Pancakes…?

by Sophie, Tufts 1+4 Participant

In the kitchen of my host family’s house, I happily fiddled with the proportions of ingredients and flipped pancakes in a small pan. For a second, I was brought back home as I heard an echo of my grandma’s voice in my head from the first time we ever made pancakes together. It was a month into my time living in Brazil, and I had yet to see a single one — apparently, pancakes as we know them are a purely American phenomenon. Thus, I was determined to make these perfect, complete with authentic New York maple syrup from my town’s local farmers’ market, and I was excited to share a little piece of my life at home with my Brazilian family. They were incredibly confused about the maple syrup (“what do you mean it comes from trees?!”) and were watching my every move, trying to craft a recipe to write down from my unscientific fiddling. Finally, I proudly set the stack of golden pancakes on the table with the bottle of maple syrup next to it, and stepped back to admire the scene. I gleefully awaited the moment of revelation when my new Brazilian family tried ‘real’ pancakes for the first time.

A minute later, I was motionless with my mouth gaping open and my eyes popping out of my head. My host dad had plopped a pancake onto his son’s plate, added a spoonful of meat, a little broccoli, topped it off with a sprinkle of cheese, and proceeded to roll the pancake into a taco. I realized I was holding my breath, and let it out in a big burst of laughter. Soon the small kitchen was filled with chuckles as my host dad laughed at how different our ideas of pancakes were, my host sister giggled at her pancakes falling apart (they were not designed to be rolled!), my host brother laughed at my amazement, and I laughed out of pure astonishment at what they were doing to my beautiful pancakes. The show-and-tell about American culture turned Brazilian in the 30 seconds it took my host dad to assemble the first pancake taco. The pancakes we had that day were neither completely American nor completely Brazilian, but a hilarious mixture that I look back on with the same warm amusement I associate with my favorite memories of home.

Because Why Not?

by Leonardo, Tufts 1+4 Participant

It has been 2 months since I’ve landed in Brazil, but it feels like it was just yesterday that I was preparing myself for the ten-hour flight from Houston to São Paulo. I am finding it extremely difficult to accurately sum it all up. There have been many ups and some downs. It’s been a whirlwind of emotions: saudades, frustration, happiness, exhaustion, all packed into a small period of time. Constantly, there is something amazing happening. It could be anything from paddle boarding in the rain to the sun doing what it does and setting. It’s exhausting to always be aware of everything and I keep having to remind myself to write it down or else it’ll disappear from my mind. Saudades (longing for someone or something) come when a small thing reminds me of back home. Frustration, when I just learned a new Portuguese word but when the time comes for it to be useful forgetting it. We are not in Kansas anymore; we don’t live with our families or speak the common language. It is enough to change or begin to change one person’s perspective on anything.

Brazil doesn’t really wait for anyone. Like life, it constantly moves along. One problem with that is that I am quite indecisive. When confronted with a choice, I am the type of person that considers almost every pro and con. When there are two buses going to the same place, I struggle in deciding which one to take. Whether I should buy that coxinha or not and if so, cheese or meat? Even deciding what to write this blog about proved to be a tough decision. I do my research and I go back and forth so much that I become stuck in a state of neutrality. It seems like procrastination and sometimes it is but, either way, I waste time. I wait for someone or something to choose for me. So, I don’t blame myself if I choose wrong. Although this has always been a characteristic of mine, it really peaked during the college application season. As a first-generation person of color, top universities and colleges always seemed out of reach. It took me so long to decide to even attempt applying to Tufts. When I was accepted, I was shown that it’s okay to take risks and that it works out in the end. This sparked a new way of thinking for me, which only grew when I decided to apply to Tufts 1+4. Instead of going straight to college after high school, I took a bridge year, something I never even considered. Ever since then, I’ve been more and more open to trying new things by almost always just saying yes.

Global Citizen Year trainings, classes, apprenticeships, failed apprenticeships, there’s so much happening. All that combined with a language barrier has proven to be quite challenging. But in the midst of it all, something unexpected has happened. My indecisiveness has begun to wither away, albeit slowly. I’m gradually learning to stress less and less about this and that and if I did it right or not. Now, I simply just choose the closest bus to me and I always choose to buy that coxinha, because why not?

Oh yeah. I also decided to change my hair color.

A Rainy Day

 
Caponera pedaling through the half-filled streets outside my house
by John, Tufts 1+4 Participant
Tropical Storm Nate—soon to be Hurricane Nate—hit Nicaragua on a Thursday. I heard news of a “southern-Carribean tropical storm,” so I figured I wouldn’t even be affected. The storm itself hit the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua, but what I didn’t realize is that the small size of Nicaragua means that when a storm like that hits the Atlantic Coast, the Pacific Coast gets beaten up too. The storm pulled water from the Pacific Ocean eastward, causing torrential downpours across the Pacific Coast, where I’m living in León.
I didn’t know what it was going to be like, and I was a little worried that there was going to be flooding like I had never seen. Once it started storming, I was safely tucked away at home, but because the roofs are open air, I still got exposed. While I usually worry about the bugs and bats flying into our kitchen, I was a little more preoccupied with not slipping in the puddle that the floor became. This also meant I had a pretty accurate sense of what the storm was like; I would describe it as “persistent.” It didn’t rain incessantly, there was still some on and off, but it was obvious that the water wasn’t going to end for a while.
I fell asleep to the thundering sound of rain on a tin roof, and I woke up in the middle of the night because the rain had stopped. Temporarily that is. I didn’t think I would ever get used to the sound of the roof being pummeled, but apparently eventually I did.
When I woke up on Friday, I looked outside to see a street full of water, and people going about life as usual. The three-wheeled caponeras still pedaled their passengers with bags of grain, the camionetas were still stuffed with people going to work, and the pulperias were still selling tortillas and beans. I realized then that the storm hadn’t been all that unusual. It was new and intimidating to me, but for everyone else, it was just two extra rainy days in a rainy season.
Since that storm, we’ve had some more rainy days, and now I know how to handle them: get comfortable, drink hot coffee, and ride them out. Big storms aren’t a big deal here because the people don’t make them a big deal. They do what they can to be comfortable, but in the end, it’s about accepting what comes and making the most of it. It’s part of the culture that I live in, and a part I’m hoping I can take with me when I leave. 
Camioneta navigating the flooded streets

Amigo Especial

By Rujen, Tufts 1+4 Participant

My road to Brazil was filled with struggles. From persuading my parents into participation in the program to obtaining a US tourist visa during Trump’s foreign policy period, I had to experience it all. I am an international student from Nepal and only after my second attempt to obtain a Brazilian visa (I was rejected in my first try in Nepal), I finally made it to Brazil.
 

Continue reading “Amigo Especial”

The Fight for Cajas

by Jennifer, Tufts 1+4 Participant

Recently, my host family and I visited Cajas National Park, about an hour outside of Cuenca. As I stepped out of our car, relieved to finally stretch my cramping limbs, I was swept away by the view. Rugged hills dappled deep blue and muddy green by low lying clouds stretched to the horizon. Driven by an urge to lose myself in endless sky, I began walking. From time to time, I climbed rocky outcroppings and gazed into the distance, leaving my worries far below.

The fields were so dense with tufts of native flowers it was hard not to step on them. The wildflowers were brilliant spots of color on a dull canvas, hidden behind rocks and between thickets of grass, peering out at me as I passed. They fascinated me, and I carefully stooped to examine crimson spikes, golden buds, and violet petals.

Later, I wandered off by myself into a forest. The color gradient of bark, verdant fern fronds bursting from the ground, and a grasshopper blending with dewy leaves caught my attention. Raindrops splattered on my head as I ducked under branches and stepped over logs. My tennis shoes sank into peat and became soaked, but I didn’t mind. Alone in the silence, damp and smelling of pine, I felt at peace.

Ecuador was the first country in the world to recognize Rights of Nature in its constitution. Article 71 says, “Nature, or Pacha Mama, where life is reproduced and occurs, has the right to integral respect for its existence and for the maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes.” Rights of Nature comes from Sumac Kawsay, or Buen Vivir, the worldview of the Quechua people.

I was disappointed but not surprised to learn the national government of Ecuador has been gold mining outside of Cajas for years. Gold mining threatens to disrupt the park’s delicate ecological balance and contaminate Cuenca’s drinking water. The national government has little respect for their progressive constitution and the ideals of their people.

The municipal government of Cuenca has protested fiercely against gold mining. In a September resolution, the Consejo Municipal pleaded with Ecuador’s new president, Lenin Moreno, to protect Cajas: “[The national government] should eliminate and, from now on, expressly prohibit metallic mining activities in water sources, moorlands, wetlands and cloud forests, and high Andean forests . . . and declaring these areas intangible.” But protests haven’t swayed the national government. They pursue their economic ends regardless of the consequences.

I volunteer with the Municipal Department of Culture in the office of International Projects, and I wrote a letter to several international organizations asking for support in our fight for Cajas. The only way to check the power of the national government is to ally with those more powerful.

This is my first time tackling a problem with politics. It can be frustrating sitting at a desk and waiting for the gears of bureaucracy to grind, but mundane work becomes fulfilling when I remember how I felt in Cajas, feet firmly planted, breathing the chill mountain air and squinting against the sun. After experiencing the park’s wild, beautiful majesty I feel compelled to save it.

The Wonders of Walking by Yourself

by Stephanie, Tufts 1+4 Participant
There is a bridge that I cross four times a day to go to work that always makes me smile when I walk over it. In front of me, I can see the city of Cuenca spanning in every direction, beautiful mountains lining the horizon in the distance, and a sky that seems so close to the ground that I can almost touch it. This sight is paired with the sounds of rushing water from the Tomebamba river flowing beneath my feet and of cars accelerating to catch the green light ahead of me. Even the smells of truck fumes that constantly fill my nose cannot detract from this walk.

When my host mother first drove the route with me, I remember thinking, “well there goes 80 valuable minutes of my day wasted”. The walk seemed like an inconvenience to me, nothing more. Two months ago, little did I know that this walk, the introspective thinking time it gave me, the chances to experience the new sights, sounds, and smells of Cuenca, would almost always be the best part of my day.
At home in Austin, Texas, I was constantly moving. I had school everyday, homework to do, activities every evening, and seemingly no free time. Or when I did have free time, I wasted it on activities that I knew were not productive, like watching TV and re-reading my favorite books. I never took the time to appreciate the place where I was living or the activities in which I was lucky enough to participate. Activities like robotics, Girl Scouts, and Taekwondo filled my time and served as creative and physical outlets to relieve stress and mature.

I loved my life in the US. It helped me grow into the person I am today. But in Cuenca, I am learning to appreciate a different pace and a different culture. I am learning that success can be defined differently than just the next rung on the ladder. Before now, I never truly thought about how my high school activities provided me valuable life experiences or how they were building me into the person I am today.

These past two months in Ecuador, I have felt more relaxed than I have since high school began. For the first time ever, I have actually devoted time to thinking about what I want for my future, not just what college I want to attend. For the first time in a long time, I have noticed the people and places around me and have taken the time to appreciate all they provide me. For the first time, I feel as though I am aware of the kind of life I want to live after my gap year is over, a life full of adventure and freedom.

I learned all of these positive things about myself and my surroundings during my commutes to and from work. These small pockets of free time that are actually being used to think about the future to come. I think this is why I smile when I cross the bridge. I see the city, the mountains, the sky, and the river, hear their sounds and smell their smells, and I realize all over again how lucky I am to be here and how free I am to make my own future.