Democracy Now...

Brazil has only been a democratic country since 1988, so you can imagine that voting, as a concept, is interpreted in a very different way than in Canada. Not only that but the state of democracy, and the way that the general population
perceive this seems, in my opinion, to be much more fragile than had ever occurred to me, after all the people my age would remember, just barely, being under military rule. So October 5th was the date for municipal elections in Brazil...
and I must admit I was intrigued to be here to witness the entire process. My host family graciously tried to explain it to me.. it was interesting to see how religious symbolism is used to gain support for a certain candidate. For example, the card shown here is modeled after cards of saints that you can purchase from street vendors along with a rosary.

Does this look like Christ to you? Another example, you can't really tell from this image but the body looks remarkably similar to that of the statue of Christ the Redeemer, about two blocks from where this photo is taken. Blastphomy? No. With the amount of candidates running it's important to get the attention of the public. This is where your social network comes in really handy,since you're more likely to get in based on support from your friends, rather than your political platform. Who has time to compare over two hundred platforms anyway?


below is just one of many walls of candidates for Fortaleza's mayor


I'm not saying that voting in Canada is not a popularity contest, but with obligatory voting producing a 90% turnout I found the discussion to often be around the personal history of the candidate, who he/she knows, what type of family they are from who they are married to (one candidate was losing voters because his wife played an unpopular character on a tv soap) rather than issues.

Obligatory voting is interesting too... everyone over the age of 18 to 65 is obliged to vote. If you just do not show up your access to all public services is cut. This is enough of a deterrent to ensure that people actually engage in the electoral process, even at the municipal level. This is democracy in Brazil.

Whistle While You Work

I have just come back from Russas, a city approximately 3 hours south of Fortaleza, population 66,000. Maira travels there by bus every week to work at CRIAS, an organization that offers protection for children who are experiencing sexual, physical and emotional violence. Russas (pronounced Hoo-sahs) is HOT. Hot being that you can actually cook your food on the sidewalk in the peak hours. I have never experienced such heat and I believe I probably drank at least 15 litres of water per day I was there.

I sat in on an intake interview between Maira, Regeanna, a social assistant and and woman who was discussing her nine year old daughter and the sexual abuse occurring in the family. It was difficult for me to follow, but after just 2 weeks I'm starting to understand bits and pieces. Unfortunately my questions, in broken portuguese were answered by "she has many problems".
As a side note I noticed myself in Russas getting frustrated with constantly being corrected although I'm sure the heat played a major role in this. It was quite humiliating knowing how horrible my pronounciation is; also people tend to get quite upset when I don't understand their english and often say, "you don't understand this word?" As if I'm completely illiterate. The sotaque (accent in portuguese) is quite heavy... the word rent is pronounced hent here, my last name is pronounced Gloyjeh which I've learned to accept, after all we mispronounce names in Canada too. So I answer to Imy Gloyjeh now.

Anyway in Russas I was able to get a tour of the Poste de Saude and Russa's CAPS, Ceara's unique, publicly funded mental health centre. I participated in facilitating a "music therapy" that I liked so much, despite the extreme heat, and I have decided to go back and spend a full day at CAPS to see more of what they do. It was very powerful to see how much the people looked forward to this group, although it felt a bit silly to me at first I couldn't help being quickly won over by the incredible Latin beats and the happiness/excitement in the room. It was one of the best moments I've had here, dancing with a patient with my eyes closed then guiding him, his eyes closed, around the room to the beat of the samba drums...

Speaking of samba, I went to my first samba club. It started at 1am and goes until mid-morning. I thought I had some dance skills but nothing compares to the way Brazilians dance. I felt like a huge gringo, to say the least.

Back in Fortaleza I was asked to teach a seminar course on work psychology. Yes. Teach. I was quite nervous about this, being that I had only taken one course in my undergraduate degree on Career Counselling. However, I am here for the experience and have a feeling it would be a huge mistake to let this opportunity go by, so last night I taught my first class of eight on Introduction to Work Psychology. The feedback was positive :), however, the number of people in the audience did begin the dwindle from 40 to about 25 :(. I did have a broken projector so it was difficult to see my Power Points from the computer screen and translation slows things down to a crawl so it may not have been the material.

We'll see if anyone shows up next week....

I've also been asked to do a half day workshop for a RELUS mountain retreat on working with groups. I'm pretty excited about this; finally something I know a bit about! I was asked specifically to include creative methods to work with various groups, and it seems there is a big interest in combining the arts with group work. I'm searching for cheap clay within the city to set up a hand building (pottery) station, I remember this being an especially good type of art therapy so I'm hopeful that the group will like it. Any suggestions would be great!!


As for leisure time, I've had some good times walking around Bellamas, a huge artisanato market, and by huge I mean South American huge. I bought a few Brazilian instruments and a whistle that unfortunately did not survive the Samba. It did provide enough entertainment that night that it was worth the 2 Reis I paid for it. My first time bartering (through Silvia my new friend/interpreter) was pretty amusing, it doesn't really work so well when you look like an illiterate gringo so I mainly paid full asking price which, of course, was a steal when you convert it to the Canadian dollar. It's the least I could do since the items are beautiful...

Hopefully I'll be better at keeping up to date, so many things happen during the day that would be interesting but it's hard to find the time to write it all down.

Tchau!

End of Week 1

Oi,
I am writing during our "siesta" (although there is no official name for it here), which happens everyday between 1:00 and 3:00, after the most delicious lunches prepared by our chef, Inacia. I am still getting used to having a chef and a housekeeper; apparently it is perfectly normal to leave your dishes on the table and have your clothes washed for you here. It's actually offensive to do these things yourself when you've hired workers... and so I've (reluctantly?) agreed to stop cooking and cleaning for the remainder of my time here so as to not disturb the family culture by my foreign ways...
I've included some photos of new friends (below) and my first Brazilian Rodizio which was the best meal I have ever had in my life! It consisted entirely of meat roasted and served to you off of a skewer and the service basically doesn't stop until your stomach is distended and you manage to convince the waiters that you've had enough by harshly saying "NAO, Estou satisfeita." about a hundred times.
Maria, my new sister, has incredible friends who all seem to work in the social service/public health field here in Fortaleza. They have all offered to take me on site visits to their jobs and have filled my spare time with "muito divertirse"(??) activities: kite surfing (although I'm told this is extremely dangerous because of the massive waves), regular surfing, shopping, road trips, etc. etc. This weekend we are going kayaking then to the mountains to a coffee farm which I'm told is beautiful and will also provide a chance to talk with local farmers about some of the challenges they are having. Brazilian coffee is really good, and so worth never buying from Starbucks again.

My actual "work" started yesterday with what was supposed to be a 90 minute presentation for our RELUS group, consisting of professors and masters students from all of the three universities in Fortaleza, about 60 people in total. RELUS is a research Group based out of the University of Fortaleza (UNIFOR) that combines Educational Psychology, Work Psychology and Clinical Psychology programs and services. In Brazil social workers do not practice clinical work and community psychologists tend to function how community social workers would in Canada. RELUS is heavily influenced by person-centered and spiritual approaches in their work and I am happy to get a chance to see the mix of individual and community approaches. I spend about 9 hours a week with the RELUS group and an additional 5 hours on community site visits, in favelas, neighbouring towns and parts of the city where I get to go with a translator and see how outreach works in Fortaleza. My other project will be with the state government in public health but will likely not start until the municipal election is over in two weeks.

Anyway, I was told to prepare a presentation on "community programming, policy and organizations in Canada", and had about a week to prepare. My supervisor, professor Cavalcante, translated for me while I managed to fill up the time.
I should mention that people here can speak some english, just like I am catching on to some portuguese, meaning that we can say, Hello, Good Day, I don't speak your language and Tchau! I spend most of the day standing mute and trying to pick up words that I vaguely recognize. Maria has been awesome and has taught me all the swear words and dirty slang I need, just in case I get into a street fight and need to express myself. I'm starting to get over feeling like an idiot and repeating "Meu desculpe" 60 times a day, and am starting to get the important verbs when spoken in first or second person, but still... I struggle with trying to prove to everyone that I actually have a brain, despite my inability to converse.
Anyway my presentation, in my opinion, was incredibly boring, I was bored giving it, and to make it even worse I lost my pen drive in the taxi on the way to the conference hall and had to return home, so I was a half hour late. During the Q and A there were no questions, and no feedback. I interpreted this as being a very bad sign and spent the rest of the night awake thinking about whether I had unintentionally offended the entire group by discussing Canadian social policy, health care and community planning. I hope I didn't inadvertently destroy all confidence in my abilities to contribute to my team, I'm really hoping to get invited out to all their social events and have some good conversations...once I get past "Hi, how are you?"

So with only three hours of sleep I started my second "work day" at 7:30am. I was to go to Plantao, which is the name for drop-in clinic; today was therapy plantao which I was assured by everyone that I would be shocked. I was seated in an observation room and watched through a one-way mirror while a client diagnosed with schizophrenia received a "therapeutic session". Therapy started off with a lot of active listening from the psychologist, who I've become close friends with because he speaks fluent english. It was difficult to follow the storyline but at some point the therapist began to rub the mans arm and then there was a lot of hugging and crying from the patient. The session finished with some mandela work and the standard kisses on the cheeks.
I couldn't say I was shocked by the experience but there is definitely a different approach to touching and being close to people in Brazil. I guess it makes sense that this would happen in therapy as well. I was more shocked to find out that my collegues thought I would be surprised by the types of people coming for therapy, as though we don't have problems in Canada. I tried to assure them that, in fact, we have many problems, not only with they situations people face but also the way they are treated when they try to access care and services. And this sparked some discussion about my presentation from the night before. I found out that, in fact, some people did find the talk interesting but not for the reasons I thought they might. I spoke about funding sources for NGOs and community organizations and the role these organizations play in applying pressure on our government to create policies and programs that meet the needs of the community. This seems to be an impossibility in Fortaleza, partly because of the volatile history between the state and it's citizens. The ability to create programs without state policy in place dictating what these programs should be was described to my as a "dream". I'm starting to see how democracy must look like in Canada through the eyes of the south and how much freedom we really do have. Although Fortaleza is considered a fairly safe city I still can't go anywhere alone, which I am starting to find strange and I miss the ability to walk to the corner store and back. Stepping outside the gate requires a chaperone, especially because of my blue eyes and sunburned skin.

I am aware of this and yet here I am in a beautiful home, with full-service and chauffeurs available to take me wherever I want to go. I've also been thinking about how ironic it must seem to people that I came to Fortaleza to stay in this house, yet a want to go "visit" the impoverished areas. This thought makes me uncomfortable...

I've managed to catch a bug that made me vomit for most of yesterday and I still don't feel 100 percent yet...

Spent some time in the backyard and officially met the chameleon, today he was green-blue... which I think would describe how I was feeling too.

Gostei caranguejo!!

Me with Maria's friends at Fortaleza's largest beach. Men would periodically come up and try to sell us bags, sunglasses, shellfish, jewelery, small animals... we couldn't pass up the coconut milk and caranguejo's. So tasty. The waves are huge here and my new friends are forcing me to learn Portuguese. Eu nao falo portugues...estou tentando aprender.

Meu casa, meu familia!!

Acabei de Chagar!!

Oi people,

For those not familiar with Brazilian geography I've posted the map for you to refer to... see Fortaleza? That's my new home! After flying to New York, Sao Paulo and Natal...27 hours total in transit... I am here and so far so good!
It's late and I have a busy day tomorrow involving Latin American sun, sand and shamanic rituals (!) so I'll keep this short, might even use sub headings to keep from rambling...
Safety
Upon entry into Sao Paulo I was greeted by a guard holding what appeared to be a large gun slung around his shoulder. There was some commotion happening at the front of the line at baggage check-in and climaxed with a man running away with half a ripped backpack. I was glad to leave the airport safely with my suitcases and body parts in tact.
Money
Banks are not user friendly here. They have revolving doors that lock on you if you have anything metal on your person. I could not figure this out and managed to get stuck with my bags (filled with metal objects) inside the door blocking access in and out of one of the banks in the busiest airport in Brasil. This made me extremely popular with the locals.
My September Home...
Is paradise. I have my own room, with internet and private bathroom. My family is fantastic and incredibly welcoming. I had a feeling that Brazilians were friendly and they have been fantastic and even threw me a welcome fiesta. Brazilians throw parties for absolutely everything; they even throw parties to plan parties.
Apparently there is a chameleon that chills out in the back yard at night; I am super excited for our first encounter...

Must get to sleep. Yes, tomorrow I am going to the beach, but it's not all about relaxing...I'm going to meet Fachina, the local shaman to learn about aboriginal spirituality...after I get some sun. ;)