I'm a slacker, but it's OK because I was at the beach for Christmas.
Twelve of us went over Chris' house near the coast for Xmas the past couple days, and we all had a great time sharing stories of our past week and a half and spending the most celebrated American holiday with our new family.
We cooked our own huge meal for Xmas, including a fresh green salad, pasta and sause, grilled chicken, potato salad and garlic bread. It was one of the best meals we've had here, specifically because we made it and we made a ton of it. If we weren't going on hours-long chapa rides today, we would have grabbed more leftovers.
In catching up with people, I found out that many people have had problems with their houses not being ready or not being fully secured yet, so fully 1/4 of the volunteers in our group have not yet moved in. It's unfortunate for them because they haven't been able to take advantage of this time to settle in or improve their language skills half as much as if they had been in their houses.
However, we can't expect this to be like the States - and we all know this, however frustrating it still is.
My situation is definitely the exception rather than the rule, essentially living with a couple locals and having a house that's already ready to live in. Some people didn't show up to Xmas, though, because they wanted to integrate more into their communities or go back to home-stay families. So by no means were we homogeneous in our decision to hold on to our American identities during Xmas.
I've pretty much decided that I'm going to spend New Year's here in order to integrate into the community - but I still haven't decided on whether I'm going to start drinking here yet. I want to make sure I have the respect of the community before I start "male bonding", which is very commonly done over a few beers.
Phone calls were really tough these past couple days because it's been so hard to get through. My parents, however, managed to call me and we had a great long conversation that was, unfortunately, cut off and we didn't get to finish it. But it was very nice to hear from them and to have them know that everything was OK with me.
It's just so disconcerting, coming from a world where you can get in touch with anyone at any time, to having a conversation abruptly end and not have any recourse - not have any way to get in touch. It doesn't help that I've become more of a control freak here than in the States. Having the phone completely out of my control is just...jarring. But at least I have a phone, which is better than most people.
The trip back from the coast was eventful. I have to take a chapa from the volunteer's house to the market, and then the market to an intermediate city, then from the intermediate city to C---. Except it didn't quite work out that way. The whole process should take 3 hours, and it did on the way there. But on the way back, I got foiled by Jesse who told me to get off too early on the way to the market. So I had to walk about 20 minutes to get to the market, watching my chapa pass by. Then, I got to the market and got on a chapa that said that they were going all the way to C---. We waited 30 minutes for it to fill up, then were on our way and made it to the intermediate city without a problem, except that they changed their tune and ended up not going to C---. So I got dropped in the middle of a major intersection, not really knowing where I was going. Following my nose, I crossed a couple streets and asked people where these chapas were going - bingo. And in so doing, I found someone who was going back there for the first time in a long time, Simoes. He was born in C---, but as I understood it, he was going to visit family for the holiday, family he hadn't seen in a long time.
We hopped on the next empty chapa and again I had about 30 minutes of downtime. The whole ride, I had been reading "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". So I opened the book, and Simoes immediately perked up. I asked him if he spoke English, and he said (in Portuguese) that he tried. So we read along - I, knowing that there's no way he'd understand what was going on; he, happy to have a chance to read English on the way to seeing his family.
About 1/2 an hour into the ride, we came upon a police stop. I'm not quite sure (and Simoes wasn't quite sure) what they were doing, but we sat for a while, then our driver parked on the opposite side of the road. We were told that the chapa had to return to town, but we were also told that we had to go with him. The people spoke, however, and we slowly trickled out and started waiting for a ride. A bus slowed up, already pretty full, and started having the same police problems. But most of us hung around the bus, knowing that we could squeeze in and no motorista refuses a fare. A chapa with room came by and a few people ran to catch it, but we stuck by our guns and eventually got on the bus.
I'll continue the story sometime, but I found a passage in "Zen..." that sums up an aspect of how I feel about myself.
"The range of human knowledge today is so great that we're all specialists and the distance between specializations has become so great that anyone who seeks to wander freely among them, almost has to forego closeness with the people around him."
Peace
John
