Almost a year under my belt...

Wow. So, I've been away from home for almost 14 months now, but I've only been at site for about 11 months. And I know I haven't been writing in my blog very religiously, so I guess it'd be nice of me to write a brief update of the past year.

Well...honestly, most of the stuff I've been doing here has just been getting over the culture shock. After having spent my entire life in California and then arriving in my tiny, impoverished village and being surrounded by strange languages and cultural practices...it did take a while for me to just start to comprehend the situation in which the locals live.

That being said, the local community based organization (CBO) that I work with finally recieved their legalization document this past month. I spent a lot of time trying to get that done with the limited resources which we have in our village, so it was a major relief when we finally got it. The local "capoeira" group has lost interest in capoeira and now practice karate. For some reason they've made me the grandmaster, even though I hardly ever come and I haven't practiced martial arts in over 13 years. They have a local (he's originally from the city 3 hours away, but studying at the highschool in my village) master who teaches them on a regular basis. Sometimes I practice capoeira in my yard, but I'm usually busy doing other stuff.

I have a new site mate who's pretty cool. He's a few years older than me, and he's actually a peace corps response volunteer (he already served his two year term about 8 years ago) who is working a 9 month agriculture project in my village. He's been helping me out with my guitar playing, so that's been fun. It totally changes the feel of my site too, knowing that I'm not the only American here. I definitely feel more comfortable in my skin. I have no idea how I survived last year all by myself, with no one to speak English to or who understood what life is like back in the states. There's just a huge gap in the type of stuff that we think about...you're probably wondering "like what?"

Well...for example, on a daily basis in the states we might think stuff like "oh, today I need to go buy milk at the supermarket after work, then drop by my buddy's house to play some video games, and then plan out my schedule for the month." On a daily basis in my village, it kind of goes like "Desejo que vai chover amanha, eu preciso de isso para minha machamba produzir muitas vegetais. Talvez eu vou pilar amendoim, ralar coco e vervir isso para ter leite de coco, e depois apanhar algums folhas de mandioca para fazer matapa para a comida nossas hoje (translation: I hope it rains tomorrow so that my farm will produce many vegetables. Maybe I'll pound some peanuts then shave a coconut and boil it to make some coconut milk and then light a some coals (using a plastic bag to start the fire) to cook that mixture with some leaves from my yard to make today's meal for my family)". I remember when I was learning how to make matapa, it took about four hours to make.

I could write more stuff about that, but I'm getting lazy.

Most of the kids/highschoolers that I work with are on vacation now (their Summer break is from November to January) so I'm working more with my CBO this month and next instead of with the students.

I've been eating a lot of coconuts recently. I'm getting better at choosing which coconuts are better to eat (sweeter and more tender) and at opening them with my knife (hacking at it to open it up and drink the juice then hacking it in half to be able to scoop out the meat). Melissa doesn't have lanhas at her site, so I'm suffering right now. Oh yeah, I should've mentioned, I'm at Melissa's site because she's having her despedida (going away party) today. I can't believe she's going to cos in less than two weeks.

Alright, gotta go, tchau tchau.