[First part written Sunday morning]

There are many things I love about life in Brazil. There are also some that I am not such a fan of. The typical Brazilian’s scheduling habits would be one of the latter.

I have mentioned to a number of people back home my excitement about our plans to construct another of the 52,000 liter cisterns that I already blogged about, this time here in Brejo. The past couple weeks have been spent preparing everything, digging the hole, getting all the materials ordered and delivered, arranging housing and food for the workers, all with the plan being to start construction on Monday (tomorrow!). Then yesterday, Beth gets a call. Bitonho, the chief pedreiro, and the same one I worked with last time, can’t come on Monday. Ok, well, when can he come? That remains to be seen. Then, later yesterday evening she finally succeeds in getting through to one of the other pedreiros; he’s busy all week building cisterns in another area. The third pedreiro? We haven’t been able to get through to him for several days, so we shall see.

So. Not good. Not only did we already buy all the food for meals for them this week, but the more pressing issue is the coming rainy season. We’re getting agonizingly close to the arrival of the rains, after which construction would be a nightmare, not to mention the fact that we want to capture this rains in the cistern. I also have other commitments scheduled for the end of construction… or, what would be the end of construction if we were to start on Monday.

I know the Brazilian idea of time and scheduling differs from the North American mindset, and normally I’m totally fine with it, but I’m sure you can understand how in this case it is slightly frustrating. We’re hoping that at least one of the pedreiros can be there Monday to start making the placas for the side of the cistern, and that Bitonho can come by the end of the week, as he is principally needed for his expertise in constructing the roof of the cistern. If our numbers are low, I will probably end up doing more manual labor than I had anticipated, but… at least I can work on my tan (now that I’m done peeling from the wicked burn I got at the beach). And I won’t have literally hundreds of high school girls cat-calling me this time, which is a definitely a plus, right? Right.

So we will see how things pan out. I’m trying to take it all in stride, but your prayers for a swift and agreeable resolution to these issues would be greatly appreciated. Or maybe pray for the rainy season to take it’s time getting here, although that could raise a whole set of new problems… Hmmm…

[Next part written Monday afternoon]

Ok, so we did indeed start today! Sort of… Last night, as I was already preparing for bed, Beth called. We finally heard from the third pedreiro, and we had to go out to his house, about 10 km outside of Brejo, to meet with him. So off we went.

The way things worked out, he’s busy pretty much all week too, but he is able to come tomorrow! Horray! So, today was spent preparing everything we could without him, sifting sand, clearing vegetation for a place to make the places, making sure it’s all ready for tomorrow. Because tomorrow? Yeah, we’re going to make roughly 150 placas, plus 38 beams. Last time, that took us more than 2 full days. Boo-yah. I’m feeling tired today, after just one morning of physical labor (yes, I am rather out of shape). Tomorrow I’m going to die. But we’re going to do it. I hope. Then those will be left to dry and cure until Monday, when all the pedreiros can come, and we’ll get to work putting the cistern together.

So, things worked out ok, considering how bleak they were looking. Hopefully they’ll continue well, and we can avoid problems due to rain. Also, now I won’t be working until Monday, which means I should have Sunday available to watch the Super Bowl! I’m hoping to head to Monteiro to watch it with my colleagues Joel and John, probably two of the only people within a hundred miles who are interested, haha!

A chapter in my life has come to a close. A Favorita is over.

the tag line reads: "Two women. Two versions of the same story. Who is telling the truth?".

This is the novella that mainly inspired my first blog post about the world of novellas, and since then I have been a regular viewer, to say the least. It was really a lot of fun getting to know all the characters and interweaving stories and whatnot. It also made for a great conversation piece since so many people watch the novellas, I really felt like I could contribute to conversations about them, which was a lot of fun!

So, this past Friday, I settled in for the final showdown between Flora and Donatella, adopted sisters who, how shall I put this, don’t like each other all that much? Haha, there’s an understatement for ya! Flora killed Donatella’s first husband, then framed her for another crime, killed multiple other people, and made life all-together rather difficult for Donatella, all because of a series of grudges against her. Not only that, but she turned the entire family against Donatella and tricked them all into believing she was innocent and taking her into their confidence. This was the main storyline of A Favorita, but obviously not the only one, all of which were wrapped up in this final episode.

Flora and Donatella. Yeah, they don't like each other too much.

Somehow, though, I was a bit disappointed with the final episode. Everything seemed to wrap up a little too nicely. Ze Bob, Donatella’s new husband, was shot by Flora, but survived just fine; Flora wound up in jail; there were numerous plans for marriage; and Halley and Lara of course ended up together. It was all just too perfect. That said… I still loved it! And am going to miss it terribly! But don’t worry, I’ll be ok. Just give me a little time.

Lara and Halley, the perfect couple.

So now, I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life every night from roughly 8-9… Oh wait, I know! I can watch the new novella, Caminho das Indias! It starts tonight! I’m saved!

While folks back home eagerly await the inauguration of our new President-elect, a similar feeling has already gripped the people of Brejo da Madre de Deus. On New Year’s Day I had the pleasure of attending the inauguration of the new mayor of Brejo, Dr. Edson, along with his vice-mayor, Adelson, and the new city council members. Dr. Edson was clearly the star of the evening, and the excitement and expectation was palpable.

The proceedings began with a huge rally in the same location where I had previously attending my host-brother Iago’s graduation. It’s basically just a big open space, kind of like a gym, but this time it was absolutely packed! People were overflowing out the back and side doors, everyone wanting to be a part of this occasion. The estimates I heard put the number of people there at 5,000. That may not sound like a whole lot, but now consider that the city of Brejo only has 8,000 people! It was like the whole city turned out for the event, and it sure sounded like that inside that room, with cheers constantly erupting as Dr. Edson made his remarks.

The crowd from the rally spilling out into the streets

Following that, the proceedings shifted up to the prefeitura, basically the city hall. I arrived there before the bulk of the crowd, trying to find my host-mom and her friend (to no avail). As more and more people started arriving, I ran into Betty, my colleague with MCC. In talking with her, she said she had never seen anything like this before for an inauguration, the level of excitement was unprecedented! She compared it to the inauguration of Lula several years ago, which was a huge event. Dr. Edson received the keys to the prefeitura, and the crowd erupted, followed by quite the fireworks display!

So why so much excitement? Well, I’m not entirely sure on all the details, but from what I have gathered, the previous mayor basically didn’t accomplish anything. The previous mayor’s chief representative (who is now one of the new city council members) was booed incredibly every time he took part in the proceedings. The feeling that Dr. Edson brings really makes me think of what a lot of people feel about Obama as well. A fresh face, someone who can really bring the needed change to the political atmosphere. It’s very exciting, and I’m eager to see how things will change in the coming months.

Not only have I met and talked with Dr. Edson and his vice Adelson, I now know a ton of people employed by the new administration. My host-dad, Sérgio, is the new Secretary of Agriculture, I know the Secretary of Public Works, and countless other people who are also now working with the prefeitura. It’s pretty cool, I must say! There’s even a possibility that I might end up doing some work with them too, so we shall see.

One last thing that I’ll leave you with. All the political parties here have numbers, and the outgoing mayor belonged to the party with the number 15. Apparently this is the number associated with alligators here, so some people were carrying around a stuffed alligator, and everyone was cheering and laughing at it. I had to have Betty explain it all to me. Quite the spectacle, to be sure, haha.

Absolutely hilarious, I must say...

Ok, so, not really. We are still in the dry season. However, here in Brejo that doesn’t exclude the chance for the occasional summer rainstorm. And, for about an hour a few weeks ago, boy, did it rain!

Being from Washington, I enjoy the rain. And here, it kind of reminded me of home. It started raining and I was actually kind of excited. The last time it rained, the roof in my room had started to leak, soaking my bed, but since then the roof had supposedly been fixed and I wasn’t too worried. I monitored the ceiling in my room carefully as the rain continued, and there was no sign of leakage. After a while I decided I might want to take a look outside, maybe going out in the rain for a little. After so long without rain, it was very refreshing, and I wanted to take advantage.

However, I opened the front door to find the entryway to our house almost completely flooded, just about to the point of water entering the house! I wasn’t sure what to do, but soon after my host-dad Sérgio arrived home and took stock of the situation. I wasn’t sure if this was a common occurrence or not, but I soon realized, based on his reaction, that no, this was not good. We had no idea what was causing this to happen, but the water was definitely still rising. Soon we got a shout from the other room; water was already coming in the side door.

At that moment we sprung into action. I grabbed a bucket of toys, emptied it onto the bed, and began using it to scoop water out of the entryway back into the street, where it normally stays during a rain storm. After some more attempts to quell the surge of water and move some furniture to safety, Sérgio finally found the source of the problem. The mason that had been working on the roof of our house, installing a new water box and fixing the leak, had left a huge pile of rubble in the street. This pile was conveniently placed on the side of the street, next to the sidewalk, effectively blocking the gutter where the rain water would normally flow and diverting it up onto the sidewalk. And the next entrance? The carport of our house. All the water collected from up the hill from our house (which is a pretty big hill) was being diverted directly into our entryway. Not a good situation.

Sérgio and I cleared the pile as quickly as we could, to stop any more water from coming in, but the damage had already been done. The entryway, TV room, and dining area were pretty well flooded. No major damage had been done, but we had our work cut out for us, squeegeeing and mopping and scooping water and whatnot. As I was working, I asked my host-mom Elô to check my room, see if the ceiling was leaking. And, you guessed it, yes, it was. We moved my bed out of the way (luckily it had only gotten a tiny bit wet) and set up towels and buckets. We spent the next couple hours mopping and sweeping and moving things around to clean. Some of the cleaning was left til the next morning.

My leaky ceiling...

My host-mom Elô getting started on cleaning once the water receded.

So that was our lovely little flooding experience. From what I hear, I lot of you back in Washington might be experiencing something similar at the moment, so I pray none of you have to deal with this same sort of thing. Also, supposedly, now, the roof above my room has been fixed and shouldn’t leak. But I guess we’ll just have to wait til the next big rain to find out. I think I’ll move my bed ahead of time next time…