Hello Everyone!

Sorry I haven't been writing in this very often. It's been crazy busy with not a whole lot of free time for me to write detailed blogs. Even now, I'm running short on time before our next class begins! Things here are soo amazing. I wake up every morning and either sleep in, go to yoga, or a quick morning run down a lovely dirt road with the cerrado mountains all around me. (and wildlife kinda. Yesterday I came across 4 dogs, 3 chickens, and a little owl that flew onto a fence post and did the whole head-twisty-thing until I was way past.) The walk into town can get a little long, but it's really pretty. Being it's through a cow pasture makes it a little intense sometimes. The other night a group of us were walking back--in the dark, because it gets dark by about 6:00 pm--and an entire herd of cows were blocking the path. Normally cows don't scare me, but these Brazilian cows are tough, and there are some bulls. Also, one of the women here worked with horses for about 10 years and she's afraid of the cows. Not comforting. So we stuck up our hands and shimmied on through the giant herd.

The food at the ecovillage is fantastic but it gets predictable sometimes, making the trips into Pirenopolis even better. One night two girls and I were really excited to eat at our first Brazilian restaurant. We wandered for a bit and finally stopped at this corner, step-above-fast food place (because there were pictures) and sat down to order. One girl got a cheese sandwich--easy enough to figure out even with the language barrier--the other girl just ordered something with hamburger, and I thought I had ordered either chicken or fish. Well the meat dishes arrived and the hamburger sandwich not only had hamburger on it, but it also had bacon, corn, and egg. Mine was NOT fish or chicken. We're actually not sure what it was at all. It was this grey-brown slab of super greasey roast-beef looking thing on a bun. Sketch. That mystery street meat haunted me and Lisa for a few hours. Luckily we had a fantastic after dinner coffee at our favourite hang out the Armazen. It's a cool coffee/bar/houka place where some IPEC people also work. It's a great place because a lot of workers speak English, know us, and it's a really really cool place in general.

In between the main room and the Moroccan/houka room is this little area outside with two tables and a little pond and trees. Easily my favourite place to hang out and have a few drinks. Beyond the Moroccan room is another patio, with another patio beyond that that includes a pond, and then another little garden patio place. The workers are trying to grow a lot of the food they use, as well as start up a little aquaculture pond in the back. Because they work with the ecovillage, they're focused on being envrionmentally friendly.

The ecovillage is also fantastic. And the people are so sweet and amazing. I want to take everyone home with me. One of the male workers who does a lot of the construction type work has become a source of entertainment for a lot of us. He came to our Portuguese lessons one night either baked or drunk, and was told to sit with my group and read questions of a sheet of paper so we could practice. (BTW, he doesn't speak English.) He kind of asked a few questions and then, after staring at the sheet for a few minutes, looked up and said "Feliz Aniversario" which means Happy Birthday. Out of al the phrases in portuguese to be found, that's the one he said. He also has that kind of macho-man super model type look or feel to him so we enjoy saying his name with a Schwarzerneger accent. Flavio heh heh.

oops there's a line behind me. I had better go. ciao!