Finally Arrived

May 14th, 2013

I just honestly can't believe we even made it. The number of things that could have gone wrong was just too high. It is surreal being here. seeing all of The photos Allison has been showing me for the past 5 months.... Has been awesome.
We hopped off the back if the truck and started shaking hands with everyone. Here are the new characters in the life:

-Maria: She is the owner of the whole ranch. She is a short, older woman with a sweet smile. She is who feeds us and basically looks after us.

-Marina: She is the daughter of Maria. Young girl, probably my age. So pretty.

Leonardo: Marina's 2 year old son that I am in love with. Here is a picture of him with Luge.

Lucas: He is a graduate student from the University of São Paulo. In a nutshell, he is studying the monkey's diet. Get it?

Noami: She is an Italian post-doc from the University of São Paulo. She is studying humans in Gilbues and their reactions/thoughts of the projects that occur here in Boa Vista. She is short, beautiful, and I basically love her. She has pretty curly brown hair, with two dreads underneath that she lets free when she wears a ponytail. She is so cute. I can't deal with looking in her eyes. I have a lot to say about her.

Micheal: He is Naomi's boyfriend, from what I have gathered. He has wild curly brown hair and a matching wild beard. He struggles with English, but who the hell am I to judge!?

Junior: Son of Maria. He is around 25 years old. Slim and muscular, very attractive. Perfect teeth. Olivia, he would love you.

Marcio: The boy from the truck! Maria's other son! And my buddy.

Claudio: another son. He has a very serious demeanor.

Lilly: the young captive monkey that Junior saved from people in town!!!! She is a juvenile, and is absolutely adorbz. She doesn't know how to crack nuts.... So she can't be released into the wild :-(

I was taken On tours of the various buildings and huts around the "farm". We figured out which rooms we would take. I am rooming with Dr. Fragaszy for now, and Allison with Lucas. Here are some pictures!
I will take pics of Maria's house hopefully soon.
I am quite comfy here!!!
We ate a delightful lunch of scrambled eggs, rice, some tasty white beans. Then we focused on setting up and sorting out all of our equipment. Y'all know I love setting all my junk up. Here are some pics of my room.

I was soooooo sleepy yesterday, and plus I hadn't had any coffee, so I had quite a headache. I was laying on a hammock and on the brink of entering stage 1 sleep when... *bounce* - *boom!* I heard a ball being kicked!! I quickly sat up to see if I could see the boys playing! I knew they were, so I walked out of our patio towards Maria's house. They were playing futbol! I asked Michael if I could play, and he said yes. He tried his best to explain the rules of the little game they were playing... But I didn't really get it from how he was explaining. But I tried. And I think they were impressed. Lol except for how I didn't know the rules! Lol so we had to keep starting over. Finally Lucas came over to play. He explained the rules in English perfectly; now it was game on! So now it was me, Lucas, Michael, Marcio, Junior, and another boy. I think they were impressed!! Since we had enough people, we then set up a little two on two tournament. I was on Marcio's team. Omg, it was so fun. But it was also very hard since we were playing in sand!! I fell a few times. Skinned my knee. Marcio helped me up. We were a great team!! I started trying to say the Portuguese versions of the common words in the game. Like "falta" for "foul" and such. Marcio and I were the bomb together... Despite losing twice. Brazilians are all about creativity; the beautiful game (the opposite of Germans).And it is so natural for them!! So it was great to play in their style. I hope to get better this summer. Plus, they haven't seen me juggle.
Actually, this morning Noami told me this morning at breakfast that all the boys told her that I was really good. .... :-) I'm glad they told her that.

We stopped playing when it got dark. So I took my first shower. I was superrrrrr dirty from the traveling and the futbol. Here is a picture of the shower! It is better than I expected! Cold water only, of course. But geeez it was a blessing at that point. No bugs messed with me, though there was a cute froggy watching me (awk).
Then we ate supper. Tomatoes, cucumbers, rice, bolhino darroz (migt be wrong spelling. Yall), cheesey potatoes, and they had chicken wings. Y'all, we eat good.

Ok then I was about to literally die via tiredness. So I headed to my room, stuffed with food. Listen, AS SOON AS I TURNED ON THE LIGHT IN MY ROOM, a hugggeeee spider scurried across the floor. I'm talking HUMUNGOUS. Not a tarantula. An overgrown brown recluse. No. Lie. I wanted it GONE immediately. But I couldn't make myself kill it. So I grabbed my flipflop and tried to scoot it out the door... But it very quickly took off under Dr. Fragaszy's bed. I couldn't find it. And I soon realized that even if I DID find it, wtf was I gonna do with it? So I left it, climbed into my bed, and very thoroughly tucked my mosquito net underneath my mattress all the way around. That was my solution to the spider issue. Whatever. Goodnight.