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...

Fabio, my Portuguese teacher. I'm gonna miss him when I go to Monteiro. :-(

Anya and I at the symposium

The forro band in traditional garb.

My pump building group. The guy on the floor, Alberto, was later my main dancing partner.

The pump works!

Happy Happy Happy Girl