On Monday, Nicole, Nicole's mother and sister, Jiame, and I went to Arracruz which is north of Vitoria. The terrain in this municipality is very different than what I have been used to. It is much wilder. The towns are mostly small fishing communities and the beach are beautiful. The following pictures can describe it better than I ever could.
Check out Jiame's truck. I found sexy suzy's mate. This is pretty much the Brazilian version of my truck with the same interior and a little different and older exterior (its got a 2.8 diesel, I'm envious). I feel home riding around in it!
This was one of Jiame's favorite restaurants in all of Brazil and I can see why. It was in a small fishing community and the fish was so fresh. Amazing place, going down in my book as the best food in Brazil... yet.
This is cacao moqueca. Cacao is a small shark and moqueca is the capixaba traditional dish (people from Espirito Santo). The shrimp was fried but it didn't have any breading. Really great with a little pimenta and limon.
Sunset view from the dock of the restaurant. The pic doesn't do it justice.
I don't have a picture of the "pousada" or bungalow we stayed in, but it was beautiful (actually, I don't have any pictures, these are all Nicole's mom from her iPhone). Once we arrived there at night, we sat by the pool and then went out to another restaurant which was also amazing. The rooms were great and had AC! The bed was the best I have slept on since Jiame's sitio or maybe even the states. The only problem was that we ordered way too much food for dinner and so I couldn't sleep because we ate very late and I was stuffed. The picture below is of the natural beach right outside the hotel.
After driving about 5 hours (mostly on a dirt road like WV but with no gravel and huge trucks flying past), we arrived at this pousada in a small crabbing community. Jiame did a study on the economy of this crabbing community so of course he knew everyone (actually, everyone already knows him somehow). We stopped at this pousada and had another moqueca and then hit the road. When we finally got back on the hard road, I commented that the power steering was making a strange noise and Jiame said it was hard to steer. A couple hours later, Jiame stopped at a gas station and said he couldn't drive any farther. The power steering pump was leaking and he was convinced that it couldn't be driven. I tried to persuade him just to add more fluid, but it's his truck (remembered that guys from the Exxon next door would come into Advanced Auto and buy power steering fluid when some college student would come in with a leaking power steering pump but didn't have the money to get it fixed). Long story short, we spent an hour waiting for the mechanic and then he told him to just buy two quarts, and we could make it home.
I turned 22 on the way home somewhere in Arracruz. The next day Nicole told me to show up late to CADEC. When I arrived they had made me moqueca and the kids made me cards. At the end of the day they gave me a pink shirt and made me a cake (I liked the cake a little more than the pink shirt.
One of my assignments was to interview a kid at CADEC. I picked the angel of the class, Stefany. It wasn't too bad with the language barrier, but I've gotten pretty good at talking with children and I was asking simple questions.
This is Nicole's sister, Amanda, helping me paint one of the rooms at CADEC. I've only done one room thus far, but they want me to do the rest of the rooms. Now that I'm about to leave, I finally have more work than I can do.
Some of the CADEC staff with my cake
Cutting my cake with Sirlei. Sirlei is the director of CADEC.
My pink shirt.. woot.
I had a "small" birthday party at a restaurant close to my house. Ended up that about 15 people showed up. The only bad part is that b-day boy has to pay for his own party. Thankfully some people helped out.
A few of the people that showed up.
Also, on Saturday night I had my real b-day party at my house. It was kinda expensive because I had to pay for all the food, but I soon figured out that this party wasn't really for me. Even though it was my b-day party, it was really for my parents to be able to invite their parents over. This was the most work I have ever ever ever done for a party. I am really telling the truth when I say that my mom and I worked non-stop from about 8 in the morning till about 7 at night (and we were up till about 1 the night before peeling shrimp). Prior to the party we had to go the supermarket, bakery, and fishing community to all get the freshest and cheapest food. Preparing the food was also very time-consuming. Just think if everything you made for a party had to be made from raw ingredients. For example, it took me about 3 hours to cube acai palmetto hearts, cheese, and ham; then put them on a skewer, then shove the skewers into a pineapple. In America we would have just paid for a cheese platter and called it quits. It was very important to my mom that everything we made was perfect in appearance. I barely had any friends come to the party except for my extended family and a few friends, so I knew we were making way too much food. We are still eating leftovers from my party three days later. It was a very cool experience that I needed, but it was so foreign compared to my birthday in the states. Usually my birthday in the states is a day to relax, but here I worked all day and had to pay for everything. However, my family got me the best gift ever. I have been looking for a Brazilian flag towel for some time and they surprised me with one on my birthday. I love it. I would post Nicole's pictures from my party, but apparently my sister (Gabi) deleted them on purpose. I don't know whats her deal is, but I've always just written it off because she is only 12. Now, I think she really doesn't like me. At least I have rest of the fam. I don't know what I would do without them. I have been very blessed to have such a welcoming family (probably because they are cariocas (people from Rio) and not capixabas (people from Espirtu Santo)). Now that I am in Rio, I can really see the difference. People from Rio are so much more open than capixabas. I hope I become more like cariocas by living with them!
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