Baby Steps

After a taste of Carnival on Tuesday night, my body  needed to slow down, get myself together from all that excitement and collect. So here I am getting some perspective. Tuesday night in Pelourinho is happening night, one cant stay indoors everybody gets out.I saw people as old as my grandparents and parents out in the squares dancing themselves crazy. Most of them were high on something; we came upon the Oludom drummers and  trust me, once I hear drums I just cant stay put. There is something about drums that makes me come alive and so I got myself into a dancing delirium and sweated like I was going through menopause. I was so happy that day, the child in me came out; Janet says  one would think I was born here. Maybe this is really home.

This picture makes me laugh so. Thanks to Kimberly!

 Since then I have been in my apartment for two days in  a row, watching the sunsets from my window and experiencing complete amazement at how beautiful and surreal this place is. I am well excited though as today I had my first ever Portuguese conversation and  I must admit that it went pretty well. I feel like I have learned more Portuguese in two weeks than I did Arabic in 6months. Imagine if I lived here for a year- am not even going there now; because I might just bury my passport in the ground and pretend I was born here. 

Lake of the Orixas, Salvador

Tomorrow we are having Poetry reading  and interpretation & a brunch at Samantha & Kimberly's apartment. Duron is coming over too! Am stoked as they are all literary artists and professors, I have not yet come up with a poem of my own; however am looking forward to some really interesting talks. I just spent a couple of hours in their apartment and they are an interesting pair. I have an idea- I might just recite my poem in Portuguese!:)

View from my Living room window, Pelourinho

I have been thinking something was funny about my sinks and toilet as they drained and flashed, and then I remembered an experiment the attendant at the Equator crossing in Uganda performed for us the first time I went below the equator. The experiment  showed water above the equator draining in an clockwise fashion, below the equator it flashed and drained in an anticlockwise fashion. If has finally dawned on me that I am way below the equator. 

Time is flying by and my nieces/nephews will be here in a few weeks.... waiting for that call and will be an aunt again! Mashallah. All over me are baby steps, in my Portuguese, work and in these little human beings waiting to come out into this world. To baby steps!