At home in Kansas my family would always go to the Christmas Pageant at Eden Mennonite Church on Christmas Eve, come home, unwrap presents, and eat Christmas food. A number of family reunions would follow, and by the time New Year's came, I was usually sick of Christmas food, and had seen more relatives than I knew I had. Needless to say, Christmas was different for me this year in Brazil.

I spent Christmas this year with my host family at my host dad's mother's apartment in Olinda, just North of Recife on the coast. Her apartment was actually just one block from the beach, so I played some soccer with my host brothers there on Christmas day. The presents were unwrapped on the morning of Christmas Eve. I'm told this tradition started because my host dad's father was a pastor, and the only time they didn't have activities at church was the morning of Christmas Eve.

Here, Mateus unwraps his present, while David responds with excitement to the present he has already received.

From the number and quality of gifts given, I get the impression that my host family is middle class. Also, my host grandmother had reserved two apartments at a resort on an island about an hour North of Olinda, so I spent three days there, relaxing, reading, and spending time at the beach. As a landlocked Kansan for most of my life, I didn't really know what to do with so much time at a body of water so large. I ended up playing quite a bit of soccer there as well with my host brothers and father. My feet paid dearly for playing barefoot, but it was definitely worth it.

Here I am trying to play soccer against my host dad, Ricardo. I am not wearing a white T-shirt, I just have a solid farmer tan going.

Another of the weekends activities was a game that my host brothers created. The basics of the game was that one person tried to stay serious while the other person did all manner of things to make them laugh. Usually these activities included dancing crazily, or making funny faces, but occasionally things got a little wild. Once I was walking with my host family, when my host brothers were pleading me to do something funny. I told them I would do something later. But when I saw that we were approaching a slight incline, I took this opportunity to pretend to trip and fall down. I quickly popped up, and just laughed at my host brothers. They had to laugh to, so I won that round.

Later, my host brother Bruno decided he knew how he could make me laugh. He hid behind some bushes, and emerged, completely naked, waving his underwear over his head. His parent scolded him for this activity, but round 2 went to Bruno.

At one point I was trying to talk like a robot to make them laugh, so I tried to say "I am a robot;" however, I said the word "roboto" for robot, instead of the Portuguese word "robot." My brothers thought "roboto" was the funniest word in the world, and they repeated my phrase "Eu sou um roboto" about 100 times over the weekend. Round 3 went to me.

So Christmas was anything but dull for me. I didn't get to experience Christmas with my family in Kansas, but I did spend Christmas with my family here in Brazil. So the holiday season has been quite good for me.

My host family: Mateus, Cristina, Bruno, Ricardo, and David. I should note that a gusty breeze caused Cristina's hair to appear electric for this photo.

Fortunately I didn't really have a set routine for New Year's Eve at home, so I don't feel like I'm missing a lot there. I'll be spending it with some friends here in Recife, and it should be pretty fun. Feliz Ano Novo! (Happy New Year!)

Sometimes I feel like I’m getting into a bit of a rut, or a groove, here in Brazil. I’ve been here long enough that everyday life isn’t new and exciting anymore, and I know what to expect from people. Then I have a day like yesterday, and life is new and unexpected again.

I set out yesterday morning with one primary goal in mind: take manure from Monteiro to a biodigester in Boa Sorte. I’d helped deliver manure to another biodigester before, but this was going to be my first time doing this alone. I felt good about my independence since I planned this delivery myself.

I got the manure from the butcher shop in Monteiro just as planned. I then headed out of Monteiro on a paved road to Zabelê, 20 km from Monteiro. In Zabelê I picked up Raí, who owns the house where the biodigester is being built in Boa Sorte. Little did I know how important it was that he was with me.

We then headed for Boa Sorte on the dirt road out of Zabelê. About 10 minutes later, we hit a hole in the road and shortly after I heard a hissing sound, and the Bandeirante truck died. Raí and I got out and quickly looked under the hood. A bright green liquid had squirted out of the air-conditioning unit and sprayed all over the engine. We noticed that a pipe had come loose, and we needed a wrench to remove the nut holding the pipe to the air-conditioning unit. Unfortunately, we didn’t have such a wrench in the truck. A car soon came by and Raí asked if he had any wrenches. He didn’t, but he was willing to take Raí back to Zabelê to pick up the wrench.

So Raí left in the car, and stayed by the truck. So there I was sitting in a broken-down truck with a load of crap (literally) on the side of a dirt road in the hot Brazilian sun. A 13-year-old boy on a bicycle rode by and stopped to look at what was going on. I tried to explain what was going on. “I’m waiting for someone to come back with the wrench,” I tried to say. I can just imagine what this kid was thinking. “What in the world is this funny-speaking man doing waiting by this truck? He’s probably crazy.” He rode off, and a couple more people stopped by on motorcycles to ask if I needed help.

Eventually Raí, his father, and his four-year-old daughter returned on motorcycle to the truck. They had brought wrenches, but none of them were the right size to remove the nut from the air-conditioning unit. While looking in the engine, Raí also noticed that another line to the oil pump was broken. He figured that we could drive without the air-conditioning, but the oil pump was essential.

A man driving a truck with a horse in the back stopped and offered his wrenches. A couple of men on a motorcycle also stopped and took a look. They said that they thought they could fix the part to the oil pump, but they would need to go to their farm a little distance from there.

About this time, the other MCC vehicle came down the road. Unfortunately I didn’t see them until they zoomed on past the broken-down truck. I had to laugh at the situation. There were two trucks and two motorcycles parked on the side of this road. One truck carried a horse, and the other truck wouldn’t start and had manure in the back. There were six men looking at the engine of the Bandeirante. And the only English speaker for miles just passed by without even looking. Amazingly, I wasn’t even that worried. All the Brazilians were very helpful, and I trusted them totally.

It was eventually decided that Raí would go with his father and daughter to fix the part in Zabelê. The only problem was that his motorcycle was out of gas. No problem, though, as the two men on the motorcycle let him borrow their motorcycle. The driver of the other truck also left, as his wrenches weren’t needed any more. So at this point I stayed behind with the truck and these two unknown men with the motorcycle. We sat in the shade and I attempted to make small talk as we waited for the others to return. They were farmers from the area on the way to sell their motorcycle. And I tried to explain what I was doing with two 55-gallon drums of manure. Every so often a car or motorcycle would pass by and we would have to explain that as ridiculous as the situation looked, everything was fine.

After a long time, Raí returned with the repaired part. However an attempt to start the engine showed that the pressure in this line was too great for the small hose that he had used in the repair. We decided that we couldn’t fix it ourselves; we needed a new part from Monteiro. So Raí decided that I should go to Monteiro with a couple that had stopped by and that was headed that way. I was supposed to go to an auto-parts store, buy a new part, and come back to the truck by moto-taxi. I wasn’t so sure about this plan, but Raí seemed confident, and I didn’t know what else to do.

I took the part and hopped into the truck with the couple headed for Monteiro, and they took me to the auto parts store. The driver made sure that the people at the store understood what I needed. The store employees said I couldn’t get such a part in Montiero, only in Arcoverde, about an hour away. However they did fix the part well enough that they were confident that it would hold. They didn’t charge me anything for the fix, and even called a moto-taxi to take me back to Zabelê.

To get a ride on a moto-taxi is to get on the back of a motorcycle with a complete stranger and pray that this person is a competent, safe driver. Once again I wasn’t terribly excited about this prospect, but the lady at the auto-parts store assured me he was respectable and safe.

We made it to Zabelê in about 25 minutes and I paid the driver R$15 (approximately $7) and thanked him greatly. Raí and I then went to the truck on his motorcycle and eventually replaced the part. I was so relieved when the truck started. I then drove the truck back to Zabelê, and Raí drove his motorcycle back there. We set out for Boa Sorte once more. Raí asked if he could drive, and since he knew these roads better than I did, I let him. About 5 minutes past our previous break-down point, the truck just died again. We opened up the hood and the same part had broken again. The pressure in the pipe was just too great for the seal we created. We could maybe fix it again, but we certainly couldn’t make it to Boa Sorte (another 30 minutes away on dirt roads).

Of course more people asked if we needed help. One of my favorite people of the day was a man carrying lights and speakers in his truck to a show about an hour away. He was shirtless, and wore shorts missing the top button. He had a cross necklace, and the mp3 player in his ear was blaring Dire Straits.

A community organizer who helps MCC also stopped and said that the other MCCers were not far from here, and he could take me there. So I went with him to the community of Barrieras, and Raí fixed the part in the engine well enough to get it back to Zabelê.

At this point I was exhausted and was just happy to be able to explain my situation to the other English-speaking MCCers. Lunch consisted of rice, beans, and a dish prepared from coagulated goat blood, liver, and heart, stuffed in the stomach of a cow. I didn’t care. It was food, and I was hungry.

As it turns out, one of the other MCCers needed to return to Montiero, so I went with him and Julie. We stopped in Zabelê on the way and Raí explained that the Bandeirante could probably make it back to Monteiro with the repaired part. We also thought we could still deliver the manure to the biodigester. We just had to transfer the barrels of crap to the other vehicle.

Both MCC vehicles made it back to Montiero, and the crap transfer was completed as planned. The rest of the day went by relatively uneventful considering the other events of the day. I took Julie back to Barreiras where she helped with a Christmas program. Raí and I then went to Boa Sorte and unloaded the manure into the biodigester. I eventually returned Raí to Zabelê, and thanked him greatly. Without his help, today would have almost certainly been a disaster for me.

So at the end of the day I realized that just when I think I’m independent, I realize how much I need the help of others.

Incidentally, in Portuguese Boa Sorte means “Good luck.”

Yesterday I went to a community an hour from Monteiro with Orlando to build a biodigester there. On the way, Orlando said, "It smells like rain." When we got to the house where we were to build the biodigester, he looked at the palma cactus that people plant here as a food for livestock. The tops of the cacti were starting to turn toward the ground. He then recalled some folk wisdom that says that when the tops of the cacti turn down, it will rain soon.

Within the hour the first drops of rain fell where we were working. The other worker looked to the sky and said, "This is the first rain in seven months...no more than that." It rained lightly for 30 minutes, but it was enough to cool the air down and to get my spirits up.

After the rain, a small rainbow appeared in the east. Someone told me, "When you see a rainbow, that means the rain is over." And more than likely it didn't rain there anymore last night.

But on the ride home from the community, I got to watch a wonderful lightning show happening across the night sky.

This evening another storm moved near to Monteiro, but we didn't get any rain. My host father saw a cockroach and told me that this is also a sign that it's going to rain. "They won't come out until the rainy season." My brothers got very excited, and decided to try to summon the lightning and thunder with fantastic hand waving and a rain dance.

The rainy season will probably not start here entirely until February, but I'm told we can expect some spotty thunderstorms until then. As someone who grew up in Kansas, I can appreciate the excitement that storms bring. I'm looking forward to an exciting couple of months.

The palma cactus and the clouds that brought the first rain of the season.

The last two weeks I have been involved in construction of a large cistern (52,000 liters) for a school in Monteiro. The school has begun a garden project under the direction of fellow MCCer Julie Alexander. They have begun to plant trees outside the school and hope to create a larger garden in the future. Currently, students have to carry buckets of water to water the trees. Furthermore, the water comes from the water box that also supplies water to the school bathrooms, drinking fountains, and kitchen. Ideally watering the trees wouldn't take water away from the students' needs, so it was decided that a cistern would be built to supply water for the garden outside the school.

MCC has constructed a few cisterns as large as this one in other locations, but only a few pedreiros (stone masons) know how to build them. One pedreiro was hired to build the cistern at the school and to teach other pedreiros how to build them.

The cistern construction utilizes a very simple technique. The cistern is constructed from cement placas formed in special forms (Figure 1). We mixed sand and concrete countless times in this process (Figure 2). I've never considered myself strong, but after mixing concrete in this manner for 8 days, I can definitely tell that I'm stronger.

Figure 1. Drying placa, placa form, and trowel.

Figure 2. Me mixing concrete while others sift sand in the background.

After the placas have dried in the sun, they are set in place and mortar is placed in between them to hold them in place. Each level of the cistern contains 36 placas. The placas were also temporarily held in place by large sticks, shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. The three levels of placas and the sticks used to hold them in place.

The most intriguing part of the process was the construction of the top of the cistern. We created beams with metal rebar sticking through them. A scaffolding was also constructed and the beams were carefully laid in place one by one on a center support (Figure 4). Once all the beams were in place, we placed more placas on top, and the pedreiros covered the entire surface with more concrete (Figure 5).

Figure 4. Laying the beams in place.

Figure 5. Placing and cementing top placas.

It was a massive project, taking over 10 days to complete. I've never done any construction projects of this size (or of any size, for that matter), and it was fascinating to see the whole thing unfold. But in typical Brazilian fashion, many things weren't planned until the last minute. One day I showed up and the pedreiros decided that they needed a scaffolding to stand on to lay the beams in place. So John ran to the store and picked up 7 meter pieces of wood as soon as he could.

It was also fun to work with the other pedreiros and helpers (Figure 6). For the first 4 days of the project, Mike was helping out here too. When the girls at the school found out his name, they began yelling at him from their classrooms overlooking the construction site. So the pedreiros knew his name really well, but when he left, everyone kept calling me Miguel too. Finally one day I came to work with a piece of paper taped to my shirt that read "My name is Joel." The guys got a big kick out of it. Especially Eduardo, a stout jolly pedreiro who was always joking around. He would be balancing on a small beam in the center of the cistern, and he would crack a joke and begin to giggle uncontrollably. It's a miracle no one was seriously injured during this project.

Figure 6. The construction crew (minus Mike). From left to right: helpers Junior and Orlando, pedreiros Eduardo, Antonio, and Paulo, and me.

In the end, we got the cistern constructed and painted; we built a fence with a gate, and we hung the gutters to feed into the cistern. It was an eleven-day undertaking, but I learned a lot about cistern construction. And now the school will have water for the garden.

Figure 7. The finished cistern.

Now this is a little story all about how
My face got flipped, turned upside down
And I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there,
I'll tell you all about how I cut my crazy hair.

In west Monteiro, under a fiery blaze
Building cisterns is how I spent most of my days
Chilling by a waterbox that looked like a pool,
and listening to heckles from the girls at the school

When I looked in the mirror, my hair was up to no good,
It was sticking up off my head wherever it could
I got out my razor and my beard got scared,
I said, "It's time for me to get rid of this crazy hair."

My whiskers looked drab, so I drew the blade near,
When I was almost done, I took a look in the mirror
If anything I could say that this face looked square,
But I thought now forget it, yo home to cut hair

I cut off my locks about 7 or 8
And I yelled to the barber, “Yo home smell you later.”
I looked at my face and I was finally there,
To live my life without my crazy hair.

Okay, so there maybe a little more to the story that can’t be explained in rhyme. I hadn’t had a haircut since August, and I wanted to see how long I could last without cutting it. I had this feeling that if I let it go long enough, it would look really sweet. I let my beard go too, partly because I’m lazy, and partly because I didn’t want a facial hair imbalance.

This plan was working out pretty well for a while; my hair was starting to turn into a fro, and my beard was at a manageable size. But after working outside in the hot sun here, I was noticing how uncomfortable it was making me. Also, my hair had gone beyond any sort of cool-looking stage, and I realized it was probably going to take a long time for it to get to any length where it was manageable again. But the thing that put me over the edge was when I had a video call to my family back home and my brother-in-law said, “You look like a terrorist.” I decided I would cut my beard and hair as soon as possible.

I took pictures before, during, and after the process, and here they are for you viewing pleasure:

This is what I looked like before the process. Yes, that is my actual hat. I bought it for R$ 5 (~2 USD) in the market in Monteiro to protect me from the sun a little more.

The goatee

The enormous fumanchu

The not-quite-so-enormous fumanchu

The moustache—if you’re going to have a ‘stache you might as well have fun with it.

And the end product.

My host brothers kept asking me, “Who are you?” and telling me “You’re not Joel. Joel has a moustache and beard.” They said that I look ten years younger. (So I guess that means I look fourteen.) Maybe not, but I think it’s an improvement. It at least feels better.