How It All Started

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.