Brazil experience for Waimarino women

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 8, Issue 376, 5 March 1991, Page 8

Brazil experience for Waimarino women

One young Waimarino woman has recently returned from an American Field Scholar trip to Brazil and another has just left.

Fiona Ritchfield returned recently from a year's stay in a frontier town of 80,000 people and Jenny Frew is by now staying with a family at a coastal town of two million souls. Jenny's 'father' owns a bar and the family lives on the beach in Salvador, in the state of Bahia in north east Brazil. She will be studying 14 subjects at a level equivalent to the New Zealand sixth form and her school day starts at 7.30am and finishes at 12 noon, to avoid the heat of the day. Fiona's town sounds as if it was not as inviting as Jenny's, with a lack of many services at Barra Do Garcas in the state of Mato Grosso which is four times the size of New Zealand but sparsely populated. There are many Indian villages in the surrounding countryside. The school

was very basic, said Fiona, with no books, no windows, no fans let alone air conditioning in the 46 degree heat, and useless blackboards. "It is one of the poorest schools in Brazil," said Jenny. "Many of the children literally go to school to eat their lunch, which is provided." Fiona's 'family' was wealthy in local terms, with her 'father' owning the local garage , mechanic's shop and panel beater and he was the local government secretary of transport. The family was helped by two maids and four gardeners. Her 'mother's' time was taken up helping the town's mayoress distributing food to the poor, with much of the food grown in the family g arden by their gardeners. Very few people spoke English in her town so she said she had to learn Portuguese very fast. After six months she said she could speak 'and dream' in fluent Portuguese. Fiona said the Brazilians she met often played jokes on her so she became very wary of anything they tod her. On one trip she visited a friend who lived in a poor part of the town - "not quite a slum" and

she was helping make breakfast when she found the bread covered in ants.

"My friend just picked it up and wiped the ants off and put it on the table," said Fiona. "I thought they were having me on again so I didn't take any - but then they all ate it." She said Brazilians judge you on

what you eat - the more you eat when you visit the more appreciation you show for their invitation. "Brazilians are preoccupied with how they look," said Fiona, "They are always late - they

take two or three hours to get ready to go out." For exercise Fiona started to play basketball for one of the men's teams, there being no women's teams, but gave up when she found she had been called a prostitute. She enjoyed swimming and aerobics but found the other girls

treated the classes as a fashion showcase. Despite the heat, thousands of mosquitos, ants, lizards and numerous other nasties, complete lack of any wind (yearround) Fiona said she would visit the place again if she had the chance.