I'm a lucky pato. (I'm guessing this expression doesn't translate)

On my last day in the United States, I feel very lucky. I've browsed a used book store (and found EXACTLY the Portuguese-English dictionary I wanted), visited a friend at a nursing home, made calls to my wonderful family, changed my hair color, held a cute baby, and indulged myself at Dunkin Donuts. I also left the family car's radio on the Latino radio station (LA MEGA MEZCLA!) so that my mom can miss me when she turns it on. Right now I'm eavesdropping on an interesting conversation at the table across from me. Que día maravillosa.

I think skype telling me "Take a Deep Breath" has significantly reduced my pre-departure stress. From skyping with my cousin in South Korea (Big D, here's your shout-out) to my friends already studying abroad to my informal portuguese teachers, I've been using the application a lot. I like skype. And even when the connection is bad, I think to myself: "since when do I get something for nothing?" They must be Christians to make skype free (Well, sorta. I did just re-load my calling minutes. Cha-ching.)

Eu Não Falo Português Muito Bem

I wanted to document my Portuguese improvement over the semester, so I'm starting off with this humbling photo: me with the 40 words I know off the top of my head. They include real impressive worlds like "a" and "mom" and "chicken". I've accumulated this meager vocabulary three ways.

1. Conversationexchange.com--- I recommend the site highly. You converse with people who speak the language you want to learn and who want to speak the languages you speak. I correspond with people in Mexico, Spain, Brazil and Colombia. It's fairly fantastic. I mostly ask questions about social norms and then we correct each other's grammar. My use of the online dictionary is still extreme.

2. My exchange sister from Minas Gerais, Brazil. She is solely responsible for my awareness of the words "menina" "obrigada" and "saudades". She also makes good farofa.

3. My online teachers: youtube, free podcasts, songs, newspapers... My favorite is a commercial for Huggies. Toddlers sing what translates as, "baby's butt wants to breathe." Can't get enough of it.

My blog is going to get beat up at school for its name

What is an anthropophagite? I was sitting in a class this summer on Latin American female artists and the word and I grabbed for each other. It knew I needed a philosophy-box into which I could cram experiences and vocabulary and people. I like things to connect. It knew I could provide it with some good PR. So, let me make good on my promise and give a favorable definition:

(n): a person who eats human flesh; a cannibal

In the 1920s, a group of artists, writers and other avant-garde peeps took the European classification of Brazilians as "cannibals" and did the most fierce and classy thing that can be done with a derogatory word: they turned it on its head. The re-claimed the word and made it into a philosophy. The movement came to describe the act of taking in one's influences, experiences, surroundings, digesting them, and then creating a collage-like world as a response.

An overview of the "anti-imperialist" movement with which Brazilians took back the name "cannibal" for themselves and made it part of their emerging national identity: HERE

In 1928, from Sao Paulo, Oswald de Andrade wrote the Anthropophagite Manifesto. From his prose, I take two lessons for my pre-departure thinking/consumption:

1. "Before the Portuguese discovered Brazil, Brazil had discovered happiness" This is translated according to my dictionary as: "Before Rachel discovered Brazil, Brazil knew of its own existence/importance/happiness" I'm not discovering a place, I'm discovering what it's like to be me in that place.

2. I want to take in my surroundings (that includes the sounds and smells and weird looks I get as much as the literature and philosophy and language) and digest it, make some judgements, create something as a way to respond, and then be prepared to be dead wrong.

Two of Tarsila do Amaral's paintings (above) are associated with the movement. I want to blow them both up to poster size and let my host family think what they want.

Why Brazil?

Planning to go to Brazil initially satisfied my desire to be off the beaten track. I decided to go to a city people don't automatically think of when they hear "Brazil". Surely this would placate my ego for a while and allow me to feel a little bit original (For those of you who know what I'm talking about when I describe this really self-serving need to feel unique, check out this book that I only half agree with: THE LOST COSMONAUT--and the anti-tourist's manifesto)

Like with anything, once I started paying attention, Brazilian-y things surfaced everywhere. I began to pick up on people speaking Portuguese on the street. I met Brazilians at the mall. News articles miraculously started covering stories about Brazil. It's an amazing phenomenon. It reminds me when I learned the word "iconoclasm", I swear the New York Times only started using that word after I learned it. And I began to realize students of Brazil are everywhere... and I'm about to join their ranks.

Once I settled on Brazil, I began to justify the choice to myself this way:

1. I'll learn a language besides Spanish. This will begin to satisfy a promise I made to myself when I was 10, to learn many languages.
2. I'll "try on" an issue (public health) so I can start narrowing my idea of what I want to do with my life. See if I fit. See if I like it. See if it likes me.
3. The movies I've been liking best come from Brazil. I think I'm a little in love with a place I don't know yet.

If you want to see what I mean:

1. Pindorama, a 1970 film about a dwarf-run circus
2. Wasteland, a more recent film about the recycling industry the largest landfill in the world
3. Manda Bala, a documentary weaving together organized crime in Brazil

I'm trading my sorrows; I'm trading my earrings

The rumor (that I started) is true: I'm trading in my Frida's for some nationalist Brazilian earrings I picked up in Newark, NJ. Salvador, Brazil will play host to my earring-shoe-belt combos for the next four months.