by Jonathan P. FloydAttempting to summarize our Brazilian adventure in a few paragraphs is like trying to describe the sunset that we witnessed on our final night in Rio de Janeiro. I can describe the scene, I can show you a picture, but I’ll never be able to explain the contrast of the warm evening sun against the crisp breeze of the ocean. I could never convey the internal summation of emotions taking place in myself and my classmates as our boat returned to a Brazilian port for the last time.
Three distinct experiences frame our travels throughout Brazil. We were introduced to the country by first touring its most remote region, the Amazon. Our beds were hammocks slung either across every available corner of our riverboat or under the canopy of the world’s largest rainforest. Following the Amazon we traveled to Vitoria and Vila Velha. It was there that we truly embraced Brazilian culture. We were hosted by local students who quickly became our friends. These students not only took us into their homes but they gave us a glimpse of life on another continent . . . another hemisphere. Our beds were spread across a city, tucked in tiny apartments protected by iron gates and fences or in grand houses overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Rio de Janeiro was our final destination south of the equator. We visited the Brazil that most people know of and that James Taylor sang of. At night our heads rested in the tiny bedrooms of a hostel near Ipanema beach where undoubtedly many travelers before us have found themselves retiring after a late night of Samba only to awake early to swim or surf the “morning watch” as the sun crept up across the eastern horizon.
For me personally, this was an amazing trip. I will never forget the rush of emotions that overtook me as I flew a hang glider across the bright blue Brazilian sky as waves crashed on the bright white beach below. However, for all of the amazing things that I saw and did in Brazil, I am reminded that the best trips are often more about the people you’re with than the places you go. I am ever grateful for the variety of personalities, life experiences and even the quick-wits inherit in my classmates and professors. Each and every person contributed to something that I will forever be grateful.
Crosby, Stills, and Nash once sang that “when you see the Southern Cross for the first time, you’ll understand just why you came this way.” The first time that I saw the Southern Cross (a constellation only visible from the southern hemisphere) I spent the night alone on the aft deck of our riverboat in the Amazon, staring at a seemingly infinite universe. At the time I wasn’t sure why I was in Brazil. Now I can see how I’ve grown by studying abroad. In Brazil I realized that experiencing foreign cultures in-depth and first hand not only helps you to appreciate and understand those cultures, but also your own. I returned from Brazil with a deep appreciation of what I had left behind in the states, I feel like my priorities are more lucid . . . I now realize just how blessed (and lucky) that I am.
Brazil now means something very special to every single person who ventured there this summer with WVU College of Law. Some of us found a place where we can “expatriot” to one day, others realized that the Amazon rainforest is just as vulnerable as it is rugged and one of us might have just met a couple of characters who will make it into his next novel. I encourage you to seek out our stories, experiences and insights. You may never understand what that final sunset was like, but you might just realize what it means to each of us who witnessed it.
