My sogra came to visit. Our home becomes a bigger confused mess every day.

Engrish at Salvador's airport:
Rotative parking (I think they mean temporary parking or day parking)
Lot of "axé" music at this carnaval

The book my mother sent 8 weeks ago finally showed up. Juliãn's new game is to kick me where it tickels, just as I am going to sleep. I can see where this is going. At least now I have something more to read at night when he's keeping me awake.

With the help of the sogra, we bought a couch finally. She had a serious conversation with us over breakfast, starting out telling us that she knew it was our home and we did things as we wanted, but there was something that made her very uncomfortable. I thought she was going to talk about us sleeping naked or something, but no, she meant that when people come to visit (her friends specifically), she was very embarresed that they had no where to sit. So, at the prodding of one of them (who seems to be full of shit since she told Zi that she could buy a couch for R$150 at Iguatemi), she volunteered to pay for it. However, when she saw the actual prices of couches here, I had to volunteer to pay for half or so. Here's to credit cards, and friends who are a pain in the ass apparently. The couch is a dark red color and will match very nicely with our long term plans for the room downstairs.

Zi is home now, after a day out with several friends, so I should probably go keep her company, since there is nothing else to do. At least I should get my butt out of this chair and go eat a bannana or something. Inconsolable hunger is one of those draw backs to pregnancy. I am never quite NOT hungry...

The baby's room is painted! We changed our minds about 5 times in the process, but I really like the results. Now, we just need furniture and stuff. I'm sure he will love the colors for some amount of time, and then sometime after 10 years old, he will hate them because they are baby-ish. And then he can paint it any color he likes. In the mean time, it's colors I like, so that's what's important now...

I'm melting!!!!!!!! Melting!!!!!!! Melllllltttinnggggggg!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow, three entries in one week. Can you tell I'm on vacation?

Today, I learned three things.

One: boys should not wear white. When they wear white, they get stuff on it that takes half a bottle of Shout and lots of scrubbing to get out. There is a reason that generally only gay men wear white pants: they don't go playing with two year olds in the dirt and slide around on wood work in them. Julian will not be wearing any white pants, you can bet that.

Two: when doing laundry, make sure that the drainage hose for the washer is in the sink and not BEHIND the sink, lest one create a 10 gallon or more flood in the kitchen, laundry area, and storage area. At least here no one likes to have things touching the floors and they are all tiled, so it's relatively easy to clean up, just a pain in the ass and a little precarious for slipping. Everything that was on the floor waiting to be washed is now soaked and trying to dry in the last sun rays of the day. This includes two especially old and gross pillows which probably will not dry before tomorow. The cats actually tried to tell me about the whole situation at one point - I sat here typing away to mom and they both came in and meowed at me and sat at my feet for some time, but I was too wrapped up in the conversation to notice what they were telling me. Eventually, they went to lay down in the other room, figuring if I didn't care, they wouldn't either.

Which leads us to number three: Always pay attention to your cats' messages. Especially if more than one of them is trying to get your attention for some reason. They are fuzzy and close to the ground, but not stupid and could save your life one day. Or at least 45 minutes of your valuable time from being used to clean up gallons of soapy water.

I am supposed to sleep now, and the baby is super active. Then, when I am resting during the day, he's all quiet and composed. Mom says he's playing soccor. In the last five minutes, he has kicked me in at least 6 different places a dozen or so times. I was going to go to bed, but it may be a waste of time...

See this is the problem with procrastination. With all the extra time on my hands, and not having written anything for so damn long, it's always the issue of what's the problem with waiting a little longer... Part of my excuse is due to my computer crashing right at the end of the semester and I am still not back online with it yet. It's just so depressing every time I turn it on and have to remember how much work I have lost and have to redo in terms of installing programs etc. And things are not working right that used to work. Ug, I have to stop thinking about it.

Xmas has come and gone, like any other day here, still like being eternally stuck in a hot Michigan August. Since it's actually celebrated on the 24th, it was rather uneventful. The 24th consisted of many visits to other people's houses, including one where Meuamor played Papai Noel (=Santa Clause) for about 25 kids who were so incredibley excited about his visit that he wants to do it again next year. Actual Xmas day was spent sleeping in due to said late arrival of Santa then delaying our return home until 3 A.M., and then being proptly woken up by Marina singing Bob Marley on the answering machine in an attempt to encourage our arrival at the beach. This was a necessary trip because of Kerido Kevin's family visiting, but by the time we arrived, they were actually leaving, so we headed to another beach and met up with several parts of the family with whom Santa visited (including some of the kids who were surprisingly convinced that he DOES exist) and spent the rest of the afternoon going in and out of the water to cool off, seeing a lovely sunset over Pituba, and then joining the rat race journey back to our humble, toasty abode. Watching movies with cats is how I spent my Xmas evening - how bout you?

Today we are back to the "virgo" mode of organizing and cleaning the house up for painting and such that is to be done before the end of the year (fat chance), but at least it's getting rid of a lot of crap that is sitting in the storage room. There is just boxes of stuff in there to give to street people or anyone who comes to the gate to ask for something. And none of it will be taking up the valueable space anymore. Its very liberating for everyone but the cats who have been shut up in the bedroom all day because of all the open doors and dust. So now they only get to sleep all day in one room instead of in several rooms. Hasn't seemed to phase them at all.

The baby is a BOY! And I think we may even have settled on a name: Julian. I think. I like it. Meuamor is "digesting" it. He likes to be awake when I am going to bed and kick me in the bladder when I really have to pee. And in the father like son sense, at 4:30 A.M. when Meuamor is flopping around like a fish in bed, the baby is doing a very similar motion in my belly, and I lay there thinking "there are two of them in bed with me" and cannot get back to sleep. The cats have not yet really noticed much of a difference I think. When they do will most likely be when he comes home from the hospital and they never forgive me for bringing this small, hairless other wierd looking cat into their home. Actually, I am sure they will forgive me, but boy are they in for a shocker. They are both deathy afraid of miniature people, especially when they are big enough to move around and try to touch them.

It's 11:45 here, and I should go be a good wife and try to help get all that shit we dragged out back inside in some fashion. This will go on until 2 A.M. if I don't give him a "pila" somehow, I fear.

I now have a CPF, which means I am officially recognized and trackable by the Brasilian government. Health insurance card came too. Just in time for all my mountain of blood tests etc that one must get when pregnant. Unfortunately, to prevent fraud and the like, things like ultrasounds are not covered until January, and things like the delivery procedure are not covered until August (I think the baby will not wait that long, so....).

What a depressing day. At least I'm all the way down here and don't have to look at him on television all day...

This week I thought I was feeling much better, but then on Monday, in the midst of eating my lunch, I suddenly saw all I had eaten again. So now the puking feeling has moved from being just a feeling to a no-feeling-but-then-suddenly-a-reality kinda thing. Only one more month of this, right? Less than that, going into 11 weeks tomorow, so it should be all hunky dory in less than two weeks...

I also have been told I am much bigger than I should be. Some have speculated there is more than one miniture person in there. I suspect I am just getting fat. Why, not sure, because I haven't really been eating anymore than I usually did, but I sure as hell don't bother to try and suck it in anymore.

Most all of my students know now. I told my favorite class as sort of an announcement, "In addition to doing page 56, I also wanted to let you know that I am two months pregnant." They were very excited and quized me on dates, feelings, and names during the next class. I even had one student listening to my stomach for a while, although I told him there was nothing to hear yet. He's sort of a special student - you know the type - very lazy, does the bare minimum, but so intelligent that you let him get away with it and love him anyway. His nick name is Butter, and I cannot keep him in his seat during class. His mother is also a teacher, so I'm sure she knows how he is. I hope the Pimentinha will not be like that...

The cats have decided that the top of a desk is a good place to sleep, which makes lesson planning a bit difficult at times. Currently Lela is asleep right here, next to the lap top (at least she is not on it). This is all fine and dandy except for when I come home to find a good chuck of fur in the keyboard or the number lock turned on (took me 20 minutes to figure out how to turn it off). Tomorow they will go visit their new vet. I'm sure they are very excited and just don't know it yet.

HOPEFULLY, I will be going to the doctor tomorow to see what's going on in there. This is providing there is an appointment open tomorow, since we have not been able to call them. If so, there will be ultrasound pictures posted tomorow on the Belly website (now listed on top at the left). If not, well, be satisfied with the belly pictures until further notice.

Being pregnant makes you seriously tired. Everyone says this and says it's normal, but it is SO different to actually experience it. I sleep almost as often as I did when I was in the end of Crew season last fall, but on top of that I feel like I want to throw up much of time, have a hard time tolerating heat in the air, and at times I almost want to pass out. I don't want to do too much social stuff because I get much more tired much more quickly when I have to talk to a lot of people. And teaching... Well for those of you who have never been pregnant, imagine that feeling you get when you have been out drinking all night, then the next morning you wake up, feel tired, have a headache, generally want to puke and don't want to move much. That is about what being pregnant feels like. This is the longest I have been out of bed in about 7 hours. We had lunch with Barbie and a couple of her American students and then I came home to crash. Meuamor got up to attend a party for one of his students, but I just couldn't take the thought of going out and being social with a bunch of people I don't know when I feel like I might keel over at any moment. So here I sit.

I started drinking real milk here. I had not before, was quite satisfied with the soy milk flavored with vanilla, but since recent events have come into play, I find it to be entirely too sweet some times and down right gross at others. Milk here only comes in boxes; there is no refrigerated section like in the U.S., and is manufactured in some other way - milk I am currently drinking was processed and boxed some times in June. So now we have real milk, which tastes distinctly like the powdered milk and water mix that I used to feed to baby cows at my friend Laurie's house when I was 11. I never tasted the mixture myself, mind you, but the powdered milk dust would float all over and get on you and in you, including in your mouth. Drinking milk now brings back memories of the smell of cow manure, cold icy mornings at 5 AM, trudging out to the cafe barn and being pushed around by baby cows that weren't much bigger than me. They were cute, smelly, and slobbery. I kind of miss them.

Speaking of which, I'm gonna go drink some milk now...

Ramp with a small movement.

This is the sign heading as you walk down the docks to the ferry to Itaparica Island, in the middle of the bay of Salvador. There were numerous discoveries of Engrish made that day when we went to go visit some friends there, but I neglected to write them all down. I'm sure they will still be there the next time. I met some other gringa's on the island, and was told by a store keeper that she would charge a gringo almost twice the price for a pair of sandles than she would charge a Brasilian. How lucky we are.

This has been a nice long weekend due to the holiday (one of many) and I am not looking forward to going back to work tomorow. Ug, work. Ug. All we did was visit people, go to the beach, get sunburned.... What a joy.

Several other amuzing events:

On the ferry boat to the island, Meuamor decided to jump off 2 minutes to shore and swim the rest of the way there. He stood up, stripped to his tangerine Speedo, and jumped in. Others on the ferry seemed to think this was normal.

Pondering why the cats had neglected to use the freshly cleaned litter box, I took a closer look and found it was full of ants who were stealing the litter, for uses unknown. This is a nightly ritual apparently. No wonder it gets everywhere.



Oh, and one other noticia: I'm pregnant.

Engrish in Brasil thus far (and other nice mixes of language that I find funny):

The cat litter we originally used was called “limpi cat” and now we use “cat bom.” The latter seems more appropriate considering some of the things we have cleaned out of that box.

When looking for a traditional U.S. can opener, I came across a suction cup toilet paper holder that was labeled “Fiction cup.” The suction cup actually existed, however.

There is a chewing gum here called “Happy Dent.” Happy teeth, I know, but saying a dent is happy is so much funnier.

A neighborhood area in Rio Vermelho has a sign labeling it as “snuggly.” The buildings are close together, but I don’t get a snuggly fresh feeling from being there. (if you get this reference, then I know you have watched many television commercials during the 80’s and 90’s and possibly do laundry)

I noticed the other day that the dish towel in our kitchen says “eggs are pop.” I’m not sure what that means to Brasilians, but to someone from Michigan, pop is a carbonated drink – known in some other parts of the country as soda or Coke. Meuamor says “It means eggs are popular, like every likes them and eats them.” Okay, yeah sure…




Gestures have tripped me up more than once here as well. It is difficult to describe them, but I will attempt.

There are two very similar gestures that involve the shaking of the hand in the air, with the pointer finger and the thumb together as if they are holding something. If you wave this gesture across a strait line at the waiter, it means “please bring me the check.” If you wave this gesture in a somewhat diagonal or downward motion, apparently this means something related to smoking a joint.

Waving good bye, with your fingers stretched out strait and then closing the hand so they meet the palm, opening again, closing again, etc, has been tripping me up repeatedly. This is the most common way for me to say “good bye” to students as they leave the room, or people at work as they leave the building. What it often results in, however, is the student or person returning to my side, wanting to know what I want, since here this gesture means exactly the opposite – “come here.” Before someone clued me into this (I believe it was some time in July) I had caused tremendous amounts of confusion to both myself and my students and coworkers several times over. I still forget much of the time and have to explain to people what I mean when they come running back to my side. The problem is that gestures are so NATURAL, it’s difficult to change them. I think I may have to change my good byes to be verbal only.





Today we were discussing American foods that we missed and now I feel inspired to bake things that you cannot find here. However, I’m still afraid of the oven and I am sure that being South of the equator is not going to make a difference in my amazing ability to burn things, so I think that the baking will have to wait till I can get some supervision and assistance – i.e. not tonight. I want my cook book. It’s still in Michigan, with my mother. Who needs a cookbook when you have your mother? Now I’m here and I have neither. The cook book would be cheaper to send here, so I’ll settle for that temporarily

I am alive, and married. But also busy. Teaching has taken over my life. How unusual...

So guess who's teaching now!? ME ME ME ME MEMMEMEMEMEMEMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!


Here I was planning a nice long work on my independent studies work week, and then at 12:30 on Monday afternoon, I get a phone call from Savio that I am scheduled to teach a class at 2 pm! For a class I knew nothing about. With a book I had not yet seen. With objective for the level that I had never read. It was the quickest and most copied lesson plan ever. Luckily, Meuamor has taught this class, so I was able to basically copy from him what it was I was going to do that day. It was an okay lesson. I think we had a good time. Shortly after this class ended, I was told I was to teach ANOTHER one the next day, and then today I was finally told I am also teaching a pronunciation course on Saturdays. I may also be teaching some private classes at the post office here. Go figure, in a week I have gone from 1 student to 5 classes! Crazy! I guess this is how things work around here. This also means I really gotta get my shit done for MSU. Soon. Focus Ali, focus....


I spent most of today on the computer in search of two things: Portuguese spell check for Word, and some kind of recording device that would should Waveforms to use in my pronunciation class. I have succeeded, sort of, in both. I downloaded Audacity, which had come highly recommended by some people at the ELC some time ago. It's not exactly what I am looking for, and it's really hard to filter out the noise. I think I need to get a better microphone and that will help. I think it will suffice for the time being.

The second break through came after going through all the right steps according to modern society: I checked the Microsoft website, reinstalled Office XP, got all the updates, contacted (or tried to) Microsoft who referred me to IBM since it was an IBM computer, and IBM referred me to the Brasilian division of IBM since I am in Brasil. Never mind that my questions were all in English and my computer was configured in the U.S. and that I am betting IBM.br will refer me back to the Americans. I hate tech help people for this reason. So, having exhausted all the "right" channels, I consulted Brian, my guru of computers, who suggested I try open source programs instead. Sure enough http://www.openoffice.org had a free download version that was similar to everything in Office XP. I even got a Power Point equivalent (a program I was missing for some reason). All I had to do was choose the language and download it. Took half an hour (big file - 166 MB), but it was worth it because it works! Everything is in Portuguese because that was the language I chose. You can choose from about a hundred different languages. I highly recommend it.

All this effort and work today, and I haven't worked on the things I need most to accomplish. Some habits never die.

Well after my small amount of annoyance yesterday, we did in fact get a hold of the Velox guy who came a while later to connect us. With the exception that the phone now has a "kkkrsskketttttscchchchchchch" noise while you use it (this even with the filter they put on to prevent it), it's working well. So far I have listened to 4 NPR shows and am currently listening to http://www.impact89fm.org (The Finest in Radio), right from my beloved studios in the Basement of Holden Hall at MSU! What a joy to hear what I left behind!

My dear Kerido Kevyn has quickly come and gone again. While he was here a few weeks ago, we introduced him to Marina, a friend of ours we now call "A sequestradora de gringo" and we lost him to whatever passion ensued after their meeting. He then left us to travel up the coast of Brasil, making a brief stop in each city to wander around and experience life. This included Fortaleza where he was lucky enough to stay with the lovely Adri whom I met online for free and go out on the town. Hopefully I will meet her some day too. She promises to come to Salvador to visit before she moves to Canada with her husband. In any case, now Kevyn was wandering about with the idea that he was to be back in Southern Bahia to teach some time after August 8th, but consequently called his boss on Thursday and found out he was supposed to be back there on the 2nd. So Friday he showed up, went out with Marina, and us briefly much later, and then left on Saturday afternoon. We won't see him again until sometime in December, when he will be included in our travel plans for Chapada. Poor Marina really fell for him and called us yesterday to inform us she was very sad and wanted to cry. I hope he doesn't break her heart.

Meuamor has gone into ultra clean and organize mode because he starts classes and teaching again tomorrow. To protect himself from the dust and sneezing fits, he has put a t-shirt over his head and tied it on with just his eyes showing through the neck hole. It looks rather like a white ninja or one of those guys in Iraq who was beheading people. Hopefully this will evolve into my having my own work space now. I need it to feel like I can organize. It's bad enough we are both trying to use this computer, let alone the same work space.

Okay, enough wasting time, back to my journal article stack!

After this months phone bill came (over $100 due most likely to my internet use increase because of teaching and having a worried mother), we decided that even though we can't afford it, we are going to get broadband or DSL. DSL is cheaper, it goes by the name Velox, and it was our first choice for that reason. After several phone calls to the phone company we were first told our phone line was unable to transmit DSL. The next story was that we could get it, but that there were a limited number of lines per neighborhood and all of the ones in ours were being used. After this came the news that they were planning to expand one day and we were to be put on a waiting list for when that expansion happened - could be next week, next month, or even next year, no one knows. Next we filled out request forms for service, twice, at the mall where they had a Velox display. The girls who worked at the display were very nice and had no idea as to why we had not heard anything from the workers who were supposed to come connect the service.

This is all in direct connection with the fact that we seldom answer the phone because we have caller ID. Constantly being hassled by telemarketers, I think, is what drives Meuamor to not answer if he doesn't recognize the number. If it is someone who needs to talk to him, we assume that he or she will leave a message on the answering machine - and if it's a telemarketer, logically they hang up before the machine is finished playing. When it is just me home, I seldom answer either because unless it is a call from the USA, it's highly unlikely that the person on the other end of that line is wanting to talk to me, and I end up not quite understanding what is going on on the other end of the phone. Long story short - we screen our calls.

So logically, if you wanted to sell a product to someone and they had requested you call them on more than one occasion, wouldn't you leave a message on their machine? If I was going to make money on the deal, I would... This logic does not persist with those who work for Velox it seems. Apparently these people have been calling and calling and calling, but never bothered to leave a damn message. It's a mystery to me as to why.

Finally, Meuamor answered the phone yesterday afternoon to find we could arrange our appointment to have it connected today. So now today, I ran out of the shower just to answer the phone, in hopes it was the Velox guy. Sure enough, it is. So in my not so great phone conversational Portuguese, I manage to communicate that I do not speak much Portuguese and I am not a good person to talk to about what he needs to do (I am quite good at saying this phrase "Eu não falo muito português, então eu não sou uma pessoa boa para communicar sobre isso...") and finally after several attempts by the worker (even some in very poor English, but hey he tried!) I figure out he is asking for my name. I tell him (I think) that if he needs to come by the house today to connect the service, he can, and we don't want to wait anymore. This conversation goes on for several minutes, mean while I am dripping all over the upstairs. Finally he leaves his number for Meuamor to call, I think, to arrange another day ("marcar outro dia") - which sucks because evidently I could not explain what I thought I had explained, and now we still don't have the service connected. So today, ainda, no Velox. Poop.

Now I am hoping he comes home earlier than he planned to call this guy and figure out wtf we need to do to get this service. I really don't want to be paying these phone bills anymore.

Would you believe I am cold here!  16 degrees celcius!  And I have dry skin on my elbows.  It feels like fall in Michigan!

So much to tell and so little time to remember.  This past week was the EFL conference in Salvador.  It was a lovely time, but has made me realize that I have more theory than probably most do here, and I think I can teach others a lot of it, if given the chance.  I hope I get it. 
 
Darling Kerido Kevyn has come and gone.  He spent a week in Salvador, wandering about with us, eating here in our kitchen, and making out with our friend Marina to whom we introduced him.  Hopefully they will find eachother when he comes back for another week at the end of August before he goes back to the Southern end to work his little buns off again.  Poor thing, I hope teaching doesn't get the better of him.
 
We acquired a hammock while in Praia do Forte a couple of weeks ago, and now the cats think it is a fun place to hang out.  I sit in it on the porch and read journal articles with Ona snoring between my legs.  If there weren't  kids listening to the same damn techno song by the pool right beside our porch, it would be heaven - " The book is on the table.  Ta ta ta ta ta table, everybody on the table. ta ta ta ta ta table, ta ta ta ta ta table."  A tribute to EFL in Brasil.
 
Now everyone is asleep on the bed but me.  I have got to get off this damn computer. 

My 24th birthday: Should it have been a major event? Perhaps, but early celebrations and heavy drinking turned it back into a Sunday, regardless of the willingness to contribute more to it. Being on semi-vacation, as in not working at ACBEU (ferias), Meuamor is more apt to parties than during the school year, and indeed this is what we have been doing.

Interesting things I learned and events of the past week:

1) The phone system: Here the regular land line phones work similarly to the typical layout of cell phones in the U.S. Unlike the manner I grew up with where you are allowed X amount of calls for the month (prepaid, but paying $0.65 for each additional call or something like that), here you are allowed X amount of pulses (in our case 100) that you prepay for. Pulses are not the same as calls. In fact, during typical peak time hours (much like cell phone in the U.S.) 6 AM – 12 AM Monday through Friday and 6 AM – 2 PM Saturday, the phone company records 1 pulse every 4 minutes (I think). So this amounts to a 12 minute call (or 12 minutes dialed up to the internet) counting for 3 pulses (sort of like making 3 calls I guess). Last month our phone bill was 118 pulses over the allowed 100. Being an internet junkie like myself, having to dial up (even though the dial up service here is free) and having it cost this much extra on the phone bill, makes broad band or DSL or the like look very appealing. The cost of having it installed, however, is kind of steep, and the company tells us our phone lines are not equipped for this service (read more $$$). Time will tell. Maybe my fairy godmother will magically deposit money into my account for this purpose. Maybe just my mother.

2) A cell phone is not quite necessary right now: Unlike in the U.S. where one pays ~$50 for ~500 minutes and free nights and weekend (with some other additional perks that vary from company to company), here one pays about ~$25 for 20 minutes and there is no free nights and weekends or additional perks. If you go over your 20 minutes, you pay different rates per minute according to who you call, on what kind of phone you call them, what time of the day you call them, and what service of phone they and you use. With all this “sometimes but only if” stuff, I am not surprised that it seems difficult to understand the phone systems here, and I suspect a lot of people could easily get ripped off. At least they make it confusing upfront here, as in one will have a hard time understanding so it is best to not try, rather than in what I am used to where it seems easy to understand, but then you get smacked by hidden charges, small print exceptions, etc. Unlike the U.S. however, someone can call your cell phone and it will not count against your minutes. So, if someone needs you, you are just a phone call away, but if you need someone, get ready pay for it.

3) Lela discovered lizards. They are tremendously fascinating and very high up, but this does not stop her from chattering at them for over an hour and attempting to climb the doorframe to get at them. However cute this sounds, and it is, it does not continue to be quite as cute after about an hour.

4) The stray cat I have been calling Mr. Grey (also known as Cinza) and feeding at the backdoor now comes regularly, about the same time everyday, to be fed and talk with the girls. Last night we gave him some raw chicken, which he really really liked. He is becoming a bit more aggressive of his “territory” outside and actually hissed at Lela because she was sniffing around the door.

So, back to the story of my birthday…

After some random late nights with friends Kari and Beto among others, on July 3rd I spent some amount of the afternoon sleeping due to random exhaustion from staying up till 5am using the internet. I was awoken (is this the right tense to use here?) just in time to drive to the other side of Salvador, see the sunset at this lovely bar that serves boiled clams for about R$5 a dozen (we ate 3 dozen and some carne do sol), and met some other native English speakers. This is the fun thing about being in this context: Anyone you meet who speaks English as a first language is pretty much automatically your friend. Our new friends were from Indianapolis (Randy) and England (I can’t remember his name – I’m really bad with names). Since we were on our way out to a party that had started almost 3 hours before, we didn’t chat long, but after our brief interaction, I had a thought that the man from the Midwest looked a tad familiar. Last year, before I came here and I was perusing the internet in search of information about Salvador, I came upon a website (see the link on the right – Salvador Online) called “The Online Tourist Guide to Salvador da Bahia.” The entire site, although unfinished, is full of all kinds of gringo point of view (a knowledgeable gringo) information about the city, the history, even cultural advisories. I read the entire thing before I came here. So, then consequently a year later, I actually meet the guy. Small world. We made some brief small talk about tattoos. They are useful for something (mom). Lovely interlude.

We left here in search of the party that wasn’t. Or rather, it was very prompt for Bahia: it had started at 6 PM and ended on time, apparently, because it was no longer happening when we got there at 9:30. So we continued on to the next party, this one sure to be continuing since it was at some one’s house in a hippie upper middle class area. This party was marked by such comments by myself as “Cade a bunda?” and some memorable events like MeuAmor doing some kind of Jimi Hendrix on acid like break dance on the floor (I was laughing my ass off, while the rest of the party was sort of standing there, staring in horror at the ridiculous stunt of a not so refined English teacher). I liked this party for the music: almost exclusively what we played on The Impact during the year and a half I was there (see The Finest in Radio link on the right). After much drinking and use of the digital camera, we left there at around 2 AM. Pobrecito, he was so hung over the next day (my birthday) that he slept until around 2 PM.

By the time we got to the beach at 3:30, the sun was going behind some clouds and chuva was coming in off the ocean. We sat on the beach for a brief time, watched some surfers, got rained on, and left shortly after 5 PM. I had planned to go out with some of our friends for a drink and to eat some more clams (YUM!), but by the time we cooked and ate dinner we were both feeling exhausted enough to just go rent a movie and go to bed. Indeed. What an eventful birthday. But at least I get the promise that we will go spend a day at the beach this week because finally, after the exams he has tomorrow, he will be on vacation for a whole 3 days. I hope we can take the time to enjoy it, but I fear it will be full of such errands as buying a sofa and paying bills (read: standing in lines for hours at various banks around the city). Here’s to hoping ~clink clink~

In other news:

This afternoon my dear friend Kerido Kevyn arrived. He has been teaching English in the southern end of the state of Bahia since January. He is on vacation for some time, so he’s passing through for a bit to visit here and then will head up North. He called this afternoon when he got into town and then came to eat dinner here. This is a terribly exciting event for me, since I haven’t see him since sometime in November of last year. We walked to Minha Mae’s so I could introduce him to my friend Larissa and her friend Laura (a mexicana) who is also visiting from the States. On the way home we stopped at an almost closed store so he could buy some bread and butter for breakfast. The poor dear is only making R$325 a month teaching and then he had to pay R$5.32 for bread and butter in Salvador! After his comment that he would have only paid R$0.20 for the same in the small city he has been living in, I suggested he come eat at our place while he is here, since feeding him in addition to the both of us will hardly cost me anything extra and probably save him a shit load of money. And I like having him around the house, and to walk with, and converse with. I can have actual discussions of things without having to give a while historical context to my opinion (which I often do here in my not so good Portuguese). Tomorrow we will go in search of tennis shoes so he can go running. I think I will be getting out a lot more while he is here. Hopefully that will continue to be the trend.

It's almost 5 AM. I am not sleeping. Why? I am not sure. Because I am typing perhaps. Typing is hard to do when one is sleeping. I sent some emails a while ago as well. Fun stuff to do while the sun is almost rising. One of these days I'm gonna watch it come up. Probably not this one.

I went for a long walk yesterday. It was the first time I have really gone out on my own for a long period of time. As small as that seems, it was a big step for me, going beyond language barriers and all. There are several comparisons I could make to Mexico here, but I will save them for another entry. I walked, I think, about 4 miles? I'm not really sure. I left here at 2 PM, walked almost to a mall called Aeroclube, turned around, and walked back. I was gone for a little over 3 hours. There was nothing particularly eventful about the walk, but it was long, most of it was by the ocean (one of my favorite things), and the only thing anyone said to me that I understood was "Voce e linda..." So life goes on.

Actually, let me rephrase that, I went for a long walk on Wednesday. Today is Friday now. I should probably go to bed. Yes, I think I will do that. Today is a holiday anyway, Independence of Bahia. So local phone calls are normal, like in the US, which means I could find time to enter another post today. Lets see if that might happen.

Okay, the birds are singing now. That is a for sure sign the sun will be up soon. Sleep is a good thing. I'm going to see if I can't fight Meuamor and Ona for some bed space.