Although I had gotten a full night's sleep, the morning was still a bit difficult. Jeffson had told me that I could sleep in, however I'm not one that can just let myself lose a whole morning (most times). So I woke myself up around 8:45, got dressed and entered the living area to find Jeffson hard at work on his laptop. He said he had been up since 6 with his work and the girls were already dropped off at school. Apparently, school starts at 7am here, but finishes at noon. If I got to choose, I'd love to wake up a little earlier and have afternoons off school - though I have a feeling that some people would much prefer the sleep. Had the same breakfast as yesterday, then sat at the table with Jeffson to study a bit more - I sure have a heck of a lot to learn. Every chance I get, I ask one of the family what an item is in Portuguese - so at breakfast today i'd hold up a fork and they'd say "garfo" then a spoon and they'd say "colher" then a knife, which is "faca". By the way, none of those are pronounced how you think they're pronounced (unless you speak portuguese). Anyway, I spent the morning mostly studying with a bit of texting, facebooking and scrabble playing with a hint of angry birds. By about noon, i went with Jeffson to pick up the girls. There isn't much for parking around the schools so one was a quick, drive by pickup and one we waited for at a gas station. Btw, apparently our teachers have it pretty well off compared to down here - people only become teachers here out of dire necessity because the pay is so low. We picked up the last one and headed back - in the mean time, I was tasked with asking them questions about their days in english. They did very well - much better than I could have in Portuguese, lol. We made it back just as lunch was finished cooking. I'm glad that I'm staying in a family with a host mom that cooks really tasty food. We had fish (very tasty, but the fish was only gutted, then cooked whole so you had to watch out for bones). I gave it a little filet action and it was great (btw, these fish were personal sized - about 6-8 inches long). We also had rice, beans, strips of steak, an amazing Brazilian soft drink called Bara and a bowl of this corn flour to sprinkle on top (which jeffson eats with almost everything). Lunch (Almoço or Comida) is their big meal of the day - which makes a lot of sense since it gives you more time to digest. They call breakfast "cafe de manhã" which translates to "morning coffee" which isn't usually more substantial than coffee and buttered bread. The early afternoon didn't have too much more planned, so I hung out in the same way as I did in the morning. It was only when we reached the heat of the day that I had to go outside and visit my favourite spot to stay cool - a hammock in a shady patch of their backyard that catches a perfect breeze. With my phone and book, I spent a bit of time here before I was called to accompany Jeffson on another errand. We were heading into the city centre to order some graphics for his company. I wasn't going to be much help, but I like every chance I get to see Manaus. It really is quite an impressive city - i didn't expect to see anything like it in the middle of the Jungle. Many buildings and overpasses reminded me of home, but the traffic was just a little more crazy. At least, unlike Lima, it is relatively quiet traffic. People will only honk when someone does something genuinely stupid (unfortunately there are a good few stupid drivers on the road). This trip was only a quick one - i'm sure i'll get the opportunity to walk around the town more comprehensively on a different day. When we returned, the same routine continued for a bit. I borrowed one of his books and tried to translate it, however I couldn't make it further than the first page without getting s headache, lol. it wasn't much longer before it was time for the next meal of the day - i forget the name, however it translated into something like "afternoon coffee" which was another light meal with the exact same foods as breakfast. All I could think of was that I was getting "2nd breakfast" and that Meri and Pippin from Lord of the Rings would be proud. After 2nd breakfast, I was given a lesson in conjugating verbs in the past tense - shouldn't be too difficult but in order to effectively speak, i need to actually memorize a few verbs first, otherwise I'll have nothing to conjugate. After he gave me a lesson, I gave him one in english spelling (he's self-taught and knows the words, but our spelling system is BS). We watched some tv afterwards (there was an english channel - hooray!). There were portuguese subtitles with it, so i got some practice in there too. I never thought i'd say this but I have actually improved a fair bit. Maybe by the end of the week, i'll be able to pick up a good chunk of the words from their conversations! By about 10pm, i figured it was about time for bed, but no, it's supper time, lol. It wasn't anything like supper at home - just a small portion of beef and rice which was great (i won't get too fat tonight). I'm trying to think of more ways to incorporate exercise into my day though, but the weather makes it really hard to do anything too strenuous. I figure it got close to 40 degrees today! I'm excited though - if Jeffson gets the clients he's hoping for, I'll be checking out the jungle as early as wednesday! I'll be taking lots of pictures, that's for sure. Finally, we all went to bed and I started writing this entry but about half way through, i had some sort of grasshopper/locust thing fly through the window and bounce off my head. It was about an inch and a half long and it sure surprised me. It crawled off in a hurry somewhere under the bed so i guess he's my new roommate now - I've decided to name him Julian. We'll see if we get along - i don't mind roommates, but if he disturbs my sleep, i've got a left flip-flop on the side of my bed waiting for him! Hopefully he knows what's good for him. Anyway, i'm off to bed - going to have to remind myself to take better pictures when i'm out and about. Hopefully after 4 weeks, you're all not getting sick of Manaus pictures.
Chilling on the hammock
A little lizard on the wall
2nd breakfast!
No comments:
Post a Comment