Weeks earlier we had learned that she had stomach cancer, and that the family had decided to operate. But at 87 years, there were doubts that she would be able to recover. Then one Sunday morning at about 7am, after 4 hours of sleep, Seu Jaime, my host grandfather and son of the senhora, came to the house with the news. And so, they were off to Sao Sebastiao for the burial, because it needed to take place within 24hours of the death. Raquel turned to me, “Do you want to come?” I thought for a moment. “Yes. I knew her, even if it was brief. I want to go.”

When we arrived at the house I could still see her as she had been on Boxing Day, elderly but vivacious, seated on the orange sofa in the back courtyard, eating her plantains and adding the comments of a wise matriarch to our conversations.

This image was hard to retain when her casket arrived and Raquel and Seu Jaime, shoulders shaking with sobs, began to unscrew the lid. As her face, so peaceful but so morbid, appeared beneath the netting, my shoulders also began to shake.

Those tremors returned throughout the day as I watched this enormous family reunite and thought of my own, so far from me for such a long time. With every hug and smile, every introduction and explanation of who I was, I felt simultaneously horribly out of place and welcomed warmly. My American “I have no right to be here” was countered by the Brazilian, “come in, sit down, and let me introduce you to twenty of my cousins—the ones who I actually know.”

We marched to the cemetery, taking up two lanes of traffic, and I was humbled by the number of people this woman had touched. It was sober but very Brazilian—introductions taking place mid-pace—but as I slipped up to Raquel’s side and took her hand, she turned and smiled at me, and I finally felt like one of the family. We walked in silence, but we didn’t need words.

I returned to Nova Suica feeling a new acceptance with my host family, often so harsh and thick-skinned. There was an emotional connection that emerged from having experienced such a vulnerable time with them. I even felt close to members of the extended family now, and one random guy had sworn that he had seen my birth. I was the one who held the precious photo of the senhora, the sole reminder that Seu Jaime had wanted from the house, while we rode in the van.

But on the way back, I stopped at an internet café in Santo Amaro, in need of some emotional support in English, and found out that one of my high school classmates had recently died as well.

That was the third death in my life in the course of two months. Two months in the middle of a 7 month span away from home. Deaths that were before their time or vivid to experience. Through them, I’ve been reminded of forces beyond our control, and that random, senseless losses occur in life. But I was also reminded that our best sides emerge in times of suffering, and in the face of sadness you can discover peace and happiness.

It all begins with a field, a tractor, a plow, and some manioc seeds. The plantation process  I have not witnessed or been part of yet, but word has it that I will get the opportunity before I leave. The manioc is planted with about two square feet of space around each root, and though I do not know how long it takes to mature, I can attest that harvesting the root is a lot easier if the field is kept well-manicured. When harvest time arrives, it’s simply a matter of digging around the root a little with a hoe, and then pulling. After that, twist, pull, or cut the big brown chunks off the roots (this is your mandioc) and collect for peeling. Repeat many, many times, until the field is finished.

I’ve already described the peeling process in another blog—but I’ve learned that this fantastic get-together occurs very frequently around here. Long story short, scrape the brown skin (it’s almost like bark) off of the root to reveal the white underneath, and place on the piles for collection.

From here, the mandioc goes to the casa de farinha. The casa that I know of is in Sitio Camacari, the community next door to Nova Suica. The building has an area for peeling as well, but the main event occurs in a room whose walls and rafters are splattered white with ground manioc. This room contains two grinders, a press, about 4 different tiled tub-type structures, and a mixer/toaster which is warmed by a fire underneath, built around the side of the building. The manioc goes through the grinder and then is put into sacks, which are piled into the press to remove the water from the mandioc mush. After a couple of hours and a few strong-willed twists of a huge cog, the sacks are hauled into one of the tubs and the now semi-solid mandioc is broken apart with hands and sticks—somewhat like play dough. These chunks are then passed through the grinder again, and dumped into the mixer/toaster, where what is now a fine powder gets swished around for a couple hours. The final step of the process, once this “farinha quentinha” (nice hot farinha) is in the final tub, is to sift it and run the residual chunks through one last grinder before everything is ready to be distributed. And thus, you have your sacks of farinha, ready to sell—or dump on your beans.

It began when I arrived at the settlement school to greet a group of Brazilian university students who were arriving for a 10-day program. I found the school empty but for their baggage and Dona Mira, a tiny, sun-aged, well-muscled woman. “You haven’t heard the history of the settlement yet, have you?”

The real name of Nova Suica, apparently, is Assentamento 5 de Maio, 1996—the date of the land occupation. It began quite like any other MST assentamento: an encampment with borracas (think wooden frames with black tarps on top), and political and environmental struggles—“a luta,” the fight. The settlement itself was supposed to have 100 houses, but they only received federal funding for 40 houses—the state funding for the other 60 never came. And so, in true MST fashion, everyone banded together to squeeze 70 houses out of the materials.

“Nova Suica will be celebrating 15 years this May,” Dona Mira explained, “and I will be celebrating my 15^th birthday. I was born again with the settlement. I love this land.”

But that MST togetherness—the passion that I saw in her eyes and heard in her voice—has faded over the past 15 years in the overall population of the settlement. The school would sit uncared for if it wasn’t for Dona Mira, because it’s the responsibility of the assentamento to maintain it—a responsibility that no one else takes. And people aren’t working the land anymore—they’re looking for outside opportunities.

I returned home with a new insight into the settlement but confused as to why I had never heard any of this from my host mom, Raquel. That night, I witnessed my second significant conversation of the day.

With great passion and a clear underlying nostalgia, Raquel explained to my temporary Brazilian sister that when the settlement was founded it was, indeed, an agricultural, communal society. But of the original settlers—people like Dona Mira—only about 5 remained. The problem that Nova Suica faces is a population split: between an older group who came to claim and work the land, and a newer group, many of whom came from Salvador seeking houses and work, who have little interest in working the land, and never experienced “a luta” (the fight) or the MST values at work. Some depend on retirement for money, some on Bolsa Familia, but many work outside the settlement—in Santo Amaro or at the toilet paper factory up the road.

My “sister,” who had studied the MST and come to Nova Suica with an image of how the assentamento should work, was in shock. Seeing this, I think, was what made it sink in—this was unfortunate. Somewhere along the way there had developed a stark difference between the ideal and the reality in Nova Suica. While things might have been different here “antigamente,” “agora, e complicado…”

10:15pm. 15 minutes until Paulista was due to arrive with the truck. I took a moment to reflect on where I was at that moment, standing beneath a huge cement canopy in an MST assentamento, mandioc peelings under my feet, carrying only a backpack with some food, a sheet, and other essential items. I was surrounded by 14 Brazilian university students and a couple Nova Suica residents, waiting to pile into the back of what was essentially a giant pickup truck, which would then take us to Sao Francisco do Conde. There, we were going to reoccupy land: reclaim unused land and rebuild an encampment that had been deconstructed by the police. What? How did I get here?

Gilson, the regional leader, had arrived at the school while the students were having their end-of-the-day meeting–it must have been 9:00pm. The truck would pick us up at 10:30, he said, and then collect people at the assentamentos of Bela Vista, Eldorado de Pitinga, and Sao Domingo. We had rushed back to the house to gather our belongings (You’re not going to sleep tonight, my host mom Raquel told us), and met up here.

Headlights in the distance, engine approaching. Clambering over the side–with the help of a strong arm–feeling the night air rush around me as I gazed up at the stars. Assentamento by assentamento, the bed of the truck was filled, we passed quietly (as subtly as possible, all things considered) through Santo Amaro, until we arrived in Sao Domingo. Here, we waited for Gilson to check that everything was calm at the encampment site, loaded up the provisions, and gathered the future residents of Sao Francisco do Conde.

As we waited, bananas were passed around, tamborines emerged, students samba-ed and chatted amongst themselves. Chants were yelled, songs were sung, anticipation hung in the air. Gilson returned, and we were off.

“Vai ou nao vai?” “Vai!” “Ocupa ou nao ocupa?” “Ocupa!”

Suddenly we turned off the main road and hurriedly unloaded the truck, which then went to get wood for the barracas. The chants and songs continued while we waited, and an MST flag was raised at the roadside.

Then it was time for business: we were split into groups to begin the building process. Fortunately, the barracas had already been marked–it was just a matter of placing the wood, constructing a roof, and covering with tarp. It must have been 2:00am at this point, the group was fading, it was cold and damp, and my group leader was caught up in an argument with his drunk would-be neighbor, who didn’t want help building his barraca. And so, my night passed somewhat inefficiently, though it was reassuring to see other groups making progress.

We stayed there until about 5:00pm the next day, mainly because Paulista had a flat tire. Heat replaced cold, construction continued, communal food was made, water was fetched from a nearby river. By the time the afternoon rolled around, pretty much all the students were resting under a beautiful tree near the back of the encampment.

I was lightheaded from thirst and lack of sleep, dirty from sitting on the wet ground, more lonely and mute than I had ever been. But I had taken part in constructing that encampment. I had seen the families that were coming there in search of work, a home, some land to work. I helped one senhora build her barraca, which, hopefully, one day, will become a brick house and a plot of land with which she can pass her days. Those families might spend years in those structures, sleeping on matresses on the ground, but together and with the help of the movement, they can create a new life for themselves. That, in my opinion, is the magic of the MST–the core of the movement: occupation.

“10 reais for one liter? Really?”

“You kidding? Smell it. Flavored, washed with spring water, mashed by hand—and with an American helper? How often does that happen?”

This was the basic negotiation going on—I was being used as part of the marketing campaign, and my host mom Raquel was talking up her product—“not what you find at the market,” she said.

She managed to sell a good 9 liters of the homemade dende oil in a matter of 30 minutes. And when I say homemade, I’m not kidding. For about two weeks, there was a mini dende factory going on in my back yard.

But what is dende oil, exactly? It’s a traditional Bahian cooking base with a distinctive burnt orange color and a unique flavor that’s hard to pin. The only type of oil readily available in the region for a long time, it’s a key ingredient in the popular street food acaraje and in the native stews known as moquecas.

It’s role as such a staple here was striking once I saw the dende plant and participated in the production process. I gained an appreciation for those who had been doing it for centuries—it’s a lucrative but laborious process.

It began with the bizarre, cruel, spiked bunches of dense orange and purple berries that apparently grow very high up on the tree—challenging both to cut and transport. To make it easier to pick the berries around the spikes, usually someone would take a machete to the cluster, and then we would go through picking and removing leaves and thorns. The berries were then washed and cooked with a little bit of salt until softened, when they were taken to be mashed in what was essentially a huge pestle and mortar.

The mashing process resulted in yellow-orange stringy mass spotted with black pits, full of oil waiting to be washed off of the fibers. This is, in my opinion, the backbreaking part of the process: sitting on a log in front of a basin of water, rubbing the oil off the fibers and pits, agitating the water to separate the oil, and trying to collect the oil from the water’s surface. The oil collected is cooked to allow any trapped water to evaporate, and to refine the product. My family also seasons their product with a plant they call favaca (my host mom uses it to season chicken as well) and a little more salt—this, really, is what sets it apart. The oil is then bottled and ready for transport. And my little bottle of azeite de dende is sitting on a table in the kitchen, waiting to be taken to the US and used in a traditional Bahian dish.

The first things I learned about public health in Brazil were through our university classes the first month in Salvador. The name of the system here is SUS—Sistema Único de Saúde—and it’s considered to be a pretty groundbreaking system of universal health care.

My past three months living with an Agente Communitario de Saude (ACS), or Community Health Agent, as my host mom, have both challenged and confirmed my preconceptions.

Let me first explain the role of an ACS—Raquel’s role in her community—because it’s fascinating, really. She is essentially a form of communication between the local health post, the Secretary of Health in Santo Amaro, and her area of work, which includes Nova Suica, Sito Camacari (the community next door to this), and Bela Vista (another MST settlement up the road). This means delivering exam solicitations, making monthly domestic visits, and counseling people who come with health concerns. She’s the one who makes sure people get to the hospital when they need to, who takes someone’s blood pressure if they’re concerned, and keeps detailed records of the whole community.

Then there’s the local health post. About three years old, this serves Nova Suica, Sitio Camacari, Bela Vista, and another community across the road, with what is basically a first-come, first-serve system, though you can come and make an appointment as well. There’s a dentist, nurse, and doctor, and they provide medicine and vaccines—all for free. I’ve seen pregnant women with pre-natal tracking cards, and mothers with baby growth tracking cards. The staff of about 4 women keep diligent handwritten records of everything, and in general everything seems to run smoothly.

But I’ve seen problems. Sometimes Raquel doesn’t get the chance to visit everyone in person, or at all. At the health post, the doctor, dentist, and nurse only come certain days for certain purposes, and one day my host aunt walked the 20 minutes to get to the health post for the dentist, only to find out that the dentist hadn’t come that day because there wasn’t any water.

Joel Segre made a great point to me when he came to visit: “Not being interested in public health is like not being interested in people. And sure, ‘public health’ might not spark any kind of interest, but if you zoom in on specific topics, suddenly you’re hooked.”

Seeing all these things first-hand has sparked in me an interest in health that I didn’t know I had—especially when I watch Raquel consulting the members of the community who come to the house for advice. She’s the local record office that keeps track of your vaccines, the caring aunt checking in on your progress after you fall sick, and the nagging grandma telling you to go to the doctor to take care of that. But her records, her advice and her reminders are all absolutely essential.

At our first monthly meeting, during our Portuguese check-up with Marcelo, he asked us how we think we can contribute to bettering our communities.

A doctor from the health post in Santo Amaro asked me what my objectives were for my six months here.

These questions all stumped me. In part because GCY is hard to describe in English, let alone in Portuguese. But also because I’ve got six months here and no specific project yet—as Tony put it, this is more an apprenticeship in a way of life. Sure, I’ve been working with Raquel, but much of this is watching and learning, since I’m not exactly qualified to perform the tasks of a Community Health Agent. And there are times when I pass the whole day in the house with nothing to do—something difficult for me to accept. Right now, I’m still just trying to wrap my head around Nova Suica, the people and culture here, the MST—how everything fits together (a process which will continue for some time). Oh, and trying to communicate with people in a language that I have less than 3 months of exposure to.

But things are starting to become clearer with time and improved language skills. I’m starting to feel like part of the family here, and every successful conversation I have gives me the courage to talk more. I can work in the different sectors of the community (in the farm, with the cattle, at the school), teach English if there’s interest, and continue helping with the daily housework. There are students coming in January who are holding workshops and things which I can participate in, and a tourism company looking to expand their business (something that, as an outsider, I can certainly offer advice on). There’s even the potential for working with another fellow in bringing environmentally-friendly wood stoves to the assentamentos in the area.

And so, I’m hoping that when I get asked these questions in the future, I won’t freeze. As my Portuguese improves and I become more comfortable here, I can feel my options opening up. The coming months should be very interesting—I look forward to making myself useful.

It was a very MST day—perhaps more so than any I’ve had yet. It was laundry day, because it was water day. Translation? We washed clothes and sheets with the water in the storage tank on one side of the house, and then transferred water from the other tank, on the other side of the house, into the storage tank. Why? Because the latter tank has a tap that accesses water from the spring-water waterfall down a hill nearby, and water was going to be pumped into it that day. By about 9/9:30am, the tanks were ready and the clothes were drying in the Brazilian summer sun.

After this, I was handed a knife and was off with my host aunt, Fia, “para raspar manioca.” We walked across the settlement and through fields of, well, manioc root, and arrived at the abandoned health post building (there´s a newer, functioning one by the main road, don´t worry) to find about 8 women sitting on the porch, surrounded by piles, baskets, and wheelbarrows of manioc, hacking away at the brown casings to reveal the white root beneath. Scraps of the peel covered the floor already, and these women’s dark skin was splattered with the white residue of the plant. As they aggressively and efficiently scraped their way through the piles, they chattered, teased, yelled, and laughed. These were the “donas de casa”—the grandmothers and senhoras of the community, creating tarpfulls of peeled manioc to be transported to the neighboring assentamento, Bela Vista, and made into farinha, a coarse flour that is a staple starch here—you pour it onto your beans to thicken them into a sort of paste (sounds bizarre but it’s rather delicious).

These ladies passed the whole day there, sometimes joined by kids or men who wanted to help. Just when the piles started to falter, donkey-pulled carts would arrive with plenty more work. Eventually all that remained was a bed of manioc scraps (“Graças a deus!”), so as the prepared manioc was loaded into an old car to be transported up the road (apparently said car, overloaded, broke down later that day), the group broke up. I arrived back home splattered with manioc residue and with scraps stuck to my legs, my back and knife hand a little sore, but having thoroughly enjoyed my day.

…between Nova Suica and Eldorado de Pitinga (the other assentamento playing host to GCY fellows):

• Agua: Nova Suica has spring water access at every house, while the residents of Eldorado need to fetch barrels of water from the well up the road
• Infrastructure: Eldorado has a dormitory and a refetoria (??), along with a bar and a market, so it plays host to the big-time meetings
• Tranquility: Eldorado is “mais agitado,” in part because of said meetings, in part because of the general compactness of Eldorado
• Surroundings: one of the interesting things about Nova Suica, though is that it is right next to Sito Camacari, a decently sized community that isn’t part of the MST

…between Nova Suica and Salvador:

• City vs. country, clearly: far more tranquil, far less dense, fewer cars, fewer people…farms, animals…
• Clarity of speech: this might be all in my head, but everyone I’ve come across from the city since arriving in Nova Suica has been far easier to understand
• Way of life: it was far more of a culture shock coming here than arriving in Salvador—in a material respect, yes, but mostly socially: people here are welcoming, loud, and love to tease—they’re raw Bahia

…and, believe it or not, between Nova Suica and Raleigh, NC:

• Social atmosphere: everyone knows each other, and the other people in the community are frequently the topics of conversation—negative or positive
• Spread of buildings: everything is very spread out—somewhat like a Raleigh suburb
• Rural areas: you don’t have to drive far out of Raleigh to find rurality—living off the land, somewhat like this

• Every rooster in the settlement having a cockadoodldooing competition at all hours of the night
• Every dog in the settlement simultaneously breaking out in a chorus of shrieking and barking—also at all hours of the night
• The painful sound of a donkey freaking out somewhere in the distance—or right next door
• TV: a lot of news and novellas—which I watch in my now abundant down time
• Abundant down time—and being okay with that
• Buckets of water: for transporting water between tanks, for flushing the toilet, for washing clothes, for washing dishes, for washing myself
• Tucking my mosquito net in each night and hoping one doesn’t get caught inside—and waking up to at least 30 chilling on the outside of the net in the morning
• Fast-talking Brazilian women and hardworking Brazilian cowboys
• Machetes
• Fruit fresh from the tree, or juice fresh from the fruit fresh from the tree
• The sound of my host mom, Raquel suddenly yelling at one of the cats or cackling at a joke, in classic loud, Bahian fashion—oxe!

After about two weeks in the assentimento (or, settlement) of Nova Suica, part of the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra (Movement of Workers Without Land, or MST), I’d like to think I’m beginning to get some of how things work here. At its core, it’s a community of people who came, whether from the city or other parts of the country, reclaimed unused land, and set up communal farms. Everyone has their role and there is a whole hierarchy of leaders. The vocabulary of all the operations is still too much for me, but after 5 months here I should be an expert.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to keep up with rapidfire Portuguese, adjust to a slower pace of life, and meet some of the people in this 70-family town. It´s tough being an ousider in a community where everyone knows each other, and has for a long time. There’s no blending in here—we’re the visiting gringos, and I’m realizing that I just need to bite the bullet: speak awkward Portuguese, ask obvious questions, assert myself, let myself be the oddity that I am. I’m also learning that sometimes I need to be the one to break the ice when I meet people on the road—as soon as I do, people couldn’t be more hospitable. This is Brazil, after all.

Last Monday, the Brazil fellows visited a neighborhood in Salvador called Massaranduba, where we saw the last remaining palafitas, or water slums. We wound our way down dirt roads, between bare but solid brick homes, and past a game of ping pong improvised out of a couple of chairs, a wooden plank, and two broken tiles for paddles. Then the land stopped. Ahead were houses on stilts in the water, build by hand and connected by a rickety boardwalk—a boardwalk that even our host, Marcial, was cautious of. It is hoped that soon the families in these homes will be moved to more sanitary, structurally sound, government-built housing, but for now, they sit precariously in the Bay of All Saints, surrounded by trash piles and construction.

On Saturday, our classmate Mayon invited us to his aunt’s apartment building, just up the road from where most of us are living this first month. There, we took advantage of the gym, pool table, ping pong table (regulation size, this one), and the cable car down the cliff to the dock on the bay. There were a number of these docks, some with slides, jet skis, pools, and other amenities. Boats from the yacht club up the road floated by as we jumped into the salty water, trying to avoid the trash that bobbed back and forth with the tide. Perched high on the cliff behind, the residences of Vitoria looked out over the Bay of All Saints.

As we discussed economic inequality in Brazil during class the next week, our professor, who had heard about our recent excursion to the palafitas, observed that we were seeing two views of the bay—two vastly different realities: life in Vitoria, and life in Massaranduba. I’m only just beginning to perceive the dichotomy that exists here, and the perspective it will provide me with—a perspective that, as Marcial said, it is essential for us to take with us and impart to others.

Sounded fantastic: finally bathing after 25 hours of travel, getting some good Brazilian food, taking in the city for our first night…wait…host mothers?

Tomorrow?

Less than 24 hours into my first visit to Brazil, I would be shaking hands with an exceptionally welcoming lady and strolling into her house, where I was going to make my home for the next month. Oh, and I didn’t speak her language.

Only a day later, I find myself enjoying coming home to Edificio Marte on Av. Sete de Setembro, in the neighborhood of Vitoria. I still don’t speak my host mother’s language—in fact, I’m frustratingly incompetent—but I’m trying, and she’s pushing me to practice. I feel like a bit of a sitting duck, listening to her and her friends’ swap stories over mealtimes, but I’m thankful for the opportunity to listen and observe, trying to catch words I know and pick up on the jokes. I feel like one of the girls—or, at least, like I could be someday soon.

And that’s the wonder of Salvador da Bahia, from what I’ve seen so far: it’s a vivacious, animated culture, bustling, jovial, and spirited. We’ve managed to get swept into a political parade within an hour of arrival, and have a samba lesson on our first day of language classes. Music pumps from car stereos and cell phones on high volume, handshakes and thumbs up abound. I can’t wait to break down the language barrier and join them.