travellingchel

Marcelo´s bread is beautiful again. Tomorrow when he isn´t here and his bread is, I wonder how beautiful it will be. It´s soft inside but sesame seeds on the top and tempos demais-too much time- in the oven make it hard. Cutting it, hard-like the thought of my Brasilian memories-I fumble and make a mess of the bread-spilling little white crumbs over the plastic lid. Hard, hard, hard. My book-The Famished Road-and this bread-hard, and precious. Precious when I stop reading and can´t stop crying because it pressed me so fiercely to harsh reality -like burnt earthen walls -and the imprint of it stings my cheek and hands and knee fronts when I let go-when I´m free. Hard. What is it? Things feel hard today. My alarm didn´t go off again this morning and I missed my chance to travel with the beautiful Spanish woman-to camp and trek and eat fajitas and banana oatmeal cookies at waterfalls and view points on Parco do Brigodeiro -missed a week-end of fine and lovely memories-lost because I´m me ...

Receitas brasileiras Farofa: 4 cups of farhina trigo-flour 2 small cebolas-onions diced 1 can of milho-corn 2 ovos-eggs 3 cloves of alho-garlic minced 1 tbsp sal-salt 2 tbsp oregano 1 tbsp curry powder Heat oil with oregano in panela-pan and sautee onions Whip eggs Add ovos, salt and alho continue Stir in farhina slowly, adding oil as needed Add curry and corn –still stiring in flour and cook for 10-12 minutes Test and add salt/anything else you´d like to taste (For example-you can add fried potatoes as well) Serve hot and enjoy. Capachi-capati-Indian Recita (Not sure the name is spelled right...) 2 sprigs of any herb you enjoy (Mint, Oregano, Basil, Rosemary whatever you like) 1 cup of água-water 1 cup of farhina trigo-flour 1 tsp sal ½ tbsp açúcar marrom-brown sugar ¾ cup of sementes de sésamo-sesame seeds In a medium sized bowl, mix água, herb, sal, and açúcar. Slowly add farhina (more or less as needed) and sésamo until it holds together Roll out into 2 thin (1/2 a cm) circles In...

Truth is filling up my spaces-change like patches in old and moldy clothes. It can only be a good thing. I think this when thunder passes across Minas-thunder and more thunder and it sounds like war. What is Minas to me? It's this green-the green my hips and fingernails and knees hold inside them-which I think I will never get rid of. This green that is in so many places all over the world. Minas -it's a beautiful word and my lover and music and all this green. It's Iracambi and Brasil and thunder like war. Minas.. Minas... Minas....

Trail Blazing We just came back from a very very long trailblazing session-each of the 6 of us taking turns wielding the machete and me the only girl. It was fairly intense work and the sun was quite hot-my legs are a mess of scratches and bites-they almost look ridiculous but that´s what happens when you don´t wear pants as you trail blaze.. People tell you when you come-wear pants when you walk on the trails-cuidado para cobra (insert snaking hand movement and wide eyes) snakes-cobras- we saw one -was from a distance. It wasn´t venomous..this one Menos linda-less lovely and unlike the one we saw behind our bathroom just the other day-curled up and enjoying the sun as much as we. Unfortunately because its so venomous-Jacaraca it´s called-and so close to where we sleep we had to kill it. It was actually quite lovely to look at-before its head was crumpled by a old Italian man with bright eyes and a small stick. Much like the bicho´s (a word for little animals or insects) I had to kill ...

Cancerous Moments I imagine a million different ways to make this moment reproduce like cancer cells-oh Iracambi...the silences...la doce vida...the earth here-its drawing-sucking-draining out all this beautiful things and my smell- my shirt has a peculiar smell- Earth and old rain and sweat and me and coffe and air. God and its killing me-how do I describe the fullness of my body right now-of me and my thoughts. I feel I could go on like this forever-the smell of me and old hand-rolled tobacco kissing me forward until my knees and elbows and teeth ache with it all. All the fullness and beauty of it all. Sucking beauty out of my every every pore-how how how. I can just stay here with my unanswered how until aching swallows me wholly. Oh why go back to things already said? Because they are good again-because they slide over your body like water or cream or happiness and the emotions are fresh- fresh and what can you do except try and get the same again and more again...

It´s 6.54 Mon. 1/21/08. Uneven grass covers rolling hillside-below-just before the strata-street-are reeds like bulrushes and a small fruit tree encloses a ditch and just after and more to the right is a stretch of different trees-I look for two the same and am not sure I see any. This kind of bio-diversity-is humbling. From benches around our kitchen table under the veranda-a vista belo-a beautiful view of this-and of vaca´s-cow´s that lie on the green-trees placed alone or in small patches around them and cut into the edge of a hill-vermelho terra-red earth-as if someone tore up a chunk of this grass-creating a precipe perhaps cut by the river that runs through out Iracambi. And a mist shifts and moves left across the picture-it´s almost ridiculous how beautiful it all is. Tuffy-the residant guard-smells like himself- wet dog beside me, and leaves his smell behind to go lie beneath the wooden table-the songs of the passaro-birds-stop and start sporadically-different ones responding t...

Learning Iracambi Things here move differently. If you watch things then you see them in curves-only pieces visable at a time-shades different each time you blink. Like watching the Mineiro, the beautiful one from Minas- who plays the guitar like nobody´s business-you see it in curves... first- an unintelliable stream of Portuguese and half-smiles..then you can notice later that he spoke only to two people and later yet that he looked at you too many times... Curves of what was happening, and no picture of the whole thing-curves and curves of the same thing..And you can´t follow anything for too long without curving yourself, becoming more of the curves you try to follow and starting to spiral. This is the Brasil at Iracambi that I´m beginning to know. How can I explain these sensations-they feel like truth and reality. What do I mean? If you aren´t flexible, you will hurt and eventually break. Flex when people can´t understand you and don´t want to continue the conversation of hand mo...

Garlic Tinted Tears and La Doce Vida God. What a day. It was almost surreal how amazing it was. And now I have coffee-God. What a day. I can´t even write about it-it was that good that any writing would only diminish it. But. For the sake of those in the know-Imagine. -the green you´ve seen in the films, imagine a dirt road-with a light blanket of heat- of sun over bare skin and the sound of the river and your feet over the drying earth-terra (que cheiro bom-terra) Imagine the perfect amount of lunch and cake-bolo- for dessert. Imagine a book so good you smile during your sleeping hours thinking of it-and a vista of green green green and then some. Imagine quiet after everyone has left-and a good good feeling of yourself that comes with quiet moments and unrecognized victories over indifference and illness. Imagine the thought of your handmade flute-flaota-and the sound of your lover´s guitar playing-the taste of farofa-(flour with oil and whatever you´d like in it-eggs, onions, banana...

My alarm didn´t go off this morning, at 6.20 as I planned. Somehow, I was awake @ 6.23 and got up then to start my day with a shower. The smell of the shower- it gets old so quickly-stale piss and the wetness of the floor-moldy wood or something similar...tempered with my honey shampoo Cafe de manhna-more of the pao from the minerio-and God-it´s healthy... It´s healthy. It´s healthy ..... This non-white bread with raisins and whole wheat flour is eaten in binges-it´s baked french style, and so we take two short fat pieces and depending on our style..spread it with pasta de amendoim, margarina, cheese and margarina, goiabada jam....whatever´s kicking around and closest. Just sweet enough-heavy and ridiculously satisfying with a copo du cafe doce. Tony ... who is the viveiro´s main man, ( an artisto with a that peculiar scent I identify with hippies like him...what is it? Oh. It´s what we smell like without deordorant and lotions and perfumes...our natural smell) walks in and has his pao...