Macumba!?

So this transfer is coming to a close, and I am hoping that I stay here. I NEED to keep working with this guy that I´ve become pretty attached too, because he is so close to being 100% sober. He already quit drugs, drinking, and is just trying to kick cigarrets now. His relationship with his family is way better now, he´s no longer worshipping/making animal sacrfices to satan (he practiced a form of ``christian black magic´´ kind of like voodoo, but different called macumba) and his relationships with his family are so much better now. He is trying to find his 5 kids that are scattered through brazil and help them out in their lives and, the biggest difference, he smiles a lot more. One of a few cool people that I get to work here.

But I have a list of things that I need you guys to help me out with

FIRST: somebody send me a recipe of really good cream based italian sauce to put over noodles.
SECOND: someone needs to look into the hoops I need to jump through to be a translator at the world cup here in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016. I heard that you can start filling out papers for some of that stuff in february but I´m clueless, so someone look into that.

those are the only ones that I can remember for now

But hey, I hope mom only sent 10 dollars in that cake box, also I hope she is remembering to fill my toolbox with magic instead of wasting a ton of money on postage... After seeing some of the funny cars and motorcycles that people create out of scrap I am getting some funny ideas that I can realize if I have the right tools.

But some quick stories from this last week, we were knocking doors the other day and every one here has an outer wall and a gate. Sometimes you have no idea what the house looks like because they have a 12 foot tall concrete wall and a huge metal door with a little telephone box to call to the house and a camera so they can see you. So we call a house and it´s a lady who says she´ll be right out. As soon as she hangs up this guy bursts out the gate and he´s got crazy eyes like a crack addict. But so does everyone else, so whatever. I asked him if we could talk with his family about our message, and he was like ``uhhhh... just that everyone here are macumbeiros... is that okay?´´ Like I said, macumba is a voodoo-ish thing that they´ll use to summon demon powers in their life. It´s weird though because generally their houses are just FULL of pictures of saints and such, but really dark pictures and their houses are dark too. So my companion got freaked out and started leaving, but I was like ``it´s all good dude, can we come in?´´ and he accepted. The whole time my companion was trembling with fear, but nothing happened that was super out of the ordinary. They did have a parrot that was talking to me non-stop, and the house was a little weird, but overall it was cool and we´re going back to teach again this week. They all had long sleeves on so I couldn´t really see if they had any markings of macumba, because generally they´ll have all these raised slashes over these crazy looking tattoos because they´ll sacrifice animals and cut the blood into their skin during their rituals. Kinda weird, but I have a higher authority, soooooooooo too bad for them. Next time should be a hoot.

Beyond that life is just rolling along. I love everyone at home, so keep it classy and have fun. latersssss