Belém

Thus far, my journey abroad has been nothing short of amazing. I've always wanted to go to Brazil, so when I found out that Raúl Reís was offering a study abroad program in Belém; I took the opportunity and signed up. The first week of class was not what I expected- I thought we would be learning some Portuguese and about the city we would be staying in. However, we learned about global news media and environmental reporting instead. The class consists of 11 girls and 1 boy. Poor Dan...

On Saturday June 6th, I arrived at LAX prepared (or so I thought) only to sit for five hours at the gate for my delayed flight to Miami. Luckily, I had a travel buddy to accompany me. Sara and I watch a movie and relaxed until boarding. The flight to Miami was not as bad as I thought. My only complaint is that my butt got soar from sitting for almost five hours. We arrived in Miami at around midnight and we both checked into the Miami Airport Hotel to get some rest. Our next flight was from Miami to Manaus. Manaus was where the madness begun. By now there were six of us traveling together. Upon arriving in Manaus, we had to go through customs.

There were signs everywhere about swine flu (Brazilian's are very afraid of the swine flu). Before we made our way to the gate to connect to our final flight, or what I like to call the home stretch to Belém, we passed through baggage claim. Janice, my new classmate, noticed her bad was sitting there at customs. We all rushed and found our bags only to get to the check in where NO ONE spoke English. Thankfully, a couple Brazilian's helped us translate to get our luggage re-checked. We had only five minutes to jam through security and run to the gate in order to make our flight! With luck, we made it.

Finally we made it to Belem and Professor Reís was already there waiting for us with a van and driver. Although we arrived in Belém at 6:10 p.m., it was already dark. This is because in this region of the world, daylight savings time does not exist.

I can't imagine driving in Belém. Hardly anyone follows the laws of the road. I even saw three adults riding on the same motorcycle (it was quite a site!) When we got to the Formule 1, the hotel where we will be staying in for the next two weeks, we saw two other classmates, Kendra and Joanne, chatting with one of the locals. I think he was a cab driver, but I'm not sure. The rest of us checked into our rooms. My roommate is Emily. I'm super stoked we're sharing a room because she's probably one of the nicest people I've ever met.

It had been a long 24 hours of traveling and all of us were starving. One of the fellows working at the front desk offered to help order us some pizza, considering no one speaks English. We wanted three pizzas, each with different toppings. After waiting for an hour the pizza guy arrived only to deliver one pizza with three different toppings. Now that I look back it makes me laugh, but at the time we were all pissed off. The guy from the front desk cleared everything up for us but we had to wait another half our luntil our pizzas arrived. After that, we hung out and got to know a little about each other, then went to bed.

Today was a whole other adventure. I woke up and got ready. I slept in because I cherish my sleep and missed breakfast. We all piled into the van around 9:30 and went to the Mercado Ver-o-Peso in Belém. The Amazon is more than I ever imagined. The size of the river is much larger than I thought it would be and the architecture is something else. It is really hot and humid outside, but nothing anyone can't handle. I expected it to be much more unbearable. The market had the freshest fish I've ever seen. They also had fireworks (I wanna go back and buy some) and the color of the buildings portray the strong Portuguese influence on the city.

Brazilians don't seem to like American's very much. Although some people are friendly, most seem annoyed by our presence. To be honest, I don't blame them. I got to take some awesome photos of the city and the people. My most favorite picture is one of a local boy blowing a horn and laughing as he skipped past our group.

We also got to go to the university today, where we listened to a presentation put on by Jose Benatti. He is the president of the Institute for Land in the State of Pará. I found his lecture quite interesting. He is also a professor of environmental law and agrarian law at the university in Belém. We learned that Para is the second largest state in Brazil. His lecture was about the Interpa and land use regulations in the state of Para. What I found most interesting is how the government owns the land but give it to the indigenous tribes, however, the tribes do not own the land itself. Instead they own what's on the land. There are 143 counties in Brazil (just a little side note). It turns out that 24% of the land is considered "federal" area. The Federal government protects the land and distribute it between the indigenous tribes, traditional people, cultural groups, peasants and farmers in that order. This creates a lot of conflict because when then determine which groups can inhabit the land, the other groups get angry. The law states that a group can inhabit the land for five years, which consists of 700 acres of land.

The government have cultural anthropologist to determine which tribes are indigenous and which ones are not. This is done so the indigenous people can reclaim their heritage and live on the land, which is still owned by the government. This is a good thing in Brazil because anything that is under the surface belongs to Brazil, not the individuals.

There is also a conflict of natural resources which consists of peasants, soy, protection areas, cattle raising, urbanization and Indians. The reason for social and political purpose of land use is to reduce rural violence and the human rights violation. For example, then timber is being brought into the countries; the government wants to know where that timber is coming from. That way, if the timber is being obtained illegally by deforestation, the government can go in and arrest the people breaking the law and replant trees in the forest.

Benatti concluded his presentation by answering questions. Professor Reís translated for us, because Benatti spoke little English, and we don't know Portuguese. What I got out of the lecture are the two main effects the government has on the state of Para. First, the government is better at controlling the area than the local people. Second, the guarantee public access to all the areas they control. It was amazing learning about how the government controls so much, but they are actually positively contribute to the state itself.

After the lecture we rode the van back to the hotel. A few others and I went to the bank and got some snacks from the store. Oh and I forgot- it rained today! And when it rains here, it comes down hard!!! Ever since, I've been sitting in my hotel room writing my blog. I can hardly wait for tomorrow and I'm excited to see what the rest of the trip has in store of us.