Education in a Thin Country: Conference in Brasilia

Somehow time got away from me and I've been terrible about updating my blog! At the end of May I went to a Fulbright Regional Enhancement Seminar in Brasilia, Brazil with about 40 other Fulbrighters. Although it was a fun time, it was much different than I imagined: cue all stereotypical images of beaches in Rio de Janeiro. First off, the land for the city was selected in the mid-1960's to become Brazil's capital city and all of the buildings were designed by the same person. At the time it was a very modern idea to build a city from scratch with the license to design it to exact specifications, but the result is actually quite boring. Things are so planned, sterile, and homogenous that it feels very inhuman. Plus, the only people who live in the city are senators and government employees making nightlife nearly nonexistent. So basically my bikini, sunscreen, and party pants were useless.

The good part of the conference was that since the city was so boring, there was a lot of time to get to know all of the other Fulbrighters. There were some incredible presentations about the research happening in the southern cone and we had some great discussions about international relations. I now have contacts in Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentina and I'm hoping to be able to visit a few people before I leave.

The main craziness of the conference was that my friend Randall from Santiago came down with appendicitis and had emergency surgery in a Brazilian hospital! Megan (the other Santiago Fulbrighter) and I went with him to the hospital, but weren't much help considering we didn't speak Portuguese. Luckily the conference director went with us and acted as our translator. He recovered well, but had to stay in Brasilia for an extra week before the doctor would let him fly back. Poor guy!

Government buildings, city architecture, etc: