February has passed incredibly fast. It
seems that just last week I was lamenting the end of my vacation,
writing my last letter to you, and getting ready for school. In the
last month, I've started my second half of the school year, traveled
across the state for Carnaval, trained for our first rugby match, and
made preparations for a trip to Sao Paulo later on in March. Although
February was only a day or two shorter than normal this year, it felt
like it was at least 20.
First and foremost, February 1st
was my first day of classes. The transition back to school was rough,
I'm not going to lie. This was partly because my sleep schedule had
been so badly thrown off by 2.5 months of vacation and travel that it
was very, very difficult to get a good nights sleep the first week or
two. I found myself exhausted in class, and then proceeding to sleep
in the afternoon after lunch. Although I eventually broke this bad
habit (with the help of some very strong Brazilian coffee), this
exhaustion left me with a troublingly negative outlook during the
first couple of weeks. All of this compounded a surprisingly cold
reception by my school friends. Due to my very long stay with my
first host family (more than 5 months), I found myself hanging out
with the same group of people for a very long time, all friends of my
first younger host brother, Vitor. Naively, as it would turn out, I
assumed that after a month long trip, a house change, and not much
contact, that everything would be the same with all of them. As it
would turn out, my time away would act as something of a filter,
separating those who I am really friends with from those that were
just being nice to me on account of living with my host brother. This
moment had to come, although I just regret that it came as late as it
did (with under 4 months left). However, it's good to know who my
friends really are, and now I can spend my time accordingly.
School, however, stopped completely
for 5 days when Carnaval came around, which lasted from the 16th
until the 21st. The holiday is the same as Mardi Gras,
when everyone enjoys everything they can until Lent starts shortly
after. My host brothers Victor and Arthur offered to take me with
them to the town of Diamantina, on the other side of my state, for
it's famous Carnaval. It's known around the state as the best in
Minas Gerais, and one of the best in Brazil, for it's mix of
organized samba shows, known as blocos,
as well as the parties that take place all over the street. We left
late by bus at night on the 15th,
and got there in the mid-afternoon on the 16th.
Although every day was more or less the same, it was usually involved
getting up around 10 or 11, relaxing with the people in the house we
stayed at or going to one of the nearby waterfalls, and then in the
evening heading up to the center of town for the giant samba shows.
The shows are sponsored by the city, so they get to be truly huge,
especially in a small, colonial town like Diamantina. Being part of a
party of that size, seeing thousands of people dancing with what just
seemed to be pure joy and energy, was certainly one of those “wow”
moments of my exchange. After 5 days of this, I had to go back to
Uberlandia with a type of exhausting holiday under my belt. Luckily,
I only had two days of school after I got back, and a weekend after
that, so I recovered just fine.
This
month I also made preparations for a trip to Sao Paulo, the largest
city in Brazil as well as the entire southern hemisphere. My district
here is quite strict about travel, and I am only allowed to go
outside of my district with family or on the official
Rotary-sponsored trips. As such, when my host mother told me back in
January that she might be going to Sao Paulo, I immediately jumped on
the opportunity. I have met a lot of people on my Northeast trip who
are living in Sao Paulo, one of whom, Eva, I'll be staying with while
I'm there. Another very interesting thing will be that I will
probably get to see Mica-yes, that
Mica. She's living just an hour away from Sao Paulo, and there's a
very cheap bus that goes from her host city to Sao Paulo, so we're
planning to meet up there. That's sure to be a great experience,
seeing each other after more than 8 months, after going through so
many of the same exact experiences separately. As I mentioned before,
I'll be staying with my friend Eva from France, for weekend of March
23-25. I'm very
excited for this trip- it's going to be great to see all my friends
from the Northeast, as well as Mica, and help ease this travel bug
that I've caught.
February
was an eventful month, with times that were both joyful and
difficult-something of a microcosm of an exchange. A sinking low of
social difficulty, followed by an amazing high of travel and
festivity, and in the end, a gentle conclusion to the month. However,
one little monkey-wrench was thrown in the other day. After hearing a
rumor from Mica that all the flights were booked in between the 18th
of June and the 20th
of July, I decided to ask again to Tzell Park Avenue about my return
date. Seeing as we had asked them to mark the date well before
February, I had just assumed that I would be going home on my chosen
date: July 8th.
That was the day I had told everyone that I was leaving, the day that
had become linked to going home. However, after asking again, we
found out that there really was no space in that slot. Seeing as July
20th
would have been far too late to accomplish all the things I need to
do this summer, we took the original spot that had been reserved on
June 23rd.
So now, I have a return date 2 weeks earlier than I had anticipated,
and the realization that I only had about 3 and a half more months
left, and only 3 more reports to you, hit me pretty profoundly today.
It's hard to believe that my remaining time is only about the length
of the start of my Northeast trip until now- a period of time which
passed extremely fast. Seeing how fast February, even with school,
passed, that Saturday in June, with all the great changes that it
will bring, will arrive much faster than I had thought. Faster than I
had thought, maybe, but I'll always be ready and willing for that
next big challenge, even if it's going home.
