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Showing posts from 2014

Momentos

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Son los momentos, De cada día, Cada minuto que se va, Esos momentos de nuestra vida Que nunca se olvidarán. No los dejes pasar. -Reik, Momentos It's now been a little more than two months since I arrived in Brazil, which means there's only a little less than two months until I go home- Talk about a scary thought. I had half-hoped to be able to stay for the insanity that is going to be the World Cup, but I ended up unexpectedly getting an internship with the Bank of Evil (known by some as the World Bank) in Washington DC, which means I'll have to return home even before my semester has officially ended. Not ideal, but then again, who am I to turn down an obscenely well-paid internship furthering capitalist subjugation of the Global South (I'll actually be working in the Latin America Poverty and Gender Equality division, but I guess that's basically the same thing, at least according to some of the professors I had last semester).  Perhap

La Vida es un Carnaval

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Não sou covarde, já tô pronta pro combate Keep Calm e deixa de recalque O meu sensor de periguete explodiu Pega sua inveja e vai pra…  -Valesca Popouzuda, Beijinho no Ombro Quick, think of an image of Brazil. If it wasn't the Amazon rainforest or a really big statue of Jesus, it was probably a bunch of attractive women in a parade wearing inexplicably elaborate headdresses and not much else from the neck down. Something like this or this  (the first and fourth images you get when you search "Brazil Carnaval" on Google, sort of NSFW). I had at least a vague concept before getting here that that's pretty strictly a custom of Rio de Janeiro, and that the rest of the country has its own set of traditions. I know that in New Orleans it means lots of parades, silly costumes, and creative ways of getting bead necklaces, while in Bolivia it's mostly an excuse to party on the street on weekdays and throw paint at complete strangers (except in Oruro ). And I kn