I just remembered I had this blog as a place for writing stuff about Brazil, so I thought I would. You may have noticed the riots in Brazil at the moment (is it weird to be writing in second person?). I'm starting to get a bit worried about those. As far as I can tell one person has been killed in Sao Paulo. When it was just in the biggest cities I was okay, but now its spread to more of the country I worry. I don't want anything to stop me going now, after going through all the process of preparing to go. Not just the form filling and paying stuff, but also the emotional rollercoaster that it's been (and that's before I even leave the country). There is a tiny voice in me that says, perhaps it would be easier if I couldn't go. i could just go back to life as normal. wouldn't normal be nice...But that voice needs to shut up, because I'm actually excited, and it would be awful if it all fell through. Not that it will.
On the other hand, these protests have made me very aware of another side of Brazil that I hadn't thought much about. It's still very much a developing country, with millions of people living in extreme poverty. At least partly I want to support the protests. Huge amounts of money are being spent on hosting two sporting events, that the vast majority of Brazil aren't going to be able to afford to attend. It seems a case of messed up priority. Sure, Brazil is a football mad, but most of that football is the barefoot in an alleyway with shoes as the goals sort of football, rather than the multimillion dollar stadium with hundreds of millions of viewers kind. I guess as a student who doesn't even speak Portuguese there's not much world-saving I can do, but I sure would like to. And I don't even yet know that much. I haven't experienced any of this, I'm just pretending to be knowledgable, when really all I have is the helpful aid of google telling me things. Perhaps I will have know better in 6 months time...
In other news, i have a host family. Which sounds like it ought to be really exciting, but actually it's not. As yet I know absolutely nothing about them, other than that they exist. It's weird to think that there is a family somewhere in Brazil who know who I am, and are expecting me in 6 weeks, but I have no idea. But I should hear more in the next week or so, so you'll probably hear from me again soon.
Loves :)
Sophie
Sunday 23 June 2013
Friday 7 June 2013
Bem Vindo!
Ola!
Look! I have a blog! I actually made it ages ago, back when I was like yay, brazil, must do all the things. Now I'm more like aaaaaaah, brazil, must do all the things, can't, eek, help, die. So that is where this blog begins. The plan is to blog at least twice a month (this is the deal made with my sisters, so must of course be stuck to like glue). It is yet to be seen whether than actually happens. My understanding is that such resolutions have an approximately zero percent success rate, but I'm an optimist at heart :) I don't quite know what the appropriate tone for one of these things is- beautifully edited poetry? whatever runs through my head, complete with nonexistent grammar? I'm leaning towards the second. I can do that.
On to the purpose of this blog... For those who don't know (people are actually reading this? who am i kidding?), in exactly eight weeks minus a few hours I'm hopping on a plane, and heading to Brazil for a year on an AFS exchange. I will be living with a Brazilian family, and going to school, and hopefully learning to speak Portuguese (if I don't i will die, so lets say yes definitely learning to speak Portuguese). So pretty much the biggest adventure of my life so far. It is taking quite a bit of effort at the moment to remind myself that this is an adventure, and it is something I want to be doing, and it will be good; in the face of the dawning realisation of just how huge this is. A year. In which I will see no one who I have ever met before in my life. In a language that I couldn't talk with a five year old in. Living with strangers. It's huger than huge. I'm currently feeling all the emotions that you can possibly think of about the whole thing. Which gets messy. But it's all good.
Yeah, that's about me for now. I will be back when exciting things like host families happen.
Tchau!
Look! I have a blog! I actually made it ages ago, back when I was like yay, brazil, must do all the things. Now I'm more like aaaaaaah, brazil, must do all the things, can't, eek, help, die. So that is where this blog begins. The plan is to blog at least twice a month (this is the deal made with my sisters, so must of course be stuck to like glue). It is yet to be seen whether than actually happens. My understanding is that such resolutions have an approximately zero percent success rate, but I'm an optimist at heart :) I don't quite know what the appropriate tone for one of these things is- beautifully edited poetry? whatever runs through my head, complete with nonexistent grammar? I'm leaning towards the second. I can do that.
On to the purpose of this blog... For those who don't know (people are actually reading this? who am i kidding?), in exactly eight weeks minus a few hours I'm hopping on a plane, and heading to Brazil for a year on an AFS exchange. I will be living with a Brazilian family, and going to school, and hopefully learning to speak Portuguese (if I don't i will die, so lets say yes definitely learning to speak Portuguese). So pretty much the biggest adventure of my life so far. It is taking quite a bit of effort at the moment to remind myself that this is an adventure, and it is something I want to be doing, and it will be good; in the face of the dawning realisation of just how huge this is. A year. In which I will see no one who I have ever met before in my life. In a language that I couldn't talk with a five year old in. Living with strangers. It's huger than huge. I'm currently feeling all the emotions that you can possibly think of about the whole thing. Which gets messy. But it's all good.
Yeah, that's about me for now. I will be back when exciting things like host families happen.
Tchau!
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