“Now the world’s gonna wake and see, Baltimore and me!”

It’s almost surreal.

I knew Teach For America decisions would be e-mailed on January 21, 2010. I knew they said the decisions would be posted at 8 p.m. But still, I couldn’t help myself from clicking the refresh button on my e-mail at least once every five minutes starting at 8:30 a.m. A night of tossing and turning, dreams of children in my classroom and waking up practically every other hour didn’t help to keep my naturally anxious self from relaxing.

Going to class was painful. My thoughts of lessons and lectures were interrupted by notions of decision letters – good and bad. By the end of each class period, I had thoroughly convinced myself that I wasn’t gonna be offered a spot.

“Well my interview went well, but the one-on-one had some silent moments.”

“Perhaps you came across too strong in the group interview, Katie. I’m sure they don’t like that.”

“Why would they pick you, Katie? There are 35,000 other amazingly qualified applicants.”

Every thought, every self-realization of doubt had decided to flood my brain during my two-hour ethics of journalism class. My pen tapped; my legs bounced; my breakfast went uneaten. Texts were sent to my boyfriend begging for support.

By some miracle, I had managed to calm myself down on my drive home from class. Knowing that it was only 4 p.m. allowed me to persuade myself that there was no use in worrying for the next four hours. Menial tasks on my computer while talking to Andrew on the phone lead me to check my e-mail.

And there it was.

“Congratulations! We are pleased to invite you to join the 2010 Teach For America corps and are excited to assign you to teach elementary school in Baltimore.”

Woah, hold your horses, it’s only 4:30 p.m. Was I just accepted? I then proceeded to read and re-read and re-read again.

Nearly one minute after those congratulatory words embedded themselves into my mind, I had to alert my new best friends, Facebook and Twitter - they’re such gossips that I knew I could count on them to get the word out.

About five minutes later, one of my best childhood friends, Jamie Goldstein, a senior at Vanderbilt University, called me. Between tears of joy and childlike, giddy screaming, we realized that we would both be teaching in Baltimore as 2010 TFA corps member – a total fortunate fluke.

Jamie and I were elementary school buds to the 10^th degree. Sitting together on field trip buses, sharing lunch food (Lunchable pizzas!) and participating in color group activities didn’t even begin to scratch the surface.

My most fond memories of grade school all seem to involve Jamie. My very first day of Kindergarten in Ms. Cowan’s Scooters class introduced me to her. From there, she helped me practice and audition for the oh-so-prestigious Sunsations, our elementary school choir. We sang duets (“In the meadow we can build a snowman…”) and practiced our mini-show, “It’s Saturday.”

We cheated together on in-class spelling tests, and we roomed together on overnight trips. Our parent-child book club, beginning in fifth grade, brought us even closer. WU-TV, our school’s own news program, and Dear Sunny, our school’s student-to-student help club, were a scream.

Outside of class, Jamie and I celebrated every single birthday together – pull-apart sunflower cakes and all. Brownies camp-outs and meetings filled our days. Sleepovers and flat-ironing hair filled our nights. Multiple group projects and partner projects were completed at her or my house.

Funny how life works, isn’t it. The happiness of my elementary school years will be joining me as I tackle primary school all over again. I can’t wait to see what’s in store.

As a Teach For America teacher, I will be making a difference. I will make direct impact on students. I will serve as the bit of hope and encouragement that many students have never had. I will teach not only knowledge, but life smarts, and I will instill my love of learning to all within my reach.

So KP in the City will, from here on out, more aptly be KP in the Classroom….'cause that’s where you’ll find me. Baltimore and me!

Turkey day

Turkey day (or in my case, turkey days) sucked all life out of me. Stuffed even fatter than each turkey I engulfed and woosy from celebratory “I’m thankful for…” toasts, writing and blogging was far from my mind. Food comas ensued, parades were watched and catch-up sleep was a must.

Of course, like everyone else, I said thanks for my family (adopted and real), my friends, my health and my happiness, but I also added a few new “thanks” this year. I attended not one, not two, not three, but FOUR Thanksgiving meals, making me realize just how thankful I am for all the love in my life – love for one another and love for food.

Everyone wanted to host and celebrate the day grounded in gobble-gobble goodness. I gladly obliged and reaped the benefits.

Thanksgiving meal #1: Cuban Thanksgiving meal, Aventura, Wednesday night Though I arrived late, even by Latin standards, to meet up with my boyfriend and his family, I nibbled on a few scraps of pulled pork and moist pumpkin muffins, the latter made by my boyfriend’s sister. I washed down my glass of red with café con leche, a bite of birthday cake and flute of champagne for dessert.

Thanksgiving meal #2: Mom’s Thanksgiving feast- half Italian, half American, Plantation, Thursday afternoon My mom and stepdad have friends who live to cook. They enjoy preparing dishes that guests go ga-ga over – the tried-and-true crowd pleasers. Appetizers began at 1 p.m. Spinach dip, artichoke dip, sliced meats and veggie trays competed with “sausage bread,” a take on my stepdad’s special pepperoni-and-cheese pinwheels. Certainly no lack of food.

Usuals – the turkey, the stuffing, the green bean casserole, the cranberry sauce – made their appearances. My plate, however, was taken over by the sweet potato concoction that makes me salivate even six months before Thanksgiving. Like dessert for dinner, the sweet potato mush is cooked with butter, brown sugar and candied nuts on top. Nothing else on the table is worth eating. But just to add some variety to my meal, I opted for a heaping portion of my mom's delicious salad with chopped apples and Gorgonzola cheese. Italian-style stuffed artichokes and green peppers were also too good to pass up.

Thanksgiving meal #3: Boyfriend’s family’s intimate dinner – the non-thanksgiving Thanksgiving, Plantation, Thursday night Andrew’s sister, a chef extraordinaire in her own right, doesn’t do the whole “you gotta have turkey on Thanksgiving.” Instead, she prepares a medium-rare rib roast with a perfectly seared outside. Cranberry sauce is spruced with oranges and apples; mashed potatoes are chunky and with the skin, just like I like. While I was too full to take anything more than one bite of each, I was able to enjoy a taste. Andrew, his parents, his sister, her boyfriend and I laughed as even the cat begged for snack.

Thanksgiving meal #4: Daddy’s Thanksgiving extravaganza – Jewish-style, Cooper City, Friday Let me put this out there – my dad is an awesome cook. I called him frantically the week before turkey day begging and pleading for a free-range turkey (I am on a new kick, adamantly supporting free-range and organic items because artificial drugs, pesticides and plumpers disgust me). Without so much as a complaint, he ordered my special turkey from Whole Foods.

Turns out, my turkey prepared by my stepmom was the most moist I have ever eaten. Even its gravy was juicy. In true Jewish tradition, food abounded. As if an entire turkey weren’t enough, sweet spiral ham was served. Full trays of green bean casserole, stuffing, sweet potato casserole and cucumber salad filled the serving table. My dad’s moist pumpkin bread and my grammey’s chocolate-covered, crunchy Chinese noodles had me fingering the dessert tier before dessert was even served.

My immediate family is notorious for too much food. Left-overs were boxed and sent home with guests, and that that couldn’t find a home was frozen for later enjoyment.

Spending time with family (especially my baby brother, home on leave from the Coast Guard Academy) and friends at all my meals made this November even more special. I did, however, somehow manage to miss the pumpkin pie at all my meals.

It’s funny – normally, I hate Thanksgiving, but not this year. Though my family didn’t set aside differences like the pilgrims and the Native Americans did, I was able to celebrate with all those whom I care about. There’s always enough of me to go around…too bad I can’t say the same about all the sweet potatoes I devoured.

I am the light of the world.

Once you’ve seen what I’ve seen, you can’t help but yearn to share it - to shed some light on the community that has graciously let you in with open eyes and open hearts.

Sidneia, my fearless fisherwoman of a subject, had me follow in her footsteps for a week. Her deepest fears, weakness and secrets revealed themselves explicitly and implicitly. Her biggest accomplishments and feats did too.

Her heritage dictates children by age 20 and a sedentary life of daily sweeping and cooking. Kicking soccer balls, climbing coconut trees like a Spiderwoman and heaving and hoeing on fishing boats are simply out of the question. But Sidneia doesn’t care. She does it all, and most of the time, she does it better than any boy and man out there.

I wonder if she knows her American counterparts – those in the concrete jungles of New York and Miami, and in the high-heeled Capitol of Washington, D.C. – have already bent cultural barriers and stereotypes. I deliberately say bent instead of broken. It’s no surprise that firefighting women, lady plummers and female construction workers live in the shadow of laughter. Nonetheless, they still pay their bills and provide food on their tables.

While many of us in the United States take affirmative action for granted, Sidneia still remains the lone fisherwoman in her town though men and women claim they accept her. Tolerance is slow to take hold.

But the world is rapidly changing, even in communities that have trouble finding a spot on the map, such as Icapuí. Stability’s definition is unknown, or at least invisible to lady warriors, who live to bend societal norms and challenge daily standards. Sometimes acceptance on a larger scale just requires attention – perhaps in the form of a documentary; maybe as a magazine feature.

To communicate the challenges of her cultural heritage and to show that Sidneia is not just another female success story will require page-turning empathy for manual labor (or better yet, WOmanual labor), for antiquated traditions in small towns and for Sidneia as woman.

Her message, one of power and hope, is inspiring. Her “can-do” attitude had ability to light my spark, and it will keep me burning to share her story.

Woes on a flight over the Amazon

I’ve never hated 4 a.m. as much as I did today.

It’s not the painstaking time of day. It’s not fumbling through my things to find where I hid my passport. It’s leaving Icapuí.

The same potholes that haunted me my first night, cooed me to sleep on my four-hour taxi journey back to the Fortaleza airport. Portuguese “hellos” and “thank yous” now roll off my tongue.

Sitting on TAM’s 5C, sipping my last guarana and ogling my photos, I ruminate first experiences and first meetings that have since morphed into life lessons and everlasting memories.

It’s hard to forget the little faces and little shoes; the sheets that double as blankets in the brutal heat; the mototaxis threatening to send you flying. Plastic Havaianas will never look or feel the same. Naps in bed will be passé; only hammocks will do.

Strangers I met seven days ago are like family – goodbyes are dreaded and heartbreaking. Pasa Tempo chocolate cookie morsels still linger on the back of my molars. My fingers still smell like churrasco from last night’s feast.

We go abroad to learn other cultures – to appreciate them and to understand them. Somehow, by the end of this adventure, I have learned more about myself. Even when my skin disagrees, I can blend in. I can see poverty and despair, yet rejoice in its happiness. I can throw a “thumbs up” and be everyone’s friend.

Pity is for the ignorant – those who think that money is life and civilization must be modernized. With a few tree trunks and smiles brighter than the sun, communities such as Icapuí tug on the strings of the heart, swearing to leave a tattoo forever.

Redonda Beach, Icapuí, Brazil

In the still heat that creates a natural sauna, faces hang out of windows. Bodies cocoon themselves in thickly woven hammocks. Feet find solace in the clay-colored sand.

These people think they are ugly. Their two-toned, sun-soaked faces beg to differ and they don't protest my third eye.

I can see their fathers, grandfathers and great-

grandfathers legacies shining through. Their wrinkles speak of fisherman's tales. Their smiles display a simplistic happiness that only innocence allows.

Children play in the streets and on the beach in such a way that all children do – games of chase and catch turn into soccer games on the sand. They use all their might to hoist their peanut-sized bodies onto jangada boats that have washed ashore, pretending to be fisherman. The workout they are getting now will sculpt their bodies without even a whisper of a dumbbell. Some of them play on weekdays when they should be in school.

Their mothers sweep steadfastly, keeping what little they have pristine. Even the salt from the sea can't wither away their homes or their pride.

What the people of Redonda lack in richness, they make up for in color. Green, as though it has squeezed itself from a lime tree, blankets the bricks of homes. Pinks, yellows and blues have forgotten how to clash here.

A spoonful of sticky, homemade cashew candy and a swig of Guarana soda make lobster woes disappear. Paradise, without all the accessories, is still paradise - happiness, pride and kindness radiates as strong as the sun.

The all-powerful journalist

What is it about journalists? Everywhere I go, people are talking about what they read in the newspaper, what they saw on television and what they read online. Most people know that it’s the journalist’s job to get that information and disperse it.

No matter what country I am in, when people hear I am a journalist, they equate me to an all-powerful being – someone who can put their picture in print and tell their story. Sometimes, they think I will make them famous. Even when they don’t know the correct term to call me, they are quick to discover that a camera will capture their image and a recorder will save their voice and thoughts. Things are no different in Icapuí.

In Icapuí, an impoverished fishing town with no more than a few thousand people, outside influence is minimal. Everyone seems to know everyone. Outsiders, even those from other parts of Brazil, are rare.

With my arrival, the Icapuians feel important. To them, only important people have their picture taken; only important people get interviewed. This is, of course, what they see on TV and hear from their friends.

I found that if I shows an ounce of interest in them, they beam from the inside out, trying to remain humble and not let their smiles grow to broad. Even though they know I am American and they won’t see my article, they let me ask my questions and take their pictures. They especially love when I flip my digital camera around to let them see themselves. Children burst into uncontrollable giggles; grandparents flash toothless smiles. Is this is first time they have seen a camera?

I remain professional so that they will respect me and others like me, though I have no idea if another journalist will visit. They thank me in Portuguese and give me a "thumbs up" - the universal sign for acceptance.

From the taxi drivers who don’t ask for a penny until they have not only dropped you off but have returned you home safely to the waiters at restaurants who suggest the tastiest dishes instead of the most expensive, the people of Icapui are honest and hard-working. Without outside influence, they might not even know that there are places where taxis run their clocks double time to get more money or people who stand customers up.

Here in Icapui, I feel like a parent whose children don’t yet know there is no Santa Claus. I could never bring myself to spoil their views of the friendly American journalist who loves to ask them questions. It is for the Icapuians that I feel a strong commitment to accurate and ethical reporting. I know that these people are expecting me to return to the United States conveying nothing but their sense of utmost pride for their community. Plus, I know that the majority of readers in the US will never venture to Icapui; thus, I must do more than tell stories from my perspective. I need to remain unbiased and completely balanced as I report on everything I see, here and experience.

As a journalist, I can’t help but feel a yearning drive to advocate for these people: for the children who run in the scorching sand without shoes because their parents have no money, for the 16-year-old who is pregnant with her third child and for the fisherwoman, the only one of her kind, who has overcome monstrous obstacles to become accepted as a lady of the sea.

Though I understand that this advocacy may, in turn, be construed as unbalanced, I am certain I’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who would visit Icapui, even as a fly on the wall, without a sense of compassion and a desire to advocate. This advocacy must remain subdued, but nonetheless it will underscore any article.

I never thought of myself as powerful, but I know that I have the power to choose words and pictures; I have the ability to share with others what they can't share about themselves. Only now am I truly able to understand the concept of a journalist as a gatekeeper. My great responsibility is not just to the journalistic profession, but to humanity as a whole.

The never-ending day

After a two-hour drive to Orlando, an eight-hour red-eye flight to Sao Paulo, a three-hour layover at the airport and a three-and-a-half hour flight to Fortaleza, I patted myself on the back in silent congratulation for skillfully arriving in Brazil after traveling by myself. Then, I realized my pat was premature. I still had 5 more hours to go…a trip from urban Fortaleza to costal Icapuí, where my story about impoverished Brazilians, most of whom have never left Icapuí, will unfold. Five more hours of travel after a painstaking 16, but at least I was done with the “scary” part – the flying.

Little did I know, I actually have a bigger fear: bus travel.

My journey across the Cearán state begins at the Fortaleza bus station at 3 p.m. My ticket is handwritten. And as I enter the bus, I learn my seat is assigned to two of us. “No problem,” I am told, and the driver just crosses out her number and writes another one.

My cloth seat on this early 1990s motor coach has the stench of decades’ past. I try hard to get comfortable squished into the window, but I feel certain that five more hours of sitting in transportation vehicles will surely result in bedsores. Before my body has time to protest, we are off. And just as soon as we get going, we stop at the first stop.

Bus stops don’t exist. People are burped out on the gravel and sand. Sometimes there’s a wooden stake in the ground indicting a known stopping point; most of the time there’s not. And occasionally a passenger will murmur something in Portuguese, making the driver divert from the well-worn-path of a road to drop him off elsewhere.

The driver reminds me of an excited 15-year-old with a permit. Sometimes he swerves off the road to avoid bumps and holes. Other times he rolls over them at full speed. My stomach, my thighs and my cheeks (both sets) jiggle. Worst of all, the driver speeds up and then slams on the breaks, as if he has no idea where he will stop.

Every time the bus stops my heart and stomach drop in tandem. I’m not sure whether to vomit from motion sickness or pray that the entire bus doesn’t tip. But once I get used to stopping short, I try to enjoy this leg of my trip.

Looking out the window, my eyes have new perspective. A sad perspective.

There are stray dogs, stray cats, stray chickens. There are even stray people. The pathetic cows and horses don’t have enough meat on their bones to keep their ribs from jolting out. The chickens wouldn’t be enough for one chicken finger.

The trees are beautifully aged, but unlike people, they enjoy their protruding roots that look arthritis stricken and their gnarled branches indicating their age. These trees are so massive and so old they threaten to compete with the majesty of Animal Kingdom’s man-made, concrete one.

At some point during the journey, people are building a bridge like beavers do: whittling down the wood with machetes and their bare hands, and then stacking them.

Children jump on mounds of rocks and play in leaves. Toys are sparse. The bus whizzes by the kids, but they remain unfazed. Their parents, sitting on plastic, white chairs outside, aren’t the least bit nervous.

The dwellings I pass need not be referred to as houses, but only as homes. There are homes without walls; walls without homes. The sun has taken its toll by muting their hand-painted colors. I can see inside. Many of the homes have one television set where families gather to watch. I equate it to the days when people used to sit around the radio in American to hear Roosevelt speak (or so I’ve read).

I find myself hoping that the towns will improve, but they don’t. In fact, the further east we travel, the worse they get. The handmade homes look as though they will crumble like cake from the sheer speed of our bus, but they don’t.

McDonald’s hasn’t made its way here yet, but I’m pretty sure it won’t. A hamburger would likely cost too much. I feel ashamed I even brought my eyeliner.

People, mostly in bathing suits, hop-on and hop-off the bus. Sometimes their ride is 5 minutes; other times it’s hours. The driver’s right hand man walks up and down the bus charging different people different rates depending when they hopped on.

By now, I’ve been at least thirty-six hours without a shower. I can taste the filth in my teeth; I can feel it beneath my nail beds.

I have no concept of time whatsoever. I have no phone and no watch. My best guess is it’s late at night. The sky, which has turned pitch-black, is encapsulating, but not with the typical comfort its enveloping blanket normally provides. As the night grows darker, so do my fears.

The bus roars down a pothole-filled, sand road from Aracati to Icapui (or so that’s what I think this “road” connects). It creates a sandy wake. I can feel the rocks and holes on the path. I’m jiggling uncontrollably now.

I try so desperately to suppress the sounds that come out as whimpers every few moments as we take screeching turns. Turbulence doesn’t even begin to compare.

Every once in a while the bus comes to a jolting, swerving stop. Someone is thrown to the road, and we are on our way again not even 20 seconds later. There’s no way of knowing or calculating when the driver will abruptly stop, especially in the dark. I tell myself to imagine I’m on a jerky rollercoaster. When that stops working, I remind myself of why I am in Brazil – to write a moving story about an extraordinary fisherwoman and the boundaries she has overcome. This seems to do the trick.

By the time I miraculously arrive in Icapui, I have decided that I can easily understand why only a few of its people leave. It’s not that they don’t want to, it’s that they are probably too afraid.