  I went into undergrad thinking I wanted to be an accountant and then changed my major in the middle of MY JUNIOR YEAR to ENGLISH of all things.  Then I ended up working in the accounting/banking/human resources world anyway, and now at the age of 30 I am in a grad program to become a high school guidance counselor.

Here is another interesting point of view: Without any of us asking, Simone - our guide while in Salvador, also said something really interesting.  She said that she wished there was something like this when she was in school becuase she tried university twice and dropped out both times.  The first time she did 3 years of psychology, then dropped out, and tested and applied all over again for business administration.  Again after 3 years, she dropped out.  She feels it was a waste of 6 years of her life, and if she had a program like this, she would probably have a university education.

I would love to get the faculty of UFBA in a room with UNICAMP and USP.  They all have such different thought and ideas, and are kind of on a scale with UFBA on the left, UNICAMP in the middle, and USP definitely on the far right.  It would be great to hear a debate between all of them.  Maybe it's my own leftist point of view, but right now I am definitely siding with UFBA. (I don't really think this is a competition, but I'm allowed to have my opinion right?)

I can't wait to see what other POVs we get to hear from in Brazil.  I was not expecting such a range of differences!

Salvador is HOT!

Everything about Salvador de Bahia is HOT!  The sun (extremely, as we all unfortunately found out), the sand, the atmosphere AND the people!  I love this city!  It was where the Portuguese explorers first landed and was the original capital of Brazil.  The city is absolutely beautiful and one of the only places left that still has the original architecture from the colonial era.  And I really need to find a place in NYC to learn capoeira - so amazing.

Salvador is also almost completely opposite of Sao Paulo and the south in almost every way.  For one thing, whereas the south of Brazil contains a very white population, the north is very black.  And poor.  And you can tell almost immediately.  It is also filled with so much more culture (in my opinion anyway - Sao Paulo was just like NYC, but with less culture - like I said - my opinion, don't hate!)  Specifically it is the center of the Afro-Brazilian culture of Brazil.  In the United States during the time of salvery, the slaves were well taken care of in order to keep them alive (and working) as long as possible.  The slaves of Brazil were worked to death (literally) and there was a constant influx of slaves into the country to replace them.  Because of this constant replenishing of slaves, the African culture stayed alive, whereas in the U.S. the slaves became more Americanized and lost much of their heritage. In another way to look at it, in the U.S. salves were seperated from their families, so many blacks in America have no idea who their ancestors are and what tribe or country they came from.  In Brazil, salve families were kept together, so even now, most black people of Brazil can trace back their ancestry.  Because of all this, the African culture has stayed very much alive in the state of Bahia.

After spending the morning exploring the old city of Salvador and taking in its rich culture, we visited two organizations that specialize in the black movement of Brazil.  The first was CEPAIA - a research center and "think tank" at UNEB - the State University of Bahia, that specializes in research about the indigenous and people of African descent.  The second organization was the Steve Biko Cultural Institute (Steve Biko was a black activist in South Africa during Apartheid who was killed by the police.  He wanted the blacks of South Africa to be free, but he also wanted them to be free from self oppression.)

One of the on-going projects of CEPAIA is to study the impact of affirmative action programs on the students, as well as the strategy they are taking to complete their degree.  Many of the students admitted to university through the affirmative action programs are the first in their family to attend school, so its a huge deal!  The other project described to us was studying the use of Africa and Afro-Brazilian history in the classrooms.  In 2003 a law was passed making it mandatory for Afro-Brazilian history to be part of the curriculum in elementary and high schools, but many of the teachers do not have enough of a background in this to teach it properly, and there is also an extreme lack of resources in the public schools.  So to make up for this CEPAIA also trains teachers in this area.

Different from all of the schools we have heard from so far, UNEB actually uses a quota system as their form of affirmative action.  Prior to affirmative action programs being in place, blacks were a clear minority on campus.  Now, blacks/mixed races are 50% of the student population.  As I've mentioned previously, I am not sure quotas are the right way to go about things, but when you look at USP, that only has 2-3% blacks on campus, and then see that UNEB with 50%, you start to question if maybe there should be quotas.  To be fair, Bahia's black population is also probably around three times that of Sao Paulo's, so the numbers are always going to be skewed.  But that doesn't mean that USP can't do a better job of getting them there.

There have been many arguments against affirmative action at the universities in Brazil.  One being that the entrance of blacks in university would lower the quality of the school. (remember that phrase I mentioned in another post - Anything done by a black is not done well.)  Luckily research has shown that this is not true at all.  In fact, much research has shown that the students admitted to university through affirmative action programs have performed better because they work harder.  Many people also argued that due to the miscegenation of Brazil, how do you decide who is black?  But almost every person we have spoken to says that "if you ask a police officer who is black and who isn't, believe me, they know."  And although the government says they support affirmative action, they will do things like schedule an open forum for everyone to discuss the issues, but hold it on a Monday morning at 9:00 a.m. when everyone needs to be at work...

The Steve Biko Institute was formed because they realized there was very little representation of the black community in Salvador and throughout Brazil.  Although blacks are the majority in Brazil, the government is run by the white minority.  According to a flyer given to us, "The institute arose out of the concerns of young black activists in the fight against racism.  Coming from black communities themselves, one of their concerns was the absence of students of African descent in universities.  These young people recognized the university as a space of power to be occupied by black people, as a way of interacting critically with the hegemonic knowledge circulating in the academy and thereby ensuring the community's more dignified, equal insertion in Brazilian society."

We met with George who was a former student of Steve Biko, and received his degree in economics from UFBA.  He told us the institute helped him in two ways:

1. He was helped tremendously in studying for the vestibular.

2. It also helped him with his own black consciousness.  He is now ok with saying that he is black, and that it is ok to have black features. 

I loved everything about the Steve Biko Institute.  This was the first organization we've met with that is trying to do so much more than just help black students with the vestibular.  I strongly believe that you can not just help someone get into school and then leave them stranded once they get there.  There should be support for them throughout their journey in higher education.  So many times, even in the United States, students have no idea how to navigate the experience once they get there, and drop out soon after. Here are some of the programs that are available at Steve Biko:

• Education through Social Movement - they realized that many of the students who come to Steve Biko do not have cultural access, like going to the theater or museum, so this is available to them through the institute.
• They have a program called Open Door - for students who are already in university to help them prepare for going into the workforce, offering programs like interview skills and resume writing.
• They noticed that many blacks were going into "softer" subjects, like humanities and teaching, and not many in areas like medicine/physics/math.  This is due mostly to the insuffiicient teaching in these areas in elementary and high school.  So Steve Biko has started a group to help funnel students into these areas, offering after school programs for supplemental learning.

Carnival is also a huge aspect of Brazilian life, but even this seems to be segregated.  There are many roles within the Carnival experience, and even here, the blacks are the ones holding the ropes; i.e. doing all the hard work, while the whites are dancing on the float. So Steve Biko created there own float where everyone of all colors can take part in all aspects of Carnival. 

Unfortunately funding has been an issue.  Many large companies do not agree with affirmative action and would prefer to give donations to the arts and dance companies.  The vestibular in Salvador costs about $R150-200 per month for 10 months.  Since they couldn't get any donations last year, they had to charge the students $R50, but this year they have been able to provide the course for free.

The institute also prioritizes students they feel will be able to do well once they get into university.  Therefore, they require the applicants to interview, as well as take a mini test. 

I cannot say enough about this Institute, but feel like I am going on and on.  So I am going stop here, and hope that the other places we visit in Salvador will impress me just as much!