I join the many of my generation and shrug my shoulders because I really don’t give a blink. I am too far away. I only feel a twinge of what I feel because I love my mother and she feels a lot. Politically, I really only care about abortion and libraries.

She squatted on the roots of the tree, the only shade along the road. Brazilians have mastered shadow-finding in the hot sun. She asks me what it is like to be an American. I want to ask her what it is like to live in a house with no bathroom, no kitchen, no running water. She asks me if it is easy to find a job there. I want to ask her if it is easy to raise three children alone in the hard conditions she faces, and where is the man she has spent her love on.

She comments “So that black man is president again, huh?” And I feel something like a twinge of pride. Here, she has found something remotely similar to a connection with me. Something that she feels is a connection at least. America has a black man representing them. A black man who, through all the distortions and lies and truth of news reported and filtered out of the United States and around the world and then translated into Portuguese, represents the common person—someone who wants to help others.

And I could tell her stories, sad stories of things that have happened because of Obama. I could tell her about money and gas prices and debt that makes me sick to my stomach. But instead, I find myself smiling and saying “Yes, he is president again.” Some things are more important. Like finding a connection line between me and her, as we squat under the shade tree.

The father of the family I am living with told me a secret: “Obama didn’t win because he had good policy. He won because he has a good wife. Everyone likes her.” I laughed inwardly but kept a straight face, because for all I know, he is right. I like Michelle. I think his daughters look sweet as well.

“It made me think of my friend Partam from Afghanistan, and a story he once told me of how he and his sisters fled the country. I retold Partam’s story to Erik as best I could, but I knew even as I was telling it that it was expanding, becoming a beast of my own invention. I told the story with the fluid beauty that I remembered it, not with the broken English Partam had used. Partam said he wanted me to write his stories of Afghanistan because he never would. But every time I retold a story, it was reshaped by my experiences, perceptions, and memories. Was I telling the truth? Was my retelling less a “true story” than the original? Was the truth that I found in it different than the one Partam wanted to convey?

He, the absence, had believed that the difference between fiction and nonfiction was black and white, that memory was a machine that recorded mathematical equations. I never managed to be a machine, to capture things exactly as they had been said, and I felt like a failure. My truth was never “the truth”; it seemed as if life had no room for interpretation, for the influence of the invisible, for the ghosts and hauntings and memories that weave their way into human interactions.

When I told him stories about Mexico City, about La Merced, I wanted to capture the way I experienced the chaos, the way I was haunted by the people, and the way they wove themselves into my imagination and my life. There was no single, clean narrative to offer up. In a world that demanded perfection, that asked for machines and mathematical precision and ironed-down eyebrows and perfectly manicured nails, my voice had no place. Truth had a value, but I was sullying it with my memory, with my failure to write down every word, to record every conversation.

My need to communicate with them, to hear their stories, stemmed from an intense yearning to understand what we had in common, how the pressures to be beautiful, make money, and find love (or lust) have driven us to take unexpected measures, to compromise our values and our bodies in some way. Were we women, like the dismembered mannequins on the street, a collection of parts to be made beautiful? In order to communicate with them in an ethical way, I needed to live in La Merced, to spend years in the community, as Maya did, and to contribute to creating meaningful change. I had to ask myself: Did I think that through their stories I would rediscover my own?”  http://matadornetwork.com/notebook/there-is-no-one-story-of-love-lost/

These are the things I feel every time I try to explain Brazil. She just said them better, and I thought you should read it.

This wasn’t how this time was supposed to be. I was supposed to leave everything and be in the middle of nowhere for a month. I’ve been planning for months, I’ve had the idea for years. It is hard to get away.

But I find myself standing on the side of the road again, waiting for a bus or Kombe to take me to the International school. I am wearing my hand washed clothes, but I still haven’t managed to make them smell good. (Marlene can stand next to me and wash clothes, and hers will smell good and mine still smell just a little bit…off).

The family has been more than perfect. And they are better off than I thought—thank goodness we have running water and electricity. The other things don’t really matter if you have that. And having a mom who cooks and cleans and ‘moms’ you—well, it makes anyone feel rich. And the view…wow.

The romantic part of the idea was removed when I realized I would have to come back into town every day to teach English. And back to my apartment at least once a week to arrange things for people, and get supplies. I forgot how many SUPPLIES you need to teach so many different kinds of classes for so many different children. And the trash dump Living Stones on the weekend, and singing in a wedding, and birthday parties…it is always something.

Now it is the thought of all the things I need to get done before I return to the United States. Pressing on me. I am constantly making lists. How is this living in the middle of nowhere? So as a project in itself, I failed miserably. But as living life—it has been a pretty fantastic couple of weeks. And if the goal was to learn, I succeeded. The lessons just looked a little different than I thought.

I have lived much simpler this month. No makeup or jewelry. The same five outfits. Only. One pair of sandals. Always. I wash my own clothes by hand. I use only public transportation. I have limited access to slow internet. Can I do it? Yes.

Can I dress up and put on lipstick and straighten my hair every day?  Yes. I have done that too. And ridden in fancy cars and yachts and eaten at the nicest places. Contrast: July in Hong Kong, October in rural Brazil. Both are me.

Bottom line is this: the thing about being poor is, everything takes extra grace. But the amazing thing about it is that the grace you need is always there—the exact amount you need. I guess that is what makes us all equal in all of the inequalities: the grace we need is always there.

November 2nd. Day of the Dead. NOPE–Picnic time!!:)

It takes extra grace to go back and forth between the world of HAVE and HAVE NOT. Staying at one or the other requires less of me. All the moving around just makes me feel like I am trying to please everyone and failing miserably.

I feel like I am losing grace and getting mad more easily at overly expensive cars, as I wait for the bus on the side of the road. Extremes are so blatant in Brazil. And to see them zooming by in what they don’t need, purposefully not caring about those around them…I cannot excuse them. There is no excuse.

I feel the bitterness growing inside of me…cars too fancy for their own good. People too rich for their own good. The “It’s not fair” echoes in my head. And I have a car; I have chosen this life. Imagine someone who didn’t. Seeing the “Haves” all day. Pass by without even knowing. I think it is the not knowing that irritates the most. How can they continue to be so ignorant to the needs around them?

Where is grace? Where have I let it go? I need it—for me to live and to give. And I think that is what growing up is all about. At least growing up the good way: having 50 things on your plate to do and learning to do every single one of them with grace.

Monday.

1. Washed my clothes by hand

2. Cut down a Banana tree in three swipes with a machete (banana trees grow and produce only one bunch of bananas. Ever. So when the bunch is ready, you have to cut the tree down. Seems slightly wasteful to me…but aweful fun!)

3. Learned to crochet better

4. Taught the family I am living with how to make pizza

5. Sat in a hammock and watched lil monkeys

Ze good life, I am tellin ya!

…To facepaint.

I figure technology should be useful for something–like giving me ideas for facepainting. See below pictures…total success:).

Vovo Bel threw an amazing party for like 150 people in Mussurepe:). I love being a part of such an amazing team of people!