Life goal realized!

All my life, I’ve wanted big, curly hair. I loved seeing African-American models in magazines, and not-so-secretly wished that I could be them. Polished ebony skin and eyes the color of jaboticabas...but I’ve come to terms with my translucent white skin and I love that my eyes change color with my clothes or my mood. But I’ve always been kind of sad about my hair. I can't help but check out the “black power” girls on the metro that pull off the big earrings and scarf without looking like rejects from some 1970’s costume party...ahhhhhhhh, to have thick, black curls...


Today, thanks to Carnaval and R$15, I discovered that I can be all I ever wanted to be!













Note: This is just a preview picture…I’m going on a church retreat for Carnaval, and my alter ego WILL BE ATTENDING as well…yayyyyyyyyy!!!

Procrastinating

There's a good half-hour before my night class starts, and I could very well be doing some research on the internet for the group project we're supposed to present after Carnaval...but I am running extremely low on enthusiasm and drive. The professor isn't dynamic enough and he's repeating about half of what our last class was over, thanks to students who are vocal but pay no attention and have to have everything fed to them at least three times. I never thought I'd be complaining about the slow pace of lectures in Portuguese, but I am. Three hours can drag on...and on...and on...but at least I'm getting really good at listening in Portuguese and daydreaming/writing in English. Multitasking. I'm a true post-modern.

My house is getting fixed. The handyman came over yesterday, put a big black tarp over everything in the room and then proceeded to put a light layer of thin concrete inside the hole. This resulted in black concrete splashed walled and door, which are vaguely Dalmatian-like. I'm not sleeping in there until it's over, so it's not a big deal, but I am dreading the clean up. I'm going to have to take a toothbrush to the cracks in the floor...

This next week is Carnaval. I still have no plans, but I'm surprisingly not worried. If I don't travel, I'm going to hole up in my house and do a spiritual retreat. At any rate, I can't wait for things to start up for real after Carnaval. Timonis, tutoring kids at PV, etc...

And now I'm off to class. Wish me luck!

p.s.

note how there is one tiny piece of ceiling actually ON the bed...(the white thing by the pillows in the middle)...

and how the large ones fell all around but not on me...

I am extremely thankful.

As are my limbs and head.

:)

Chicken Little

7:00 am, alarm rings. I stagger from the bed, turn off the alarm and unplug the cell phone from the charger. It feels much too early. Five more minutes of sleep couldn't hurt...

After just tucking myself under the blankets (it's been unseasonably cold here, and very rainy), I hear a soft tapping sound. Ploft. Tick. Like hail. And as I attempt to look out the window-

CRACK!

SMASH!

THE SKY IS FALLING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A white cloud has enveloped the room. Breathing dust, I look around to find that there is a square meter of ceiling on the floor. And a gigantic hole where it used to be.

This is what my room looked like at 7:02 am:





It's cleaned up now; I called my landlords in about as close to hysterics as Jenna gets, seeing as how a good 150 pounds of ceiling almost fell on my head. They came over and took away the rubbish, swept, mopped, called the "pedreiro" and we're set to have someone here to repair the ceiling tomorrow. I have excellent landlords...they really went above and beyond the call of duty.

There's a damp spot on the ceiling now; our guess is that the pigeons made a nest in one of the drainage pipes above my house, or in the apartment next door. And the pipe got blocked, overflowed, and caused enough humidity to build up that part of the ceiling separated...thankfully, it looks like the rest of the ceiling is solid.

I missed my spinning class and my hair is covered in chalky dust. Now that it's mostly cleaned up, and I'm half-lucid, I'm going to take a shower, then sleep some more. I think I deserve it! Because I'm going to spend the weekend cleaning everything: my makeup cases and office supplies are covered in a fine layer of dust; it's all over my bedsheets, blankets, pillows; my filing system broke and I'll have to dust each file, perhaps each paper, separately. Not to mention the laundry that now needs to be done. I'm NOT doing it by hand. I'll just have to drag it around to the neighbors that have washing machines...

But at least I wasn't underneath it when it fell. Praise the Lord...and damn those dang pigeons!

But I was talking about brownies...

We made brownies and black bean soup for dinner, and I ate it while sitting in my laundry sink, which is much more comfortable than it sounds.

The brownies were from a mix. I could give you the recipe for the soup, but we didn’t follow it. It was one of our “finds” from the magazine ripping. Basically, you take onions, garlic, green peppers, and sautée in olive oil with salt, cumin, curry powder, pepper, hot pepper, a dash of chili powder…all to taste. Add black beans and bean juice and a a can of coconut milk If we’d had cilantro, it would have been used, but no one wanted to go out and buy some. We squeezed limes into the finished product and it was so great that we each ate two bowls.

Ellen tells me I talk about food a lot. I think I might have an obsession...but I like good food SO much. (But that is a topic for another blog posting...)

Which is why I like being a student at my college, because I just discovered that students and alumni receive a discount of 20% at the best steakhouse in Rio. Which is where I took Ellen on Thursday night, and where we are still slightly woozy from the amount of cow we consumed. I could never be a very happy vegetarian!

Saturday

Ellen says that today we were lazy. Whatever. She’s the one that ate almost the whole pan of brownies.

Maybe I should start from the beginning, and point out that this is a Saturday, that Ellen has a hacking, evil, phlegmy-old-man cough that she got from, surprise!, a phlegm encrusted old man the other day in Copacabana, who was spreading lung disease with the most rancid cigarette smoke in existence. (I’m sure that brand is outlawed in Singapore.) Poor Ellen. First I got sick. The kind of low-grade illness that doesn’t make the going to the doctor cut, because I don’t trust Brazilian R$20 a visit doctors all that much, and because I have too much pride to go to the doctor and tell them that I just feel tired. And maybe a little nauseated. It’s not worth it, even if I’m dragging through the city with monster black circles around my eyes and dragging steps. I blamed Ellen for it:

J: I’m tired. It’s all your fault.
E: Me? Why? I didn’t do anything. You’re just lazy.
J: Exhaustion Ellen…
E: But I’m not exhausted…
J: O of course not! You’re like Typhoid Mary…

But yesterday, she made no complaint about taking the escalator up from the Metro, and when we got to the house, I ran to the bedroom to change my clothes, as I was going to be late for my class. When I walked back through the living room three minutes later, what do I see but Ellen, sprawled out on the floor, asleep. I asked if she wanted anything and there was no response. Apparently, she heard me, but was TOO TIRED FOR THE WORDS TO COME OUT. Vindication.

But she's better now. And so am I, though that might be due to the fact that on Sunday night, my dear sister wrote in the church's prayer book the following words:
MY SISTER IS SICK. PRAY FOR HER.

(or something to that effect. In English.)

Then she told my friend, the goofball who encouraged her to deface the serious prayer book, that my sickness was an STD. She's got an odd sense of humor. It's a good thing Rodrigo doesn't speak much English!

Today we washed dishes and laundry and went grocery shopping. We also tried unsuccessfully to move my couch into the living room (somehow, the heat induced me into thinking that the couch would make it through this time...even though the doorframe is 2 inches too tight). We grabbed a stack of old magazines, alternately reading and ripping out pages. I now know that if you're having relationship troubles, Fitness assures me that counseling isn't necessary. Maybe just some "good old manners" will do the trick. Didn't know that you're supposed to think about another person's feelings and say thank you once in a while? Now you do. Also, there are maneless lions, and people who sew up mane-d stuffed fake lions to see what the maneless ones will do to them. (They sniff them, then knock them over. Bullies.) High foreheads and bumpy noses are "in."

The ripped-out pages became 3 collages. They were supposed to be four, but after the third one was completed, I think my creativity died, and it looked like a color-blind ape had put it together. I'm hoping to find something to use to frame these, as they make me happy just looking at them. Hint to people that send me care packages:

1. I like magazines!

2. I also like care packages! I get jealous; our Servant Teams are forever getting gifts. In fact, yesterday, at our staff meeting, we divided the spoils of a couple boxes that didn't make it until after they went home...4 containers of peanut butter, Crystal Light, Reeses Pieces, two bags of Skittles, more chocolate, dried fruit and nut mixes (some four bags), toys, a box of cereal, four J. Crew catalogs, and oh so much more. Thanks, last Servant Team! P.S., we actually have access to Tang and Nutella and dried fruit in Brazil. But cereal is always appreciated, as was the Harper's Bazaar that came along. Which brings me to #3:

3. I love magazines! Especially the high fashion ones, like Vogue and Harpers, in which the articles written with great, refined snobbery are outranked five to one by luxe ads featuring impossibly thin women wearing impossibly fantastic and out of this world clothes. The textures are incredible and do so much for my imagination and occasional art work. Plus, someday if I suddenly wake up learning how to sew, I plan on living in ball gowns. And hats. With feathers, which I'll wear while sipping my tea in my secret garden on some enchanted Caribbean island. Right. I allow myself this fantasy; I have never been much for reality. I live to walk around with my head in the clouds!

Oh, but the pictures. The first is just assembly, the last three are the finished products...

Sports: by Ellen

I went to a mall yesterday. As I grow older, I dislike malls more and more- especially busy, bustly, big malls.
This mall was packed. I like people, but when people (especially women!) are shopping at sales and moving in packs- they loose a bit of being a person and become a crowd. Crowds give nasty glares when someone else grabs they shirt they wanted. Crowds tackle others to get at the item they want. Crowds move quickly, not caring who they run over or who they knock into.
I like people, detest mall crowds.
Sport 1- shopping. Because it has tactics, utilizes skills such as speed, agility and strength (and a bit of bitchiness- is that a skill?).

Sport 2- ice skating. Now, before you argue whether ice skating is a sport or not, hear me out. Remember- this is Brasil, so ice is foreign. Everyone looked decked-out for extreme sports: Helmets, knee pads, elbow pads, and even padded gloves! Now envision all of this, on ice with everyone dressed in shorts, short skirts, and some even wearing bikinis underneath! There was alot of falling (a few panty shows, because why they wore skirts is beyond me) and even small snow-man walkers for very young children! Maybe not a sport, but entertainment, certainly.

Sport 3- Bowling. This is a new activity in Brasil, and apparently a big deal. I didn't play, just watched. They were appalled that I don't enjoy bowling because its so new and fashionable there. Most bowling alleys I have been to are grungy; a broken pool table or two, a smoky bar, lots of jeans and a juke box. Here, I felt as if I had stepped into the futuristic Jetson's version of a bowling alley. It was well-lit, played popular American music, clean floors, full menus with expensive food, and a fancy bar with waiters dressed in matching uniform and smart, black aprons ready to serve. Not to mention that one took a number to wait for their bowling lane to open up.
Women wore dresses and high-heels (before changing into bowling shoes, of course). I had never before seen anyone wear a dress to a bowling alley.
The classic stereotype of a valley-girl "Oh! I broke a nail!" MUST have been established in Brasil. A girl in another lane broke a nail while bowling and immediately began filing it, with her friends huddled around for support (which was not the only reference to a broken nail that I saw or heard that night) Hence, why I could never live here and why Jenna loves it.

Sport 4- 'Table Grabbing'. The food court was packed full of people. So the group scattered throughout the area, eyeing tables that looked about to finish eating. I paused to look around and saw that plenty other people were doing the same as us; hovering around a table, reading to pounce on it once they left. Some were even just sitting with strangers who had an extra seat beside them, waiting for them to leave. Everyone tried to look preoccupied, but I don't know why- it was obvious what they were doing. I can just imagine two people eyeing the same table, glaring at one another, making those 'angry bull' faces and nostril flares to intimidate.
I successfully grabbed a table- sort of. The couple just kind of gave it to me, invited me to sit down. I felt cheated of grabbing it because it was given.

I also learned the importance of correct translation- giving something that is supposed to be used in the bathtub is VERY different from being given something that was found in a public bathroom.

A trip to Brasil

I'm not Jenna, I'm her sister who is visiting for a few weeks. To read her post, which is at my blog go here

It's not so hot here.
It's the kind of weather I love and savor, somewhere in the low 100s in the day and high 80s in the evening (which makes me chilly and begging for jeans and a light sweater).

The plane ride left something to be desired. My 10+ hour flights to Tokyo or London were more comfortable than the seats on this flight- I kept thinking my chair was broken because it only reclined about 1/2 and inch.
But I shouldn't complain, I arrived safely and finished The Kite Runner because I shouldn't sleep. My next few days on the beach allowed me to finish A Thousand Splendid Sons (both by Khaled Hosseini- I highly recommend both books). I became a bit anti-social because I wanted to finish so badly. Not speaking the language and only understanding a few words spoken to me is a good excuse to exclude myself!
If it were Spanish, I think I would be okay, but this Portuguese business has my head spinning.
I was rude a few times because I had no idea anyone was talking to me. Because I don't understand anything they are saying, I just block people out at times. It took people tapping me on the shoulder to get me to respond. I even accidentally walked away from someone at a party yesterday because I didn't know they were talking to me.

Our three days at the beach resulted in only minor sunburns, which is mostly a tan now. Except on my calves, because I didn't put much sunblock there; who gets their calves burnt? I guess I do. The marks are humorous because they are just splotches, like stains across my legs.

One night we went shopping at 2 am, because in this little beach town the stores were all still open. I had the traditional Brazilian drink, which of course I drank too quickly as I drink everything. We walked along the streets, people watching old men walking with young women too pretty and dressed to well to be their daughters and laughed at the stupid things that young boys say when they are drunk or planning to be. We danced in the streets. The samba school (the group playing the music) marched down the street, pausing every so often to thicken the crowd and then move on. I was beside a little boy who could have been about 7 or 8 who was pounding a drum twice his size. Watched a woman dance her heart out, sweating and smiling as she moved. I tried to learn how to samba, I'm not sure how well I did, but it was fun just the same.
I tried to find the Southern Cross, randomly looking up at a figure that could be manipulated into a cross and announced that I had found it. I watched fireworks lighting up the sky and danced to old 80's movie theme songs, listening to the Brasilians butcher the lyrics or watching men dance and spin to "I'm coming out" and "It's raining men".

I feel like my trip is about to end and then remind myself that I still have over three weeks here.