Rio de Janeiro: "New thoughts and considerations, unlikely lessons, and self-transformations

3 April 2020

Natalie spent term 2 of her study abroad in Rio de Janeiro. Read her first blog about settling into her new home.

In my first three blogs I was hell-bent on conveying the pangs and buzzes of living 5 months in la Ciudad de México to anyone who had not felt it before. I am without a summarising adjective.

What cramming details didn't show was what I most love about my Year Abroad: the new thoughts and considerations, unlikely lessons, and self-transformations which are coming along the way. Now I am in Rio ("Hiio") de Janeiro, Brasil, the city I have wanted to visit since I was 15, and this continues. I am certain my mental health is improving, and my vision, expanding. "Live life in addition, not subtraction"- the phrase has been in my subconscious for so long it could be a tattoo.

(I'm really trying to write more off-the-cuff in this Blog 4--- four is my lucky number, and the theme of this article is change, so yes)

Lots of Cariocas (the people of Rio) have tattoos. Aliens, patterns, cats, stunning typefonts. Pieces of identity. And with temperatures sauntering around the early 30s daily, there's this joke about them walking, like, this. Was all the rushing I'm used to, scuttling around, making me tense? Of course, Natalie. I observe and follow suit, let the sun sink in... just like with other mannerisms: (except the way that -Blimey- Brazilians are tiringly quick on WhatsApp): the Cariooooca accent and the slang I adore and the expressiveness, stereotypically Latin American, which shouts, "I will use this voice and talk!"

It's a divine matter when paths cross, people meet (oh, this is some Brazilians' astrological interests working into my skin... "and what sign are you?"), and remembering that conversations always entail the unknown, I am appreciating them more and more. With, in recent days, a nurse at a book fair, a community project coordinator in Vidigal, and those two plus an artist, all together, in her atelier in Santa Teresa. Long story.

With the doormen downstairs- 26-year-old Luis offers me a xícara (cup) of coffee, and we have a laugh. Once he travelled from Rio to Ceará in three days, by motorbike. Then he opens the security gate for me- all apartment blocks have these- and my questions broil even before I'm out in the street: "this is a dangerous city" but the testaments lie not among my protected neighbours. The truly dangerous-dangerous is limited to a fraction of the population, frankly, don't worry for me, consider the people I know who knew victims of shoot-outs, and down here on flat land, cases of cleaners in contracts matching slavery. Although there are groups out there making progress, something still seems so palpably split in this city. Makes me wince.

"Shut your eyes... aaand open, raise your arms above your head... aaand lower them"

And then I'm in uni-land, the Pontifícia Universidade Católica, in its black box theatre warming up i.e. doing yoga, practising speech, or sitting in a ring taking turns to talk about themes which are most on our minds and then acting them out- really, some of my peers' themes were unprecedentedly heavy.

Space.

I chose to take courses in Drama, yes, because when else will I ever be able to enter this realm?! You can be crafty, as an exchange student. Sign up for what was never to be back home... Not that acting is my calling. When exploring this city, figuring out this country (by the way, this is impossible for a short-ish stay foreignor like me, and moreso is authoring it), whether with the ants in the Jardim Botânico or getting somewhere via the chokka Avenida Nossa Senhora de Copacabana, the time spent alone is useful for registering thoughts. Organising the head.

In her (she insists "our") story-filled 8th floor apartment, my host mum and amiga Ana Maria aptly reminds me that 1: "life is about organising". 2: "coffee should be strong as a man, as black as the night, and as sweet as a woman". 1+2=3: "primeiro, obrigação. Depois [after], devoção". Whilst she is "diviiiina e da-nA-DA [cle-VER]", speaking 5 languages fluently, I'm being pretty "bobinha" [silly]- whichever words could illustrate how I cherish her company?!!

Anyway, I must tie this up; I've been quiet all morning.

Ah! And my topic in the ring? How listening to music can help us *really* feel our emotions, whatever's going on. For sure, my opinions of the Year Abroad would be very different if I hadn't spent it accompanied by songs, my extra support. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ8z8OG8GIo (the change halfway through is just..... "Nossaaa", wow)

There, Blog 4, relatively unrehearsed. Can you tell I'm trying to un-become an unhealthy perfectionist?

By: Natalie Russo