Life in Recife

I wake up and get ready- it´s just me and the maid, Didi because everyone else is already at school and work. I´m not used to having a maid around making breakfast for me, it is a bit awkward and she doesn´t speak English so we are creating our own little language of hand signals and Portu-glish. But she makes very good tapioca and toast and we are learning to communicate- I think my Portuguese is improving, hopefully. I walk to ABA, who is hosting us YAs. It is only a few blocks, and just taking a walk in Recife is different than Seattle. The sidewalks are a bit topsy-turvy, and something I should mention is that Brazilians are pretty crazy drivers. There doesnt seem to be any concept of traffic laws, lanes, speed limits or crosswalks. So we pedestrians have a friendly agreement with cars: just dont get hit. We usually start the day with Portuguese classes, and then the rest of each day is different all the time. Yesterday, we visited Pro-Criaça, an NGO where streetchildren can do art and theater to keep them out of trouble. They did amazing capoeira for us, and I bought some tea cups they made. Or the other day, we visted a public school and talked about the United States- it is pretty insane, we sit in font of a ton of kids who are all ogling us and they all usually want our emails, Facebooks, and Orkut, which is the Brazilian Facebook.

Today we went to the beach, Boa Viagem, in teh morning. I didn´t swim because of the sharks but we played Brazilian vs. American frisbee, drank water from coconuts and got kind of burned.

Later we bussed to a flea market type area called Mercado São José. It was smelly, dirty, loud, crazy and an old man spit near me but it was amazing! Every side of Brazil is different and exciting in its own way.  Matt haggled a Brasil flag from R$70 down to only 45! While we stand out and got a million stares and a few ´Gringo!´calls, we had a great time buying stuff and even witnessing an impromptu dance performance. You see the other side of Brazil; a girl who was 10 years old and couldn´t read followed us and we bought Mentos from her.  The wealth here is in extremes: a block away from my siblings´private school with a man sitting in the elevator pressing buttons is a group of men washing a horse in the river. Feral cats and dogs are everywhere, and yet a maid washes my sneakers for me. It´s a big problem.

However, this day was anything but depressing because I FINALLY completed my shopping goal and bought a Kaká jersey! It was R$15, which is about $7 maybe in the USA- score! I also got a Messi one much to the chagrin of my Brazilan counterparts, ha. You just can´t find this stuff in America!

Tomorrow we get to the University of Pernambuco at 5AM to take a bus to help flood victims in a nearby city. So early, but it will be a good experience. Tchau and Beijos!

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