2011-03-17
Meet Darwin Montoya. He’s eight, the third child in his family. He has three brothers and two sisters. He was one of my students in Refuerzo and one of my Kids with Cameras participants. He’s the first one I told about Kids with Cameras. He came to pick up his siblings, Camila and Camilo, from...
Read More2011-03-16
I think this blog post should begin with an apology. I kind of gave my host family the impression that eating meat was a sin for Jews. I apologize to all the meat loving Jews for making my host family think that all Jews cannot eat meat. So I went to Church (again). Although this...
Read More2011-03-15
Previously: Contrary to several prior predictions, I survived the day of the Magal 2011. I learned about special rules for doctors and was overwhelmed in the best ways by a plunge into the Grand Mosque. It was almost time to go home: Monday, 1 day after Magal: The city had changed. In fact, it was...
Read More2011-03-15
JAN 11 Today, like many other mornings, as we finish breakfast of Café Touba and bread, Absa, my “tanta” (dad’s 2nd wife) hands me a small teapot full of Café touba and tells me to take it to Baay Sier, my uncle. I slip on my sandals and trudge through the sandy street to our...
Read More2011-03-15
The first thing I did, before breakfast or brushing my teeth, was go next door to the Maternity Clinique to see Absa’s friend and her three hour old baby. “Congratulations!” I said! She said it hurt. I left her to rest, returning home to my usual Sunday morning ritual of laundry and room-cleaning. I’m getting...
Read More2011-03-15
My grandmother’s advice for my time to be spent in Brazilian urban poverty—“don’t internalize suffering, intellectualize it.” Don’t let the sadness I see overcome me, maintain perspective and emerge from my Global Citizen Year with the experience and drive to change what I will but not resentment towards this unfair world. I have sat on...
Read More2011-03-15
On any given Sunday, you can find me sitting under the blue umbrella on the right hand side of the Apuela’s main street, minding the family shop. Every Sunday, my host mom prepares a huge pot of fritada, fried pork, with mote, some sort of tasteless thing that I think is related to corn, as...
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