Missing Alarm
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 with goiabada. It´s quiet and fine tempos today..perhaps we´ll have sun. (As I write the earth takes another shower...once when it was raining like this outside I had finished my shower and turned off the handle and the sound was just the same..just the same).
As I drink my coffee I read from a book the new volunteer, Daniel, lent me...´Taking Time Off´...interesting stories about what young people like me have done with their travel time before and during their post-secondary schooling. Its amazing to me how quickly Portuguese comes to me now-at times when this New Hampshirian and I talk in Eng we end up stumbling through a barrier of our new lingua.
-and we are joined by Neia and after-her partner, Alexandre. Alexandre is the one who works without a shirt and sings Brasilian songs too loudly and who made me the flute I play in the evenings. Neia seems to fit him, black long curls and clothes that shouldn´t match (orange and purple? Who would have thought?)- She reminds me to finish painting the lids for our potes we recycle and use for differentes coisas-different things in the kitchen. So I get to start my day with hands brightened verde and larange-I´ll coordinate with the plants I work with today I think.
I see Gustavo-the volunteer coordinator who loves his hair and the pretty new intern that came a couple of week ago-Amanda-(a beautiful Brasilian who will intern here for a month with another fellow from her universidade-Gabriel -who drinks to much caxaisa and likes to mess up my newly short moff of hair)-as I leave for the viveiro...
..........................................................................................................................................................................
Viveiro:
The smell of fermented seeds covers my hand and hides the smell of terra vermelho (argioloso-that´s what gives the earth here that redness). Too sweet and strong-if you only smell it shortly once you sigh because it smells good and makes you feel natural. But as I work with my sementes-my seedlings (some of which have been eaten through by bisoros-little beetles that exist everywhere in the nusery) the smell of my hands so close as I carefully filter through seeds that will be planted and those that are given to the compost becomes almost nauseating at times.
I sit on a cut piece of alvori, which type I don´t know-we don´t have this tree where I live, and hold my seeds close-close to my face-my hands are satisfyingly brown again-producto d´um bom dia- and streaked diagonally where the moldy mix of wet earth and soggy casca-peel/case are gently wiped off the little seed. So many of them are eaten, different sized buracos help me decide-does this one get a chance?-and I give as many as is practical and perhaps a bit more. I will wash the seeds with water after, and then they will germinate together until they are ready to be planted. The smell rises quickly and often, and the almond shaped seeds and my hands so close to my face and me so close to the ground-it makes me think of the book I sent to my German girl friend-´A Blade of Grass´-which is such a lovely piece of art that I think of its beginning and end continually as I work..
´first I must wash the seeds´...before I can sort them, clean off the mess of squishy wetness, and as I flick mosquitos off and loose seeds because of my quick motion..first I must wash the seeds, as I try to become efficient separating the big ones from the small and loose more seeds, what am I trying to do here-I´m collecting the seeds, first I must wash the seeds...and later as I am careful to keep all my seeds as I blow away more mosquitos-as I wash them and it all makes me think of that line...first I must wash the seeds.
Robin the director is back, and has come in today...I see him drive in with a muddy landrover that feels perfect for this place and I remember to talk to him about the newsletter I will be in charge of getting back on its feet. Lunch passes quickly-I have my portuguese coursebook with me, and always, half-intelligible bits of news in that peculiar way Brasilians speak...I´m not sure they have a work for mono-tone here...
I eat a banana and think of the silence of the viveiro after I had finished with the seeds and was weeding the growing seedlings-limpar las plantas-it´s a time when sometimes I don´t understand what´s going on inside and thoughts of things I miss from Canada and things I have to do (an update is overdue) and things that make my eyes sting all make me think of bits and pieces of art...I think again...first I must wash the seeds. I hear my music-chopin´s nocture op. 15 no. 2 and miserably try to sing any of it I remember...and let the silence do its work. Perhaps later I will understand..but first. First I must wash the seeds. It feels like a mantra now, when I´m impatient to start the newsletter, to research eco-turism brochures for a model that we´ll use of ours, to finish the inventory I started..First I must wash the seeds.
Tony is an artist, and when I think of things today I end up relating them to art that has affected me, books that are hard and pretty, movies that are slow and slightly strange, songs that make you feel cold because you can´t stop sporadic shivers from spreading over you...I think of Babel and the young Asian girl-deaf and desperate and not unattractive. As I let a dangerous caterpillar walk past my dirty cleaning hands I wonder what I´ll make for dinner tomorrow night. I get to cook with…the mineiro (how does life work out like that?) who makes the healthy food here-how did I get so lucky. He´ll make pizza sao paolian style again I think, and I´ll just make things that will accompany it-salad and a fruit dish perhaps…The squash and garlic he made last time make me think of Nanaimo´s Mambo´s Pizza because they had some healthy strange ones with spinach and goat cheese I think..
These strange things I remember.
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 with goiabada. It´s quiet and fine tempos today..perhaps we´ll have sun. (As I write the earth takes another shower...once when it was raining like this outside I had finished my shower and turned off the handle and the sound was just the same..just the same).
As I drink my coffee I read from a book the new volunteer, Daniel, lent me...´Taking Time Off´...interesting stories about what young people like me have done with their travel time before and during their post-secondary schooling. Its amazing to me how quickly Portuguese comes to me now-at times when this New Hampshirian and I talk in Eng we end up stumbling through a barrier of our new lingua.
-and we are joined by Neia and after-her partner, Alexandre. Alexandre is the one who works without a shirt and sings Brasilian songs too loudly and who made me the flute I play in the evenings. Neia seems to fit him, black long curls and clothes that shouldn´t match (orange and purple? Who would have thought?)- She reminds me to finish painting the lids for our potes we recycle and use for differentes coisas-different things in the kitchen. So I get to start my day with hands brightened verde and larange-I´ll coordinate with the plants I work with today I think.
I see Gustavo-the volunteer coordinator who loves his hair and the pretty new intern that came a couple of week ago-Amanda-(a beautiful Brasilian who will intern here for a month with another fellow from her universidade-Gabriel -who drinks to much caxaisa and likes to mess up my newly short moff of hair)-as I leave for the viveiro...
..........................................................................................................................................................................
Viveiro:
The smell of fermented seeds covers my hand and hides the smell of terra vermelho (argioloso-that´s what gives the earth here that redness). Too sweet and strong-if you only smell it shortly once you sigh because it smells good and makes you feel natural. But as I work with my sementes-my seedlings (some of which have been eaten through by bisoros-little beetles that exist everywhere in the nusery) the smell of my hands so close as I carefully filter through seeds that will be planted and those that are given to the compost becomes almost nauseating at times.
I sit on a cut piece of alvori, which type I don´t know-we don´t have this tree where I live, and hold my seeds close-close to my face-my hands are satisfyingly brown again-producto d´um bom dia- and streaked diagonally where the moldy mix of wet earth and soggy casca-peel/case are gently wiped off the little seed. So many of them are eaten, different sized buracos help me decide-does this one get a chance?-and I give as many as is practical and perhaps a bit more. I will wash the seeds with water after, and then they will germinate together until they are ready to be planted. The smell rises quickly and often, and the almond shaped seeds and my hands so close to my face and me so close to the ground-it makes me think of the book I sent to my German girl friend-´A Blade of Grass´-which is such a lovely piece of art that I think of its beginning and end continually as I work..
´first I must wash the seeds´...before I can sort them, clean off the mess of squishy wetness, and as I flick mosquitos off and loose seeds because of my quick motion..first I must wash the seeds, as I try to become efficient separating the big ones from the small and loose more seeds, what am I trying to do here-I´m collecting the seeds, first I must wash the seeds...and later as I am careful to keep all my seeds as I blow away more mosquitos-as I wash them and it all makes me think of that line...first I must wash the seeds.
Robin the director is back, and has come in today...I see him drive in with a muddy landrover that feels perfect for this place and I remember to talk to him about the newsletter I will be in charge of getting back on its feet. Lunch passes quickly-I have my portuguese coursebook with me, and always, half-intelligible bits of news in that peculiar way Brasilians speak...I´m not sure they have a work for mono-tone here...
I eat a banana and think of the silence of the viveiro after I had finished with the seeds and was weeding the growing seedlings-limpar las plantas-it´s a time when sometimes I don´t understand what´s going on inside and thoughts of things I miss from Canada and things I have to do (an update is overdue) and things that make my eyes sting all make me think of bits and pieces of art...I think again...first I must wash the seeds. I hear my music-chopin´s nocture op. 15 no. 2 and miserably try to sing any of it I remember...and let the silence do its work. Perhaps later I will understand..but first. First I must wash the seeds. It feels like a mantra now, when I´m impatient to start the newsletter, to research eco-turism brochures for a model that we´ll use of ours, to finish the inventory I started..First I must wash the seeds.
Tony is an artist, and when I think of things today I end up relating them to art that has affected me, books that are hard and pretty, movies that are slow and slightly strange, songs that make you feel cold because you can´t stop sporadic shivers from spreading over you...I think of Babel and the young Asian girl-deaf and desperate and not unattractive. As I let a dangerous caterpillar walk past my dirty cleaning hands I wonder what I´ll make for dinner tomorrow night. I get to cook with…the mineiro (how does life work out like that?) who makes the healthy food here-how did I get so lucky. He´ll make pizza sao paolian style again I think, and I´ll just make things that will accompany it-salad and a fruit dish perhaps…The squash and garlic he made last time make me think of Nanaimo´s Mambo´s Pizza because they had some healthy strange ones with spinach and goat cheese I think..
These strange things I remember.
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