Monday May 16th
Today I woke up at 5 to a rooster crowing. I would have been mad, but I had gone to sleep at 9 the night before, so I was very well rested.
I spent the morning at the Public Archives, one of my new favorite places (I think I’m going to have a lot of those). It is a beautiful building filled with historical things. The women were so nice, and while they didn’t have a lot of stuff on samba, they pulled out lots of books and documents about the history of the area, the quilombos and festivals. It was very helpful, although it made me wish I could read Portuguese better. I am definitely a much better at speaking and listening than reading. While I get the general gist while reading, I don’t understand every word, and especially when it is academic I get frustrated and overwhelmed very fast. It’s like a puzzle: I know that I information I need is in the words, and I can see the outline, but I can’t make out the details, so I’m never completely confident that I’m understanding the reading correctly. When I’m speaking I can ask, I can make funny hand motions, and I can read people expressions, intonations, body language, etc. Words don’t have any of that.
But after what I think is a very productive first morning, I came back home for lunch, took a power nap, then went exploring a little more. I was able to buy some tings I need at the pharmacy, go back to the internet café, make a deposit for a reservation at a guest house for when lauren and mom come (yay!) and…… FIND SOYMILK!!!! (erin, things are going to be extra great). I was really excited about that find, since the only grocery stores I’ve seen here so far are little mercadinhos, which are super cute, but don’t always have strange items like soymilk. I also found plain yogurt, which can be a struggle in a country that doesn’t understand the words “non-sweetened.”
As I was looking for soymilk and yogurt, I realized one of the reasons that this town is so calm. It has no commercial chains. All the markets, pharmacies, restaurants are locally owned. I’m sure there are some chains somewhere, but I have yet to see them. This is very different from Salvador, where the road that my school was on was not only lined with shop after shop after shop (there are multiple chains that were repeated a few times on the street), but overflowing with street vendors selling everything from underwear, rompers, batterys, medicinal herbs, and recently a bunch of toy horses (I don’t know why, but everyone had them right before I left).
But here, it seems like every store is small and locally owned. Which is really nice. The only problem is that I need a towel, and I have yet to find a store which sells one, but I have hope that I’ll find one.
I’m off for an exploratory run, possibly one that leads to a waterfall.
Beijos!
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