Hello Brazil!

After years of consideration (cultivation of a home, a family, a suburban life), hubby went and joined the Foreign Service. With stars in our eyes we sold the house and the cars, said 'so long' to our friends (thank God for Facebook, Skype, and email), and headed off to Washington D.C. for 8 months of training to prepare us for....Brasilia, Brazil. I had every intention of starting this blog way, way back when but as life often does, things got busy.

So we find ourselves here in Brasilia, it's the rainy season, green, wet, lush. It's beautiful in an unbridled kind of way. One can almost feel the land straining to break free of the last six months of drought and to grow, unfettered.

The two mango trees in our back yard are HUGE. Django Mango and Fandango Mango drop their prize fruits like rocks and it's a race between people and insects to claim them. We've given many away and I try to pile the 50 or so extras in various states of decay around the base of the trees to rot in a tidy pile, which is laughable because nature here is far from tidy. We have a lovely little kidney shaped pool, the tiles lining the bottom are indigo blue and covered with a murky film of insects and dirt. I have yet to glean the knowledge of how to work the pumps and such but as soon as that occurs and a good cleaning takes place, we'll be swimming.

The house is big and echoey. It smells a bit like neglect and wear but it has a Brady Bunch meets George Jetson charm that can't be denied. It is large and I still easily get lost in the halls, attempting a quick walk from one end to the other often ends in retracing my steps on the cool hard wood floors. There are so many turns from here to there, I almost get dizzy doing the daily minutae.

I have managed to find a kind of comfort in the daily chores like cooking and laundry. As that there is not yet a car nor neighbors we know nor anything familiar, it is a lonely, quiet, anxious feeling that sits in me most of the time. I feel so funny for the time being, playing minute by minute entertainer to my 3.5 year old daughter, pretending confidence in doing the dishes, and heaping the hopes and joys of my day onto the expediency in which my hubby can get back home to me. I believe a walk and a car will work wonders. We have yet to explore the 'neighborhood' on foot. A road branching out to another road, tall grass, unfamiliar people speaking a rolling and exaggerated language like poetry and nagging. Farther than I know for sure, a store, brimming with laughably overpriced, somewhat familiar goods. Something to let my mind pretend to find fascination in, just to roll up against the mild nausea of monotony.

I know, I know. It will all change and improve and worsen and run into a future but for now, it's an experience, moment by moment.