Most favourite time of the year...

So it´s almost the end of 2004 and New Years Eve is tommorrow, which is my favourite time of the year. Other than marking the end of December (my least favourite month) I like the freshness of the celibration and welcoming of another 52 weeks. Sure I know in the grand scheme of things it´s just another night, and the calendar is a human made system. But it is one time I enjoy sharing with people and I usually find time to think about what was sucky in the year past and how to fix it. I guess we all need to stop and reflect about the good and bad stuff in our lives and for me New Years is a good time to do it. I don´t make formal resolutions with a date stamp but I do identify things I would like to fix or change. And there are usually pretty good parties and gatherings as well. Have heard of at least 6 gatherings in Perth, but am not sure how I will be spending the turning over of the clock a whole 11 hours later. Probably a beach party.

Class went fairly well today, next week I will have another volunteer working with me which should be good too.

For those of you concerned your donations will be going to administrative costs rather than people I suggest you donate to Food For Life who have stated that all donations will be given directly to victims. Having met their director at IVU I can say they do heaps of good work around the world, staying in areas the Red Cross has even left and providing meals to the poor and those in need. In Sri Lanka they are already providing 5000 hot meals a day to Tsunami victims.

And an interesting article on animal deaths. Or lack thereof. So who was the smartest species again?

It´s the end of the world as we know it...

Some of my students took me on a tour (well they *are* tour guides) of old Olinda yesterday. I learnt many new and shiney things such as that the Boganvillia plant is native to Brazil, the Church considered the pelican as a symbol of Christ and some history of pretty churches (there are seven big ones in Olinda). I taught them some new words such as bark (which they had been calling tree skin) and increase. We saw some pretty views of the area. Oh and apparently the world is comming to an end real soon now.

Ed: You see we belive that there will only be one more Pope so there is only one more space left on the picture.
Me: So what happens after we run out of Popes?
Ed: The world ends.
Me: Well, that´s a bit depressing.

And people wonder why I have issues with organised religions.

In happier news I got in touch with my cousin & all family members are accounted for. I promptly emailed the work crew at home who emailed me who was on the other side of the planet to ask if I´d heared anything. Yay for the internet making strangers of your neighbours and friends from people on the other side of the planet.

They seem to have upgraded the earthquake to 9.0 on the Richter scale, putting it on par the fourth most intense since 1900. Rather impressive we´ve had two decent size quakes in the past month, but the other one only affected a few penguins off Antarctica (most of whom were apparently okay). People are complaining about how little other people are donating for aid, yet few stop to consider the number of people dying each day through famine, preventable disease, hunger and the like. I guess I´m saying you should all do something regularly for those less fortunate, there is always suffering in the world, just because it isn´t making CNN (pathetic news service that it is) doesn´t mean it doesn´t require help.

Oh and a story about sharks and the place I am currently staying is here.

ooer I gotta get to work now...

UPDATE: work was great, I got to draw diagrams of techtonic plates and explain tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanoes. Geography is everywhere, even in your English class...

Cheese on a stick.

Part of the conversation on cartoons over dinner the other night:

Q: Who is Spongebob Squarepants?
A: He lives under the sea and wares y-fronts which are square because he is square and he is like a sponge and he looks like the cheese on a stick.

Yup, that´s right here there is cheese on a stick that looks like Spongebob. As in it´s the pale yellow colour with a sponge like consistancy (a bit like that mini-col cheese) and it´s usually cut into cubes/rectangles and threaded onto a skewer. And then you roast it on hot coals like satay or kebabs.

(I just had to share it because I keep forgetting to mention it to people and for some reason I find it amusing. Will return you to more vegan-friendly ramblings shortly.)

Class went well today, there were hummingbirds in the garden who are bright metalic green and rather pretty. Students are pretty good as well. I was not required to sing.

Still haven´t heard about my aunt and uncle for sure, though mum thinks that they are still in Bangkok which hopefully they are. Other family appear to be unaffected. Heard Monge (vegan, online friend) is alive and well but had to be evacuated.

Still wanting to slap anyone who uses "tidal wave" to mean "tsunami". If you get a slapping when I return in three months out of the blue this is probably the reason why.

Disapproval would be folly...

I loathe the month of December. It starts with my birthday and goes down hill from there. Christmas is not something I enjoy. I hate the commercialisation. I hate the fact it is okay to lie to children. I hate the hypocrisy associated with "peace and good will" to all, unless you are of a different race, creed or species. I hate obligation. I hate that you are expected to drink. I hate the fact that everyone tries to be nice to people they usually don´t give a toss about. I hate the carnage. I hate the fact that they read the bit about the "lion eating straw like the ox" at church and *noone* thinks "hey maybe God is pissed that I killed a whole farm yard for lunch" (well I thought it, I also stopped attending church because of it). I hate the tacky music about a non-Australian climate blaring from every street corner. Yes, usually I am very bah humbug!

Here in Brazil things are different. There is no tacky decorations, they are all rather tasteful. The only Christmas music you hear in shops is a samba version of songs played at the supermarket by a man on a keyboard and it isn´t in your face. There are event´s where the entry fee is a kilo of food to give to the poor. The electronic display on buses wishes you "Feliz Natal" as well as giving you the destination (usually they wish you good morning/afternoon/night). The shops aren´t anymore insane than usual.

Also Christmas Eve is much bigger than Christmas Day. Or at least that´s what I have been lead to believe. The hangover of several volunteers and some of the staff here seems to encourage this belief.

This is my different from home Christmas...

After I phoned home to wish my family (and got told off for not attending an organised religious service) late on the 24th I headed out to the concert that Nina´s Afro-Brazilian band was in. There were five of us who got there and despite all outward appearances of a big event, there were sadly only about 50 people. The music was pretty good though and we hung around to listen to a couple of groups before heading into Recife.

Despite arriving around 1am, Recife was still partying and we listened to a little of the music before running into some of the students at Kate´s project who took us to a bar where we stayed in the street chatting until we headed home and got in around 330am and called Nevryn.

The following day involved more phone calls to a rather intoxicated Hipikat in the morning. There was Christmas lunch, which for me was salad, chips and pineapple (so nothing all that different from home). There was dead turkey for the other volunteers with gravy that Dave had his girlfriend send over from the UK. Miriam the project coordinator and her family turned up with her husband (a rather pudgy Welshman) dressed as Santa. It was amusing and embarrassing all at the same time. Much laughter. There was much toasting to "a warm Christmas", "no family" and "no stress" amongst other things.

Then to the beach by bus. After being here for 3 weeks I just assumed that overcast was not part of the weather. But yesterday it was. The beach was still good though and I had a lovely swim. There was less seaweed and bigger waves and the ocean was fairly warm as well. I also got treated to the best moon rise I have seen in a long time.

It was a full moon (or near enough to) last night, something that at home makes me cringe about going to work. I never believed it until I started working at a nursing home but people do go nuts on the full moon, even more so if they suffer from dementia it seems. Anyhow a full moon rises fairly early. And because of the overcast day the sunset was one of those ones with a medium blue sky and bright pink clouds. And being on the east coast it set behind us with the moon rising over the ocean. And the moon was bright with little clouds around it.

I´ve just read my appalling description. It doesn´t do it justice. I don´t have any pictures having left my camera behind. So you just have to believe me it was amazing, okay?

After dinner we headed back out to Olinda for a few drinks before I called Shay. Fe nicely surprised me by saying she actually read my blog- so thank you it´s nice to know this serves a purpose to people at home who aren´t whiney ex boyfriends.

So all in all a nice Christmas I guess. There was no obligation, no screaming family, no gift giving, no songs about possessed snowmen, no drunken friends throwing up. I should go away more often!

It´s a tsunami not a bloody tidal wave.

So this was to be a post about what I did for Christmas. But due to the planet being her usual gorgeous self I now am going to talk about earthquakes.

For those who don´t know have a look here

Some thoughts on earthquakes...

1> From a "geography slut" perspective earthquakes are really cool.

2> From a "I have several close family members in the region" perspective they are rather stressful.

3> From a "disaster and death" perspective they are rather sad.

4> From a "the Earth is alive" perspective they are a rather fabulous reminder.

5> From a "the ABC and BBC should have reporters who understand basic geographical terms perspective" it is rather ranty.

I like earthquakes because they are a reminder that humans do not own the planet. Mother Nature occasionally likes to remind us all that she´s had enough and that the Earth is a powerful entity to be respected. I love the fact that the Earth is alive and natural disasters are a reminder of this. Earthquakes are cool because they change the landscape and if it wasn´t for the tectonic plates moving about we would just be one continent. There would be less diversity in the life of the planet. And there wouldn´t be hot pink bubbly mud.

I am concerned about the several family members I have that are holidaying in the region. This goes without saying. I may rant and rave about my large crazy family lots but I still would prefer it if any of them weren´t swept away by a tsunami. Then again I have yet to hear reports of earthquake issues in Phuket shopping malls so my Aunt is probably okay.

If I read another report about "tidal waves" that are caused by earthquakes I think I shall scream. I mean how bloody hard is it to make sure your reporters have passed high school geography. For those of you who are not aware a tsunami is a big waves caused by an earthquake (or tremor) out on the ocean. It is not caused by the tides at all. Hence you should not be calling it a tidal wave. For a better explanation have a look here. Tidal waves are what we experience every day when the tide goes in and out.

And what have you done...

Well, bah humbug!

Things are going along nicely, not much to report, though today was spent shopping and being girlie (well more girlie than usual- I now own hair clips) as the Tourist Centre was closed so I didn´t have to go to work. My class are pretty cool (in the way bouncy 14-17 year olds are) and we went to the top of one of the many hills here to eat tapioca pancakes after work yesterday.

On Monday I helped throw a Christmas party for some kids who live in the Favellas with some of the other volunteers. We discovered that Brazillians do not know what pass the parcel is (we had to explain- in portugese- to the kids). Also discovered Americans don´t either as it also had to be explained to one of the volunteers from the US. It was decided that they clearly had a deprived upbringing. There was cake, dancing, lollies (not candy, not sweets damnit!), guarana (soft drink of choice), a rather violent version of musical chairs and much fun. This was run from a soup kitchen that one of the local ladies organises from her house. Once a week she makes big pots of soup for the poor families in the surrounding area and she likes volunteers to come along and play with the kids for the afternoon. She isn´t well off, but still does this for other people which is wonderful.

On Tuesday night we went out to watch a open air Afro-Brazillian drumming show which another volunteer is part of and we will be watching her band again later tonight. Also found a place that sells Carnaval costumes which was pretty neat as well. Much glitter, sequins, flowers and feathers. Dancing classes are going okay, I still have two left feet though!

The Atlantic is still blue, the sun is still warm, the breeze is still lovely, the palm trees are still tall. Beach tommorrow. Feliz Natal to you all!

Dancing with Puppets

Things here in Olinda are going rather well. My class is very laid back and alot of work is done in the garden outside the Tourist Centre. I am very much in favour of class in the open air, with humming birds, the sun, palms and mango trees. Stories of me singing Smashmouth´s "AllStars" to my students may or may not be true (okay they are, but really it was only because they asked).

Last week was orientation which for the most part was learning Portugese. I´m getting there, slowly. Very slowly. And in just over a month I will have to learn Spanish. And after that... Well lets not think about being back in Perth.

On Wednesday some of us went to a Forroe (sp?) club which is one of the local styles of dance I am learning. On Friday night a group of us went clubbing to a western style club. Strangely there are alot of popular English language songs that get translated into Portugese. This means you hear the introduction of a song and go "oh I know that" but then the words don´t seem to match with what´s in your head. The club was okay, though packed.

On Saturday and Sunday there were puppets in Olinda. Three big stages, two smaller stages, a tent, big screens and a gallery with performances in the evening. The tent had a display of puppets from around the world. The performances were cast on big screens so if you couldn´t see the stage you could still watch what was going on. Marrionettes, hand puppets, rod puppets, shadow puppets... you name it, it was there. With a stilt-walker introducing it all. There was also a photographic display of the puppets in action which looked great. Lots of music on Saturday night as well. And on Sunday a parade in the afternoon.

The Parade was of the giant carnaval style puppets and we watched as around 30 of these brightly coloured, detailed, 10ft tall puppets made their way through the streets of Olinda to a marching band and followed by a 20ft (at least) long dragon puppet which was done in a simmilar style to Chinese dragons. Very, very funky.

Seem to have picked up a virus, unfortunately so missed dancing class tonight. Shall have to subject myself to more fruit juice to help recover. Woe is me.

Dancing in the street...

So this is the third time I attempt to update this for the entertainment of you at home over the past week. Computers and the internet are usually rather handy but can at times be rather evil too. And besides there are far more interesting things to be looking at.

Spent last Tuesday night in Salvador. It is a pretty, historical centre with cobbled streets (which I seem to be getting a taste for) and pastel coloured buildings. In Brazil most towns have a traditional evening which is deemed "party night" and in Salvador it is Tuesday. Things kick off around 6 when food and drink stalls open up selling all sorts of local foods, juices, cocktails and the like. Then there is Capoeria in the streets which people can watch and some of the schools also have more formal shows inside that people can go and see. Later live music starts on big stages in the town squares and there are people drumming and dancing in the street as well. All the clubs play music, the place is crowded and a little crazy and all the cafes and restaraunts are full. There are heaps of art shops which are also open so you can have a look at some beautiful local paintings and the like as well. Very good fun.

Took the bus on Wednesday night to Recife then on to Olinda where I am now and where I will stay til mid-Janurary. Met some of the other volunteers over the weekend, there are two girls starting the same time I am which is pretty neat. We had our first day of orientation week (half a day of introduction followed by half a day of Portugese which we continue tommorrow).

There is a art fair for the past few weeks which just finished so on Saturday we walked around looking at lots of art and having a look around the old buildings (also pastel with cobbled streets!) and found out where I´ll be working. Yesterday four of us went to Faria Marinha Beach for the afternoon. It´s what I consider a real beach because it has palm trees. Consumed local alcohol and coconuts (not at the same time) and was also offered everything from clothing to seafood to skin cream by vendors. Shopping from your beach towel! Also swam in the Atlantic which was much fun.

Capoeria class now and Samba tommorrow apparently, yay!