Day 28: So close to the end. Really? Tomorrow is four weeks. The next day is 30 days. I made mind blowing veggie burgers today! I put beans, eggs, parmesan cheese, mustard, lemon juice, spices, and olive oil in the blender. Then blended rice and wheat flour and mixed it in the other mixture until it was hamburger-like texture. Then I simply shaped it into patties with my hands and fried them up like hamburgers. I made wheat flatbread buns, and topped it with mustard, tomatoes, and onions. Who needs meat?

Top creative rice and beans meals:

1. Manioc flour flat bread with beans toasted on top, with a mango/onion/lemon juice topping
2. Rice, banana, coconut milk, sugar milkshake
3. Rice, milk, raisins, and farinha lacta (a Brazilian thing) for breakfast
4. Rice and bean veggie burgers (YUM!)
5. Onions/corn/cilantro/tomatoes/beans on top of wheat noodles and vinegar/mustard/salt/olive oil
6. Pumpkin raisin rice muffins (PRRfins)
7. Beans, salsa, corn, avocado and lemon juice
8. Black bean hummus (beans, lemon juice, garlic, olives, spices, oil) with homemade flatbread (manioc flour or wheat flour)
9. Rice sautéed with eggs, green onions, garlic, ginger, peas, and soy sauce
10. Bean pizza: bean hummus on crust with onion, tomato, and cheese
11. Rice and bean omelet
12. Ginger rice pudding
13. Random things in my rice and beans: dried tomatoes, olives, spreadable cheese, hot sauce, barbeque sauce, sweet and condensed milk and rice,

Things I didn’t have a chance to try with rice and beans: bean soup, chick peas (with curry, ginger and cilantro), lentils, carrots (with ginger and soy sauce) and different recipes with bean sprouts.  

Top things I missed:

1. Fruit
2. Juice
3. Cheese
4. Desserts in general
5. Popsicles

Day 27: Everything seems to be like an onion: once you learn a little bit, and peel away a layer, you realize there are so many more layers to go. Doing this experiment was just a little layer of experiencing and understanding poverty. I think it is easier not knowing.

It is much easier to just go into a community, “put a band-aid” on it, and then go away with the afterglow of doing good, rather than actually be in relationship with them. Get to know them. Laugh and cry with them. Relationship changes everything. Everything that used to be black and white turns grey and things get a lot more confusing.

Poverty (and working with those in poverty) is almost reverenced from afar: “Oh those poor, innocent people! Oh the bad people keeping them down! Oh look at their angelic faces in the midst of hardship!” Money isn’t the answer and no one involved is innocent. We are all people, whatever else we be, and the potential for saint and sinner within the same moment is still true.

It was never about rice and beans: it was about sacrifice, limitations, small frustrations, and the patience and creativity to overcome. And that is true about a lot of things. I am hoping this is not the end of this experiment. I have been invited by a family in Cajueiro Claro to come live with them for a couple of weeks. It is in the middle of nowhere with tarantulas, scorpions and too many ants. But monkeys wake you up in the morning, and you’ve never seen so many stars at night.

Living Stones is looking into joining up with larger organizations that work to find supporters for children in impoverished countries. But to do this, there is a huge amount of paperwork to be filled out about each child. I am hoping to take a couple of weeks and live with these families while gathering this information, and maybe peel a couple more layers off the onion of this thing called poverty.

Day 25: Pumpkin. Tis the season, right? I love pumpkin in my beans and rice (I am being serious here), and this is very common in Brazil. But I want something sweet with pumpkin.  Muffins? They turned out better than I thought: I blended flour and rice together, and added sugar, baking powder, pumpkin pie spices, and raisins. Then I blended pumpkin, milk, and an egg in the blender and stirred it all together. I call them “Pumpkin raisin rice muffins” or PRRfins for short.

Day 26: What do you buy for someone who has nothing? It is almost as hard as buying for someone who has everything…except opposite. I wanted to get something for Emanuela, who was just born into a poor family with 7 other girls. But which things do they need the most? Which will really bless them, and which things can they do without? I don’t know! Why am I the one making these kind of decisions for them?

I think my best days are the dirtiest. When I look down at my feet and they are black. When I take off my sandals, they have the outline still imprinted on my skin. These are good days.

Going to the dump is hard. It takes up my Saturday—my free day. It is hard to wake up and know I am going to see what I will see. That I will on purpose go to a place that smells and reminds me that so many people in the world do not have basic, decent living conditions. I am not talking about not having a vehicle—I am talking about clean water, I am talking about a place where you don’t have to worry about the flies and the millions of diseases they are carrying around because you live right next to a dump with carcasses and who knows what else.

It is hard. I was the girl who would walk a different street so I wouldn’t see the man begging in downtown Indianapolis. Because I would rather forget. But it is worth it—I love it. I love learning a couple new names every time I go. But hard.

I danced with a girl wearing a torn, thrown-in-the-trash princess dress with a gaping hole in the side. But she was the princess and I sang and twirled her non-the-less. They giggled, because I sang all the Disney songs in English. But they knew the movies, so it didn’t matter. I picked up a little girl to make sure she was out of the way of the passing car, and she winced. She lifted up her dirty shirt to show me a belly full of infected bug bites. Everywhere I touched her hurt.

A dentist came and gave each one a toothbrush and toothpaste. Told a story about a tooth and how it got a cavity but the magic toothbrush and toothpaste came and rescued it. Or something like that. Some of these children’s teeth are already past rescuing. Singing songs and dancing and clapping and passing out soup and the girl named Fagina—but she told me her name was Princess, so I call her that instead. Who would name their daughter Fagina? Another girl whispered to me “She kisses women!” And Jessica made me give her five kisses before she would let me get in the car—literally—she stood between me and the door.

I packed a picnic lunch and some presents. I won’t have time to come next weekend, so this weekend I celebrate Children’s day with my girls from Paudalho. There is nothing better than the uproar of walking down the path to their house and when they first see me. Girls streaming out the door to greet me: Tia Ha-kel!!!!

One takes my picnic bag, the other takes my present bag and their mom ducks inside: I soon see why: she holds an 8-day old baby. I had no idea she was even pregnant! But now there are 8 girls: her name is Emanuela. I will make sure to mark down her birthday (the last one, we had to make up because we couldn’t remember exactly when in December she was born).

I am overwhelmed. Because it just seemed like a baby popped out of nowhere. And because I see reality of a house with nothing—and another girl to feed, take care of…I look at their precious faces—each one of them. They are individuals, they are amazing girls who can and will do amazing things in the world—but goodness gracious! 8? Isn’t that just a tad overwhelming? The whole idea made me sit on the couch and just stare at the little girl.

But I can’t sit for long, the girls pull me to the door so we can go down to the lake—I promised them this time I would swim too. The water is dirty, and I’ve been warned about worms. Eww. But it is worth it. I give little floating lessons and have two, three girls crawling around me at a time, all vying for my attention. One by one I pull out special things from my bag, and the gasps and little sighs of happiness make me so happy I cannot stop smiling either. We all put on tiger tattoos, stickers, bracelets. I teach them how to play Old Maid, that has pictures of princesses on it, so every girl is pleased. We swim some more and then break out the snacks and goodies and bubbles. Delightful.

A couple passes by and asks me where I am from (darn white skin and accent) and they sit down and join us, enchanted by my English skills, but soon drawn in by our laughter and smiles. They soon admire the girls too, and promise to come by with some presents later. I can’t decide if I am annoyed that they only came by because I am American, or pleased because maybe they will help my girls in the future.

I saw a movie that said “Sometimes you have to see someone else love something before you can.” And maybe that is true. Maybe they can learn to love these beautiful girls (that they would have passed by without a word before) because they’ve seen me love them. Perhaps…that is one of the most powerful things I can do in Brazil. Who knows.

Day 23: I love this experiment, but it is the weekend. Weekends and experiments don’t go together well. I want to plan something special for this weekend, but everything I can think of, or that I have been invited to involves food other than rice and beans. Cuts out a lot. And makes every day feel like a weekday.

“It is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear and stress and sometimes depression. It means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships.” –J.K. Rowling

“you are not hungry” I tell my body. “You just ate rice and beans.” “rumble, rumble” is the reply. It goes back and forth. I was just telling someone how I could be vegan if I wanted to—for a month. “But why would you want to?” they asked. I didn’t have an answer. I just wanted to know I could. And now my tummy is complaining again, acting truly hungry until I show it rice and beans. I can feel my insides grimacing.

 “Poverty is like punishment for a crime you didn’t commit” — Eli Khamarov

Day 21: “The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time” — Willem de Kooning

Day 22: One more week of my rice and beans experiment. If I could have had fruit, I wouldn’t have missed anything. I even became ok without cheese. I guess I could become vegan if I had to. Oh, but is powered milk and coconut milk out? Because I really do like those. And I realize, I really know almost nothing about everything.

It is my mother’s birthday! I toast my rice and beans to her!

(If you can’t see it, please visit my facebook page!)

Day 19: “Cheese – milk’s leap toward immortality.”  ~Clifton Fadiman. Anything with cheese…I miss it.

Further reading: “We have grown literally afraid to be poor. We despise anyone who elects to be poor in order to simplify and save his inner life. If he does not join the general scramble and pant with the money-making street, we deem him spiritless and lacking in ambition” — William James

Day 20: A scorpion joined us at Living Stones today. Life is just different here.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, than a video must be more. Please watch this.

If the link does not work, go to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqwAuIH3e9E&feature=youtube_gdata

Day 18: If you want to give yourself a good education on what poverty is like—and current thoughts/ideas about it, go to http://www.ted.com/themes/rethinking_poverty.html and watch whatever looks interesting.

For breakfast, I made rice banana pancakes. Oh yes she didJ. Rice, wheat flour, oil, egg, yogurt, banana, ginger, and baking power in the blender. Not bad. Not bad at all.

 I also tried sautéing onions and corn, then mixing in beans, tomatoes, and cilantro. On the side, I mixed up vinegar, salt, mustard, and olive oil and put it on top of some wheat noodles. Then I mixed them all together. YUM.

I am beginning to think I will like anything that include ginger. I made rice pudding with ginger and it had a wonderful zing: milk, sugar, powdered and fresh ginger brought to a boil. Rice added and boiled. Then I let it cool and folded in some heavy cream. Much better than regular rice pudding.

I had an interesting conversation with a Brazilian while waiting for other Brazilians. My life is very full of waiting. Because, having grown up valuing time, I still feel guilty for showing up late, even when I know everyone else will be showing up late-ER.

Next week is voting in Brazil. It is a big year—not for electing the president, but for electing governors, mayors, and representatives. For those in poverty, this is the person who actually has the power to make a difference in their life—or acts like it. Voting is not optional in Brazil. You vote, or you pay a fine. This sounds absurd to my North American brain.

Brazil has more than enough recourses to become a first world country. But they are still stuck in such corruption that they continue to be a laughing stock instead. And every Brazilian knows this. And yet they elect the same people (or kind of people) back into office. Why?

“Culture determines more than we think.” My friend said. “Religious background, education, what has always been done in the past…” He values America’s strong foundation, and many of the principles that have come with capitalism. I can see their benefit. I also see that every system is corrupted by people through manipulation.

Perhaps they elect the same people into office because even if they are bad, it is what they have known: fear of change. Perhaps the elect the same kind of people because they are the only ones available to elect. Perhaps it is because they truly believe the speeches that they give that say NOW it will be different (I prefer to believe it is undying, yet misguided hope myself).

“Brazilians do not realize their personal power.” My friend added, “They have not been educated to see that the leaders are there to serve/represent the people. They have only seen this kind of leader, and so only know to expect that. Poor leadership results in a poor people.” They know change should happen, they complain that it doesn’t, but I don’t see any real action happening. I see people involved with surviving today with no energy left to think about tomorrow.

“Brazilians are the cleanest people I know,” I remarked. “But that ends the moment they step outside their door—as soon as they feel their responsibility ends, it is no man’s land.” It is true: personal cleanliness (how many showers a day?), clean house, kind, loving, welcoming…if you are in their circle. But step into the street and see the trash. The holes in the road. The street children. The stray dogs. When you are not a part of “mine,” heaven help you.

It makes me long for two things: one, to embrace and hold everything that has been abandoned. Every kitten that keeps meowing from hunger behind my apartment. Sweep away all the trash from my jogging path. Restore every broken down house. Every child, every beggar. Jesus came for these.

Second, to show Brazilians their power. Brazil is the most beautiful place I know. With more than enough resources and people to make things right. I don’t know enough about politics to start a political movement, but in know if the people in Brazil really wanted to, they could support the Living Stones programs themselves. They could reach their own people. They have that power.