shayanapraia

[shayanapraia]

Heading home…

I am headed back home. Sad sad sad very sad. But im also really excited to hug my loved ones and eat feta cheese

Goodbye cards

My host mom made my fav Brazilian dessert for me

My host fam started a guest book for all their exchange student guests, so I was the first one to sign it

Aaaand sweet messages from my host family 😭❤️

The two souvenirs I left :)

Thank you for following along with my journey 🇧🇷❤️

[shayanapraia]

Week 8 (Amazon) Recap

Holy moly, what a trip. The Amazon was insane. I won’t be able to put it all in one post but I’ll summarize and leave it to the readers to ask further questions

So basically I flew to Manaus, which is a big, modern, 2 million person city in the center of the rainforest. I have a friend Lucas who is born and raised there (we met while he was on vacation in Salvador) so I spent the first day and a half with him. It was really cool to hear from a local person about how the Amazon region plays a part in their culture there. I assumed that people living in the city would be completely modernized and detached from indigenous roots, but actually they have very elegant bits of native culture within their city lives and they are very proud of amazonas. For example, Lucas said a typical Sunday for his family (like many families) is fishing in the river and then grilling their fish for a big family meal. He also knows a TON of fish species and plants, and I think that’s just a naturally ingrained part of their life there.

So Lucas convinced me to go on this day trip tour thing with him that takes you near the city and you visit a native tribe, go fishing, swim with the pink river dolphins, etc. I took one look and was like wtf this looks so touristy and cringe, but since I literally had an indigenous local friend wanting to go for his own personal interest, I thought ok well it must be legit. Well I thought it was super cringe and touristy. But Lucas said it made him emotional because he’s connecting to his “nature roots” LMAO so I really don’t know what to think

Lucas saying he’s “bored” after we literally saw a SLOTH because he’s “used to” seeing sloths all the time lmao

River dolphin, not in captivity but lowkey being exploited in my opinion

The native dance thing seemed really performative and kind of fake and commercialized, but Lucas said it’s real, so I really don’t know if I’m just being racist

Okay and THEN I went on a 4-day jungle trip. From Manaus it was a car, boat, longer car, longer boat to get there. The guide, Liel, has a little lodge that he has built on his family’s property that he runs with his wife and kids. There were also French and Spanish travelers there.

We spent the days doing different activities: rainforest walks for wildlife, lots of canoe rides, fishing, and visiting the community. We saw beautiful nature and wildlife but for me, the coolest part was seeing the lifestyle of the locals.

We were in a super rural 20-family community on the river where all of the people are native by blood but they are culturally Brazilian (aka they only speak Portuguese, they’re all Christian, don’t actively have any indigenous culture). There are zero streets, zero cars, bikes, or any land travel whatsoever. Only boats. Below are Liel’s kids getting on their “school bus” in the morning

Which raised soooo many questions for me…police, firefighters, postal service, population, education, food supply chains, etc??? Well, I got them all answered so if you are curious too, we can discuss

My favorite night was spent staying with another local native family, liel’s cousins. We helped them cook dinner and hung out with the kids. I learned to scale (?) and clean (?) fish for cooking, and we also harvested cassava root and herbs and sugar cane from their garden. Everything you plant just GROWS crazy there. We all became friends by the end and it was a sweet little goodbye

My other favorite part was spending a night living ~survival mode~ in the rainforest. The only food we brought was rice and eggs basically, so we had to hunt/fish if we wanted a substantial meal. We ate piranhas and I slayed fishing

Beauty all around all the time

Some of the wildlife we saw included: many many many birds that looked like they could come out of a David Attenborough movie, lots of butterflies, a monkey, some alligators, little frogs, a lot of river dolphins, spiders, tarantula piranhas obviously, giant ants, etc

Well, that concludes my Amazon time. It was very special for me but I’m so happy to be back in moderate temperatures, away from mosquitos, and in clean clothes. Eating non-fish related food. Back with my host fam. In 48 hours I’ll be on a flight back to the city of angels 👼 baby!

Amazon thorns

The most mosquitos I’ve ever seen in my life, relentless

So so so hot and sticky

I had this smell on me that was like a combo of my filth, sweat, mosquito repellant, and fish guts that I couldn’t get off until today

The French guy with me on the tour was annoying af

I missed my flight on the way home

[shayanapraia]

Week 7 Recap

Hi everyone. It’s only Thursday but I thought I’d do an early recap because I’m headed to the rainforest now.

This was my last real week in Salvador. Feeling pretty sad but also ready to go home. I started off my week with a 2-night solo trip to Morro de São Paulo, a car-free island village that you get to by taking boat-bus-boat from Salvador. It had a really nice combo of lush green forest and tropical beach. But unforch, the car-free thing wasn’t in a “it’s so historical that there’s no cars” way, but rather a Disneyland/mammoth village way. Which was also its own fun vibe. Lots of really good food and shopping

I made two friends that are professional ballet dancers in the Dutch national ballet. We hung out most of the time and had a fun little day drinking beach day

Look how ridiculous their ambulance is. It looks like a toy. So funny to me

In other news. Tarciso took me and Devone to German class at his college and obviously we did not understand anything because it was German. It was very entertaining to be in class with brother. Also their campus looks like a rainforest and literally had monkeys EVERYWHERE

Since today was my last day of Portuguese class, I made thank-you notes for my teachers. Everyone here is obsessed with me writing Persian and I get asked at least once a week to write the Persian alphabet or write people’s names for them, so I made little cards of their names

This is me with all my teachers/school staff

Also there are two little czech kids in my school right now because their parents had business in Brazil so they just signed them up for a week of Portuguese class ICONIC lol. So this is us having a mega cultural exchange of Portuguese, czech, Persian, English.

Well, I am now in the airport headed to Manaus, capital of the Amazon. Kisses everyone 💋 P.S. I learned recently that I have one blog fan that isn’t my dad and Julie: shoutout katusch if you’re reading this 🥳

[shayanapraia]

Week 6 Recap

Omg! It’s ending so soon. Chill week, nothing crazy happened. I got really good sleep hours and I worked out a lot which made me feel wonderful.

I went surfing and got an owie on my lip but it’s all better now. The waves are very nice and it’s literally empty no surfers

I hope my mom doesn’t see this next one! Sorry mommy

Making challah with the host family. We are currently hosting another American student named Devone who is a Pentecostal from Florida, so this was a cool Jewish-Pentecostal cultural exchange

Dining room samba of the week! (Devone in brown shirt)

Fun fact about Brazil of the week

So you know how in Persian your dad calls you dad, your khaleh calls you khaleh, etc? So the exact same thing exists in Portuguese and it’s so cute 🥰 it’s the only other culture I’ve seen that does it

Thorns of the week

Had a couple days where I felt like bleh purposeless and no routine. Also kind of regretting not going to more cities and only staying in Salvador mostly, but also I really liked my slow life here. My bro is grinding in school right now so we get less time to hang out. Also we got in a fight but it’s better now. Sibling things

[shayanapraia]

Week 5 Non-Abby Updates

So I made my post about my week with Abby’s visit, but here are my week 5 updates apart from that, plus a few extra photos I couldn’t fit in the other post

I have hijacked my Portuguese lessons and my teacher Ranna (who is my age and rly fun) and I do whatever we damn please. This is her teaching me how to make munguza. Other days we played games, she brought her tambourine and taught me samba beats, etc

SORRY HAD TO FLEX

Cutie pies

Introducing these foreigners to my AUTHENTIC dishes from my homeland California. Educating these simple folk about our cultural delicacies.

Zene, the housekeeper of my host family who is really part of the family, has this realistic baby doll and its one of the biggest memes of the family, like why tf would you have that, it even has artificial baby scent on it....WTF and when she brings that thing out we all DIEEEE

Thorns of the week

No thorns this week I love Brazil

[shayanapraia]

A few more photos from Abby week

Tumblr only let me put 10 photos so this is the overflow

We went to the geological museum of Bahia! Here is Abby through a geode

Abby in a cat cafe. She is a cat lover

Watching surfers and sunset, feeling nostalgic for our days together in Santa Barbara

Colorful beautiful pelourinho

[shayanapraia]

Abby Week

This week, Abby visited me!! For those of you who don’t know, Abby is my great friend who I met while living in Santa Barbara, and now she lives in Chile (for the past 4 years) and works there as a geologist. We had lots of fun! The main theme of our trip was Bahian food tour, because Abby is a foodie and Bahia has a really well known, unique, and rich cuisine

Us beaching and Abby at a cat cafe

I took Abby to Feira São Joaquim, a big bustling colorful noisy chaotic market. It was so chaotic, lots of smells and live animals and fruits we have never seen before

Left: Abby eating moqueca with a view, and me with a Caju. That is the fruit that cashews grow from!!!! Isn’t that so cool. The cashew nut itself grows in that curved little part at the bottom

Beauty of Salvador

Important food tour stop: all-you-can-eat sushi with tarciso and augusto

We attended Tarciso’s play! It was so funny even though Abby and I didn’t understand a lot of it.

Abby having dinner with my host family! She came in with fire Portuguese because she has been studying, so she could talk easily with my host family

I took Abby to Capoeira class with me lmfao

Overall it was an awesome week of quality time! We did a great mix of food tour, touristy stuff, local stuff, and beach relaxation. Miss Abby already

[shayanapraia]

Me modeling all the different ways I wear my canga

[shayanapraia]

Long Blog Post: Updates on the *Experiment*

So one of my goals of Brazil was to do this "experiment" on myself that I would describe as living naturally, unplugging, and kind of resetting a lot of my habits and patterns from the big city life. So here is a nice long discussion of some of my goals, how they are going, and some of the changes I have experienced. But first I need to explain the trap phone.

The Trap Phone. I have a second phone, a cheap used android, which I mostly got for safety so that I don't need to take my iPhone out of the house. However, it doubles as a tool to disconnect in my experiment. It allows me to separate my daily phone needs from my more "addictive" phone usage. So on my trap phone, I only have whatsapp, uber, and maps pretty much. And the only contacts I have are my immediate family and closest friends, and Brazilians. Also the camera is shit. So I only text the people that I need to, and that's basically all I do on that phone. It's also a really shit phone so I don't feel very tempted to use it. On my iPhone I have everything else. Usually my iPhone stays powered off in a drawer.

MAIN CHANGES:

Intentional: Much reduced phone/screen use throughout the day, and less desire for phone

Intentional: No phone upon waking up. It's not even in my room because I don't need an alarm bc the sun wakes me up. I just look out the window for a few minutes and then start doing things

Unintentional: Much reduced knowledge of current events and stocks, which I understand might be considered a negative thing to be less "educated", but I love not knowing

Unintentional: Much reduced music. No headphones at all. So basically the only music I listen to is music on the street, of which there is plenty, and music in my house every once in a while. I feel neutral about this; on one hand, I liked my music and I wasn't like "addicted" to it, but on the other hand, it's nice to just have less stimulation.

Unintentional: I pretty much walk everywhere, I take very few cars. And I obviously never drive myself. Thought I'd miss driving but I don't

Intentional: While I walk, I have zero auditory stimulation. I used to ALWAYS need headphones: music, phone call, podcast, or audio message, while driving or walking. But I really really enjoy walking in silence and looking at stuff on the street or just thinking

Intentional: I often walk after eating, which feels good for my digestion

Unintentional: I often come and go through my household without needing to text or call anyone in my host family. This seems like something subtle/weird but it's actually a pretty significant difference from home that I notice.

Intentional: MUCH reduced wardrobe. I came w only a backpack and I kind of love how I just have these really simple options every day. It feels really nice and minimal, and it feels like I have just what I need and nothing more. But sometimes I do get tired of my clothes, or I wish I brought one more pair of shoes

Intentional: (almost) No caffeine. At first, I drank coffee because Brazilians drink a LOT of coffee and when in rome...but then I didn't like it so I just cold turkeyed. I feel neutral about that because I stopped noticing after a few days

Intentional: Reading a lot of books

Unintentional: Not taking many pictures. Mostly rely on other people for photos. Not sure how I feel about that

FAILURES

So those changes I described above are like overall patterns, but I have not been cold turkey on most of those things. I have definitely had days of too much screen time, sending audio messages while on a walk, checking my phone first thing in the morning, going on Youtube, etc. I get sucked into keeping my iPhone on, sometimes for a few days in a row. I have checked my stocks once and did not like what I saw. When I go clubbing I drink a little coffee on my way out. So ya, definitely lots and lots of times where I defy the experiment, but it is working overall.

MAIN TAKEAWAYS

My main positive effect has been a FAR increased comfort with silence and being in a meditative state, alone. I feel really happy walking alone without phone stimulation, and I also really like to go out to the beach and do nothing, just look around and think and talk to myself. This feels really good for me and I hope this pattern stays. I also think it's a great use of my time. Also my attention span has increased I think.

I also really want to hold onto the habit of no phone when waking up or going to bed. At home, I remember IMMEDIATELY needing my phone when I woke up because I NEEDED to see the notifications and slowly wake my brain up. But now, I really like looking out the window. Also there are only a handful of people that could possibly text my trap phone so it's not as exciting.

I feel worlds removed from my life at home. Not sure if I like or dislike. I don't know about anything going on at home - social things, gossip, current events, stocks - and I'm not in conversation with like 50-70% of the people I used to be talking to regularly. I like these things, but I don't think this extreme is sustainable for more than a few months.

[shayanapraia]

My KICK ASS samba impressing tio and tia. Me saying “I’m from here” (eu sou daqui) is a meme

[shayanapraia]

Week 4 Recap

Omfg already halfway done. Wow. Week 4 was pretty normal, just the regular routine, in the groove.

Tarciso and mom (aka Telma, aka Tia to me), and the recipe that she recorded in her recipe book after we made a really yummy dessert together called cuscuz tapioca. It’s so yummy. I wish I had a pic. It’s tapioca, coconut

Our dreamy abundant bahian mornings with our dreamy view (yes that’s the ocean out there) and sunshine and brekky (that’s Tarciso and Thierry, our French student)

This morning Thierry and I went on a run and I took him to my capoeira class. The capoeira kicked his ass but my teacher said that he was slaying for a 61-year-old. We are dying laughing at this video when the camera pans and thierry is standing there like “oh hell nah to the nah nah nah” LOL. I have only been to a few capoeira classes but I really like it because it’s great exercise and it’s a mix between a dance and martial art

A night of dancing samba, salsa, and forró in the living room with the family. One of my favorite memories! I will post the videos later

Girls night out but it was actually not that fun this week

I have more videos of things that I’m gonna post separately because tumblr only allows one video per post

A moment that I appreciated today at the beach: when I was in the water I saw that some people had brought a huge speaker and were blasting a Brazilian song (which would never happen in the US because it’s ~rude~) and everrrryyyone around was singing along to it, like all the random people at the beach and in the water. It was so nice, it was like all these strangers were just jamming together to this song and nobody was mad that those guys brought the speaker because everything is music and loud and party here all the time, and that would definitely never happen at home

Class updates: I am currently the only person at my level in my school (subtle brag 😜) so I have class alone. So i get to personalize my class. My teacher and I do fun stuff like go on walks, go learn fruit names at the fruit store, learning meat names at the butcher, and gambling. It’s so fun. I feel like I’m being babysat and I love it

Portuguese flex moment: I finished the level 2 textbook at my Portuguese school. 🥳 woohoo Now I’m going to start the advanced level.

Thorn of the Week

No major thorns, but minor thorns

- I think I’m starting to get a cold

- I finished my book last week so I don’t have a book until Abby brings me more on Monday

- I had to spend a lot of computer time this week because I had some shit to take care of on my Google accounts

[shayanapraia]

He’s on an important phone call.

[shayanapraia]

My Swim Group

I wanted to make a post about my swim group. Its my Sunday morning ritual to wake up early and go to the beach for my open water swim group, Acquaticos.

We usually swim one of two routes in the ocean. My favorite one is where we start in front of the city center and swim to the beach in front of my house 4km. It's fun because I can get out of the water and just walk home.

The route:

It's usually a group of 20-30 swimmers of all ages, plus we have an accompanying boat and two SUP supports. Plus someone brings a nice ass camera, as you can see

The crowd is very similar to US open water swimmere: super high-on-life, love their sport, very social and excited at 7 in the morning lol. And it is all run by this Badass woman Sandrinha:

For me it's a really nice way to meet people, practice Portuguese, do a ~local~ activity, and also see a new side of Salvador. We see so many unique fish, crabs, and other animals. And we also pass by some beautiful and some famous landmarks and views of the city

That last one 👆 is praia do Gamboa, a fisherman's neighborhood/village that is a well-known beauty of the city.

Yesterday sandrinha agreed to let me take over the SUP for the last kilometer.

Needless to say, my mom is very happy with her lifetime supply of nice up-close swim pictures of me lmao.

[shayanapraia]

30 seconds of me and my brother destroying a pot of boiled peanuts (almendoin cozido) while talking shit.

[shayanapraia]

Week 3 Recap

Wow time is going by so fast. I’m already pre-missing being here.

The main event of this week was going to Chapada Diamantina, a national park that is about 6hr away from Salvador by bus. I went by myself because I wanted a little shake-up of the routine. One really interesting thing for me is that unlike the US, national parks in Brazil have full on cities in them. I went to a town called Lençois.

The Park had a lot of unique layered rocks and rivers and waterfalls. Also some big ass lizards

I really liked the city, it was so charming and historic and colorful, and everyone had their doors and windows wide open at all times, so it creates a nice community feel. Population 10,000 and the locals were so friendly and everyone knew each other. My Portuguese is reaching the level where I can casually converse with strangers and learn about their lives so that was nice

“Couscous is better than many people” lol people here are very obsessed with couscous and now I am too.

On Friday I came home. I missed my host family so much, so I was soooo happy to be back. Even though it was a short trip

It says: Rio is Brazil, SP is the world (because it’s a very international city), and Bahia is…Bahia. Because there is nothing like Bahia…it makes me so happy how proud Bahians are of their culture, dance, food, etc. it’s a very unique place :)

These Olodun drummers walk around town like this and it’s awesome. The energy of hearing the drums live is really good

My host fam also has a French student (he is 61) staying here right now and my host dad (pictured) is having a lot of fun trying to learn French. This has been prime comedy for my brother and me

Thorn of the Week

While I was in Lençois, I drove myself nuts over deciding when to come home. I was like in agony over a 12 hour difference in bus time. It’s such a small thing, but I was so obsessed with Maximizing my time and making the most of the time. I was going crazy. I really want to work on being more decisive about these small, unimportant things and not second-guessing myself

[shayanapraia]

Week 2 Recap

My new swim group. They swim on Sunday mornings in the ocean and do 4-7KM each time. Accompanied by a boat and two SUPs I get to see so many cool fish and meet people. I am in the blue cap in both pics

My new friend Lucas who is from the Amazon. He got this beautiful tattoo of Salvador's ~iconic~ light house and I took that cool photo

Katusch's great craftsmanship (the jumpsuit) in action in Pelourinho

2 of July is Bahian independence day! After Brazil became independent from Portugal, Portuguese troops remained in bahia (the state I am in) until July 2, so this day is celebrated separately here. Street party, food, and music, this time with a lot more emphasis on samba. We celebrated in pelourinho, the historic city center

That is me and my brother dancing to a samba band on the street. We look so lame in the video but in real life our samba step was kickass and the street parties were really cool. I promise. Like you turn a corner and boom, samba band on the street.

A classic breakfast in my host family home. A fruit (papaya here), egg, couscous, and my favorite thing in the world: mungunzá, which is kinda like a soup/porridge of coconut, sweet corn, and milk. SO GOOD. Also for most people coffee but I have tea

Last night I went to the bars/clubs in the old city with my brother's friends. (The second Pic is me fleeing mid-photo bc they were playing my song), I had two observations

1. I love how Brazilian adults just go out and dance and have fun and actually dance. Like the scene is very different from the American 40+ night life scene as far as I can tell.

2. Very beautiful to me how the old historic city is like turned into all these cool bars and clubs. It's a very slay juxtaposition and aesthetic

Thorn of the Week

Yesterday I started to feel kind of purposeless and down. Because I have such little responsibility or obligation here. Like it's nice to be stress free and relaxed, but I miss having obligations and things to work for. Balance I guess. I am working on loosely structuring my time so it's relaxing but also substantial

[shayanapraia]

Fruit Porn

I found this on the street on my way home from school today. By “on the street” I mean on the STREET like the floor because tropical fruits literally rain down from the sky.