In my hometown, we have a type of music called bluegrass. The music traveled across the United States from the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. It is a type of folk music using stringed instruments. Such instruments include the fiddle, guitar, banjo, bass, and the mandolin. When we start dancing to this music we call it a hoe down. You can view the nontraditional bluegrass music and imagine how you may dance to this cover of "Hit' em up Style" by the Carolina Chocolate Drops. The song is about a woman who catches her husband cheating and to get revenge goes out and spends all his money. Enjoy:
In the United States today (May 5th) is celebrated as Cinco de Mayo. Cinco de Mayo (Spanish) is a day in which Mexican heritage is celebrated in the United States, it is similar to the Irish celebrating St. Patrick's Day and the Chinese celebrating the Chinese New Year. These are celebrations in which many Americans celebrate the heritages of other ethnic groups that have contributed to the formation of the United States.
Cinco de Mayo commemorates a victory of Mexican forces over the French in the Battle of Puebla on May 5th, 1862. In this battle, the vastly outnumber Mexicans won an unlikely battle. In the end, the French won the war and occupied Mexico for 3 years. In the United States, Cinco de Mayo is often celebrated by my friends by drinking Mexican beer and eating Mexican food such as tacos, enchiladas or burritos.
Today marks the one month anniversary of the workshops! Congratulations participants!
English can be difficult to learn. If you are having trouble understanding the messiness of English, this article may help you understand the origins of English: The Glorious Messiness of English by Robert Macneil. English is an eclectic language. It is not only the language of the United States and the Common Wealth, but it is the language of the global citizen, English belongs to the world. More people speak English than any other language. It is not a superior language, but it is the language that will allow you to connect with the most people on Earth.
With Portuguese, I often struggle. There are days when I know less than the day before and I feel overwhelmed by the amount that I have yet to learn. However each day is a new opportunity and I push on studying and trying, knowing that with time I will get better. I will never be a native speaker, but I hope to one day not have a blank face when someone is talking to me. I hope to one day understand songs, poetry, people on the street, literature, the beat, the rhythm and emotion of the language, for Portuguese is beautiful and a key part to participating in the rich culture Brazil has to offer.
Here is a poem I would like to share:
Point B by Sarah Kay. If you want you can watch it all, but only the first 4 minutes are the poem. In this version, you can add English subtitles.
Instead of mom, she’s going to call me “point B”
Because that way she knows that no matter what happens, A
t least she can always find her way to me.
and i’m going to paint the solar system on the back of her hands
so that she has to learn the entire universe before she can say
“oh, i know that like the back of my hand.”
she’s going to learn that this life will hit you, hard, in the face,
wait for you to get back up so it can kick you in the stomach,
but getting the wind knocked out of you is
the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.
there is hurt, here, that cannot be fixed by band-aids or poetry,
so the first time she realizes that wonder woman isn’t coming,
i’ll make sure she knows she doesn’t have to wear the cape all by herself.
because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers
your hands will always be to small to catch all the pain you want to heal,
believe me, i’ve tried.
and “baby,” i’ll tell her “don’t keep your nose up in the air like that, i know that trick,
you’re just smelling for smoke so you can follow the trail back
to a burning house so you can find the boy who lost everything in the fire
to see if you can save him or else find the boy who lit the fire in the first place
to see if you can change him.”
but i know that she will anyway
so instead i’ll always keep an extra supply of chocolate & rain boats nearby
because there is no heartbreak that chocolate can’t fix.
okay, there’s a few heartbreaks chocolate can’t fix
but that’s what the rain boots are for
because rain will wash away everything if you let it.
i want her to see the world through the underside of a glass bottom boat,
to look through a magnifying glass at the galaxies that exist on the pin point of a human mind.
because that’s how my mom taught me,
that they’ll be days like this,
“they’ll be day’s like this my momma said.”
when you open your hands to catch
& end up with only blisters & bruises,
when you step out of the phone booth & try to fly
& the very people you want to save are the ones standing on your cape,
when your boots will fill with rain & you’ll be up to your knees in disappointment
& those are the very days you have all the more reason to say “thank you,”
because there is nothing more beautiful than the way
the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline
no matter how many times it’s sent away.
you will put the “wind” in win some lose some,
you will put the “star” in starting over & over.
no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute
be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life.
and yes, on a scale of one to over-trusting i am pretty fucking naivebut i want her to know
that this world is made out of sugar.
it can crumble so easily but don’t be afraid to stick your tongue out & taste it.
“baby,” i’ll tell her “remember your mama is a worrier
but your papa is a warrior & you are the girl with small hands
and big eyes who never stops asking for more.”
remember that good things come in threes
and so do bad things and always apologize when you’ve done something wrong
but don’t ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining.
your voice is small but don’t ever stop singing
and when they finally hand you heartbreak,
slip hatred and war under your doorstep
and hand you hand-outs on street corners of cynicism and defeat,
you tell them that they really ought to meet your mother.
Happy May Day! Today in Brazil, many people are celebrating Labor Day and the Labor Movement. In the United States, many Americans are celebrating May Day. May Day festivities originate from pagan celebrations. Due to the tilt of the Earth's axis, in the northern USA there is only 8 hours of daylight during the darkest winter days. In the summer, there is more than 17 hours of daylight. May Day celebrates the end of winters' cold darkness and the coming of summer's warm light.
As children, my sister and I would pick bouquets of wild flowers. We would brings these bouquets to neighbors' houses and set them on their doorsteps. We, giggling, would ring the door bell and run away before the neighbors could know who had left the flowers on the doorstep.
