Lima

Before arriving in Lima I was told by pretty much anyone who had ever been to Lima that it’s not a pretty city and not much worth going to. Well after being here for less than 24 hours I think I’ll have to agree with them. The city has this grey sky that hangs over you sucking the life out of everything. Not to mention the lack of interesting architecture, haphazardly constructed buildings, wide streets and the general lack of color in most buildings. But the saving grace is that Marcel and I are staying with his cousin Fernando and his girlfriend Joysee.



They have been generous enough to let us stay with them during our 27-hour layover on our way to Los Angeles. It’s amazing how big a contrast there is from the poor areas to the better-kept areas. Even in the center of town where the presidential palace and cathedral are located you can see some very well preserved buildings, then you go around the corner and find streets and buildings in serious disrepair. Not to mention that as we strolled along this area no less than 7 people told us not to go any further because we would be robbed and that we should turn around and get back to the main plaza.







Well you don’t have to tell us more than seven times before we listen and decided we should head over to Miraflores, the part of town where the wealthy Peruvians and foreign tourists have also fled to. The streets are cleaner and fast food chains are abundant, from Starbucks to KFC.





Since Miraflores is on the coast we headed toward the ocean and were greeted with a spectacular view. From our vantage point the earth dropped down about 100 meters (~300ft) to a road that hugs the coast then a not so attractive beach. Because the ocean floor drops off quickly and the currents bring water from the south it leaves the waters much colder than you would expect for being as close to the equator. But we did see some brave (crazy) people surfing. Apparently there is good surf here.



Now we are just a few hours away from heading back on the plane and making the final leg of our journey home. I’m sure there is more charm to Lima than our little foray has allowed us to see. At the main plaza area we saw that there are plans to improve the public transportation system by building a section of underground bus way, a quasi-subway. The plans looked cool and it would be very interesting to see if this will help with the congestion and pollution. So maybe I’ll come back here again….maybe.

Até Logo Brasil

My time in Brazil has finally come to an end. I'm now just waiting for my cab to take me to the bus station where I will catch a bus that will whisk me away to the airport. Ok so I probably still have quite a bit more time here, just not with an internet connection. I'll be making my way to LA via a couple of detours, a one day layover in Lima and then a couple of days with the family in Riverside (including a day at Disneyland ...woohoo!!).

I hope you've enjoyed reading these blogs as much as I've enjoyed writing them...actually I hope you enjoyed them more than that. I'm hoping that I'll be back here soon enough to finally do that elusive research I was hoping to do here. But I've learned so much with my experience here (Portuguese for one thing) and I've met some incredible people.

To my friends and family back in LA, I can't wait to see you soon. And to my new friends here in Brazil, I'm looking forward to coming back and seeing here or wherever in the world you happen to be.

So I won't say goodbye, just Até Logo (until later)

Tchau Gente,

I thought I would leave you wiht the picture that a friend of mine took on our trip to Rio. I think its a nice photo to close this series of blogs with. It's a shot of the Pão de Açucar with the full moon rising in the horizon.

Curitiba Day 3

To sum up my Curitiba experience, there are a lot of cool things and cool ideas that have been implanted. But all these pieces don’t quite add up to a cohesive city. The architecture is reminiscent of many other Brazilian cities and the unique sites seem to have been plopped onto the ground with little attempt to be balanced with its surroundings. But Curitiba is definitely a livable city, often considered one of the most livable cities in Brazil. Though most of the guidebooks pretty much ignore this city or mention only the cool buses it merits more than a passing look. But I guess I’d be hard pressed to spend more time here too if my other options were Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Salvador.

I'll leave you with some pics of one of the many parks in Curitiba...this is the Parque Japones and was built to honor the Japanese heritage of this city

Curitiba Day 2

On my second day here in Curitiba I decided to take the Linha Turismo (tourist bus line) that let’s you jump on and off a bus following a set route to check out interesting sights both in and around the city center. I was a bit disappointed when I found out these buses weren’t the same as the cool tube busses, but I definitely recommend this bus for any visitor to Curitiba. It rained all day today, so I zoomed through the outdoor sights spending only the 30-minute interval between when one tourist base dropped me off and the next would arrive to pick me up. The sites where still worth seeing and I wish I could have stayed at them longer under better weather conditions, but given my limited time schedule the poor weather probably let me see more things than I would have.

Traveling alone lets you do a whole lot of site seeing and take pictures of more things than you probably should. So I’ve posted a few of the more interesting pictures here and you can check out the rest of my pictures here

Rua das flores
A few streets in the city center have been set as pedestrian only thoroughfares. This gives a bit of a European feel to the city center.



Rua 24 horas

This interesting little spot was created by the city to generate a nightlife. As the name implies the street is open 24 hours. I dropped by here at around midnight and yes it was open, but not a whole lot other than an internet café, and some bars. But still a cool idea



Jardim Botânico



Museu Oscar Niemeyer

I love this building. The museum has a tiny bit about Oscar Niemeyer, the man who has pretty much designed every modern building in Brazil. The museum has modern art and other exhibits. But everything just seems like a pretense to have such a cool exterior.



Universidade Livre do Meio Ambiente

I still don’t know what this place does but the idea of a Free University for the Environment is really exciting. Even more so when you find out that it was opened up in 1992 with Jaques Cousteau around for the ribbon cutting ceremony. The best part of this site is that you feel like your walking through the jungle before leading you to a clearing with an impressive cliff and elaborate tree house type structure that houses the classrooms and offices of UNILVRE

Curitiba Day 1

Arriving in Curitiba is like entering into some quasi-futuristic version of Brazil. There is a soft airport-ish voice that greets you in the bus terminal letting you know when the next bus is leaving and from which gate. Stepping out of the terminal I was greeted with a row of orange taxis all clean and efficient (perhaps it’s the German influence here).



But the most striking feature is of course the thing that has drawn many an urban planner to this town…the Bus Rapid Transit system. Yes just outside of the terminal there sits this beautifully crafted glass and steel tube that enter before getting onto the bus.



It’s just as efficient as all the textbooks say and you really feel as if this were some sort of above ground subway. You pay before entering the tube so that when the bus shows up everyone can just get off and get on in one fell swoop. No searching for the right change and holding up the line.

Seeing that I arrived at the semi-ungodly hour of 6am I was a bit surprised to see a decent amount of foot traffic on the city streets. Fortunately my hostel is only a few blocks away from the bus terminal so rather than immediately try out the cool buses, I decided to walk. I checked in and after having been given tons of advice on what to do in Curitiba I decided I should try to hit up the train to Paranaguá. So back to the bus terminal to buy my ticket for the train that leaves at 8am. Unfortunately the train only goes to Paranaguá on the weekends so I had to settle for a train to Morreta. The train still affords you some spectacular views, and I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Packing up…and procrastinating

I’m packing up my stuff since I leave Brazil in about 16 hours. I’ve been trying to finish up some of the blogs that I started and I stumbled on some interesting articles on Brazil from the BBC online edition. Anyways, here are the articles to give you another view of Brazil. You can expect my completed blogs to follow in a few hours (hopefully).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5355692.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4468042.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4468070.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4460068.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4462914.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4464536.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5263384.stm

Goodbyes in Campinas

Today turned out to be my last day of doing work in Campinas. I head out to Curitiba tomorrow and when I get back to Campinas on Monday all the people I’ve been working with will have taken off to a conference in Caxambu. So I had to say my goodbyes to the good friends I’ve made here. But I’m hoping to be able to come back here and actually be able to do the research I’ve been setting up.

Since I’m on the subject of my Campinas peeps, I feel remiss in that during the past 4 weeks I’ve been here I’ve neglected to inform you on all the good times I’ve had here and the really cool people I’ve met. So I’m finally uploading some photos. I’d also like to give a special thanks to Wilson for setting me up with my chique apartment in the center of Barrão Geraldo (its centrally located to both the bus terminal and the Mc Donald’s, what more could you ask for) and I had a consistent and fast internet connection which has let me be online so much (probably more than I should). Claudia, thanks for teaching me proper Portuguese, like “belhosa creosa” and “filar uma boia”, I’m constantly using those phrases. Roberto, my advisor here, thanks so much for your guidance and setting me up with contacts and resources. I’m really looking forward to working with you in the future. Rafael, Marcello, Simmone, Maísa, everyone, thanks for making my time in Campinas so much fun. And of course thanks to Maren and Stefan for showing me the ins and outs of Campinas, I’ll try to drop by Austin to visit you. Um Abração!

I can relate!

I stumbled across this article by David Sedaris in the New Yorker (the online edition, so no I did not pick up a copy at the local newspaper stand in Barrão Geraldo). After reading this article 1) I couldn't stop laughing and 2) I could definitely relate to the author's musings on misunderstandings. So rather than bore you with one of my own banal examples, I thought I'd just include the link to the article and you can imagine it's me in Brazil (not Paris) and change the underwear story to something more trivial like inadverantly ordering an egg plant smoothy (which actually happened to Alexis but I was with him when it happend so I can claim it as my own).

Enjoy!

http://www.newyorker.com/shouts/content/articles/060918sh_shouts

Some Class Time

I just finished listening to Profa. Dra. Lívia de Oliveira give a lecture entitled “OS ESTUDOS DE PERCEPÇÃO DO MEIO AMBIENTE NO BRASIL E A GEOGRAFIA HUMANISTA” (Studies of perception of the environment in Brazil and Humanistic Geography). The topic seemed interesting anhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifd when I saw that Profesora Oliveira was a sweet grandmotherly type woman (she actually looked a lot like my grandmother) I thought I’d be in for an interesting lecture. Well as it turns out the subject matter was completely over my head. You’d think that my Portuguese would be good enough by now to sit through this sort of lecture, but alas its not. Though I will have to say the acoustics were pretty bad in the room and she did speak softly so that everyone in the room had to crane their necks to hear the words she spoke. When the time came to ask questions I was stretching my brain to remember parts of here lecture that I could ask for further clarification but I couldn’t think of anything intelligible to say so I remained silent. Maybe some day I’ll figure out what she was talking about. Profesora Oliveira is one of the pioneers in the studies of geography in Brazil in addition to being prolific in her publications, though again, they are all in Portuguese...guess I need to do some more studying.

More Field Work!

Today I got a chance to get out into the field and finally do a bit of research that is much more interesting than sitting behind a computer searching for pertinent articles. I went out to Americana to interview Katia Gotardi the director of the Environmental Education program from the Cosórcio Intermunicap das Bacias dos Rios Piracicaba, Capivari e Jundaí. Americana is a city located about an hour away from Campinas. The layout of the city looks typical of the region here with many buildings topping out at about 15 stories or so, giving it the impression of a larger city than you’d think for a city of 180,000 people. Here’s a unique bit of Americana history. Apparently Americana gets it’s name because the town is the sight where Americans from the South moved after having lost the Civil War. But I wasn’t here for the interesting history of the town. In my meeting with Katia, I learned more in the 2 hours talking with her about how water resources are management than I’ve learned in the last 3 weeks reading various articles and websites. She gave me books, pamphlets, dvd’s, stickers, magnets...more information than I know what to do with. I couldn’t help but get drawn into all these materials (many of which she also happened to co-author) and be amazed at how many resources there seems to be available dealing with environmental education and specific to the region’s water resources. Of course I still had some questions such as how does this information get distributed and the more intriguing question of how to ensure that all segments of society are involved. Unfortunately my head was spinning from all the information I had just received so I wasn’t able to formulate these questions until after I had already left her office. Fortunately Katia has offered to answer any questions I have by email so I should get my answers soon enough.

Back from Rio….why?

I’m back from my trip to Rio and all I can think is why did I leave??? Finally getting to see Rio with some sun is quite amazing. I mean I loved Rio before for its scenery, its easy pace of life and cool architecture, but add the sun and beautiful beaches and who would want to leave? Because I took care of many of the points of interest on my last trip I was able to just relax on the beach and soak up some badly needed sun. Last week was pretty cold here in Campinas so I definitely welcomed the change of climate. But being that its still technically winter down here I was even more fortunate to not have to deal with humidity so we had on average 80 degree F temperatures during the day and about low 70’s at night.

I took the bus from Campinas and met up with the rest of the exchange students at the Rio bus terminal. There were about 15 of us…I think, but I was staying with Alexis, Caroline, and Justin at the Ipanema Beach House (thanks to Caroline’s suggestion), while the rest of the crew was staying at some other hotel between Ipanema and Copacabana Beach. The Ipanema Beach House turned out to be the best hostel I’ve ever stayed at. Not only was it situated just a few blocks from the beach, but it had a really cool vibe and great staff and really cool assortment of guests from all over Brazil and the world.

Of course our Rio excursion started off with a bus trip from the terminal to the hostel that none of us has remembered to write down the address or phone number to. Fortunately I had a couple of cross streets and since Caroline had actually stayed there before we figured the bus would be the ideal way to get there especially since we were in no hurry. Well our bus driver was super energetic. Since I’ve been here almost two months now I feel my Portuguese has improved dramatically, but I could hardly understand anything this bus driver was saying. He was speaking so fast and he just seemed like he couldn’t stay still for one minute. Even during our ride into town, it seemed like at every stop light he would leave the driver seat and chat us up, then race back to his seat once the light turned green. He was friendly though, helping us with our bags on and off the bus and making sure we got to the exact corner that we asked to be dropped off.









Well having so many friends in town comes in handy when you are trying to make it to the top of the Pão de Açucar (also known as Sugar Loaf-the other famous mountain peak attraction that provides an amazing view of Rio) in time for the sunset and you are at the other end of the beach. We were fortunate enough to meet the other group of exchange student at the front of the line for the teleférico (cablecar) and skip the hour-long line so that we could be zipped up to the top of the mountain just in time to see the sun set over Rio. The view was breath taking. And if that wasn’t enough we happened to be there on a clear night with the full moon that shown over the city. This was truly a magical experience. Unfortunately my battery ran out after I snapped a few pictures of the sunset so I’m waiting to get some pictures that my friends took.






Well my time is starting to wind down over here. So I’ll be taking one more trip in Brazil and hope to finally make it to Curitiba this weekend, then a quick trip to Sao Paulo to say goodbye to my new friends and then a couple of days in Campinas to wrap things up before heading out. Wow, just 9 days to do all that…I think I’m already a little tired.

Here are a few more pics to get a better taste of Rio! Até logo!

Heading back to Rio

I'm determined to enjoy a little bit of sun in Rio before I leave Brazil, so I'm heading back during the holiday weekend coming up. Brazil's Independence Day is on Sept. 7 so the 7th and 8th are national holidays. A bunch of my friends from the language class are heading out to Rio so I've decided to postpone my trip to Curitiba (the Valhalla for Urban Planners...or at least Bus Rapid Transit enthusiasts). I checked the weather and it looks like I might be in luck. It's been pretty chilly here in Campinas so I'll be looking forward to relaxing on the beach sipping my caipirinha.

I think I finally understand…or at least I thought I did!

Sorry for leaving you all in the dark for the last couple of weeks. Since I’ve started my routine of going to UNICAMP to do my research I just haven’t been getting the urge to write. But I’ve gotten the urge back and I’ll update you on what’s been going on. I’ve been immersing myself in the subject of water resources and public participation in Brazil. Before arriving in Brazil I thought issues of race and inequality would be a rather straightforward concept. I’ve since realized that there are so many nuances here that I could hardly wrap my brain around. That coupled with my virtual ignorance of Brazilian water resources and public participation history has left me spinning my wheels for the last couple of weeks. The first step out of this black hole has bee acknowledging that I’ve been looking at the role of public involvement in Brazil through a set of American eyes. For one, issues of race and class are quite different here. Back in LA I’ve been looking at how to involve Latinos into environmental decision-making. The basic thought behind that is that as Latinos have grown in numbers and in political strength there have been movements on various sides to involve Latinos in the political process. This involvement is an attempt to better represent the interests of the community as a whole by having representatives that better reflect the community. Since Latinos have historically been under represented this movement has for the most part been viewed as a positive goal.

Here in Brazil issues of race are not seen as important. The national ideal is that Brazilians are a mixture of African, European and Amerindian heritage, in addition to the significant presence of Asians and people of middle-eastern heritage. Because of this mixing people don’t refer to issues of inequality in terms of race or ethnicity but rather on class. This complicates matters when you are trying to involve historically disadvantaged groups and their only common denominator is that they are poor, or that they live in a certain “barrio”.

Though for someone like me who has been well versed in the ideas of racial politics it just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to ignore the effects that race has on issues of inequality. Additionally from my experience in Mexico which is supposed to be a Mestizo society of Indian and Spanish heritage we see plenty of instances of inequalities that result because of this false notion of total “Mestizaje” or pure mixture. This notion makes it easy to ignore the needs of Indigenous communities and other minorities such as the often overlooked African population leaving these groups vulnerable to exploitation and lacking in services.

But even the example of Mexico does little to shed light on the complexities that Brazil presents. In the brief time I’ve been here just walking around I’ve seen the stark contrast from many parts of this country where if you are in the “chique” parts of town you notice mostly European descendents walking around, yet when you go to the favellas or other more modest areas you see a much broader representation of people of color. I’ve also observed African descendents holding fewer positions of authority compared to their numbers in the total population. But again things get tricky in trying to show this through data since there is a very large mixed population where you would have to figure out how much African heritage leads to a disadvantaged group. This adds to complicate matter s for me here so I’ve decided to drop this for now. But I hope to come back and look at these issues more in depth in the near future.

First public meeting

Since I’m researching public participation in water resource management here, my advisor suggested I attend this open meeting held by the watershed committee. These meetings are held as a part of a way to involve the public in the management of water resources. So I was excited to finally be out in the field and step outside of my little workstation. First I had to figure out how to get the meeting. It was being held in a smaller city outside of Campinas. I found out that I would need to take 3 buses to get there...great. So I left my house at 7 am, and headed for the bus terminal. I caught my bus into Centro Campinas then had to find a bus to take me to Jaguariuna. After a bit of asking around I found where I could catch my next bus. Once in Jaguariuna I found my bus to Pedreira. All I had was an address and the name of the building where the meeting was being held. So I figured since it’s a small town people would know how to get there. No one on the bus was able to help me out so I ended up taking the bus to the terminal and hoping to just grab a cab. No cabs. I asked around and was told to head down a road and make a left at some marker that I wasn’t exactly sure I’d be able to find. I eventually made it to the meeting about an hour late and a full 3 hours after I had left my house….hmmm…so much for easy public participation.

When I got there I signed in and took a seat. Since my Portuguese isn’t the greatest I wasn’t able to understand a whole lot of what was being said. But I did catch that there were only two committee members that seemed to monopolize the conversations. That and there really wasn’t any space for public comments. Motions were raised with some explanation by either the counsel president or the vice president then he asked for any objections…no one spoke…approved. This went on for several motions without any one from the audience making a comment or any sort of discussion. There were a few people that got up to speak, but I couldn’t tell if they were other committee members or from some nonprofits. In any case it seemed like all the decisions had been made before this meeting and I was observing some sort of formality. I did meet a woman, Katia Rossi Gotardi, from the Cosórcio Intermunicap das Bacias dos Rios Piracicaba, Capivari e Jundaí, where she on environmental education. Katia is very familiar with the committee’s work so I’m hoping to set up a meeting with her soon.

On my way back home I flagged down a bus and asked the driver if he was going to Jaguariuna (the town I needed to get to get back to Campinas), he said yes, so I hopped on. I noticed however that there were only men on the bus and everyone was wearing these white polo shirts. I took my seat and as we made our way we stopped and picked up more guys wearing white polo shirts with some sort of logo on them. I thought to myself, did I just join a cult? Well we eventually made it to the bus terminal and I asked the driver how much I owed him. He caught my thick accent and asked where I was from. I said the US, and then he just shook my hand and said that was all I owed him. That was strange yet pleasant end to my little fieldwork adventure.

Campinas life

Ok, so I have finally, finally started to do some work. I’m working with Roberto Luiz do Carmo and will be looking at popular participation in regards to water resources in Campinas. I found a bunch of articles that I need to read and I’m developing my workplan. But in the few days that I’ve been in town I did some wandering and thought I’d show you a few points of interest. Though UNICAMP is in Campinas, its located in a part of town called Barrão Geraldo which is located about 15 minutes from the center of Campinas. Here the McDonalds functions as the main point of reference, so I just look for the golden arches to orient myself.



There also seems to be a few types of establishments that dominate this part of town, Pet shops/Veterinarian offices, bars, and real estate offices.





There is a clear difference between life in Campinas and São Paulo. Some times while walking around I have to do a double take and ask myself, where am I? Here cars are the primary form of transportation, which is a bit tough for me since I don’t have one. There are busses that circulate, though not as frequently, and many establishments here seem to follow the same suburban planning as in the states complete with parking lots and drive-thrus. This mainly applies to life in Barrao Geraldo, as the center of Campinas looks like it could be another section of Sao Paulo. I'll post some pics for center Campinas in a future post.

Weekend Getaway—Ouro Preto

Belo Horizonte is the third largest city in Brazil, and though I am sure there are plenty of points of interest, we didn’t find many. But one of the biggest claims to fame for Belo Horizonte is that it’s the gateway to some very cool old mining towns. Maren and I got a chance to visit Ouro Preto, which means black gold. The UN has named the city a World Heritage Site. This designation basically means that everything in the city must be frozen in time, or at least their façades have to. Maren and I toured more churches than I can remember and it seemed that every few feet we stopped to snap some photos. It’s hard to resist when the entire town can be made into a postcard. Well I would try to describe all the sites that we saw, but I can’t remember them all, so I’ll just post the pics that best captured our visit. Though unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take any pictures of the churches from the inside, which is a shame since some of them were exquisite with gold leaf baroque adornments and walls and ceiling paintings depicting biblical scenes. Of course I should also mention the various statues that were made with real human hair, well lonely planet thought it was interesting.
















A cool bit of Ouro Preto history is that there was a guy named Chico Rey who was an African king that had been captured along with his whole tribe and sold to work in the mines in Ouro Preto. Apparently he managed to earn enough money to buy his freedom and worked to free his entire tribe. The Church of Santa Efigenia is one of the last bits that remain of this history. Unfortunately we got there when it was closed.



One last bit of trivia, apparently Ouro Preto had a bought with phantom robbers. So the townspeople built this shrines that were intended to scare away these ghosts. I have to say I was sadly disappointed when I came across one of these few remaining shrines. Maybe they were more impressive at one time….maybe.