Skip to content

Two Months in São Paulo (Already?)

On September 3, I will have been in São Paulo, Brazil, for two months; August 28 marked 8 weeks--measure it however you want. I've been in classes for four weeks now, and the four weeks prior were for my Portuguese classes. It feels simultaneously like I've been here for ages, and like I just arrived yesterday. Some background on my time here: I'm here with the CIEE Liberal Arts program, which included a month-long summer session with intensive Language and Culture classes; since the beginning of August, I've been an exchange student in PUC, a private/Catholic university here in São Paulo. I'm living with a host family, although in my case, it's just one woman. She lives in a nice, residential neighborhood about a 30 minute walk from my school. Since classes started, that has been my main focus--I've been fully immersed in Brazilian home and academic culture. The overwhelming sensation since I've been here, that only grows stronger with time, is one of not being a visitor, but of truly living here.

This has its pros and its cons. At the beginning, I was very good about getting out and "experiencing" the city; I went to museums, I walked around neighborhoods, I did the suggested cultural activities that CIEE planned (they are, by the way, incredible about this). Recently, however, I had a crisis--I was not being cultural enough. I was not looking at art, going out to eat, exploring new neighborhoods, what have you. I sat down and I planned itineraries for myself of places I wanted to go, see, do--and have proceeded to do exactly none of them.

I had to think a lot about this, though. I came to Brazil to learn about Brazilian culture and, specifically, to understand the concept of development and community service in Brazil. My concentration in my International Affairs major is International Development and I study Anthropology as well, so here, I'm interested in understanding the work done by NGOs and non-profits in a range of contexts and the role that these play in the lives of Brazilians. In a broader sense, I want to understand the culture of Brazil, in all of its forms and manifestations. I thought that all of that looking at art, going out to eat, exploring new neighborhoods, and, especially, volunteering would be the way to go about this. Instead, I'm finding this to be an exercise in what culture is and where it manifests itself. It is immensely challenging for me, this new approach.

For example, even though I'm here very specifically to have a wide range of community service experiences, I have not started volunteering. But, as my friend pointed out, there is a cultural explanation for this. As opposed to the United States, where the basic unit of everything functional and cultural is the individual, the basic cultural unit here is the personal. It's a difficult concept to explain, but certain things form the base of Brazilian culture here, and none of them is the autonomous individual--instead, social ties form the base of Brazilian culture. All of this is to say, I have not started volunteering because even though people really care about the work that they do with their organizations, finding me, individually, a volunteer spot is not a priority; in other words, it's not about me, because Brazilian culture revolves around something bigger than an individual.

In this absence of volunteering, I've been spending my time doing other things that are also cultural at only more than a first glance. The three classes I'm taking here at my university--which is phenomenal, a very progressive and community-based space--have been incredible: The Sociology and Society of Brazil; Interamerican Politics; and Identities, Culture, and Tourism. My host mom is incredible, and has been so welcoming of me into her home and her extended family, allowing me to tag along to birthday parties, family dinners, soccer-game-viewings, everything. The food is incredible; although I rarely go out to eat in a formal sense of the word, food is everywhere and always very, very good. The bars are incredible--possibly because Brazil is so social, nightlife is very important and very central to the social life as a whole. The beach town that I went to in early August was incredible. The graffiti is incredible. And all of it, even if I have to think about it long and hard, is, in fact, cultural. The challenge, for me, lies in not becoming passive, not letting my time here slide by; I need to start volunteering and I do need to go look at art, walk around, all of that, but I also need to make sure that I'm really thinking about everything and understanding the culture that surrounds me every day.