Day 7 (by Natália Londoño)
Waking up, getting ready and getting on the “Metrô” to get to Botafogo feels natural by now. As we get used to the city, the museum and the work, we become more comfortable and more efficient. Rio starts to feel more and more like home, and the thought of going back to a place without tapioca and açai in every corner feels scary. The people at Museu do Indio have also started to get more used to our presence, and every day more conversations spark between us.
However, the work itself doesn’t feel familiar. Every question we ask, and every conversation we have sheds light on a new thing we didn’t know about any given language. We discover new things minute by minute and we apply what we learn in previous days to what we are doing right now. For every question we answer, there are a million unanswered questions and mysteries about these languages, and I think that is what makes it so easy to keep doing this day by day. The intrigue and excitement of what we might learn the next session is hard to contain.
So, if you are wondering what each one of us was excited about today, here is how are day looked. Today’s morning and afternoon sessions looked very similar. Me (Natalia), Cal, and Karoline worked together with Francy to document count/mass distinctions in Nheengatu. While we did that, Suzi and Anari took on the same task for Patxohã. The rest of our crew, Vidhya, Tiffany, and Ivona, worked on animacy in Marubo with Nelly.
In the afternoon, we were all exhausted. All the excitement, work, and new discoveries took a toll on our body so we decided to have a chill afternoon. The professors moved out of the house today, leaving a feeling of emptiness around the house. To take our minds off this, we decided to go to Ipanema (a beach close by) and have a students’ meal together.
We went to a trendy restaurant called Felize café chosen by Cal and Karoline that featured made-in-house gelato. After this nice evening out, we came home early and now we are about to sleep. Sweet dreams to all, goodnight.
Research Excursion Program 