Paying Homage

"This is the highest cost,
take you and make you off,
love you and leave you lost,
will you forgive me?" -Maxwell

Rural visit to Ituvera tomorrow. Pictures to brighten the blog today.

Walking in the street alone, as a woman, at night, in a big city, where one doesn´t know the language, when there is poverty, homelessness, crime and desperation, is not a good idea. And I know this, even when the city is enthralling to me. Within that desperation and sadness, there is perserverance, dignity, and beauty people so often overlook. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea of race in Brazil, and how it is similar and different from conceptions of race in the United States.

It's evident through even conversations with close friends that, even as an Anthropology major who considers herself socially conscious, there's so much about race I don't understand or am misunderstanding or hold ignorance toward. I appreciate the opportunity to have my eyes open even further.

We live with relatively well off homestay families so going to the Nigerian neighborhood, going to areas where homelessness runs rampant, going to an NGO which helps provide a safe space for drug addicts who are often homeless is eye-opening to me. I almost feel like a privileged white anthropologist, driving past so many favelas, knowing that I, as a student can study in four countries over the course of one program, and be shown the realities and lack of health experienced by so many different people.

When the classroom doesn't knock in enough knowledge, the world always compensates for that. Now the struggle is how to put this privilege and knowledge to use when I get home. To re-examine the idea of blackness and color, because my understanding is lacking, and to start my senior thesis. Learning about these health issues creates more opportunities for careers in the future, more choices-- more complexities. The idea of social work and social justice is present in my mind today when in January it wasn't.

But the struggle has always been to balance my privilege and power with my desire to help others without exploiting that privilege or power, and without making it condescending.

Once again, I stress the city is beautiful and lively. Many bars, stylish women, live music, art, markets, shopping centers and people here tend to live life day by day. They're more relaxed than people in Ha Noi. The calm exhuberance makes me smile.