The ‘Practice of Freedom’

On Sundays many of Fortaleza’s Museums are open at no cost, so I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art at Dragão do Mar in an effort to satiate my curiosity and thirst for knowledge. An added bonus is that it is enthusiastically air conditioned. 

Here, three of the exhibits captured my interest; the first was called Esquarterada (Esquartejada, 2009), and it filled the room with the range of the shades of fresh and drying blood. Picture a large gallery room with a number of metal barricades spread throughout it and all but a narrow path on the floor is covered with red cotton, and various shade of burgundy velvet-like fabrics covering the forms of numerous dead bodies. Many of the pieces of cloth are embroidered with names like Marie, Claudia, and others.  The exhibit simulates the reality of a massacre or maybe the banality of evil and War. The specific Brazilian historical references are lost on me, so any input or information about what this artist may have intended to communicate would be appreciated. From the little I’ve read I believe that Esquartejamento means to be quartered or dismembered and in 1792 the execution of Tiradentes took place in Minas Gerais for being one of the conspirators in the struggle for the Independence of Brazil.  Brazilian independance Day is coming up on September 7th.

The second, less serious, exhibit which captured my imagination was 9 minute reel displayed on a fifty inch Flat Screen called, The Garbage Dump, 2009 by Donna Conlen. The film slowly zooms out from a close-up of a few ants on a tree to reveal a large colony of ants at the base of a tree, many of them slowly carrying from the branches above several hundred crisp American one dollar bills and incorporating them into their hill. I’ll leave the interpretation to you. 

The third exhibition I appreciated was a series of large format prints called Sarie Re-Visao of pictures of the artist,  Paola Parcerisa, holding up a beautiful, yet typical, painting of an ocean scenery with palm trees and all, in front of many of the raw, real, and sometimes decaying urban architectural sights around Fortaleza and it’s beaches.  The process of transitioning from an understanding of Brazil based entirely on pre-departure research based on Secondary data, writing in Travel Guides, and YouTube videos to the raw and real reality of my host country is much like Paola Parcerisa’s exhibit displaying Brazil without the wax. 

The root of the word sincere comes from sculpting marble, meaning literally “without wax” to cover flaws in the marble. Secondary research data is valuable, however curiosity driven travel and culturally engaged experience has yielded much richer and sincere knowledge of my host city, Fortaleza. I think that most of you intuitively know this to be true, that first-hand information and experience is best. 

A microcosm of the interesting variation and experiences available to Brazilian consumers is the number of Juices available in typical Grocery Stores which a typical Canadian consumer may never have heard of. That these stores have Caju, Goiaba, Nectar de Maracuja, Graviola and Acerola may seem trite or mundane to a Brazilian, but understand that in cold Canada each of these would be somewhat rare, exotic, and maybe expensive imports.  Thankfully I do not have any allergies that I’m aware of so my decision making rule in Restaurants has been to choose the item with the longest name with lots of words that I don’t yet understand. Better than this is no label at all. To quench my thirst for tacit knowledge at breakfast the other day; the juice choices included Caju, Goiaba and this thick, bright pink juice which looks Pepto Bismal and smelt a bit like berries and moldy leather. It was delicious. 

My learning process and understanding of Brazil is influenced by the work of Paulo Freire who was a Brazilian educator and influential theorist. Richard Shaull, drawing on Paulo Freire, said "There is no such thing as a neutral education process. Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate the integration of generations into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes the ‘practice of freedom’, the means by which men and women deal critically with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world." Participation in the transformation of the world is one of the most important competencies gained through participation in an international work experience. My placement has been facilitated by Niagara College International Department and if you are at all interested in volunteering internationally I recommending looking into them.

What is of value, of interest, and possible to transform is both subjective and personal. Beyond tasty juices, the scope of secondary and primary research that I consider interesting is related to my field of study, International Commerce and Global Development.   This include things such as the minutia and details about Inflation, Interest rates, customs and tax treaties with Canada to things as broad and abstract as the Gross Domestic Product (Purchasing Power Parity) (GDP (PPP)) and it’s trends over the past 5-10 years, growth of export and imports, Free Trade Agreements (FTA’s), commercial Infrastructure, business customs and many other things.   

One way that I’ve been able to gain some knowledge about the business environment has been by doing informational interviews and SWOT analysis with Businesses from the Incubator at the IFCE: 

Here are some links to more information about the companies which I’ve been interviewing: 

AZUL TECNOLOGIA

SIARA VIAGENS E TURISMO
IMAGINE 

FREEWAY TRAFFIC SOLUTIONS 

ECOLÚDICO
CONVERMÍDIA SOLUÇÕES TECNOLÓGICAS 
AED TECNOLOGIA
LIUKIN

Goiaba Sushi? 

Perhaps strangely, sushi reminds me of home. I’m not from Japan, nor have I traveled there, but the city I lived in, St.Catharines, Ontario, Canada, has a number of All-you-can-eat Sushi restaurant s within a few blocks of each other. While at one of these restaurants, run by a Frenchmen who trained in Japan, he mentioned that as much as 90% of Sushi Restaurants in Canada are owned and run by non-Japanese and tend to incorporate local ingredients. While somewhat inauthentic, adapting your product to local tastes is a strategy which works and Sushi with a touch of Goiaba Jam or Goiaba Cheese is worth a try. It should not have been surprising then when I met Raphael at his restaurant, ‘Rei Do Sushi”. He is a Brazilian who has recently returned to Brazil from living in Toronto, Canada (he showed me his Ontario Drivers Licence). He is building a chain of small sushi kiosks in malls around Fortaleza. While enjoying a platter of delicious globalization, the band played American music such as Ben Harper and Sublime and others. 

I think that like most people, I welcome and love Music and Sushi, but there are also some negative aspects of Cultural Globalization discussed by Freire as culture that is forced on people by a dominant culture. “According to Freire, the system of dominant social relations creates a culture of silence that instils a negative, silenced and suppressed self-image into the oppressed. The learner must develop a critical consciousness in order to recognize that this culture of silence is created to oppress.  Also, a culture of silence can cause the "dominated individuals [to] lose the means by which to critically respond to the culture that is forced on them by a dominant culture."  Social domination of race and class are interleaved into the conventional educational system, through which the “culture of silence” eliminates the "paths of thought that lead to a language of critique”. While in theory this sounds easy, but the path to a language of critique is not without its risks; consider once again the fate of Tiradentes, one of the conspirators in the struggle for the Independence of Brazil. 

Later that morning at the Night Club Murcuripe most of the Music was also in English. This club I believe could accommodate nearly fifteen thousand people and is recommended by nearly everyone. With Fortaleza being on the Beach we, a friend Thifane and I, were able to start the day with a swim in the warm Atlantic Ocean. Thifane is one of the founders of Fortaleza’s Couch Surfing group and she initially heard of Couch Surfing on her trip to California where she was studying. I should explain just what Couch Surfers are and why it’s such a great way of meeting people when traveling or at Home. Here is a link to the Couch Surfing web page.  

Clockwise:  Paulo Freire,Tiradentes, Murcuripe Club, Couch Surfing, and Goiaba Sushi

Another aspect of Cearάian culture afforded by the well situated mountain range that I am very curious about is the paragliding and hang-gliding opportunities which are about 30 Km from Fortaleza near the village of Pacatuba. Driving by one day I saw a few people gliding, not far from the highway and I’m told that the thermals in that location are especially strong. After a 15 min hike up to the ridge you could be able to soar up above the mountain for a 20 to 40 min flight. It was also from this location that hang gliding records have been set. Any contact info for a English speaking gliding teacher would be appreciated.

Dragão do Mil

An attitude I believe to be a state of mind resulting from an opinion or belief. Cultivation of an attitude of respect, understanding, and sensitivity of a new culture, its people, and widely held beliefs is easy when I am comfortable with cultural protocols, etiquette, gender roles, and social systems. It’s how these things often differ and are outside of my comfort zone that makes travel rewarding. 

Typically I’m uncomfortable with swearing in English. The so called bad words that almost everyone loves for their versatility, utility and seeming resilience in spite of the fact they are widely acknowledged to be the “Bad” words is an aspect of most languages.  I learned a few of my first “Bad” Portuguese swear words at a Cearά Sporting Club game that the home team was losing; for example “Voce vai morrer!” (I’ll Kill YOU!), or “Vai se ferrar!” The question I have to ask myself then, if the end in mind is to be respectful and sensitive of cultural protocol, and the situation demands disrespecting the other team, is the only way to be respectful to be disrespectful? I love a paradox, especially one you can yell. 

Dining etiquette in Cearά is similar Canada’s, with both being influenced by European culture, but there are some little differences that make it interesting and delicious. Pizza is eaten with a knife and fork, maybe a little olive oil on top, and a thin crust is preferred. It’s quite civilized when compared to Canada’s fast food culture. I should explain that the vast majority of Pizza is eaten with your hands in Canada and when I explained this at a restaurant, the Pirata de Paracuru, the shocked response when I related that fact was “Even in Restaurants?!”. 

The types of clothing people tend to wear are quite similar to summer clothing in Canada. In this climate the weather is consistently above 20 degrees during the day and seems not to dip below that during the night very often. Most construction is open to let air flow through and there are no screens for insects as they don’t seem to have blackflys, and mosquitoes are relatively scarce. Coming from Canada’s colder climate I’ve found myself often overdressed even when wearing only a shirt. It’s a little cultural difference that I’m still getting used to. 

Knowledge and understanding is a key to developing sensitivity and respect and I have to admit I don’t know much about the Catholic religion. Brazil has the largest number of Catholics in the world and this manifests in interesting ways such as seeing a Rosary hanging from the handle bar of a motorcycle in traffic (beads to aid in saying prayers) or seeing candles light at the top of the Stairway to the 12 meter Statue of Fatima above Baturite. As you likely are aware, Catholics may wish to avoid meat on Fridays, which is very convenient in costal Fortaleza. The seaside fish market is very busy on Friday where they will also prepare a couple Kg of seafood for $R5. 

Amber, Veronica, Gutenberg, and I went to visit the beautiful mountaintop monastery the “Jesuit House” in Cearά, Baturite. The air atop this mountain smells like bananas, and after seeing the gardens and touring around the place we were treated to some semi de-hydrated bananas on the way back down the Mountain. 

Interior and Exterior of Jesuit House, the view of Baturite, and the Statue of Fatima

Cultural protocols, etiquettes, gender roles, and social systems differ to a degree everywhere you travel and people generally do like to learn about these differences and tend to reciprocate. While at small school with Amber and Veronica I got to sit in on a presentation by a volunteer from Romania to a group of 7 to 14 year olds. In her historic Romanian dress, she presented her PowerPoint and video while some magazines with lots of pictures of Castles and other historic sites where passed around. 

On my next trip I will need to bring a little bit more of my own culture to share. I have applied to a similar Business Advisor Position in Northern Nigeria for 12 months starting next February (2012). I did however get the opportunity to give a presentation on the activities and business practices of the Niagara College Student Administrative Council and the Board of Governors. Each of the slides was translated into Portuguese prior to presenting. 

 

One lesson learned from working with a translator is that an understanding of our own idiomatic language is important and that there are many phrases which may not translate well. For example to “Run for Election”,  would translate literally as “correr para a eleição” while a better translation of the meaning would be “Tornar-se um Candidato” meaning becoming a Candidate.

This is something that we are all aware of, that there are untranslatable words and phrases whose meaning may be lost in translation. It’s important to be mindful of their use, yet they are also an entrenched aspect of language and understandably difficult to avoid. Thankfully, here in Brazil, I’ve been able to use my outdated 90’s slang with impunity. 

Better still than respecting a culture from a distance, it think it’s much more fun to get involved in the vibrant cultural events that permeate daily life in large cities like Fortaleza. In addition to the various public spaces and squares in the city, there is the beautiful cultural center Dragão do Mar  it hosts Cultural programming, a Movie Theatre, Planetarium, Museum of Contemporary Art, Memorials to Cearάrian culture, works of outdoor art, multipurpose space, Gardens, Arts and Crafts school, among other things. The center is an architectural gem and a must see in Fortaleza.  

While in Canada it’s rare that I would take a moment to consider the extent to which my own activities, lifestyle and freedoms are cultural and effected by Canada’s history, it can be illuminating to consider. One window into the culture of Brazil is through the historic lens of some historic cultural icons. While they may have no more significance in ones day to day life than John A MacDonald or Abraham Lincoln, they never the less are important to the Brazilian story. Here is a little history about the Dragon of the Sea, after which the Cultural Centre was named. 

Cultural Icon and Historic Figure – Drago do Mar

o   Slavery in Brazil was abolished on May 13th 1888, when Princess Isabel signed the Golden Law.

o   In Ceará, liberty came sooner. The Abolitionist Movement of Ceará had been in activity since 1879. In 1884, Ceará was the first province in Brazil to free all slaves.

o   Chico da Matilde and his wife, Francisca Joaquina, rallied all jangadeiros to not transport the slaves between the beach and the ships; because they could not use the piers, the jangadas were the means to take slaves to the ships.

o   Chico had his importance recognized. He was taken to Rio de Janeiro, to visit the Emperor and other authorities. On return, he was received with a shower of flowers and new name, more compatible with his grandness: Dragão do Mar - the Dragon of Sea.

What is of value and interest to a group is often untrue of individuals, and I think this is important to remember when considering stereotypes.  There is value in learning stereotypes when beginning to learn about a culture while recognizing that inherent flaw in their construct.  Which exceptions of course, Brazilians love Soccer and Canadian love hockey, but the risk that these stereotypes be understood as entirely true can have demonstratively negative consequences.  

In response to a question about Brazilian taboos on All Experts.com, Paula had this to say: 

“Unfortunately, many black people here suffer from racism and there are taboos that increase that. At many residential buildings, for example, they will expect a black person to use the service elevator and not the main one, because the taboo is that the person is a home maid. That has caused many judicial law suits and I hope it ends soon because it´s sad. Also, many black people on streets receive that "look" from other people because many people here treat blacks as criminals. See, most of the Brazilian poor population is black, and the criminal rates are high among those.”

While taboos, stereotypes, and simple overt racisms are issues not unique to Brazil, there is also the more tangible issue of distribution of wealth in the society. Brazil has a relatively high Gini Co-efficient of 55 which is a measure of the inequality of a distribution of resources. (The Gini index lies between 0 and 100. A value of 0 represents absolute equality and 100 absolute inequality). By comparison to the other quickly developing countries identified by Goldman Sachs as the BRICS, had a Gini co-efficient of; Russia (37.5), India (36.8), China (41.5), and South Korea (31.6). These figures were taken from the UNDP’s Human Development Report  for 2009 and are a little out of date, however the issue remains. 

             

One of the projects in Brazil which, in part, aims to solve this problem is Mulheres Mil. “The Thousand Women project provides access to professional education for women in situations of social vulnerability, such as single mothers or heads of household, who had no opportunity to study and be included in the formal sector. The Thousand Women project was established in 2007 as a pilot project in partnership with Canadian Universities. Through 13 federal institutes of education, science and technology, the project served 13 thousand women in the North and Northeast. Now, will be effective across the country, and this year, 100 campuses of the Federal Network of Professional Education, Science and Technology, 100 000 women will benefit from the application program.”

Amber and I got to check out one of the cooking classes with a group from the Mulheres Mil where we made Bolinha de queijo (Cheese balls).

 

Paredão de Som

I’m traveling a little lighter today, and my photos are going to be sourced from Google images. If you’re anything like me, you’re likely to dismiss this cautionary story. In the past few weeks I’ve been warned daily of the risk of being robbed and it’s something that I read about before coming to Brazil. Knowing this risk, I bought the cheapest digital camera that I could find rather than bring a bulky, touristic Kodak. 

When I stepped away from the Luau, which is a party near the beach along a couple kilometre stretch of highway, and went to the bathroom,  I turned on my Camera and lit myself up like a firefly making myself a target for an opportunistic thief. With the music from the party pumping, I did not hear him coming and he grabbed it from behind me and took off. I had my runners on and chased him into the dark, but he was faster than me and got away.  The whole experience lasted just a couple moments but it served to teach me a valuable lesson, for the price of a cheap camera. 

1.       Wrist bands are for more than the occasional drop, use it.

2.       There is safety in numbers, clique but true.

3.       Download your pictures often, back up your files

 

The hardware is not particularly important, and it could have been something more valuable that a few photos that I lost. A story was related to me by my host later that weekend of a time when his laptop was stolen with his doctoral dissertation, a work in progress, still on it. 

While petty theft may hold your interest for a moment, Fortaleza is also famous for one of the largest thefts in history.  The Central Bank was robbed a few years ago by a group who tunneled underneath the building into the vault from a couple blocks away. There is now a movie about it called ‘Assalto ao Banco Central’. It was the second largest bank robbery in the world. According to the Federal Police, based on estimates from the weight of the stolen notes (3.5 tons), were stolen about $ 164.7 million. The notes would stack to a height of almost 33 km.

While being stolen from was a dark moment it also had the unexpected and unintended consequence of highlighting what honest, friendly, and generous most Brazilians are. If not for the dark how could we appreciate the light? It was not much longer before the sun rose on the Luau and the party of thousands began to disperse.  We went to the local market and I was treated to a breakfast at the littlest soup restaurant. We started the day with a good Caldo de Mocotó (Pig’s foot soup).  

Seemingly spontaneously the Luau forms along a remote 2 kilometres stretch of highway outside the small beach town Paracura. Here the Walls of Sound (Paredão de som) compete, each one pumping its own remixed beats and punctuating each of the thousand dancer’s steps. The two lane road, lined 2 and 3 cars deep, is filled with party goers and lit by the full moon, strobe lights, cars emergency lights, vendor’s lamps and lasers. It’s a palm tree-ed moonscape of sand dunes, emptiness, and ocean which surround it and absorbs the monumental vibrations emanating from these road side obelisks, these 10 and 20ft walls of sound.  If you ever need to communicate a product message to this demographic, a Paredão de som (Wall of Sound) may cut through the dirge of radio and television advertising targeting the 18 to 29 set, but it also may means competing with 10 to 15 other walls of sound.

Paredão de som (Wall of Sound)

Over the past week I have conducted a few interviews with the business at the Incubator in the IFCE and researching potential research partnerships for applied research between Niagara College Canada and the IFCE while identifying potential incubated companies which have the skills and capacity to commercialize the research and developments that result from these partnerships. 

At one of the hour long interview and SWAT analysis’ of the company I began to get a feel for the fun corporate culture of Azul Technologies. Picture a group of a dozen friends working on developing some cutting edge online services and business process management software. 

I’ve found that preparation is particularly important when going into a meeting in a new language. What we have found works best when communicating with Business Owners is having reasonable well informed question prepared in advance.  Prior to meeting with the companies I prepare questions and produce a rough translation with Google Translate, then have it corrected by my Translator. Then as the meeting proceeds, I take lot of notes about what is being translated. 

There is a saying “that people don’t know what they’ve got till it’s gone.” I don’t entirely agree with this, which is also to say that I don’t disagree entirely. With regard to language; being about to effortlessly articulate my thoughts to friends and colleagues is something that I have usually taken for granted in English speaking regions. Here in Fortaleza not being able to speak Portuguese has the side benefit of being forced to listen much more attentively and consider more carefully the words I choose to use to mistranslate my thoughts and meaning to local people and colleagues who want to communicate. 

My learning curve just got a bit stepper a couple days ago when I moved into a room in an apartment with a family who speaks Portuguese primarily and I’m not able to relay on friends to translate everything. It’s in a nice building a couple of block from the beach in the Meireles neighbourhood about a kilometre from my English speaking colleagues. 

One person I’ve met here in Fortaleza, a multi-lingual guy from France, who has lived and grown up in Italy, Poland, France, and now studies in Brazil, has said that “You need to live in the country to really learn the language.” I agree that to be able to fully grasp what is being communicated, with body language, intonation, and each regions unique idiomatic phrases that you’ll agree being immersed in the counties culture. It’s invaluable and speeds learning immensely, but there are of course obvious exceptions; you may know a few yourselves.  I’ve had the pleasure of meeting many people who are exceptionally fluent in English who have not yet had experience in an English speaking region. These people I believe tend to be the exception rather than the rule. 

I sat in on an English class during the first week of classes. With a couple of exceptions the boys and girls sat shyly on opposite side of the class and there was a couple of freshman covered in paint and shame. We were able to communicate with a couple of Students by writing in English, with the aid of a dictionary, and passing a note book back and forth. While sitting there I was reminded of every misunderstanding and criticism I’ve levelled at Professors delivering material in there 2^nd or 3^rd language. Next week I’ll be in their shoes delivering a Seminar on Student Government governance and activities in Ontario. 

I was invited to join my Portuguese teacher’s family’s weekend trip to Paracuru. It’s about a 90 min drive Northwest of Fortaleza. The Beach house is near an expansive, non-commercial, and non-residential beach with massive sand dunes (Duna de Areia) in one direction and a dozen beach bars (Barraco de Praia) and surf shops in the other. On one of these sand dunes we went sand boarding.  

Brazilian Sandboarding

Picture a snowboard, a little smaller to reduce drag, made of compressed plywood and laminate like a snowboard but without the metal edges, and minimalist bindings; just straps for you bare feet. Victor and I meet up with a group of kids who had constructed a few jumps. While the construction material was different, I have to mention how surprised I was to see that their Jump building techniques were identical to the way my friends and I would build jumps on my home Hill, Searchmont in Sault Ste. Marie. They would dig with the end of the board and shovels smoothing and perfecting the ramp while packing it with their board on their feet. 

While you can carve you turns on a Sandboard, there is more friction so before each run you put some candle wax on the base of the board. While carving a bit less, sand rides a lot like snow. A decade of snowboarding experience was definitely not a skill that I thought would be transferable to Brazil. When trying to communicate with other riders about tricks and techniques I was surprised to find that many of the names of tricks are the same as in English.  Some, myself included, may feel that snowboarding is better than sandboarding, but try and go snowboarding in your swim suit (Calção de Banho) or Bikini (Biquini). 

At Niagara and Mohawk College I’d taken classes in Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, and French but Portuguese was unavailable. Whether its Sandboarding or enjoying a meal with locals, frankly I had undervalued the simple utility and pleasure of being able to communicate in the local language. I had expected to be able to rely on English and was not surprisingly wrong.  If I’m going to learn Portuguese I’m going to have to start watching a lot more dubbed Dora the Explorer. Thankfully written Portuguese is similar to other Latin languages and communication can also take less explicate forms.  

It’s said that greater than 70% of Communication is not explicate spoken language but body language, intonation, gestures, facial expression and more. I did not really accept this as entirely true until I had a chance to live in a country where I did not know more than a few phrases.  What then are some of the implications of the majority of the communication being non-verbal?

One implication then is that interaction and rich communication with people is possible regardless of whether they understand each other’s language. There are obvious limits to the depth of meaning which can be conveyed, but it’s still possible. Another implication of body language is that in the presence of people we are communicating constantly. If then communication is a continuous state of being, then greater self awareness of what it is that we are conveying when in a new culture may merit some additional attention. Some questions to ask could include; is my body language open or closed? Intonation and pace appropriate? Are gestures expressive and meaningful or perhaps offensive? Body language is as natural as breathing, but also is learned.

I’d like to hear about some of your examples or personal experiences. 

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