Monteiro Monologues: October 2009

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Finally in Monteiro!

Hello friends,
I have finally arrived at my final home for this year, making the name of my blog, Monteiro Monologues, finally appropriate. Woo Hooo!
Anya and I arrived on Tuesday along with Andrea (MCC SALT coordinator in Brazil) and Veronika (friend from Akron visiting Andrea, and conveniently me as well since I lived with her in Akron while waiting for visa. See earlier pictures of Main House Friends), and have settled in well since then. My family consits of Tiana (Mom, 34) and her two daughters Erika (12) and Karol (8). I already have so much love in my heart for them, and I think them for me. They are three strong women, especially Tiana, being a single mom with two jobs, working all day for her girls. Erika helps around the house a lot, and as a result is amazingly mature, and Karol has a heart brimming with love for all. She loves hugs and cuddling. Which is just fine with me. :-)
Our work for the first few weeks will consist of tagging along with other MCC staffers to towns and farms around Monteiro, where the cistern and biodigestor work is done. I absolutely love the rural communities way out in the sticks (and I mean way out there. the middle of nowhere). I love their accents, their interesting farm animals (I got to hold an armadillo...), their resourcefulness, and hospitality. I think since most of my work will be with the people in these places, I will be very happy here.
A funny thing happened the other day. Allow me to share:
So, I was using the bathroom the other night in my new house. I stood up, pushed the button to flush, and the strangest thing happened. Something brown flew from the toilet. My first thought was that it was poo, but then I realized I had only (I don't know the most elegant way to say this) peed. I was quite puzzled and alarmed, and I watched as this brown mass stuck to the door, and then jumped from the door to the wall (probably a clear 3 feet in the air), then from the wall to the sink (each time making an awesome thunk/suction cup noise) and finally I realized it was a frog. Yes, there was a frog tucked under the rim of the toilet, and thanks to Jesus it did not decide to jump while I was still using the facilities. It waited until it had a clear shot across the room, and once I got over the initial shock, I appreciated this great ability of the frog to jump such a great distance. Then I waited until it was far enough from the door to make a run for it, and quickly explained to my sisters what the screaming and jumping around the bathroom was all about. THey thought it was quite hilarious, and so did I. I just had to let my heart calm down a bit. Needless to say, I have since started checking the toilet very carefully before using it...
Hmm... I have all sorts of other funny things that have happened. Language blunders (lots of those), quotes from my sisters, jokes I've made with Tiana. I think I am the family jokester right now, which is fun and great because the family has somse hard times right now. So its good for them to laugh every once in a while.
Oh, I almost forgot to tell you all. I won't be blogging as much here because for one, my house doesn't have internet. I will try to give a detailed description soon of my living quarters to give you an idea of where I live. But, for two, a rather unfortunate incident occured involving my computer, a leak in the ceiling, and lots of water coming through this leak. There were enough abnormalities about the situation, that I am now convinced it was supposed to happen. I have learned an important Mennonite lesson of disconnecting myself from my earthly posessions. But, IF any of you have an old laptop that's not in use, or have any brilliant fundraising ideas of how to get a new one on my measily volunteer stipened, or the like, let me know. It would probably be conveninent to have one for work purposes, but certainly not necessary. It just might mean I"m a little more out of touch... like the olden days. But it also means more letters... :-) Send me addresses if you're interested in being the recipient of one...
Alright friends, I should return home before dark, and it is almost to that point, although it is not yet 5:30. So goes the life in Monteiro.
Love and peace to you all!!!
Anamaria

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Wrapping up in Recife

My most sincere apologies, dear friends, for not having posted for quite some time. Because of emails with family and friends, I feel like I'm keeping in pretty good touch with my community back home, however I have unintentionally neglected my blog-reading community and I will try to not let it happen again.

Many things have happened since my last post, naturally. One of the larger events was spending a week in Caruaru with Anya, attending The 7th Simpósio de Brasilerio de Captação e Manejo de Água da Chuva (The 7th Brazilian symposium on the Capture and Management of Rain Water!). We experienced blessing after blessing of meeting new people, practicing portuguese, learning new technical vocabulary, eating good food, and generally having a good time. The Northeastern region of Brazil is incredibly dry for most of the year, and so the capture of rainwater during the rainy season is crucial to provide drinking water as well as irrigation and water for livestock during the dry season. I bought one of the T-shirts because I loved the saying printed on the back "Água da chuva é água para todos" (Rainwater is Water for everyone). So true. A resource for all people. All people just need cisterns to hold such a resource... :-)

At the symposium, I also learned how to construct "bombas" or pumps, but an important differentiation I learned was to say "bombas de água" because simply saying "bomba" means bomb. I wonder how many people were a little worried to be in my presence after I proudly announced that I recently attended a workshop on how to build bombs.

One of the evenings at the symposium, we had a cultural night at a nearby farm. There, we learned how to dance forró, a traditional Brazilian form of dance, similar to square dancing. Most of the other symposium folks who attended the dance were farmers, and they were quite eager to teach the two American girls how to dance. One of my dance partners even requested the song "AnaMaria" on my behalf. Unfortunately for him, by the time he returned to dance with me, another gentleman stepped in (and by "stepped in", I mean grabbed me by the hand and simply started dancing without a word or introduction). It was quite a night.

I'm starting to wrap things up on Recife, because I will be moving to Monteiro in about a week. I will miss so many good people here. All of the staff at the MCC Sede, my Brazilian host family, my Portuguese teachers Fabio and Luciana, my tennis coach Joe, the worker at our favorite food kiosk on the beach, Naldo, Helen's host family (especially their 2 year old grandson Gabrielle), and many others. Fortunately I will be able to return to Recife on occasion, but I will miss them all the same.

Random asides:

-Every night when I return to my house, there is a huge ant parade on the curb, each one carrying crumbs and food scraps, no doubt collected from the neighbor's garbage. One long row, displaying their amazing feats of strength.

-My neighbor has a dog that plays with a pop bottle outside my window. It reminds me of my own dog Chessie chasing cool whip bowls around the living room for hours on end. I wish I could climb over the wall and meet this dog. I think we would be good friends.

And now, PICTURES!

My temporary boss/ forever friend, Helen

The man that stole my heart. Here he is serenading Anya. I'm afraid he stole both our hearts. And I'm sure you can see why with his entrancing gaze...