Wine

The wine down here is fantastic. On the 24th the anthro crew minus Zack visited (winery), escorted by Anna, an English teacher/lawyer, her husband Marcelo who is also a lawyer, and his intern, who I can't remember the name of. We first went on a "visual history" tour, where we learned about the region of Caxias and the heavy Italian immigration that occurred in the late 1800s. It had nothing to do with wine, but was interesting anyway. Here is a picture of all of us minus Marcelo marveling at our guide, in authentic (I think, it was all gibberish) with 19th century getup: http://tinyurl.com/q4bvsg

After our tour, we headed out to one of Caxias' oldest winery, and it looked fantastic. For $R15, we got the grand tour of how they made the wine. All their trade secrets would be mine!..if it wasn't for the fact that I couldn't understand our guide. Here I am looking concerned I haven't had any wine yet: http://tinyurl.com/onrx9y And another of me much happier. Yes, the large black mass behind us is wine in some stage between being grapes on vines to being in someone's stomach. The bottles go back to the wall. http://tinyurl.com/onxb4m

The vastness of this place is unreal. I have never seen so much wine in my life. In the largest room of the cellar, roughly two football fields long, sits rows and rows of wine in various stages of aging. There is also a special wine chilling room, of which I'm unsure what to make: http://tinyurl.com/o75dhz . This is what the stone cooridor, leading to an immaculate vineyard looks like from one end to the other: http://tinyurl.com/ojzquv And each row looks like the picture with all the bottles.

Thanks all for reading my blog..I know I haven't updated it at all hardly, but I hope you liked reading it. We're leaving for Rio on Thursday, so today and tomorrow we have a lot to work on. We have a final project due! I probably won't be updating this thing any more after this post. See you back in the States!

-Dan

Being Gaúcho

Yesterday 23-05-09, (the way dates should be written: day-month-year) us anthropologists were treated to a day of Gaúcho tradition. The Gauchos, the historical group equated with the state we're in here in Brazil, Rio Grande do Sul, have a long history all throughout the state. An easy equivalent in American culture is the cowboy; nomadic horseriders who make their living off cattle and the land. Rio Grande do Sul is to Brazil much like Texas is to the United States; they at one point nearly seceded from Brazil, and even today there is a strong political movement unique to this state to do just that.


Here's a brief and incomplete snippet of the history of Rio Grande do Sul...

Rio Grande do Sul (RGDS from here on out) has a very rich cultural heritage, mainly because of the Gaucho tradition, and as such much of the people here believe they are truly different from the rest of Brazil. This region has been under many occupations in the past, with finally the most prominent and powerful ethnic force of the region being Italian. As such, the food here is much different (so I've heard) from the rest of Brazil; wine is a major part of the identity here, especially in this region (which I hope to talk about in another post) as well as the language and folklore.


So where does Gaucho fit in to all this? They are the, at least in recent times, preservers of tradition and culture here in RGDS. They are still a thriving icon of the cultural identity, looked up to and idolized by popular culture here in the state and are the traditional keepers of culture. Dotted throughout the state are CTGs, or Centros de Tradições Gaúchas (Center for Gaucho Traditions), where people young and old are enculturated into the Gaucho way. If you had to describe a RGDSian, you would describe them as Gaucho. They are a horseriding nomadic type, who still hold tournaments competing with each other for who can lasso a bull the best; we went to one of those Saturday.


It was a lot of fun! Besides my hayfever, watching the Gauchos compete, as well as being carted around and introduced as "the Americans" I had a great time. We went first to a Gaucho rodeo where they competed, then to a Gaucho horseback riding training school, then to the place where prospective Gauchos are trained in dance, mannerisms, and all sorts of other things that I couldn't really understand because I don't know Portuguese.


Our guide, who didn't speak a bit of English, introduced us to the two headmasters of this school, and they eagerly showed us their facilities. The main area is a giant mess hall with a stage and a floor for dancing, and there were 25 or 30 teenagers all chatting busily, up until us strange Americans walked through the door. They all stopped their talk and started whispering to each other and pointing at us. We were expected by them, and I felt like a VIP (the whole trip has been like that) walking into a club packed with admirers. We were showed their numerous awards for dancing and other Gaucho competitions, and then to their kitchen whose main attraction is a dinner-table sized wood heated oven, and large barbecue room (no, not just a pit) easily capable of serving 600. And they were making up some Gaucho fare just for us! But first they had an event planned: we were ushered out to the mess area and given beer. At this point I was seriously considering becoming Gaucho.


On the stage they had a table prepared; I was situated next to one of the English teachers, Alex, that we've been interacting with at UCS since we got here. He translated for me what was going on in front of my eyes. The kids took partners and did several traditional Gaucho dances, then 3 of the guys were challenged to dance in a certain way over a log so as to not make it move, it looked difficult! Throughout this whole ordeal I couldn't wipe the silly grin off my face. Maybe it was the beer, but them dancing was great! I truly felt like they wanted us to be here.


After the dancing, we were treated to more beer and wine, some pinhão (a meaty fruit indigenous to RGDS), salami, cheese, homemade bread, sweet bread laced with a chocolately-caramel coating, and some crunchy sweet items that tasted great but I have no idea what they were. During dinner, one of the headmasters gave us a book that he wrote on Gaucho traditions and history (all in Portuguese...I got to learn it now!) and we were sent on our way. What a great day!


Whew...I didn't mean to write that much.

Here is a picture of a Gaúcho. I don't have any pictures of that day yet.

http://br.geocities.com/euosou/gaucho03.jpg

Thanks google images!

Shout out to Cody and Perseus! Happy 16th and 22nd! :)

There is no time!

We've been so busy here, I've barely had time to process what I've learned. Everything is still good though. Food is still as amazing as it was when I first got here, people are as friendly as ever, and Brazil is as interesting as before. I can't believe I only have a week and a half left in Caxias! I still hardly know Portugese, but as long as I say something like, "No fala Portugese" (I don't speak Portugese) people seem much more helpful.

We're starting to get into the nitty gritty ethnographic aspects of this trip, speaking to students here taking English class about their trash cans (they're so small!) and how much their electronics are and why (~750 American Dollars for a Nintendo Wii) have been some of my questions. I'm thinking that the trash cans are small because they recycle much more here than they do in the States, at least here in Caxias.

The stores here I'm having a hard time understanding: In this store shoes and clothes were sold alongside car rims: http://tinyurl.com/o69au9 Hopefully I'll have more photos next post!

Beer.

For some reason coming here I didn't think Brazilians drank as much as Americans; I was wrong. Their bars stay open until 5 or 6 in the morning, and their weekend starts on Thursday. There are a few microbrews around here, the best so far I've had has been Polar, a wheat beer. We were talking to natives about beer and a lot of them like American beer like Bud light. To each their own I suppose.

Jim, Zach and I were just a coffee shop where we met a few Brazilians and hung out with them while they warmed up for a heavy metal concert, unfortunately we didn't stay. There are so many things that seem out of place for us Americans but are completely common for Brazilians, like just today we went to the park at around 1700 (5:00 pm for non-Brazilians) and it was packed with people. On Sunday, everything shuts down (they take their "day of rest" seriously) and people just hang out. At the park it was a party! There were breakdancers, lots of music playing, people exercising and other people selling cotton candy. The thing that shocked me was that this happens every Sunday! I couldn't imagine people just going to the park every week in Ameica and socializing with each other as they do here.

We took a tour of some surrounding towns yesterday, and it was very interesting. We visited some surrounding towns, a gourmet chocolate factory, and saw a spectacular waterfall. To get to the waterfall, you have to go down 900 some odd stairs, which wasn't so bad going down, but coming back up was pretty difficult. The surrounding towns were neat to go to as well, since Caxias was settled by Italians primarily, the towns were settled primarily by Germans, and you could definitately see in the architecture and food. I have pictures, but I haven't had a chance to upload any yet, hopefully I will be able to soon. I can't promise anything though, we're going to be on campus at UCS every day this week from 9 am until 9 pm (at least) plus we have homework! By the end of these three and a half weeks I'll be totally ready to just relax in Rio for 4 days. That doesn't mean that I'm not having a great time already though!

See you next post, Dan

O Primeiro Post (The First Post)

Hey all, I'm sitting here in the eXtreme lan house cyber cafe by our hotel, Bergson Flats, listening to Brazilian radio and being confused by everything on my screen except for the text I'm writing because its all in Portuguese! Jim, Zach, Gina and I are having a great time so far. Our days have been really busy; we usually wake up at 7:30 and eat breakfast, then are on the Universidade de Caxias Do Sul campus by 9, though we're on Brazilian Time so its really more like 9:15. Everyone has been so welcoming and accepting of us bumbling Americans, and it's really surprising how many Brazilians know English and can speak it back to us.

The food down here is amazing! Their 'fast food' is so inexpensive and tasty, I think the hardest part of leaving will be leaving the food. Every day we wake up to a concord breakfast of freshly brewed Brazilian coffee (its strong) and fresh fruit, my favorite being banana with cinnamon.

The traveling wasn't that bad coming over here, we took the red eye to Buenos Aires from Atlanta which was probably the worst, but we got in to our hotel and had the rest of the day to recuperate, so by now there's no jetlag or anything. Our bags were lost for a day, I never thought I'd miss a pair of jeans so much.

We've been making the rounds at a couple different classes, and have made some fast friends already! Last night we all went out to the bar Mississippi, an American themed Blues/Rock/Jazz bar and drank Brazilian beer with a group of people from one of the classes.

Before I left I didn't really know as much what we were going to be doing down here, but we're here to take an ethnographic look at what a day in the life of a Brazilian college student is like. The higher education system is in some ways completely opposite from how it is in America. Instead of having the most prestigious and elite universities be private institutions like Harvard or Dartmouth, the best universities are public ones, receiving money from either the Brazilian government. The primary reason for this is the Vestibular exam, which every high school graduate wanting to go to college has to take. Unfortunately, a very small amount of people are accepted into the program, because the public institutions can only hold so many students. The opposite end of this is the private institution, which receives close to no money from the government, and are often streamlined for students going straight into the workforce. Going to college simply to learn is not an option for Brazilian college students, which I feel very lucky to have been able to do. We're working at the University of Caxias do Sul (cai-she-ass dough sool), in the state of Rio Grande Do Sul, the southeastern most state of Brazil. It's a private, not-for-profit institution; a whole different classification of university that needs a whole nother post.

But, Brazil is really coming up in the world, its part of the rapidly developing economic superpowers of the world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRIC) and I feel so privileged being able to not just come here as a tourist, but also learn something as well.

It's rainy and cold here, going to be 5 degrees centigrade tomorrow. I feel right at home! Well, I have to go back to the hotel now, the place is closing. Hopefully next time there will be some pictures. Talk to you soon, Dan.