Aguas de Março

The weekend (o final da semana) was chock full of hanging out with other Fulbrighters, between the raindrops. Victoria invited us over to her house on Saturday, which was great, and then I met up with Cara and her family on Sunday at the Hippie Fair downtown and we ended up getting caught in the rain, going to lunch, shopping at the mall, and having a beer. I’m still struggling to find shoes that are comfortable but also professional (more or less) that I can wear with my capris, but we may have found it this time.

Monday morning found me down at the State Library again, this time rushing late through the rain from the wrong bus to Eliany’s office. She brushed off my apology (“everyone is late, especially when it’s raining”) and took me on a 2-hour tour of the library and the annex, which is being renovated. I met people in every department, but my recorder’s battery cut out after about 15 minutes. I came back the next day, Tuesday, for what I had thought was going to be sitting on desk in the Braille section, but turned out to be attending the Reading Circle event that they have every two weeks.

After the tour on Monday, I took the bus to the UFMG (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, where Marilia teaches) to take the Portuguese placement exam and hopefully get placed into a class by tomorrow (classes start Friday). I got there early and so was sitting and eating my PB&J and checking my email when I read the one that said the test had been moved up an hour and to a different building! So I jumped up and ran out in a panic, somehow managing to find my way to the correct building through the mud and peeling off my raincoat. They had allotted three hours for the test, so it wasn’t too big a deal that I was half an hour late, and I wasn’t even the last person to arrive. The test consisted of three essay questions (based on reading some texts) and an oral interview. I finished after an hour and a half and made my way home.

Other highlights from the week so far are that we braved the absolute pouring rain on Tuesday night to go to an English language meetup group, which was fun and an easier way to do some out-of-the-library research on people’s opinions about the libraries here. We also went to the Federal Police today and got the registration process started. We had to show them all sorts of documents, almost as much work as getting the visa, and they will email us when our IDs are ready. (Anyone who is staying in Brazil for any length of time has to register with the Federal Police within 90 days; it’s been giving everyone in my cohort fits and we’ve been sharing advice about what obstacles we’ve run into; luckily we didn’t have any trouble.)

The rest of the week should be pretty light, just working on my presentations, going to our other Portuguese classes, and daydreaming of sunny getaways. It’s been so rainy and damp here that I want to start using my travel allowance now to go somewhere warm and sunny, like Curitiba or Santa Catarina! Duck really wants to go to Ouro Preto, which is known for its churches and history but which is also quite likely to be rainy. Apparently the March rain is so famous, especially in BH, that there’s a song called Aguas de Março. Needless to say, I can’t wait for April!