My First Week in Brazil

Here I am in the Fazenda do Natal writing on my blog. Well the fazenda isn't near the city of Natal at all. It basically means "The Village of the Nativity" and just happens to have the same name as the city Natal. I'm more or less in the middle of nowhere near the town of Simoes Filhos.

Life here is pretty tranquil. In the morning I do some manual labor work, which is pretty tough. After that the afternoons are mostly free. Sometimes I wash clothes by hand. Washing clothes by hand is really hard by the way. We have Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours at 6:30 pm during the weekdays. Saturday is the day of rest and when I'll be able to write on my blog a bit.

After a week of being here I can already speak a decent amount of Portuguese. It's really hard to understand the children though. They often make fun of my American accent. The living conditions aren't too bad. The fazenda has received a lot of great updates since the times that my friends were here. We no longer have to carry water from a well since there is now running water. There is also electricity and a computer with a 56k modem that I can use on Saturday. I haven't taken any pictures yet because I wouldn't be able to upload them on this computer anyways. There are internet cafes in this cities. I'm now sure how I will get to them, but when I can I will begin posting pictures.

The fazenda is a beautiful place. The flora and fauna here are quite different from where I live in Tennessee. Bananas, lemons, tomatos, mangos, coconuts, cashews, and some massively large fruit called Jaca all grow here. We drink a lot of fruit juice here although I generally prefer cold water which is quite strange to the people here. The creatures here are very weird. The mosquitos are really bad. They're big and they're smart and they're numerous. The bug spray that I have holds them off a little bit, but they are determined little devils. I hate insects. There are many types here. Ones that I've never seen before. Most of the creatures are unique here. There are ducks, but they don't look like American ducks. There are weird lizards here too. Yesterday I saw a lizard that was three different colors. The top of its body was gray like the other lizards, its abdomen was green, and its tail was blue. What in the world was that thing? My friend Edson told me, but it was some long Portuguese name. Every now and then I see something that completely freaks me out. If I'm near the entrance of my house here, sometimes I go inside and shut the door. Not that I'm scared, I'm just being cautious right?

The people here are all nice. I live with Rute pronounced Hoo-chi, her son Marcelo, Raphaela pronounced Haphaela, and Bento (Benoit) who is a French missonary. Raphaela is hard to understand and hyperactive, Marcelo is cool, but he makes fun of the way I speak too much, Bento is cool and he is essentially the rock of the family, and Rute is nice but sometimes cultural differences come between us. I think I offended her with my reaction to finding out that the meat in the feijon was donkey meat. I thought something was odd about it. Also one of my conversations with her was essentially:
Rute: You know that chicken that you saw the other day?
Me: Yeah.
Rute: That was yesterday's lunch.
Me: I think that it's probably better that I not know such things.

All things considered the food here isn't that bad. Two days ago I had dinner at the house of Lucas and Stephanie, who are two French missionaries that live here permanently.

My friend Edson just told me that the Liturgy of the Hours is going in the church right now. I have to go. Ciao as they say here.