Olá!
Well, I’ve been getting some subtle and some not-so-subtle hints that I should update my blog, so here you are. Sorry that it has taken me awhile to update, the reasons for this should be obvious from this entry.
The school time has officially ended for Brazil, the kids have had break since mid-December which means, I too have had break. My original plan for break was to go visit one of the other volunteers in Brazil or travel to São Paulo or southern Brazil where I know people and go visit them. This idea was quickly stomped by Padre Jefferson who decided that staying in Porto Velho and doing language classes and getting to know more of the “realidade” of the city and Salesian work was the best idea. I’ve been occupying my time with random tasks around the schools. I spent a good solid week cleaning the old residence of the priests which was closed years ago, and by the amount of dead cockroaches that lined the walls and the inch-thick layer of dust on everything, I would venture to say the doors hadn’t been opened since. I made the best of it by blasting music, dressing up as a ninja (this was more for protection from inhaling a disease than for games) and dancing around the residence with broom and mop in hand. It actually was fun, maybe I have a future in cleaning houses. Actually, scratch that, my next task was cleaning an old storage facility, I won’t go into the horrors I encountered there, but I would rather clean the old residence with cockroaches with my tongue than clean that place again. Haha, I definitely worked off some purgatory time there.
Christmas came and went without much hub-bub. Christmas Eve I got to serve as an altar boy for the first time ever! It was quite the rush. Haha. Seriously. We went to this tiny neighborhood on the outskirts of the city to a little church, and Padre Moisés (the 90 year old priest here) celebrated mass, including him playing a handmade flute out of PVC and giving his homily from the presépio (the manger scene thing…what’s that called in English?). We also scored a nice lil fruit basket from the community that was given up at the offertory, thanks guys, the cupuaçu is awesome. Christmas day, I went out to the River Rio Novo, and took a dip at the base of some small waterfalls, hung out with one of the priests and a seminarian and got sunburned. Oops.
I feel like this blog is just rambling with random facts about things that I have been doing, but the truth is, there has been so much beauty that I have encountered here in Brazil in the past month that is impossible to describe, where the words fail, and I feel in lots of ways that I am doing this experience an injustice by trying to describe my happenings. For instance, Christmas morning I visited this old man who lived on this huge plot of land, and he was missing a lot of his teeth, his house is in conditions that are completely unlivable by most American standards, he had a mattress on the floor and a hammock and that’s it… in his entire house where him and two others lived, including his daughter that is 2 years old. He offered us water, which was the only thing he had to offer, and when he poured it into the glass, I couldn’t help but noticed the black chunks floating in the cup (not clean water). The door to his house was wide open, it was 90 degrees outside and all I could see was a path to a river lined with palm trees and wild sheep like animals running around. He sat on this old dirty plastic chair, shirtless, and it is obvious that hard work and the sun has given him many more wrinkles than he should have at his age. He just talked and talked about everything. He was alone on Christmas day. It was one of those moments in life when everything freezes and the world is exactly how it should be. This is just one of the memories that I have where unexpected beauty is shoved in my face… like the little boy running barefoot down the street dragging a kite behind him, the houses around him are crumbling, the road is just dirt and trash litters the sides but he is grinning ear to ear, … these are things I can’t describe, where emotions just rush to try and the beauty that is so present in the moment gets lost in words later.
But in other news, in the past two weeks we’ve been robbed four times. The first time we just laughed, mainly because the person who robbed us just broke into the kitchen and stole food. They left a nice mess of rice and milk all out on the streets as they were getting away. If people are stealing food from priests, not a big deal… we’ll just go get more. Np. They obviously need it. The next time was out on one of our sites. This robber guy has been haunting the community there… he managed to break into the site steal all of the wiring, disconnect water and electricity like permanently since he stole the wires and tubes or whatever (don’t ask me.. I don’t know how it works). Anyways he keeps coming back and he has managed to steal the keys to all the rooms at the site and all sorts of weird stuff. We went to the local police station, which was smaller than my room in the states, and the sheriff told us to go investigate “the scene” and tell him what we saw. Haha. Thanks detective. We’re on the case, don’t worry, you just stay here and smoke your cigarette. We replaced all the wiring just to have it stolen again. Whoops. I guess it’s really expensive too. That sucks. But the robber seems pretty harmless… the guy who lives out there walks around with a machete now though. Haha. Crazy Brazilians.
Some of the kids are coming back to the center in the afternoons now which is great. I’m back to soccer and basketball, which is great, because I have been slacking on sports without the kids here. Now I await the time of Carnaval and for school to start in February. Until then, I’m learning more and more Portuguese and the culture here. I’m to the point where I am comfortable talking with strangers. Fluency, here I come.
I have a lot of thoughts that I could word vomit all of this blog. But instead, I will leave you all with a quote and call it a night.
“A minha alma está armada e apontada para a cara do sossego, pois paz sem voz não é paz, é medo”~ Maria Rita
My soul is armed and pointed at the face of silence, because peace without a voice, isn't peace, it's fear.
Love from Brazil,
Jonny
