Forever Summarizing

In November, we went to the island again and spent another lovely weekend on the beach, and this time it didn't rain!

On the boat ride on the way home.

Also in November, Aguarraz participated in a type of university battle of the bands called Unifest. They made it through the first cut, but didn’t go to the finals. It didn’t matter though because it was a lot of fun and now they’re more well-known than any of those other loser bands.

Aguarraz rocks "Sem Final."

For Salvadoran youth, it’s always a good day to have a party. Thankfully, there’s usually plenty of birthdays of people’s cousins or graduations of neighbors to keep us celebrating every weekend, but if nobody’s getting married or moving into a new house then we just throw a party anyway.

The gang at one of Murilo's two birthday parties.

As you may remember, last semester I spent one afternoon each week “teaching English” to fourth graders in an elementary school in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Salvador. It sure sounds like a charitable thing to do, but I guarantee that I gained much more from the experience than any of those kids did. In fact, the only way I can see that I benefited them at all was by postponing for one more hour and a half the time that they would play “drug-dealer” in the streets or return to a fatherless, dinnerless home. Despite my conviction that these sharp-tongued and energetic youth will soon be young parents and/or petty thieves if not drug-lords, their ten-year-old selves are charming and wonderful, though a bit unruly.

The Hungry Caterpillar was a big hit.

A rare moment of rapt attention.
Baird was probably standing on his head while juggling four man-eating panthers.

Although they seemed to hate learning English and stared indignantly at us when we asked them to repeat anything, the children ended up developing an apparent affection for us which they demonstrated with generous hugs and offering us half-eaten popsicles.

Teacher let the fools out.

Brazilians, like Americans, love excessive Christmas decorations. These hip-thrusting Santas danced to an arrocha version of “Happy Holiday.”

Summer Vacation in January

In January, Katie, Raoni, and I spent a week in a beautiful region of Bahia called Chapada Diamantina, a 6 hour bus ride from Salvador.

For most of our visit, we stayed in a town called Capão which was lousy with roaming hippies selling jewelry, wooden flutes and marijuana. From there we had access to several different trails for day hikes.

Our first hike to the famous Fumaça waterfall.

We walked all the way up that winding trail to the other side of the plateau.

The waterfall was actually all dried up when we went so we got to stand where it usually fell.

Okay, so we didn't exactly stand there.

The next day we followed a river to the waterfalls Purificação and Angélica.

Purificação.

I told you there'd be pictures of these two.