Finding home and sanity

Feb 16, 2011 01:48


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jadedsquirrel February 18 2011, 02:23:07 UTC
Dude, Brazilians are HELLA friendly. Everyone here is just more genial, nice, outgoing ect- and it helps a lot, especially because folks are always complimenting my language skills. The frustration for me comes from not being able to really speak eloquently and be social in that way- otherwise, folks are amazing and helpful with everything.

That said, if I had one piece of advice before hitting South America, it would be to learn to speak some BEFORE you come here. I keep running into travelers who've gotten into all kinds of trouble because they don't speak the language. I just met three Australians at a juggling meet up who had their car impounded and didn't speak Portuguese enough to know they had to bribe the official to get it back. Pick up some Spanish before coming down here, it'll make a world of difference.

Sometimes I feel like people's passions are half driven by "this keeps me sane and centered" and "this is SO COOL and enriches my life SO MUCH". Aerials (and other circus arts) keep people like us sane and drive us forward in life. It's doubly difficult in a foreign country where finding an outlet for those things is made so much more difficult- I struggled to find a school I could go to for the first THREE MONTHS I lived here, when the plan was to hit the ground running without a significant gap in my training between Brazil and the States.

Man, totally. Playa, yo!

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