Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Life in Iracambi Feb 3-7

First, I must welcome my sweet princess to Brazil. Sasha is here and we shall soon be reunited. But first I must give some advice for anyone new to Brazil: No estressa. I love you baby!!!
Hey everybody, my loyal readers!!! The internet connection is pretty shaky here in God's country. So I did not waste the opportunity to post this new blog. I have been on this dusty road for a week and a half now and I am really loving it. There are a lot of bugs here though so it is very important to wear protection!
There are also a lot of these guys running around. I literally have to look under my bed before I go to sleep to make sure there are no unwelcome visitors. But you never really have to worry, they keep to themselves and don't bother anybody.
My main job is upkeeping the trails around the forest which is pretty cool. I imagine myself looking like a stud by the end of this month, since the work involves chopping a lot of dead trees and cutting brush, grass, moving logs out of the way of the trail, etc. I even get to have a machete! Life here is so laid back. My mornings usually consist of work. But after lunch, there is hiking, swimming, chasing creepy crawlers with my camera, or hanging out with my super-cool fellow volunteers.We also get fresh milk! You can only understand this if you were born behind the "Iron Curtain". Fresh, like not pasteurized. The kind of milk that you have to peel the film from the top before you drink it. The milk that tastes so good, that it brings you back to your childhood, when every morning, we had to walk to the old lady with the cow, who would give us milk so fresh that it was only minutes or an hour before the cow squirted it out! Yes, that kind of milk! And we also have "doce de leche", the creamy stuff that is created from boiling a can of condensed milk for like 5 hours, that tastes oooh so good.Doce de leche on the left & milk on the right.

I know that I may sound like a milk fanatic, but when you encounter something that brings you back like that, you have to be excited. And I love food.

Iracambi translates to "The Land of Milk and Honey". Here are some pics:


And cigarettes cost about 75 cents! Is there any bigger reason to smoke?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Mishenka
The most important - you dont look hungry. You look great and healthy. Thanks God ( jewish mom's worry).

Anonymous said...

Misha
"First, I must welcome my sweet princess to Brazil. Sasha is here"
How you know where she is? I didn't hear from her. May be is still in JFK - who knows.
Sasha ay....where are you ?
Mama Raya

Anonymous said...

Poosha Maya!!!!!

You look so funny and very tan. LOL. I'm glad you're enjoying unpasturized milk. Must be so tasty. It's been too long, I dont even remember what it tasted like.

Jofka

And the World Remained Silent said...

i hear you, brother. the fresh milk is very exciting. i too, along with my cute little sister sasha, used to go to this woman in the village (during our northern summers) and squirt milk from the teets with my own hands. aaaah, that was life back then, huh?

the pics are really great too!

zhenia and tom