Interlude

Mornings and nights when I awaken,
my jovial sleep is depressed by a new reality:
My bed overlooking a window to a landscape of impossibilities. Therein lie the deepest desires of my soul, triggered by unconscious exposure to propoganda and the floating ideas of men. I am possessing the sensation of beauty, and eager for its actualization. But there are no worlds within my reach where fields sparkle like gold and the sky is an endless sea, and the ether that formed the earth is left at my disposal. No-any beauty that treds these parts I carried from slumber, opening my hands only to find its turned to dust in transit. Sadly, I let it slip like time through my fingers...

But there was a moment I was drowned in colors, and the novelty of the experience let me know that it was magic. I was a child swept under a wave, fear forcing my arms to resist. Eyes forced open in terror, I was soon calmed by a song of blues, purples and whites beneath the sea. Breath waning, there was no life to worry about, it was not day or night-it was a sensation my body possessed: dying peacefully. Yet as I slowed my own resistance, the ocean sensed my defeatism and threw me back into life,retreating again into its vortex of certain endlessness. When I arose, there were dark bodies sparkling in the shallow waters, laughing into the setting sun. In this world, the secret of my death is not a thing for poetry, but for the restless shadows of impossibilities I cast outside my window.

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To dream in life as well as in sleep, is to believe in ghosts. It is to carry phanotms, other-wordly fantasies, into the world of man and allow them breath. Footsteps where no one walked, a song with no composer, the whistling you sometimes hear-all the mysteries of sleepwalkers-those unforunate men who know not the difference between here and there.

I am one of them, living a million lives inside my head, loving for reasons that dont exist. To be ambitious is to presuppose a destiny. But what is this destiny? Of what is it composed? We can track a million years past by measures of erosion-but not a single minute into the future. I can imagine a potentiality, but this image is a mystery to be discovered. We are all subconciously casting images into that nonexistent space and time ahead, like throwing lines into the ocean. One or two may bite, but what of the ghosts who never manifest? They are put to rest and are forgotten in death. But from time to time, up from the racing oceans and streams, one may here the phantom song of a long forgotten dream...

Taking Myself Over

So many things can happen in such a short amount of time. I think it was only yesterday, or maybe the day b4 that I left you with my last blog but it feels like a century ago. What day is it? I cant recall in either english or portuguese. I am able to express myself a little better=beyond yes i like and no i dont like, sarcasm, disdain and even inside jokes. Im glad I can express some subtleties. This blog is called Taking Myself Over because Brazil has been perfect at forcing me to come face to face with my main issue, my number one problem which is not taking the bull by the horns, letting life sweep me up like a wave and letting circumstance define me. Brazil is that place and Brazilians are those people that you can easily drown in. I am daily stimulated and distracted by their charm, the novelty of their day to day makes me forget from time to time the things I want to do. So quickly everything can become a blur, but I am begining to understand that it is this difference, the difference between taking life or letting life take you, that is the difference between content and happiness. If you know me at all you are aware that it is very difficult for me to be unhappy in a place, but I am learning now that if I am to get what I want out of these three months, these short ass three months, I am going to have to take that.

So you will find a montage of photos of a school my family took me to today-I was not entirely sure where we were going, I misunderstood and thought we were going to a samba party. Instead it was my little sisters(Nicoli really Gabys neice but shes like a sis to me) school where a youth samba group was coming to play the drums for the kids. Charming as it was, it was not exactly what I wanted to do.

The pics are adorable as are the kids celebrating carnival early. What you wont see are the pictures I didnt take when I left the house after we got back. Frustrated with my homestay sister who went off when I didnt understand what she was saying...I left to do what I had wanted to do since i got there...eat some crabs. I went to the best crab restaurant and the dude sat me at table 42. You the know the significance of this number for me. I ordered crab and beer(skol which is the best they have) and read some 20,000 leagues under the sea. Great book. Turns out my waiter lived in Boston 9 years and spoke fluid english, that was a relief. I indulged...I ordered some mocaco(sp?) the staple here, a shrimp stew and another beer and felt happy and full. Then I walked along the beach for an hour and bought u guys some gifts, also what I had wanted to do for a little while. I didnt have to go far til I walked smack in the middle of a samba street party, drums blasting people dancing in bikinis and sungas(male speedo but even shorter) crazy head pieces, beer, popcorn, rotisserie chicken and a booming gay and lesbian presence and of course tons of onlookers. Man I shoulda been born in this place. Wait till I learn how to samba....

Pics from Cadec!

Dalva runs the show with the yum yums!! Great woman, awesome food...shes trying hook me up with her son, the one behind her is tryna hook me up with her brother, they brought me gifts!! I guess they all want an American in the family, lol.

Dont let there looks deceive, theyre like little adults

They all wanted to be on the blog!!These are my little monsters that I have to take care of Monday thru thursday...I get off thursday thru sunday which is awesome. Today was nutz...I had to keep them all inside even though classes didnt start yet. I could barely keep them in their seats. I am starting to see now how this is a school for the kids who need more atttention.

But I feel like I am not prepared for this kind of job. I can play with them outside all day and handle conflicts and feed them and make sure they dont pee in the trash can(yes apparently they have been doing this) but I dont feel like i am prepared to teach them things. After carnival(which is next week!!!) i will have 40 kids every day and Caleb and I will be teaching a class of English. I can barely speak portuguese!! Im excited and kinda freaked out at the same time. These kids are the most challenging but strangely caring that I have ever come across in my life. At least I have the practice of having you crazy kids as my brothers and sisters!! Im the oldest(other than Robert) living in a house turned nursery back home so i am quite accustomed to dealing with cretons....

I suppose I am entirely missing the point of blogging if I dont vent at least once. So here it goes,
As I said, in Cadec, a school for kids through the ages of 7 to 12, about 40 kids attend in the morning and 40 kids attend in the afternoon. Most of them are a dream, some or not. But it is not the kids that get to me, it is the fact that for the last week or so that I have been here, I have seen nothing constructive done academically with these kids. Granted, they don~t start official school until a week from now(nobody does anything here until after Carnival) but why not plan something for the kids who are here all day? The facility has a bunch of volunteers who administer but it is usually, me, Caleb and another girl who play with the kids. As of right now, this is my job. To play games....tag, picoalta(kinda cool, u run from the person whose it and jump on top of something as base), hand games, we tell stories....its more like camp then school right now. But the kids sometimes look as if theyre dying with boredom until we come to play with them. They should be studying!!! And on top of this, they only have four hours of school, and they wonder why they have so many kids running around in the streets.

A friend of mine here whose in highschool said she was guna skip school this week cuz she doesnt want to go. There is no repercussion for this, her parents are cool with it and shes just not guna go....crazy to me. School is only four hours and she prolly wont be doing anything with those four hours.

Admittedly, it is difficult to study in paradise. You live across the street from the beach, all your friends, crab stands, street parties and carnival. But the biggest difficulty is the heat. It is very hard to read in the heat as it almost always puts u to sleep. I am coming to value New York City winters by being here.

I am also coming to value more things about myself...things like my race, where I come from, who I am..I was never really proud to be american but here they lover everything american, every time they beg me to translate a beyonce song i say u know we do have some other artists over here. Also, my hair. I thought I would be annoyed at the fact that I cant get it done bc its too humid to have it straightened, but it has become my mane. People adore my hair and they wont let me straighten it. I feel that I love it more than I ever have and I feel more beautiful than before...most ppl here think im braisilera until i start to talk. They thing Im from Bahia, where the majority of the african population is from here. The blacker u are, the more beautiful u are considered. In Brazil, there is much appreciation of the brazillian roots, and even the lightest skin people are proud to have african blood in their veins. How different brazil is from america, every woman wants an african man. Black is Beautiful..

Anyhow, I got off track but I suppose my head was in a bunch of different places. My initial romanticization of the place has subsided, now I must decide the direction of this love affair and whether we can work out together....TTFN,
Beijos,
-Nicole(Or Nicoli as they call me here)

A Day in the Neighborhood-Would you be my neighbor?

Cadec

So I work at a school for children between the ages of 7 and 11 called Cadec(pronounced Cadeki) usually from 8 to 12 30 in the morning. Right now, Caleb and I are working with 20 kids. After Carnival, it will be more than 40...aycaramba. But the kids are awesome, they call u tia(auntie) and play with you all day and jump on u and ask u wat its like in the states and dance to michael jackson and throw bricks and tell u wat they wanna be when the grow up and trust you and love u like crazy. They are the picture of innoncence. They are not like kids in the states. They have no technolody and, bc skool is only four hours here, after school they are home alone until there parents come home. Imagine being a seven year old with no siblings home alone all day with nothing to do and nothing to play with. They are estatic when they have visitors and it almost makes you want to never leave if it will make them happy. I know I will be really emotional when I have to leave. I bought them some candy at the Garota chocolate factory, they say the kids like this kind the best so this should make them really happy.....

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