Thirty Minutes to Midnight

I didn't think it was possible for my life to go any faster.

We are down to the wire - I have exactly one month before departure. Embarkment. Going over the rainbow. Snapping the cord.

Today I sat down with my host mother and we talked about my last few weeks here. I looked at my calendar - that's still, what, thirty days, right? That's such a long time. This calendar fills up an entire page.

Why do I feel like I have to do everything now?

Why don't I get it?

...

Wait.

Does that mean I'm going home? No, really. Does it?


But what is home, really? This place feels like home, doesn't it? Everything is so familiar. The shape of the pillow has molded to my head. The seat of the car. My classes at school. The adorable stuffed kangaroo sitting on a shelf in my room.

The walls around the building. The gym on the ground floor. The set of gates by the front. Our parking spaces. The canopy of leaves that shadows this street. The sounds of honking cars in the evening. The streetlight that is secured in place by a ladder.

Tall buildings. Constant noise. Webs of telephone lines. Rusty billboard signs. The fact that I can see the mall from my house.

Okay, so I still haven't gotten over that one.

My brain just doesn't compute. What do you mean, I'm going home? That can't be. I have a pile of books I need to need. I have places I want to go. I have things I want to do.

So, what do I do? Do I just get up and leave? Do I just take everything that I brought and let the rest stay? Do I still speak Portuguese with everybody?

Do people really speak English? Does this happen?

...

It goes through the back of every exchange student's mind. Will I live this year in isolation? This semester? This month?

For some, the answer is yes. Some people don't make lasting connections with people on their exchange years. Some people never learn the language of their host country. Some people don't look around them.

For others, the answer is no.

...

It just seems do definitive. You're going home. Cut the ropes. End of story. Sorry. Curtain falls. Show's over. Go gag yourself and stop whining.

And then, once you've said your heart-breaking, tear-wrenching, sorrowful good-byes, what's next? You pick up your bags, and you get on a plane.

And you sit there. On a plane.

And I guess you think. Maybe you talk with other people. Maybe you talk because you don't know what to think, or how to think anymore. Because it's happening again.

...

So what do I do now? What's left?


Perhaps it's all in my head. Maybe this is actually a dream. Maybe I just got attacked by an incubus and I'm hallucinating. That's a logical explanation.


Or maybe it was the nargles. 


That doesn't even make any sense. 


Okay. Right. What's left?


Well, I'm here. That counts for something, right? I have my physical possessions. If I touch them, maybe I'll remember something. I have my camera, with fresh pictures on it. I have my computer, with old pictures. And there's always Facebook. And Skype. 


Oh, Skype. My primary telephone.


I still speak this new language...basically. I have my clothes. My journal. My defunct cell phone. 


And I still remember things. I wrote things down. I took pictures. I clicked my mental save button. 


But when I get back, what do I do? Everybody will be happy to see me, okay. But then...what's left? Do I just pick up where I left off? 


Will my dogs remember me?


...

Such are the thoughts that are running through my mind, one more before leaving. And then I think, what about those people I've met? Those people in the "Brazil" category of my mind? What about them?

Does life just continue, like clockwork? Does everybody just go about their business, going to school, watching movies, tanning at the beach, eating sushi?

Do the hands on the clock keep ticking?

Why is that a problem?

...

I think there's a lot of fear. A lot of uncertainty. A lot of rush to finish things. To get it all done. To make it last long enough so I can say, "Well, when I was an exchange student..."

Which begs the question: do we ever stop being exchange students?

Just because I touch down in my home country, does that mean this is over?

Did it stop?

Does it stop?

...

Why don't I get it?

Tiradentes

Two weeks ago, the 21st of April, was Tiradentes.

There was a protest at Praça Portugal.

Quick history lesson: Tiradentes was a Brazilian that shuffled gold and other valuable resources from the mines of Vila Rica, the capital of the state Minas Gerais, to Rio de Janeiro. His trips to Rio explosed him to liberal ideas, including those by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Locke, and the American Revolution. He became increasingly dissatified with the amount of exploitation that was being done to Brazil by the crown in Portugal.

A Marcha Contra a Corrupção - The March Against Corruption.
In our government. In our finances.

Tiradentes joined with a number of other like-minded citizens. They wanted to create a new republic with a capital at São João de Rei and start a university. Their flag was a triangle surrounded by the Latin words "Libertas Quae Sera Tamen", or "Freedom, Even If It Be Late".

This is a national organization.

His plan was, on a day of derrama, or a day of high dissatisfaction with the government (there is no translation for this), to take to the streets and proclaim the Republic.

With the blessing of the police, we too, took to the streets.

Unfortunately for Tiradentes, one member of his group, Joaquim Silveiro dos Reis, betrayed the movement to the governor, and Tiradentes was forced to flee to Rio.

And people watched. Cars honked in encouragement. People joined us. 

He tried to reorganize his movement there, and he agreed to meet Joaquim Silveiro dos Reis in Rio de Janeiro, not knowing that Joaquim was the one that betrayed the movement. Tiradentes was arrested on May 10, 1789.

While others passed by, forgetting the significance of this date.
It's just another annoying protest, their faces said.

His trial and the trial of nine others took almost three years to complete. The Queen of Portugal lowered the sentence of the other nine to degredation instead of death. Tiradentes was hanged on April 21, 1792, in Rio de Janeiro, in the plaza now named after him (Praça Tiradentes). His body was cut and a document was drawn up in his blood, to declare him infamous. His head was displayed in Vila Rica and parts of his body in Rio de Janeiro, as a warning and a reminder to those who oppose the crown.

And now we do what Tiradentes could not.

Today, April 21 is a national holiday in Brazil, a day where students organize revolts and protest against the government. There is a city in Minas Gerais bearing his name, and several other Latin American countries also honor him by naming major avenues in his honor. The proposed flag is now the flag of Minas Gerais, the only difference being that the triangle was changed to red.

And we, too, remember Tiradentes.

- Jake