Still no phone...

but I'm coping. My blog friend Ali from Mozambique is coming down this weekend to spend some time in Rio and we're going to get together for the first time. Should be fun.

I've learned how to really economize water. It feels like three weeks, but if I'm counting right, it's only been about 12 days that we've been living like this. Still...twelve days is a lot.

I tried my hand at making cebiche tonight and I have to say that I was less than pleased with the results...I don't know why I thought it was going to be so good. I never liked it in Peru, but I've been having this CRAVING for cebiche...maybe it was just a misplaced sushi desire. I think I like wasabi better than lime for my raw fish, thank you very much!

I'm also learning how to reimagine my life as a single woman. Tiago and I parted more or less amicably the other week...it's a bit odd to be putting this out on the internet, but heck, I write all sorts of other personal information on this blog. We were...and not we're not. There's not much more to say on that end, other than that I'm doing so well it actually makes me feel a little bad. God is being so incredibly good to me and changing the way I look at everything, so that even though I know that I love(d) him, I don't feel the incredible heartache I expected. I just wake up every morning and pray for him and all the other people I love and then jump out of bed with a night's worth of bad dreams in my eyes and a praise song in my heart...which isn't a bad way to live, actually.

There are all sorts of things that change when you're single and it's always awkward to re-discover them. Like not breaking eye contact with interesting strangers...smiling at people without worrying if it is going to give them the wrong idea...no more early morning "hi, have a wonderful day" phone calls...no late night "sleep well" cellphone messages...wearing whatever the heck you want to when going out because you don't have someone else by your side (it can be embarrassing when one partner is wearing shorts and a tee shirt and the other is in heels and serious jewlery...and that's happened on more than one occasion!)...watching whatever movies I want...wearing inappropriate pj's around the house at all times of the day...no more other's people's opinions, favorite foods in the refrigerator, or beauty products left in the sink. Though I guess I was the one leaving beauty products in the sink more than him...:)

It's slightly harder to find people willing to do things at the drop of a hat, and I'm having to re-learn that adventuresome spirit that used to take me everywhere alone. Now I like to have someone with me, and it's partly out of habit and partly because this city has gotten so much more dangerous that being alone actually makes me nervous. I've never been like that before. But sometimes I sit on the bus and I think about how I would react if someone came by to rob us...and I realize that this isn't healthy or normal. Anxiety has gotten tied up in my shoulders and all the tiny muscles of my lower back, a constant reminder that living in sin (because worry is sin) never pays off. I'm taking steps to change that, to let my faith blossom and trust that God is bigger than my itsy bitsy "real world' fears. But it's never an overnight thing. I just hope that two months from now I'll be able to look back and see how much these tiny steps have added up...