First Day in Capim Grosso, Brazil

Two days of travel to get here.

Our plane from Atlanta to Fortaleza was broken, which delayed us for a while. But happily Fabio met Raheemah and me at the Airport in Salvador and we got a ride (a 3-5 hour drive) to Capim Grosso!

On the drive I saw a vision of a black bull running along the side of the road. It started veering on to the highway and I gripped Raheemah's leg at the moment when we would´ve converged with it, but it vanished.

We are living in a compound which includes an office, classrooms, courtyard and patio areas and the living quarters for the volunteers.

An avocado tree regularly drops hard avocados, which get put into a bag to ripen. Not a good idea to take a nap under that tree. In fact the roof is broken in three places from avocado bombs.

I taught three classes today of basic ballet and creative movement to mostly pink-clad girls. I will start adult classes next week and they won´t be ballet.

I made juice from passion fruit that had fallen moments earlier from our vine. But I also drank fresh juice made by other volunteers two other times today: watermelon at lunch and guava in the late afternoon. Oh yes.

Bumbling through Portuguese.

Periodically nursing an abandoned kitten smaller than my hand. Nadia, one of the volunteers, rescued her. She´s mama, but we all take turns feeding her and letting her pee on us.

Two exceptionally wonderful things this evening:

I went to- believe it or not- my first ever capoeira class. The teacher had to go somewhere so the class was taught by his very serious and professional 10 year-old daughter. Maybe she was 11. It was amazing to be thrown into a roda without any previous experience. I had moments of feeling in the groove, of riding the wave of the music and movement.

Tonight in the town square was a heavy metal concert.
Yes.
It is a local group, and the town is very supportive, if not understanding. They are the bad boys of the town, but it´s a town the size of Willits, and they´re really not that bad. We danced hard. Once again riding the wave. And here´s another brand new experience: A mosh pit of almost all brown-skinned people!

I keep thinking my mom will be reading this.

There´s so much more...
It´s been a busy and yet utterly relaxing day.