The rainy season is knocking. There have been thunderclaps, but so far, there has not been any rain.
I think everyone's English is improving again, now that we are able to speak more complicated Portuguese. It's really funny that we all took this approach of simplifying the way we think in order to simplify the way we speak.
To my knowledge, there haven't been any romantic couplings within the group yet. But as we are in a very interesting situation - and on our own - it's bound to happen soon!
It's nightfall and the bats have come out. It's really fun to watch them because they are so acrobatic in being able to avoid people and everything else very easily and quickly. And they're out every single night.
I cooked a Chinese stir-fry for my family this afternoon with the help of Sawyer. It took quite a while to cut everything, mainly because I had to use my hand as a cutting board. It is really making me a better cook!
I included fresh ginger and orange peel in the initial seasoning. Then, after a couple minutes, tossed in onions and garlic marinated in soy sauce. Then, after a few more minutes, bell peppers and piri-piri (small jalapenos). I served it over rice with soy sauce. It got good reviews with eyes wide open. I've never seen a group of six people drink so much water so quickly in my life! As they ate more, it just got more entertaining. Of course, it was only the first course of three that we had for lunch...
Next week, I'm cooking Italian. I think I'll make a really nice sauce for spaghetti. Unfortunately, I don't think there's much basil around here, and I don't want to use all of mine.
Some neighbors brought over their 2-week old baby, and I got to hold Rafael for a while. Within minutes, he pissed on me, which seemed to be some sort of rite of passage here. Everyone started clapping rhythm and cheering. I still am not quite sure exactly why.
If you would like to visit me (and I know you would), it is possible to get round-trip airfare for less than $1000. If you want to learn the language, pick up "Portuguese in 3 months". We're using it as a supplement, and it's very good. There are a couple different pronunciations in MOZ Portuguese, but other than that, it's accurate!
The third course today for lunch was chicken. It got killed while we were waiting for the rice to cook and I ended up having to eat some. Yes, I had told my family only once per week, but they want to give me meat so badly, they made me eat at least once. Bybluk (ONE OF JOHN'S FRATERNITY BROTHERS) must be laughing right now.
I'm sitting here by candlelight now, listening to the rain fall and reading some random French calendar my family has. I like this proverb I ran across:
"La societe a besoin de poetes,
comme la nuit a besoin d'etoiles."
And if my French is correct...
"Society needs poets like
The night needs stars."
What's intimidating is that I couldn't translate that into Portuguese (from memory) and the last time I was in a French class was high school. I know conversational Portuguese, not written, just yet!
Just a couple days ago, some French superceded Portuguese when I was trying to speak. I wanted to say, "I want..." in Portuguese, which is "(eu) quero", but all I could think was "voudrait" - even though this is very simple Portuguese. I think the language [see foreign :)] part of my brain just dredged up old, useless information.
This morning, which seems like forever ago, I had salad for breakfast. And fried eggs that I made myself. This was a good meal.
All in all, a good day.
Peace
John
