Sharing the mood

*****
Yes, we can!

Reasons to smile

I got home yesterday to not one, but a few emails from prospective students. Three are old students returning and one is a new student referred by one of the old students!

I needed to be on the bus at 6am this morning. Typically, the dogs chose to spend the night barking at passing breezes, so sleep was a very long time in coming. The morning is delightfully fresh though. I think I can leave a smidge later next time, though sitting here in the little praça under the trees, listening to the birds sing and writing isn't a bad way to pass the time.

Today is one of those days I wish I had a camera with me. The bus passed an incredibly well done graffiti of Sasi Pererê. It was so eye-catching and a great way to show some of Brazil's culture. It also had a social message. This graffiti also had a social message, with the mythical creature asking a little boy why he is on the street and where his parents are. This image is from the web. It isn't the graffiti, but the closest I could find to what I saw.

From Wiki:

An incorrigible prankster, the Saci will not cause major harm, but there is no little harm that he won't do. He will hide children's toys, set farm animals loose, tease dogs, and curse chicken eggs preventing them from hatching. In the kitchen, the Saci would spill all salt, sour the milk, burn the bean stew, and drop flies into the soup. If a popcorn kernel fails to pop, it is because the Saci cursed it. Given half a chance, he will dull the seamstress's needles, hide her thimbles, and tangle her sewing threads. If he sees a nail lying on the ground, he will turn it with the point up. In short, anything that goes wrong — in the house, or outside it — may be confidently blamed on the Saci.

Walking up to the student, I spotted a bright butterfly that was narrowly missed by a car's wheels. I went to pick it up to take it to safety out of the busy driveway of the gymnasium, but it flew off. A moment later, it came back and settled on my hand. Now that was a gift!

Lost in Translation << Take a look at the image. It should open up very big. Tell me what you see is odd about this advertisement we received ; )

 

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Friday Happy Hour

I even supplied the drink. I can't tell you what it is, but Tat saw it on the menu, liked the appearance and promptly ordered it. No doubt, it was exotic, boozy, and very sweet, as Brazilian drinks usually are. She loved it.

This week was hellishly hot. Ok, so it wasn't hot by Aussie standards or anything like that, but, for me, travelling on oven-like buses in the noon sun, it was way too hot. I consider 35°C to be close to furnace temperature. Add the 80-90% humidity and I'm a puddle of molten me.

But... it's Happy Hour! I have to find Happy and find it fast. Exotic drinks help with that ; ) Hm... I need to find me some batida ingredients.

Happinesses for the week......

I got to stay home today! It's a public holiday. I was meant to go out, but because other people didn't confirm, the event was cancelled. I was grateful, as I didn't fancy the train ride or the schlep of lugging eats out in the heat... or even making the eats in question.

I'm thrilled because I had the chance to chat to a friend I don't get nearly enough time to chat to lately because of that really freaky time difference and my odd working hours : )

We had pão de queijo and cake today! Yay! Note, this isn't cake with frosting and layers... Brazilian cake tends to be more like sponge cake, but nice anyway. Due to the public holiday, we never went shopping, so junk food was in order. Oh and we had salad for supper. We haven't had a decent green salad in ages.

This week, I started a new student. I'm happy about this. It's a first for me, dipping my toes gingerly into the fine art of teaching a very basic student, but she's sweet and communication flows easily, each of us acknowledging the strengths and limitations of the language of the other. She laughs at my Portuguese, but learns (I hope). She's a private student, which makes me happy too. She's all mine! *chuckles*

I'm happy because my schedule is pretty full. There's room for a few more, but, for now, I'm happy.

Erm... I'm not finding too much with this heat to be happy about, but, on the bright side, I'm getting a Boere-tan (clothes tan).  Walking out in this weather has its advantages.

Heppie, Happy Hour, everyone!!

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It’s a kind of magic… or witchcraft

*looks back on blogs* Seems I've been fairly scarce. We've been busy over this end. I know it's no excuse, but there really hasn't been much time.

Over the past couple of days, I have been on a voyage of discovery of, for me, new music talent. One of the artists I found was Zolani Mahola of Freshlyground. Zolani has the most engaging smile. The music is enchanting. This song is one of my favourites, though you should really do yourself a favour and listen to Pot Belly!

They have some beautiful music which stirred something deep within me... a language I haven't heard for many years... the language of home.

Between Freshlyground, Lira's "Feel Good", Noa's "Beautiful that way", and and a few others, I finished up smiling. I created a new playlist on my mp3 player to listen to on my way to work. It was so worth it!

My day started with an odd phone call.
"Hello, is that the home of Tatiana who was part of the dance group?"
"Well, yes, but she's not in. Can I take a message?"
"Are you her mother?"
"Uh.... yes?" *getting a little worried*
Turns out, he wanted to hire me to photograph an event that was to take place tonight. Unfortunately, I have (or should I say 'had) a student tonight, so I declined. The student cancelled later, but I wasn't to know. After all this time of waiting for photographic assignments to come in, I get this now. Ah well.

I left to teach, listening to my very upbeat Feel Good playlist. By the third song, I was grinning at everyone. One older lady got onto the bus and smiled back at me. She had a little round face that crinkled up in well-used laughter lines. I took out my bright little notepad with it's sunny flowers and wrote: "O seu sorriso é lindo!" ~"Your smile is beautiful!" When I saw she was going to get off, I tapped her on the shoulder and handed her the note. She looked suspicious, but took it. She read the note as she was about to get off, then turned to me with surprised wonder and an even more beautiful smile. To me, the happiness of the world was wrapped in that moment. I got off too (it turned out to be my stop). She kept turning around to look at me, then looking back at the note. Although we both went into the metro, I made a point of going a different path, as I didn't want to unnerve her. It made my day though. I posted another note on the mirror of the public bathrooms at the company where I teach... and left a note tucked into the handle of a lady's bag. This was fun! : )

I was chatting to my student. He asked if I had any trouble getting in, as there was a bomb scare on Paulista Avenue and the metro had been shut down. I discovered this evening what that was all about.... Magic!

It turned out to be macumba, a witchcraft ceremony of African origins, brought over by the original slaves. A bottle of red wine commonly gets left on street corners or other strategic places, depending on your wish, along with black or red candles and often a dead chicken (in Brazil's heat, you can imagine the smell after a few hours). The photo above is an old one I took near the crematorium and is a spot, I think, often used for macumba, though the wine has been consumed. Thankfully, there are no chickens. Those can get nasty. I know I have other macumba photos floating around. I just can't find them now, aside from which, I never have the camera handy when I come across a full macumba scene with it's wine, candles and chicken on all for corners of an intersection. Back at our old home, we saw it often, as we lived on the corner. The intersection was a popular place for macumba offerings.

Back to the bomb scare. The cops were called in for a suspicious bottle with red fluid. The metro line was disabled and the area evacuated. Um... yes... Brazilian efficiency. You can read the article here (and practice your Portuguese). It does show a photo of them 'disabling' the wine ; )

 

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Smiling the week away

It's been a gorgeous week. I'm loving the weather, which is fairly fresh and sunny... a balmy 23°C (75°F) and as Kippy put it, life is good : )

Over the weekend, Jurgis got his cousin in Lithuania to join Geni, the site I am building our family tree on. Not only did he join, but he edited some of the family links. I'm thrilled! It didn't stop there. I thanked him for joining, copying and pasting the Lithuanian into his guestbook. I know the words, but there are a zillion accents on those two words - Ačiū už. He replied saying he was impressed with my Lithuanian and did I know that in Lithuania, my name would be Karina? I confessed to copying and pasting, but the 'Karina' just about blew me away. For some time now, I've been working on a writing project. I wanted a name that was similar to my own and our family names, yet different. The name I chose? Carina. The sheer co-incidence of the name I chose so long ago and what he said my name would be in Lithuania struck me as... well... amazing : ) It's a beautiful name.... at least, I think so.

Today, I had a lovely day. Everyone (or mostly everyone) seemed to be smiling. It took me a little while to realise it was because I was smiling. Ain't people grand? There was one old man on the Metro who couldn't stop grinning every time he looked at me, as though we shared some or the other secret. That was until my student announced that his boss has just come back from Mexico, while nervously eyeing out the sealed building with its air conditioning. I scolded him for not warning me, as we could have had our class outside in the gorgeous sunshine. "Oh? You teach outside too?" His face was comical. I've taught in odd places. Outside works ; )

By now many of you have been exposed to Kippy's 'positive actions' blogs. The other day, she posted a '9 Elements' blog. I read it, as I do all of her blogs and went to the site she referred to. While I was there, a spark of an idea started flickering somewhere in my consciousness. I went to bed with thoughts swirling in my mind. This was all happening in the US. Why couldn't it happen here? I wrote to Michael Chase, knowing the chances of him coming to Brazil were slim to say the least. I've written e-mails in the past and the most I usually get is an add to a Facebook account an a newsletter. Michael replied to my e-mail and I was awed by how down to earth, genuine...  and simply good and positive he was. What a great way to start my day. I went off with a skip in my step. I hope to work with him in developing lesson plans that I can use here... sharing his teaching of kindness. From the videos I've seen, he's a great teacher! As I put it to him, I live in a vast, impersonal city with its population of 20 million. What a challenge. If I can make a difference just in one little corner... I'll be happy : ) So I smiled... and smiled some more... and people smiled back. A woman's reaction when I gave her a seat on the Metro made it worth it. I hadn't seen that her arm was bandaged. She was tired and very uncomfortable. It felt good and right. Simple little things. I have always felt bad because I wasn't in the position to pay someone's toll booth fees or buy someone a meal, but the little things like this sure do make a difference... at least, I think so.

Maggie posted a link which also presents a challenge.... a complaint free world. Ok, so the site sells bracelets, but wouldn't it be a great challenge to see how long we can go without complaining? I don't use the word 'challenge' lightly either. I'm terrible with complaining!

"If you don't like something, change it.
If you can't change it, change your attitude;
don't complain."
Maya Angelou

Oh and the meerkat? Just an old photo I took at the zoo. I love the expression on his face : )

 

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