A Maior Praia do Mundo

Recently, we had another Fulbrighter visit the oceanography department at FURG. She’s doing a Faculty Fulbright in Jericoacoara, Ceará (a state at the northeastern tip of Brazil). Jean's visit was awesome. She helped me develop some of my project for my masters on sediment transport on Ilha Trinidade and explained how she uses fluid dynamics to calculate rates of wind-driven sediment transport. Basically, Jean is a boss and I can't adequately describe how cool she is in this post. 

Jean, my advisor, and I went on a field trip along the beach towards Uruguay. Here in Rio Grande, I live on the maior praia do mundo (the largest beach in the world)!!  But I'd say when discussing beaches one should put more importance on quality rather than quantity. Because our beach here is big, it's also a whole-lotta ugly. There's a running joke about our terrible beaches in Rio Grande do Sul.

The trip was a unique opportunity. There are no houses, towns, or roads that run parallel to the beach. It's deserted for miles. To see the shoreline, you have to drive on the sand along the ocean until you reach Uruguay. It's also the most dissipative beach I've ever seen. I'll explain why that's interesting: A dissipative beach means that the energy of the beach is spread out – in other words the waves break beginning very far from the shore and continue breaking until they reach land. In this way the energy is dispersed. Whereas the opposite would be a reflective beach, where all the water comes crashing up to steep rocks or sand very suddenly. On a dissipative beach you could walk into the water very far and still just be shin-deep because the beach becomes deeper very gradually. It was strange to see the waves crashing constantly as far as half a mile out and continue to where we were standing. One of the most shocking things about the trip, however, was the quantity of dead animals that we saw: dead seals, dead penguins, dead fish, dead sea turtles. It was horrible. They were everywhere rotting along the beach. I’ve never seen anything like it. I have no idea if it’s normal but it made me sick to look at. It was a little eerie- kind of an overcast, deserted graveyard of sea animals. Along the beach are huge nonfunctioning fields of wind turbines. I can’t help but think of the turbines and the dead animals next to them as a juxtaposition of human development and its consequences.

I’ve included some photos.

Jean studies dune formation - she pointed out this formation of a barchan dune

dead sea turtle... there's nothing to scale it, but it's definitely larger than me

wind turbine in the background

old shipwreck

The sand was moving crazy fast the day of our field trip.

Oceanografia

As part of the ETA Fulbright we have to develop a side project for when we’re not teaching English classes. When I came to Brazil I had a vague idea that I wanted to do something with oceanography. And although I love teaching and I find it fulfilling, I don’t want to teach English forever. So one of my highest priorities when I arrived was developing my side project. 

There are some weird things you have to go through moving to a new country. There's a lot of doubt and... pontificating- Am I doing this correctly? Was that rude? Where does the toilet paper go?? Hmm spandex is popular here, should I wear some?

When I arrived, I didn’t understand how things worked at the university. I didn’t speak Portuguese that well. I wanted to work with the Oceanography Department but I had no idea how to go about getting what I wanted. Fortunately, my (wonderful) host professor introduced me to professors in the Oceanography department and they let me audit some classes. I liked the classes but what I really wanted was to work in a lab. So I asked around a lot about opportunities in research labs and was actually turned down... quite a few times, which was really discouraging. It’s really hard to show up in a professor’s office and ask for a job or guidance.

My now-advisor wasn't so reluctant. He agreed to work with me almost immediately! He did his PhD in Virginia and loves New Orleans so we were fast friends. He’s running a project right now on Ilha Trindade, an island about 4 days off the coast of Espirito Santo. I was really looking forward to going on a research trip to the island but I think my grant will end before I have the opportunity.

I’m working on the sedimentation part of the project. What I love about sedimentology in oceanography is that you can look at tiny grains of sand and learn so much about the history and formation of land. You can estimate the strength of waves depending on the size of sand they deposit. You can tell if sea creatures live nearby depending on the percentage of calcium carbonate in the sand. You can tell if the land was formed by a volcano. You can make hypotheses about the topography of the ocean floor based on the variance of grain sizes. It’s a riddle where you try to glean the most information out a few seemingly-boring rocks.

I've included some photos from the sedimentology lab. 

I love this picture. You can see samples of sand from beaches all around the world in the tiny glass jars along the wall. The cylindrical stacks are for measuring grain sizes and weighing the mass of each grain diameter. 

This is heavy v. light mineral seperation. The funnels are full of sample sediments and Bromoform which has a density of 2.89 g/cm3. The density of pure water is about 1. The Bromoform separates the heavy particles from the light ones. The light ones float in the dense solution while the heavy ones sink to the bottom. After we separate the minerals, they're sent to Porto Alegre for analysis. 

É como não sentir calor em Cuiabá

Full disclosure: This post is from October but I forgot to publish it on my blog until March.

I just got back from a trip to Cuiabá, where I participated in this event called English Circus. Julian and Armen, the two ETAs in Cuiabá, are go-getters; they're kind of the poster children for what a Fulbright ETA should be - we always hear about something new and exciting that they're doing. They organized this multi-week series of talks by other ETAs about topics of our choice. My talk was called "Cultural Literacy through Music", which combines two things that I love: music and social/political commentary through art. My talk was inspired by this class I took at Tulane with Dan Sharp (the coolest!) called Brazilian Music and Citizenship. We traced the evolution of Brazilian music and social movements. In retrospect, the class probably prepared me more than anything else for my move to Brazil.

My talk examined the cultural and political references in popular (that term is used subjectively) American songs. We discussed Amazing Grace, Born in the USA, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Civil War by Guns N' Roses, Where is the Love?, and Words I Never Said by Lupe Fiasco. I'm really fascinated with the distinction between basic communication: Where's the bathroom? Can I get a beer? and cross-cultural communication: understanding the history and experiences behind a language that gives it meaning. The first steps in learning a language are almost mathematical. You learn characters, place them in patterns to achieve a result. But more advanced language learning is about understanding nuance, cultural references, etc. I think listening to English music and discussing the meaning and history of songs helps my students communicate in English more deeply. It also prompts great discussions on history, race, war, social class, etc.  I read an article recently that reflects on language and culture more eloquently than I do here.

After the talk, I was free to explore the area. And thanks to Julian, who hosted me, I had an amazing time! First, I think it's necessary to explain the weather in Cuiabá. Cuiabá may be one of the most difficult placement cities. After spending a few days there, I have so much respect for Julian and Armen.

Cuiabá is a city located way inland in the state of Mato Grosso (literally translated: thick jungle). Hot. It was so hot. Julian didn't have air conditioning so we putzed around dripping sweat. I mean, exerting absolutely no energy whatsoever, I was losing a lot of water. It would get so hot in her apartment that at night we took showers in our clothes to stay cool enough to fall asleep.

Look at that!! 7pm. It's dark outside and it is 97 degrees! And look at Friday-Tuesday - over 100! It's like that year round. 

I had low expectations for Cuiabá. I thought it would be kind of like Montana.. not that I've ever been to Montana. But that there wouldn't be a lot going on. I was wrong. Cuiabá is a big city; it's clean, well-organized. The highways rival those of Texas. It was a world cup host city and quite chic. It seemed wealthy. There were luxury brand shops everywhere. I think the money comes from these very wealthy landowners, farmers, and cattle-raisers that own obscene amounts of land throughout the state.. and are arguably.. very sketchy people. The area around Cuiabá is protected. It's part of a giant wetland. Unfortunately, in Brazil there's a lot of strife between landowners and anyone enforcing protection on lands. To get a taste of what I'm talking about, read this.

Cuiabá's proximity to the Pantanal (that giant wetland I mentioned) is a lot of the reason I wanted to go there. It has some of the best birdwatching in the world. I went with my friend Catherine, another ETA, and her friend Fiona. We rented a car and spent the day with a tour guide. Our guide was very cool and knew so much about the wildlife. But we did have an unpleasant encounter with one of the aforementioned landowners. Our guide, used the landowner's driveway without permission to show us an emu and the guy came barreling down his dirt road and cut us off so we couldn't leave. He was bright red and spitting mad and cussing at us. It was uncomfortable to say the least.. and might I say, a tad overreactive.

The guide dropped us off in the middle of Cuiabá and hilarity ensued. The problem was that I was the only one of us 3 that drives stick. And originally (when we rented the car) I was like no sweat guys, been doing this for years! And then as my time to drive approached I became more and more preoccupied with driving in a foreign country with a foreign car where I don't know the traffic laws, etc. But don't worry! It was all good. I only stalled out a few times in a crowded parking lot (ugh felt like such a noob). And I couldn't figure out how to put a Volkswagon in reverse so at several points, Catherine and Fiona had to get out and push the car out of some parking spots... with an audience.

Here are some pics from the Pantanal:

Termite mounds

The entrance

This is Catherine giggling because the neighbors gave her a Jaca fruit on her way up to the apartment. Jaca fruit is huge and smells terrible. It tastes better than it smells but that's not saying much. Some people really like it, but the texture is a little slimey for me, personally.

Kingfishers are some of my favorite birds :)

September showers bring October flowers

I have come out of hibernation. I haven't ranted about the cold in my blog. I had every intention of whining about it for a few posts but I got busy. I also like to keep an upbeat vibe going in my blog. Here's the thing though: Rio Grande gets really, really cold in the winter. My sister made fun of me because she lives in Chicago and thinks anything above zero is Spring weather. And I was complaining about 5 degrees Celsius (~40 degrees Fahrenheit - ugh the most impossible word to spell. Who even remembers where that second "h" in Fahrenheit goes??). And I get it - in the South a few snow flurries send everyone to Walmart in a panic to stock up on groceries for all of winter. So my definition of "really cold" is dubious. And admittedly anything below 60 pretty much zaps any intention I had of leaving the house.

But here in Rio Grande we don't have the infrastructure for cold. Most houses don't have heating or insulation. There's just a wall of brick or wood that stands between you and the great outdoors. When I take a shower and I look at the cutout for the drain, I can see the earth under my house in the gap between my tile floor and the pipe. The temperature of that tile is the temperature of the ground outside. I have proof.

When it's 37 degrees F outside, it's 37 degrees when you're shivering under the lukewarm-drip of an electric shower head. Here in Rio Grande, we spend most of the winter in five layers under blankets in our house, sipping on some chimarrão, and canceling plans because it's either too cold, too windy, too rainy or all of the above.

But alas, the mean cold has been chased away - thank you Earth's axis! And now instead of cold, windy, and rainy, it's just windy and rainy! Just kidding. Sometimes we have nice days. Actually the weather in Rio Grande is totally unpredictable. I've included photo evidence of the weather variability here.

What it looked like this morning...

By 1:00 in the afternoon

The warmer weather has made me altogether a much more agreeable person. I'm more punctual. I feel more motivated. Today, I rode my landlady's bike to the farmer's market in short-sleeves.

I swear there is nothing more tranquil than riding your bike to the farmer's market. The bike is a big deal because I used to walk to the farmer's market (feira), which was a 2-hour ordeal. It's now a 30-minute trip and no longer takes up all of my Tuesday morning. The market has really interesting fruits and vegetables. Here are a few examples:

bergamota - this word is specific to my state. They say mixirica everywhere else. It looks like a clementine, tastes like a clementine, but is not a clementine. There are a bunch of types of oranges here -  some just for juice. Maybe we have lots of oranges in the US too.. but acho q não.
mamão - papaya
goiaba - guava
maracuja - passionfruit. I know we've all had a passionfruit flavored something but when was the last time you saw a passionfruit at a market??
mandioca - I really don't know how to translate that. Brazilians often fry it and it tastes kind of like a potato. But it can also be ground into a flour that they call tapioca in the Northeast. It's a main ingredient in polvilho, which is what makes pão-de-queijo.. which is duh-licious. Mandioca is basically a staple of the Brazilian diet: Ireland's potato. I'm not really the best person to get into food. I've never been that into food. I've been working in restaurants too long so all food joy has been sucked out of me. You should check out my co-ETA's blog, though. She's much more into food.

Stay tuned!

A Copa do Mundo

It's been a while since I last updated my blog. As my mom always says, no news is good news. I feel obligated, however, to update my blog before the World Cup ends - only minutes before it ends. We here in Brazil will definitely miss it when it goes, as each Brazil game day was a national holiday and none of us had to go to work or school.

Everyone was a little pleased/surprised that Brazil was doing so well in the seleção. There were of course theories that Dilma bought the World Cup to quiet protestors. So imagine all of our surprise when Germany annihilated Brazil this past Tuesday (one of many jokes was that the Governor of Acre forgot to pay the refs). The national sentiment during the Germany-Brazil game was really sad. Now everyone is at a loss about which team to cheer for. Ideally Holland would have won and then beat Germany 7-1 but alas Argentina and their terrible haircuts conquered. I think I'm going to have to cheer for Germany because I just can't get over the off-center rat tail on that one Argentine player's head.

In happier news, I did get to go to a World Cup game! I went to see Algeria and South Korea (a team described as "woeful"). The game was in Porto Alegre, the largest city within five hours of Rio Grande. The atmosphere in the stadium was pretty cool and the Algerian players were wearing white shorts - definitely the highlight of the game. I went with two other ETAs, one from Pelotas and one from Bagé. We had a great time speaking English, oh the sweet mother tongue!

As Michelle outlined in her blog above, one of the best parts of the World Cup has been the memes my Brazilian friends have been posting on Facebook. I've posted a few of my favorites:

Chico Buarque from Holland Chico Buarque from Brazil

Better to lose a World Cup than two World Wars

The trophy stays

I see Germany goals. How often? Every minute.

And next time why don't you go shove your grandma! Come here baby, don't mix with that crowd.

A photo from my world cup game:

FURG

This is where I work: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande (FURG - pronounced kind of like Fergie from the Black-eyed Peas). I've included some pictures of the university's entrance and of some horses grazing outside of prédio 3. There are always a few horses around campus. Now that I think of it, I don't know where these horses come from or what they're used for. Most people commute by car, motorcycle, or public buses but I think there are a few people that use the horses for labor.

FURG's grand entrance!

Outside our office building

The office!

Atravessando a fronteira!

It's been a minute since I updated my blog (sorry fam). So life has continued outside of the blog. About a month ago our dona da casa (landlady), drove us to Uruguay. She's a pretty cool lady. She talks a lot and used to have a restaurant, which means she cooks delicious food for us all the time. We live in the house behind hers and her natural inside voice is yelling so she'll be like:

MENINAS! EU FIZ UM BOLINHO PRA VOCÊS!!

She comes from Caxias do Sul, a city northwest of Porto Alegre and she has a different kind of accent. Instead of the "ch" sound that most Brazilians make for the "t" (quente becomes quenche) she has the kind of accent a Spanish-speaker would have. And she sometimes rolls her double r's instead of making an h-sound.

So we went to Chuí, a town that's half in Brazil and half in Uruguay. There's no big fence or anything - just an avenue and one side is Brazil and the other, Uruguay. Here's a pic of me standing in two countries at once! Woohoooo!

We did some serious duty-free shopping in Uruguay. People say things are much cheaper in Uruguay but I have yet to be convinced. I think it's just tax free. So I got some new pants in Chuí cause I had miraculously ripped two pairs of pants. I'm going to pretend that that was a coincidence and not a result of any weight fluctuation. I think Brazilian pants are engineered to make you look great! Everything you put on does magic for your bunda! 

People in Chuí speak Spanish or Portuguese or Portanhol (Português + Espanhol). I couldn't tell if people were speaking Spanish to me or Portuguese with a heavy Spanish accent; I think sometimes they weren't sure which language they were speaking either. Everything got all jumbled and I just came away with my brain hurting.

Rylee and I went with our friends Iarema and Thiago. 

Here are some pictures of the paisagem to Uruguay. There're just wetlands and cows for miles. How pretty!

O Pôr do Sol no Molhes da Barra

A couple of weeks ago Luan and I and our new friend Raiane went to Molhes da Barra, which is a large rock formation that extends out into the ocean. Everyone in Rio Grande talks to me about Molhes so I thought it was time I check out these rocks for myself. On the bus ride there we passed Rio Grande's port. To see the port was an interesting reminder of how fast Brazil is growing industrially. Petrobras, Brazil's largest and semi-nationalized energy company, has a huge presence in Rio Grande where their main industry is building oil rigs. I just got on Wikipedia; according to wiki Petrobras is the largest corporation in Latin America in terms of revenues as of 2011... so wow. The port brings a lot of new people to the city and is responsible for the recent rise in housing prices that everyone in Rio Grande is always telling me about.

We arrived at Molhes to people doing some strange sport that I've never seen but I think it's kitesurfing - with a snowboard looking thing and a kite/parachute. We walked along the beach for miles and miles (oops I mean for kilometers and kilometers) and saw some cool natureza. The most exciting part of our trip was when we saw this adolescent gull grounded. We couldn't figure out why but the bird was having trouble flying but I was very upset that he would drown as the tide came in. I was wary to touch him though because when humans handle baby/adolescent birds, I've heard it messes up their scent and the mama birds will chase them out of the nest. Luan saved the day by lifting the bird with his flip-flops. Then we continued on and got some great pics of the beach and sunset. Check them out.

Molhes da Barra in the background

The grounded gull :(

Luan, the gull whisperer

Candid of Raiane

Pôr do Sol

As Novas Gringas do Bairro

Rylee and I recently moved into a house in Rio Grande! We had been living in a hotel on the university’s campus, which was great because we made friends with new students at FURG that were also staying there. Most of the other hotel residents were from Colombia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua and we would all weave in and out of Portuguese and Spanish to communicate. The hotel was great because there were always people around to talk to and I caught up on all the latest novelas with the hotel employees. Like the most recent episode of one novela I watch, one of the ladies had to explain to me that the girl got hit by a car because she jumped out of the car while she was arguing with her lover (not her father as I thought) because he had had a love affair with her mother 20 years earlier!! MEU DEUS.

 Our new house summers as a restaurant called “Scooby-Du”. The Dona da casa (the lady who lives in front) is really cool, Luan assures us. We had to take his word for it because she talks a mile a minute in rapid Portuguese with a heavy accent from Caxias do Sul. She likes to party harder than us, cooks us tons of food, and gives us life advice. Her husband Achin (I have no idea how to spell his name) is a stoic Taiwanese man that she met 20-years ago at the port. We’re excited now to have our own kitchen, where Rylee cooks and I eat and wash dishes because I have absolutely nothing to offer in terms of cooking skills - except for some killer roasted broccoli - courtesy of my Aunt Jen.

The house-hunting process itself is worth mentioning. Our search began a couple of weeks ago. Rossana, our coordinator, knew a guy who was trying to rent out his summer home in Cassino Beach (A Maior Praia do Mundo). Luan came with us as our unofficial interpreter to see this first house. The ‘house’ (shack) was a total dump. When we arrived Luan and Rylee could barely cover their looks of horror upon seeing the living room. I, on the other hand, am a little too polite for my own good. I was walking around complimenting the wallpaper and ooing and aahing at a bedroom literally the size of a linen closet. I ended up communicating with the lady showing us the house in French because my Portuguese was blah. Our ‘interpreter’ and Rylee were giggling in the corner at the two of us speaking French. After an obligatory 15 minutes of discussing the price of a house we were never going to rent, we made like trees and leave-d. Rylee and Luan continued house-hunting while I went to Foz do Iguacu and kept me posted via phone and skype and we moved into our Scooby-Du house shortly after I returned from my trip.

I love our new neighborhood. There are lots of trees and birds and I’ve already been running a few times. None of the roads are paved and it’s about 2 kilometers to the beach. There’s a padaria down the street where Rylee and I go to get bread and eggs regularly. Our house has all the fixins of a summer restaurant: an industrial kitchen, covered patio, sound system, large stone grill for churrascos, and an outdoor bar. We also have 7 spare beds which have already been put to good use when our friends stop by and crash overnight. Here are some pics:

Covered Patio

Our friend Tiago making some caipirinhas at the bar

The living room

Kitchen

Our housewarming party

Pics of the neighborhood - taken during my run

Our street

Our house - Scooby Du painted on the side

pathway to the beach