Monique was my first friend in high
school, and the first Brasilian I had ever known. Her family moved to
the U.S. from Rio de Janeiro and she and I met in our “Family
Living” class on the first day of my freshman year. She possessed
this drop-dead, tropical beauty that I had never seen before - not
even on t.v. It was the kind that made everyone stare, man or woman,
old or young. She had bronze skin, green eyes with an exotic slope
and this wild mane of long, wavy hair that ran down the middle of her
back. She spoke with a mesmerizing accent and charmed everyone with
her thousand-watt smile.
Our friendship was unusual. I was a
fourteen-year-old American girl who had never left the country and
knew very little about any other culture, and everything about
Monique and where she came from was confusing to me. I didn't
understand why she would tell me she was coming to pick me up at 6:00 on a
Friday and show up at 9:00. I couldn't believe she would say things
like, “I need to gain some weight” or “My butt is too small”.
I was fascinated by stories about her life in Brasil, and when I
would hear her speak Portuguese with her brother, cousin and friends
at school and at home, I longed to understand this language that was
so foreign to me. Every day at lunch, they would teach me Portuguese,
and I would practice every chance I had. Monique's whole family
treated me like family, despite my very American ways.
After two years of college I decided it
was time. My interest in all things Brasilian had only grown, and
when I saw my chance I took it. It was 1997 when I sat on my bedroom
floor with Monique, asking for help choosing a city in which to live.
I'm not sure how, but even then I still imagined Brasil mostly as
this mass of Amazon, wild animals and beautiful people. I was still a
teenager, and still very naïve. Due to the danger that a big city
like Rio presented, I wound up moving to Fortaleza, a coastal city in
the northeast, in the state of Ceará. Not even in my wildest dreams
could I have possibly imagined that my life was about to change so
drastically that it would never return to what it was. I thought I
was going to work on my Portuguese and better understand Monique's
culture. I didn't realize this move would be the catalyst of a
snowballing feeling that I was born in the wrong country.
Moving to Fortaleza meant major changes
in almost every aspect of my life; my diet, wardrobe, weight,
friends, the language in which my thoughts and dreams occurred, the
activities in which I participated, my ability to follow a
conversation and express myself effectively, my self-image, taste in
music and my awareness of global issues. These are only a few
of the many ways in which my life changed when I moved to a country
where comments on my weight gain were meant to be taken as a
compliment, and my still-faulty Portuguese probably protected me from
recognizing insults. Ignorance can be bliss for a while. It's true.
The first month was exciting and trying
at the same time. Suddenly I was a foreigner! It meant
carrying a small dictionary around with me all the time and often
studying it before bed to try to progress faster. I had a headache
for the first few weeks in Fortaleza just from concentrating so hard
and trying to follow conversations. I almost brought the dictionary
on my first date, but I wasn't sure how the guy would feel about
Webster's company.
Everything was exciting that year, even
juice. It wasn't just the fact that it almost always came directly
from the fruit – not a bottle or box – it was the variety
of fruits I had never seen or heard of in my life: caju, caja,
graviola, acerola, cupuaçu, siriguela, jabuticaba, açaí,
tamarindo, sapoti – I'll stop there, but if you're serious about
fruit and you haven't been to northeast Brasil, do yourself the
favor. There's a whole world out there just waiting for you.
Brasil does sand and water like nowhere
else I've ever been. There is a whole culture that accompanies the
beach experience, and until you see it for yourself, you're going to
have to settle for my sub-par description of one of the most
fascinating places that this gigantic country offers. The social
scene on Brasilian beaches is the pulsing
heart of every coastal city, complete with hard-bodied guys playing
soccer by the waves, bronze big-butt beauties glistening under the
blazing sun, couples and friends playing “frescobol”, vendors
selling coconut water, sunblock, sarongs, fruit salad with condensed
milk, popsicles with flavors you never could have imagined and more.
There is always a group of friends with a guitar, and often times a
tambourine and some type of percussion. Fortaleza has the beach
experience down to an art, with lounge chairs and umbrellas, fresh
water showers, bathrooms, security guards, and waiters ready to bring
you crab in coconut milk, plates of freshly grilled fish and cold
drinks. Whatever you want, it's at your fingertips. They really don't
miss a thing.
The country is as
liberal as it gets, and that manifests itself in the jokes people
tell, the clothing they wear, the way television programs are set up
– both in content and the angle from which they are filmed – and
the behavior of the general public. I remember several times during
my first stay in Fortaleza, people would say to me, “So how do you
like Brasil? The people are very open here, aren't they? Americans
are so closed. ” I always felt offended by these kinds of comments,
and couldn't figure out why they didn't notice that this sounded like
an insult. It would take a few years for me to start to comprehend.
Brasilians are SO open, that of course they would view Americans as
“closed”. It's all relative, like everything else, I suppose.
My first months in
Brasil meant being able to pick fresh fruit from trees in our yard,
dancing in the streets while watching famous groups like Timbalada,
Ivete Sangalo and Chiclete com Banana singing on top of floats during
out-of-season Carnaval. I fell in love in another language. Living
there also meant becoming aware of the division of social classes,
which I was better able to understand thanks to my close friend who
lived in a ghetto and invited me often to her home. Over time, I
learned to negotiate, argue, sing, study, flirt and joke in
Portuguese.
Looking back, it's
mind-blowing to think that after that first stay, I really thought I
understood Brasil. For the last fifteen years I have returned to
Brasil every summer for a two-and-a-half month period, and even now,
with fluent Portuguese and a very solid set of friends, I still find
myself occasionally baffled by things I experience or witness. My
Bubbie (my mom's mom) once asked me, “What is it about Brasil that
keeps you going back every year?” “The best way to explain it”,
I told her, “is that sometimes during the work year I feel like I
have to turn my emotions off, and after a while, life starts to
feel monotonous. But when I get back to Brasil, so much is happening
around me, so many extremes – good or bad - , and it makes me feel
very alive.”
I
certainly recognize that in many ways, I identify more easily with
Brasilians now than I do with many Americans. It's an awkward feeling
not knowing which flag to raise. Fortunately, I think there is more
of a union inside me than a division. I love that every return to
Brasil stirs up all types of emotions. I
still enjoy every sip of juice I take here, along with every moment I
spend bobbing up and down in the warm waves or lounging in the sun. I
never get tired of samba, nor do I ever stop feeling sad when I see
people begging on the sidewalk or sleeping on a bench on Avenida
Beira Mar. And I don't want to stop feeling these things. That's why
I'm here. So I guess that coming “home” to Brasil provides with
me a way to renew something within myself, and as long as I feel
that, I will always want to return.
And for the
record, I still talk to Monique, and still think she's the most
exotic, beautiful friend I've ever had. So Monique, I dedicate this
to you. Thank you for giving me Brasil...the most amazing gift ever.
I can't imagine the person I would be now had it not been for you.
