Bahia Carnaval 2009

23 Hour Bus Ride

So I decided to take the bus to Salvador instead of flying to save around R$600. The bus ride is 23 hours long... but I was looking forward to seeing some of the countryside. I have been living in Brasil for about 6 months now and have really seen very little of the country. The bus stops about every 3 hours for 15-30 minute meal breaks, depending on the time of day.

During the ride there were very few times in which I had any idea where we were... I didn't have a good road map to follow... and the little villages that we went through didn't have good signage. This picture was taking at one of our first stops... in a tiny little village... somewhere between Brasilia and Salvador. All the buildings were painted with bright colors. I was actually pretty surprised at the landscape. It was very deserty. Towards the end of the drive there was even a lot of cacti and dry shrubs. At one point during the night I woke up and looked up into the sky. I was completely amazed at the stars. The whole sky was full of them... millions and millions of stars... I thought that I had seen a lot of stars during camping trips and such, but here... in the middle of Bahia, with no moon, no street lights, no city for miles and miles... the stars really came out.... I layed there (in the surprisingly comfortable seats that recline pretty far back) looking into the infinately stared sky, just happy to be there.

(more to come)

The Rain

It is still rainy season here in Brazil, and that is quite apparent every afternoon. It is really amazing, the amount of water that comes from the sky. Everyday I am just as amazed as the privous day. I wish these videos had sound because I don't think that the picture really does it justice.

But more than the amount of rain, the speed at which it comes and goes also amazes me. You should never, under any circumstances ever leave your house without an umbrella, no matter how beautiful and sunny the day appears to be. After work one day, I was walking out of the Caxia building fumbling through my purse to find my MP3 player, I found it under my umbrella and breifly thought to myself as I turned on a song, what a waste it was carrying the umbrella today, because I was heading home and it was a beautiful day, sunny, bright, blue skies with big puffy white clouds. I specifically remember this fleeting thought as I walked towards the bus, because that song, had not even finished when the skies became grey and the downpour began. I laughed to myself as I pulled out the umbrella, thankful again to have had it with me.

Another day however, I was getting off the bus, headed home for the day and it started to rain. It's not a long walk from the bus stop to our house, but this time the rain was coming in sideways... or from all sides... I didn't know which way to hold my umbrella. I hadn't even made the first turn went I was drenched. From my knees down it looked and felt like I had been wadeing in a river... and my socks were begining to mush under me with each step. I thought for a second and realized, that it would be a lot easier, more comforitable, and faster if I just put the umbrella down and ran. So that's what I did. It was the end of the day and there was nothing else I could do about it. I looked like a wet poodle when I finally did arrive home and I laughed as I stood in the rain trying to open our gate. Those clothes were hanging for three days before they were dry.

Dominos

The past several weeks have been relatively uneventful. I have been slowly picking up my old tutoring jobs, and aquiring a few new ones. I no longer work at Yes, so my afternoons are free, but I am hoping to fill them up with more private lessons.

On Saturday Leo's mom invited me over to a party she was hosting. She invited mostly her friends from work and all of her family. When I arrived I quickly became a point of interest for nearly everyone there, being that I am American and therefore interesting. Before I knew it I had in one hand a delicious plate of rice and beans and chicken caserole, and different barbecued meats and in the other hand a local Brasilian beer, telling the story of my life and what I was doing in Brasil in my best Portuguese to a small crowd of interested listeners. I actually aquired another student by the end of the party. At some point during the afternoon I was ushered to a table as the dominos were poured out. This version of dominos is quite popular here. I always see old men sitting at tables in the park playing. It is a partner game and my partner tried to explain it to me... but it just didn't make sense... (really, my portuguese isn't that good, not to mention the blaring samba music that made it difficult to hear anyway) but I obviously understood that you were suppose to match a six with a six. So I played the best I could, and either out of my dumb luck or my partners flauless skills... we swept the competition.