phase 1 complete

               This was probably the hardest phase for me to complete. over two years of work to make this happen. I started learning Portuguese in earnest about two years ago. I had never thought that it would create such an amazing opportunity for me. I started learning Portuguese because Spanish was impossible for a sophomore to get into. Even with priority registration and twice the hours of a normal sophomore  come registration every Spanish class would be full. 

              

I went into my first Portuguese class with no discernable language skills, aside from two paultry semesters of latin, that were a poor excuse for a language class. My professor was Brent James and he is by far the best language teacher I have ever had. he brought to his class an energy that was totally infectious. he clearly love romance languages, Portuguese especially. instead of rote memorization and worksheets he would have us listen to songs and then translate the lyrics. We watched movies, and read short stories, and learned the important grammar first even if that meant going out of traditional order. I instantly fell in love with the language. 

Brazilian portuguese is like the beautiful child of french and spanish. The words are smooth and flow together like french but they have rhythm and energy like spanish. The grammar is far easier than spanish only conjugating about four people instead of the six in spanish and the words are easier to pronounce than french. I knew I wanted to master this language. 

I spent the next two years with a weekly hour private tutor session with a native speaker, named Vilma. She was also an amazing teacher.  She is incredibly patient she would sit as i butchered her language, forgetting words and even forgetting what I was trying to say mid sentence. with her help I mustered enough portuguese to make going to Brazil a real reality. 

I started putting ideas into motion. I knew that the summer of 2013 would be my last major hurrah where the school could still be to my advantage. I wanted my crazy adventure to be worth school credit. so I decided to make it part of my internship for Recreation Management. I wanted to work with an organization that was a leader in the field I knew I would shoot for either NOLS of Outward Bound. I did research and found that Outward bound has a school in Brazil and the first of many stars aligned. 

I sent a cold email to the director of the program. I spent two weeks drafting the email in my broken english. I spent many an hour pouring over my dictionary and good translate trying to craft the perfect message. When I sent the first message my heart skipped a beat. I was filled a mixture of excitement and dread. I had just sent my most fervent wish out into the terrible either that is the internet and how I had to wait for the gods to reply.

I didn't know what to expect. I had some but not much experience and they had no clue who I was. some college kid, who speaks only borken limited portuguese sent them an email asking about working with them. The odds seemed stacked against me to say the least. 

I received an email about three days later, from a guy with a Brazilian sounding name. My stomach dropped. it was a letter as terrifying as any college acceptance letter. I opened it and began reading. Not only was it a letter expressing excitement at the possibility of me interning with them but it was also totally in english. I was hit with my first wave about the reality of what I had just committed to. 

Those waves only got bigger and stronger as I edged closer to making this trip happen. Fall semester was when things kicked into high gear. I sent an official resume and letter of introduction. and a few days later I received an email welcoming me abroad. They were equally as excited to have me as I was to be able to attend. They would provide me with housing and food and transportation while in Brazil. In return they expected a enthusiastic, energetic, driven, and flexible intern.

That would be no problem on my part. at the very least I was excited to the point of incoherent mumbling and approaching incoherent yelling. I spent most of fall semester on cloud nine thinking about what I was about to do. Then spring semester came and I was yanked from my excited haze like a broken satellite falling to earth. I was pushed to the edge of quitting more times than I would like to commit. I received sticker shock at the price of my adventure almost twice a month. tuition and fees to feed the bureaucracy were obscene by themselves. They were placed on top of a plane ticket, and vaccinations, and medications. Making this trip happen was the biggest bureaucratic nightmare that I have ever faced, and I have made a habit to go against the grain of the university bureaucracy. 

I considered calling the whole thing off on more than one occasion; the trip seemed to expensive, I didn't think my portuguese was good enough, the action of going to a foreign country totally on my own was stomach turning and physically paralyzing. Somewhere around the time I bought my tickets I had passed the event horizon. I couldn't stop now. I had already started bragging to people about this reality. I had already bought the ticket. they had already agreed to host me. The events that I had put in motion had gained their own momentum and all I could do was ride along. 

On may 8th I got my finale vaccination for yellow fever and phase one of my trip was complete. I would be boarding a plane for brazil in three days. In three days I would be starting the second phase of my journey the plane trip. Come even hell and high water I was going to brazil, and that filled me with a terrified excitement that doesn't have words. It felt like thunder in my stomach, terrifying, powerful, foundational, celestial, and beautiful. I was going to Brazil and because of that everything was going to change.