Well I’m pleased to report that the second half of my week went much smoother. Thursday was routine, except that my Portuguese class went to see a documentary on Mestre Bimba and capoeira. Mestre Bimba was the man responsible for modifying Angolan capoeira into what it is today. He turned it into a discipline and helped pull many poor youths out of the life of crime. I went to capoeira that night and I was encouraged that the exercises that we did are becoming easier for me. When I got back from capoeira Conchita told me that my art/sculpture teacher had called and that scheduled out lesson for 7AM. Droga! That meant that for the third time this week I woke up at 5:15 so that I could get ready and walk to class. After class I stopped by a few shops to look at beads because I want to make bracelets with the children at CAASAH and bought some more glue sticks (I tend to go through glue sticks like fiend).

When I got back I studied a bit until lunch, then Bethany and I went to CIEE to look over classes again. I want to try a Spanish class because the other day I tried to write an e-mail to Dina (my contact for the Mission Honduras) and I wrote it without many problems, but I struggled with pronunciation when I tried reading it out-loud. I found Spanish VI that meets Mondays and Thursdays and Bethany showed me where the campus is where it meets. She decided to try a ceramics class and I showed her where that campus was, then we walked to Dulces Sonho and sat and chatted while Bethany ate a slice of chocolate cake.

I decided to go out and samba Friday night. There is a tiny bar in Rio Vermelho that everyone in the program loves to go to and I met up with a small group around 10:00PM. When I say tiny, I mean tiny. I was literally dancing against the wall and we stayed until 1 at which point the bar was intolerably hot and crowded. We spent a good portion of the time outside the bar on the sidewalk so that we could catch the breeze.

Saturday I slept in until 9:30 then meet Bethany to go to the beach at 10:30. I went for a run for about an hour and found a great stretch of beach with a running path, a skate board park, pull-up bars, etc. When I got back I went swimming a bit then ate some açaí at the shop across the street. By 2 I decided to walk back and stop by the grocery store. I studied a bit last night, but by 9:30 I was falling asleep with my book open and decided to call it an early night.

Today has been pretty calm. I studied and worked on letters this morning. Bethany came over and we sat and talked for a few hours and I went to mass at 6:30. I got a reply back from my e-mail to one of professors from the Institute of Collective Health and we are going to try to meet later this week.

Mom, in response to your question about the shortage of funding for my Health and Education Class: Prevention of Anemia, basically we need funding because we will be traveling to a poor community in the Interior to take blood samples and do surveys. We need money primarily for transportation and for food because we will spend one full Saturday a month there. The department grants the money but low on funds because of the strike.