How are things?

I am sitting on my poor half-inch excuse for a mattress, sprawled out horizontally with the fan at my side. My room is a tad bit messy, looking less like my living quarters and more like art—abstract and fussy, a night school project by someone with too much to do. Occasionally, beads of sweat form on my forehead and I grimace. Damn these mosquitoes. The stealthy buggers somehow know to only attack my feet. I wrap my legs in bed sheets and pray for deliverance, hoping the Dengue fever never comes.

I love Brazilian TV. Somewhere in a galaxy far, far, away, some genius of a producer decided he could up his program ratings by incorporating scantily clad dancers into the mid-afternoon talk and game shows. Bob Barker would have been proud. Each contestant win – be it a washing machine or a flat screen TV – is punctuated by an ass shake and a roar from the crowd. No puritan family censorship here. I can’t help but avoid the remote, thinking “Oh yes, the price is definitely right”.



So, how are things?

Good. Thanks for asking.

Really? Are they good?

Well, to be honest.

Brazil = Adventure + Frustration. The two often go hand in hand. I continue to marvel at this place of extremes. Not only do I see them, socially, politically, but I seem to feel them as well. As if my inner reality is somehow affected by the world outside. I sit at my window, emotionally pondering, looking at the chaos zipping by and by. Things go high and things go low, and I definitely feel my altitude change.

In terms of the low, my financial position continues to be a great source of daily stress. I have avoided the super market for some time, seeking cheap ways to eat at home or on the street. Aside from becoming completely averse to the thought of ‘one more hotdog’ or ‘one more hamburger’, I have been blessed with a good ‘let that be a lesson to you’ bout of food poisoning (my third here in Brazil). This feeling of corporal fragility is only intensified by the mental trepidations, as I hand out my 1.6 dollars and wait for something, anything, to come back in. While things are slowly, ever so languidly starting to develop (subs and language students), I am definitely out spending my in spending if you know what I mean.

Then there is the relationship front, an added source of joy and pain. My return to ‘the girl’ has been long in coming, and the expectations high from the very start. She is much the same as I left her—beautiful, intelligent, challenging. But while indeed her charm and personality remains, there is an innocence now lacking in her eyes. Like all of us jaded, single, out of the fire folks, she is now wary of the contrary sex—protective with her feelings and a bit distrustful of men in general. While we have definitely been enjoying one another, it seems at times that we want different things. I have been single bordering on forever, and am interested in pursuing a relationship (surprise, yes I know). She just got out of one, and is looking to avoid that very thing. So while I am still hopeful that our attraction and compatibility will conquer all, things are definitely in the realm of the unknown.

So in terms of a voyage, its funny what you ask for and funny what you get. I left my comfortable Boulder life looking for challenge and adventure. I knew I would be tested, because that is what adventure is. It’s not a resort visit to Malibu, pina coladas in hand. Adventure is struggle; the pitting of yourself against some great conflict, to test the waters, to come to know who you really are. Five thousand miles from home, friends and familiarities all but blown away, it can be tough. No doubt. But all I can do is hope that my courage will lead to greater things, and that one day I will smile, a toothless old man, when someone asks, “How were things?”

Blood type stickers provided with my helmet. No one is beating around the bush here.