Breakdowns and Rescue Songs

so, i had a breakdown today, and on sunday. basically, my family talks shit about me when they don't think i can understand their portuguese. to start, my host-little-brother unraveled my dental floss and poured shit over my photos, and then didn't admit to it directly when i confronted him, and instead tried to be all buddy buddy with me afterward (in the morning in the space of time it took me to walk out of my room to the bathroom and back, therefore not locking the door) by banging on my door and window and opening my door twice while i was changing. so i just sat on my bed and sobbed. i was really overwhelmed with these two kids in my house (my host-little-sister was also banging on my window with him), who i knew were just accidentally making mistakes and trying to have fun with me, but made me feel so overwhelmed and invaded in my privacy. and i think they heard me sobbing and some adults get up coincidentally at the same time, because they stopped all of a sudden. but later, my host-mom had her 2 sisters and other family over, because sundays are family days in my house and we have lots of food and drink (not so much me, but everyone else because i think my host-mom is touchy about me drinking a lot), and i think she got drunk with her family and started talking about how i had forgotten to call her before coming home late 3 times the past week. and i had. but one of the times was when i was literally out with everybody (pelourinho on tuesdays), the other was friday night (which i had told her i would be out for, but not very late, and was rosh hashanah, jewish new year, which she knew i was celebrating), extending to saturday night (jewish holidays go from sundown to sundown). and i believe she literally said about me, as i listened to her family talk about me for half an hour, that "it must be because she doesn't have a mom. that's why she doesn't like calling to let people know where she is."
i was hurt, but i let it roll off. i figured it wasn't worth it to get upset about, because it all sounded so indignant, after she had already discussed it with me infront of her family members who i do not know at all over lunch, laughing a little when i didn't understand what they were saying to each other about me. then, today, we were supposed to go to this religious ceremony of a religion holding over from angolan slaves here called "candomble". and you're supposed to wear white to it, right? but i didn't understand that you were supposed to wear a separate set of clothes to the temple, have a shower there to cleanse yourself, and THEN change into white clothes. because it was all said in portuguese. and i'm still learning portuguese, right? so i show up in all white clothes, and one of the program coordinators basically yells at me (in portuguese, again, which i cannot understand very well at this point, and she doesn't understand english at all, no words, whatsoever, so this is a very stressful situation in which to get yelled at, and my friend tanya has to translate for me) and tells me that i'll have to buy something else to wear. but i ran out of money (i think i had the equivalent of about US$40 stolen, and literally eat fruit and cheese sandwiches for lunch, because that's what i can afford) until i can cash in more travelers checks, so i have no money to buy anything with and she just kind of laughs at me while i tell her this. and tanya asks me if i want to go to the bay look-out that's in my program office, and i just start sobbing again. about how incompetant i feel, and how i'm getting low Bs in this bullshit program that has literally taught me close-to-nothing near a brown class in more than 3 weeks, and i can't even complain properly in portuguese, which sucks, because only 2 of my 4 program coordinators knows good english. and then the womyn that had been so mean to me looks really shocked that i'm crying, and other students see me, and it's almost this really big scene before tanya kind of calms me down. and yeah. it's been really tough here.

but on the bright side, i've tried to compensate for the bullshit in my program right now in doing positive things for myself, which is a really big benefit to this program in the end. i'm near the beach, i'm learning about my insecurities with language and how to overcome them or security and laughter, and i'm jogging every day now near my house at this beautiful lake called dique de tororo (it's 3 km, and i do it once every day).
basically, even though i have to read about what an ethnography is over 80 pages and why humyn rights are important for 150 more, i'm building my own character. and i love it.

i'm enjoying myself, but in a very different way than i expected i would. learning some essential things about barriers i cause myself in every-day tasks and interactions, even in english.

today, in a field trip visit to a candomble temple, people go into trance as they "become" angolan g-ds which imitate christian ones (it's kind of problematic), and this womyn in trance had to smoke cigars basically (it's kind of strange, but really interesting to see) and dance to improvised music through the deity she's imitating. and as the room filled with smoke and left the room and came back in circulation, i felt something. not much of anything, but i think it was a certain amount of inner clarity. i acknowledge that my anger here is because i hate feeling incompetent. i'm just frustrated that very few people here understand/care to understand my issues with the curriculum and assign us diaries to complete in the place of field research. though it gives me more time to go to the beach.
positively, i picked a g-d in candomble that i most identify with, and its name is iansa. and she's married to a g-d named xango. and iansa's the g-d of storms and lightning and wind, and xango's basically the g-d of fire and power. isn't that interesting? my life is full of rebel mamas.

in summation, i put my itunes shuffle on on my laptop every night now too, and a bunch of good songs came on, including "i dreamt i was an architecht" by the decembrists. if that's not the title, i apologize to the decembrists. but it made me feel like a g-d. check it out sometime. it's all about why you are the way you are for me, and i love that.

spectacularly,
Akinyi