Internet interruption

We decided to upgrade our Internet to 5MB from our 300k. Oi advised us
of a possible interruption in service of up to 72 hours. We went 8
days with nothing and after an hour long service call to Oi we have
been given a temporary signal of 300k until .... I don't know when.
Two guys came out to look at the problem, which means one climbed up a
ladder and opened a box, said there was a problem and then climbed
back down and left without fixing it.

Spelling by Ju

As part of the literacy process, at least in Portuguese class, the kids are supposed to sound out and spell words to try to discover how to write.  I really like this process and we have been doing it a lot just to play.  Today some of Ju's homework has to identify things that begin with the letter R and write the Rr underneath them.  Just for fun, he sounded out the words for some of the pictures and tried to write them.

Ring - R i  (not shown, this was added after this picture was taken)

Robot -  R A A  (interesting here he only tried to write the vowel sounds)

Road - R U T  (T and D are articulated in the same place, so this for me is a win)


Ribbon - R B N  (not bad)

Rake -  R C

Rock - R C

Owl - A O U (I especially love this spelling, it really sounds like owl if you say it with a Bahiano accent)

We chatted about why rock and rake would have same spelling as he wrote here.  It's also interesting to see how he is sometimes focusing on vowel sounds, sometimes on consonents, and sometimes includes both.  I seem to remember only writing the consonents at this age, making my journal indeciferable when I looked at it years later. 

30 at 30

I have no idea if the internet has created such a thing as this.  I suspect so.  If everything goes well, I'd like to read this again when I am 50.

Here are 30 thoughts/facts on my 30th birthday.

1.  I still don't feel like an "adult," but after yesterday's fantastic party, I definitely feel like it's actually my birthday.

2.  I have a pair of jeans that I bought when I was 17 and worked at Meijer that still fit and I still wear, even though they are risqué and lace up the sides.

3.  It's about 72 today here in Brasil and I am a bit cold.

4.  I love to eat sushi and would eat it everyday.  Salmon and tuna, mmmmmmm.  Seaweed, mmmmm.

5.  After living in Brasil for six years, I have reprioritized what I feel is a want and a need, just in time for things to arrive in Salvador that we have not had access to. 

6.  I still like to wear miniskirts because I think my legs look good, but I don't like how my butt touches where ever I sit down.

7.  I love doing waterbike.  It is the best exercise and I think everyone should try it.  I feel like it is what has gotten my asthma under control and helped me destress over the last two years.  Plus I have muscles in places I haven't ever seen them before.

8.  I used to only wear tall platform shoes and now I prefer flipflops.  It has been so long since I wore regular shoes that touch my heels that nearly every time I wear them, I end up with blisters no matter what the shoe.

9.  Someday I want to have a small house on a decent piece of land in Chapada, where I would have a garden, orchard, and some goats for milk.

10.  I love to sew and am determined to make all my own clothes from now on, either from fabric or adapting used things to my liking.  A friend said "you are all kinds of cool at 30, sewing up a storm" - I loved this statement.

11.  Yesterday we had the best party here, by far the most fun adult birthday party I have ever had.  I credit my wonderful friends and spectacular husband for making it happen.  I certainly didn't do much ;).

12.  Doing art with Ju is a great way to spend an afternoon.

13.  Three cats in one house is definitely enough cats.  Ducey, Pila and Lela have amazingly different felinalities and contribute to a well balanced household.

14.  Machines I cannot part with - my laptop, my camera, my sewing machine, my ipod.

15.  I have known and loved my husband for eight years and he is the best man I have ever been with.

16.  I absolutely must drink a cup of coffee in the morning or I just feel like I am coming down with something all day.

17.  My favorite thing to eat is a honey crisp apple, even though we don't have them in Brasil and I rarely find them in MI when we go.

18.  I love teaching little kids.  They are so interested in everything, everything is exciting...

19.  This year's world cup has ignited a real love for watching soccer that I never knew I had.  Brasil is infectious, yes, but there must be more to it.

20.  I believe in the Destination Imagination program.  It should be made part of every school curriculum in a major way.

21.  When I eat apples in Brasil, if they are really good, I eat the whole thing and leave only the stem. 

22.  I spend too much time reading craft/art/DIY blogs and such online, being inspired by what I see, but rarely getting up off my butt to do what I read about.  (But I'd really like to)

23.  My kid is bilingual.  Our whole house is bilingual.  We mix English and Portuguese in every sentence every day.  I still would love to study our language habits.  (and it has been hard to not write Portuguese words into many of these list items)

24.  Being a Quaker is a huge part of who I am, even though it seems like it's such an unknown fact in my life and where I am.

25.  I often fall asleep 8:30 at night, wake up at like 11 and stay up until 12:30, then go to bed again.  I am pretty sure this is not conducive to health.


26.  I only wear glasses because it feels like too much time to go have my eyes examined and get contacts here in Brasil.  I wish things weren't so far apart and complicated down here.

27.  I miss having pink hair, but feel like it wouldn't go over well down here.

28.  If I could do any job, it would be creating window layouts like those in Macy's in NYC.  So cool!  I would also enjoy making theater or movie sets.  Or maybe those big scenes behind glass you see in museums.

29.  A perfect lunch is a big salad of baby spinach and spring greens that has salmon, mandarin oranges, chopped walnuts and Gorgonzola cheese.  At least, that is what I feel like eating at the moment.

30.  I love my friends, even though we hardly see each other.  I have no idea where I would be without internet.

Stuck on sewing

It is like an addiction.  I start one project, finish it, and just seem to find something else to do.  I have a notebook full of drawings of things I want to copy, or project ideas I thought of and jotted down.  Today I made a cape, fixed some shorts with a hole in the butt, and almost finished a doll whose clothes I will make tomorrow.  Also on the agenda for this week - fix the curtains upstairs or maybe make new ones, make at least one more tunic dress (so comfy!), as well as finish the scraps shirt I began at the end of April.  And I really should go to the dentist soon. 

So the city is shutting down...

Apparently everything is currently so flooded from the rain that the city is at a stand still.  So far today, I have heard that:

- some bridge fell or was completely covered by the river that it no longer exists, in Laurel de Freitas
- Bonoco (major road through the middle of the city) is shut down because of flooding, in Rio Vermelho
- Some other road in to Rio Vermelho is shut off, so there is basically no way to get in there there.
- Rivers across the city have crested and cars are under water
- the governer has declared a state of emergency and is asking for people to stay home until the rains have subsided and flooding has gone down (fat chance)


Despite all this, we did have power the whole day here, it didn't even flicker off!  I am impressed with Coelba's work this time.  As I type, everyone is trying to leave school early, taking advantage that the rain has subsided a bit to run down to the bus stop at the end of the road, or maybe swim to it as the end of the road is usually under water on days like this. 

Those poor people at the UN conference must be water logged by now.


*** evening update - the rain has stopped and it was sunny and somewhat warm this afternoon, but I did see on the way home that the bridge over the river on the Orla by Clube Bahia is collapsing.  I wonder if it will last much longer.

It's almost 6 a.m.

and I hear birds for the first time in days.  I wonder if this means today we will see some sun, after almost a week strait of rain without end.  I actually see sky out there. Amazing.

Is there power?

There is no website, there is no webmail.  Is there power?  We will only know tomorrow.