A little politics shuffled in with all the science and medical stories.

Ahh, here we are, starting the last leg of our trip. I feel so grateful to have been given the opportunity to participate in this year's Atlantis Project, stay on this absolutely gorgeous island for the past five weeks, and live (and almost die) with these crazy kids. I'll save the sappy, sad-to-go-home blog post for next week and spend today's post reflecting on my time working in the government.

On Friday, Laura and I ended our work in the city hall. For such an unconventional internship, I really felt like I learned a lot about Portuguese, or at least Angran, politics. Local government officials really seem to care about maintaining their historical traditions, more so than the mainland, which has abandoned such traditions for decades now. Without the persistence of the city hall, I doubt festivals such as Sanjoaninas would still be around. And it says something about the particular governments on Terceira that this is the only island still celebrating long-standing traditions. (As the Azoreans say, there are eight islands and a carnival.) I'm even more surprised that Terceira continues to host these festivals in the face of economic crisis. This year, the city hall has required festival-goers to purchase bracelets if they want to go to the concerts; in past years, the concerts have always been free. After seeing the crowd outside the concert venue last night (the first night of paid concerts), I'm impressed that so many people were willing to pay for the bracelets. It seems like these festivals keep on happening year after year due to both the government's willingness to pay for them and the islanders' demands. It's a beneficial symbiotic relationship the people have with their politicians, something we definitely lack in America.

Over the past five weeks, Laura and I have toured the island in search of abused dogs, outdated billboards, and uncleaned touradas. What we've witnessed in this process has been the project of democracy: a government listening to its citizens (most often when they complain about their neighbors, but it's democratic nonetheless). My goal for the internship was to see how a democracy functions on such a small scale (55,000 residents), without what I thought would be external lobbyist pressure. While I didn't see much outside corporations or governments pressuring the Angran city hall, I will say that democracy seems to run much smoother with a smaller populace. You may be thinking, 'Wait, Singer, there are small city governments in America, too. What makes this so different?' Well, from what I gather, there is less need to comply with national regulations and red tape since the Azores are actually an autonomous region from Portugal. It's easier to follow through on citizen complaints if the population doesn't exceed 25,000 and the complaints don't have to be filed away in national offices somewhere off in the mainland before they can be resolved.

I know next summer when (hopefully!) I'm interning in DC, or even Raleigh, I'll look back on my summer here wishing I could have such a hands-on experience. Everyone we worked with was so happy to answer our questions and talk about their little city. There's a sense of pride here that I want to see when I get back home. I know we're going to miss this place, but fortunately our days in the sun have given us little reminders of our stay on the island in the form of sun tan and freckles.

See you all soon!
Singer