Felicidade é o contrário

A long while since I wrote...
Well, I've moved houses successfully, all though it was just as difficult as I had expected, if not more so.
My first family was really great. They were there with me throughout all of my development since I arrived here, they taught me a lot, and that is something to remember.
I suppose you discover the importance of people in your life when you separate from them...
They have been a huge part of my year here...the first four months are probably the most shocking. The time when you need to most support. And they gave it to me. But I know I will still see them, visit every once and a while. I plan on passing Christmas with my first family, and traveling with them in January to the beach. So they have not been lost, its just a change.
I've adapted to my second family..almost. Its been about a week and a half since I arrived. Eating their food is not so strange anymore, or having moments when no one is talking is not so awkward. I think this family may be more fitting for me then the first...just because of my lifestyle before I arrived. Here it is only me, my host mom, host dad, and the maid...so in other words, I'm the only kid, and I now can go back to my more solitary, independent life.

So Christmas is coming up, and I'm sure you are curious about what it's like here now.
Well, I dont really know at this point, I'll have to tell you after to be more accurate...
Right now, there are Christmas lights up all around the city, everyone is going crazy buying gifts, just like there...they have Christmas trees, wreaths, and garlands of pine, all fake of course because they don't have pines here...not even close.
One big difference is that it is like 90 degrees or hotter here..and I'm thinking, I dont know yet, but I'm thinking that Christmas here is more...cheery. More parties, more socializing...it's less organized...it's beautifully messy, the Brazilian way.
Brazilians like felicity.

Yesterday I went with my Rotary club to spread some felicity. They bought bunches of gifts for kids, and we went to 3 of the hospitals in the city and a children's center in one of the favelas in town. It was both amazing and horrifying.
We had a fire truck and 4 or so cars in the caravan, tons of presents, 3 santas, 10 'elves' and the token American. The 3 santas, 2 elves, and I rode on the top of the fire truck with the signal blaring, waving, and the others drove behind.
We stopped at each hospital, entered, gave the gifts to the kids there, and left just as 'quietly' as we had come in.
I was close to crying many times. These kids... The faces of their parents, sitting there at their sides, I've never gone through anything like what those children, or just as painfully, their parents are going through. I've never seen things like I'm seeing here...
I remember one little boy... I couldn't tell what had happened to him, but his father was standing at the side of his bed, the nurses applying bandages, and there was a rosary necklace on the pillow above his head...In the hopes of some kind of help.
I remember one boy who couldn't even bring himself to look at me or the gift I'd given to him.
But then I remember one little boy who had a smile from ear to ear when he saw Santa come in and give him a little toy truck, and I remember the kids from the favela running after the fire truck, yelling and laughing, with their soccer balls and sand buckets. And the way the kids waved goodbye, huge smiles on their faces...and the grateful expressions of the parents, for bringing some kind of happiness into a place of such suffering...
Its easy to forget that things like this are happening every day...as no one wants to know, but seeing it...its impossible to avoid. And you just want to help, even if it's just one person, even if it's just one smile...one moment where they forget...and you begin to resent the unfair luck you've run into. You resent how one person can have so much, and another so little...
I was walking through one of the hospitals, and I saw a man, obviously very poor, stretched out on a hospital bed, and I resented the $200 camera I held in my hand...

pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/sommerbrazil/FireTruck