Daniel and the gang

I've gotten a few questions about Daniel and my living situation in Brasil so here's the background on how I got set up with my host:

Daniel and his two siblings, Isabella and Junior, are 23, 20, and 28 years-old, respectively. They live alone as their father recently passed and their mother lives in the states. (The vast majority of twenty-somethings in Brasil live with their families due to the expense of housing and the meager pay of most jobs). I met Daniel through a family friend in Oklahoma because Daniel spent five years there attending a series of schools--a small baptist college, a community college, and eventually the University of Oklahoma. Because of this, he speaks English fluently and even has a slight Oklahoma drawwwl. He told me that he really enjoyed Oklahoma (hard for me to believe) and hopes to return to OU to finish his degree. He specifically mentioned how great the "facilities" were at OU--the gym, the library, the classrooms--and how they are much much better than even the best universities in Brasil. This I believe and it made me appreciate the quality of the infrastructure that exists in the states.

In fact, it highlights for one of the things I've found on this trip and my travels to India, China, and other parts of the world: how what counts for "development" so often means the quality of infrastructure: the roads, public transport, buildings, sidewalks, street signs, etc . . . and how it is the kind of mundane and politically unsexy public imrovements that end up holding so much importance in our perceptions of a place and the lives of its residents.

Back to the living situation: Daniel and his siblings don't really work, though Daniel is currently searching for work. Junior DJ's hip-hop a couple nights a week at a local club. Isabella has evidently dropped out from one of the best public universities in Rio (private universities are generally of lower quality here) which Daniel told me today with disappointment and frustration. And Daniel dropped out of OU in August and has not worked or gone to school since. It's hard to generalize too much based on my limited experience but it seems the young people here that i've met do not display or exhibit strong professional ambition. The question of what to do with one's life that has so preoccupied my own twenties and that of my fellow overachieving friends does not seem to provoke the same inspiration (or anxiety) here. When asked why this is so, my mind turns to the facile explanations at my disposal: a culture that celebrates joie de vivre, the lack of incentives to strive when one can live at home until thirty, or an economy and society that provides few exciting professional options for those without parental connections or wealth. Under such circumstances, the questions of what one will become may seem to young people here too abstract, distant, or worse, pointless. But I don't know.

Daniel, for his part, hopes to return to OU to finish his degree and has told me about his desire to achieve professional success in his life. He shared this with me as if conscious that his desires are not common among his friends and his family. I've accompanied him on two job interviews already this week, for managerial positions in a restaurant and a hotel. To give you a sense of the pay scale, the restaurant manager position (which he really wants) would pay 1600 reais a month (or $700), a salary he described as "really good."

I'll finish this post witha few quick nitty gritty details about my day. It's still rainy here so I saw Blood Diamond (worth seeing), bought a cell phone (you can all call me now :), and tonight I go clubbing.