Elmira College Term 3 - Brazil 2018

                     2nd in  Day in Search of Amzaonius Species Camen in River Amazon    Squirrel Monkey; In Amazon Forest                As every single day, with the beautiful morning sunrise, I also wake up along with the sun. By the time we wake up, the trees in the Amazon rainforest were slowly dancing due to the wind blow. The birds were singing with their melodious voices. After viewing some romantic parts of nature, the gang had a morning breakfast. The ship was slowly heading from one bank of the Amazon River to another Bank.   On the way, there were some mini motels, and parks as well. Perhaps those are for tourism purposes and other small houses belonging to the indigenous people of that community. Almost an hour after, we had reached the place where we can swim and saw the pink dolphin’s dancing. Even our guide made a joke saying that the name of the dolphin is Salvador. The beautiful dance that was performed by the dolphins was really astonishing.

Hello everyone!  It’s our second to last day in Salvador. The festivities today included a visit to a Candomblé center, participation in a traditional Candomblé ceremony, strolling a market, and individual free-time.  The history of Candomblé is rich and my understanding of it is very basic. But I will try my best to provide y’all with the basics. Candomblé is a type of religion inspired by traditional African culture with Catholic influence. The religion was created by enslaved Africans in Brazil because slaves were not permitted to practice their own religion but they could with Catholicism. So, Candomblé emerged as a method to continue the teachings of African mythology, culture, and language. Our adventures in Salvador have had sprinkles of Candomblé but nothing compared to being immersed (albeit temporarily) in the center. The center was founded in 1910 by Eugênia Anna Dos Santos-Oba Biyi, a freed slave. It was the first community in Brazil that was owned by a black indiv

Today is May 1st and a holiday in Brazil. The holiday is Workers’ day and celebrates the worker. Most people have this day off except for workers like service workers. Because of the holiday many shops were closed so today was mainly a pool side day. A few students went to visit the zoo. There they held hippos, monkies, birds, zebras, and a crocodile. The zoo is federally run and under construction in some parts. The pool is very nice and many students spent a few hours swimming and lounging. For the evening, two members of the group went to the lighthouse to view the sunset and get dinner. Another four group members went out to dinner and walked by the sunset where they saw a rally of some sort. The rally was described as people dancing but also had images and symbols of the previous president Lula. The last two members of the group went to dinner at a classy restaurant for the evening. Tomorrow we have the last event of our trip and then another free day on Thursday before traveling

The capoeira studio where we had our lesson Students first had to learn to play the instruments that accompany capoeira Listen to the sounds of the instruments The mural at the back represents all the orixas of the Candomble religion, about which we will be leaning more tomorrow  In the afternoon we had a percussion lesson from an all-female percussion group created to empower women  The richest church in Brazil.  Built in the 1700s, the interior is covered in gold-leaf