Am I ever going to leave Salvador?

I´m still here.


On Saturday night, I went to the Candomblé party with Lobo. My ear was bugging me sooo much though. By the end of the party, I was pretty anxious to get back. I really enjoy watching, but it´s difficult to watch for so long, when I have absolutely no idea what´s going on. I would try to ask, but I would never understand what Lobo was saying. It´s unlike anything I´ve ever seen. Since that night, I have tried reading up on it, all in Portuguese, and I´m still having trouble understanding what it´s all about. It was cool to see the whole party though, this time. It´s amazing how the dance takes over their entire bodies. One girl showed up drunk and she lost control of her body. She couldn´t walk or stand, but she was dancing. It was crazy.

It was on Tuesday that I decided to look around at schools in Salvador. I spoke with a few schools, most of which were all the same. The receptionists gave me an email to send my resume and cover letter. Then, I went to AEC Idiomas, the first school that had a receptionist that spoke English. That´s a good sign. She told me to come by on Friday to see the event and speak with the director.

So, I showed up Friday night, where they had a handout of the lyrics to music that was playing. Everyone was singing along with the music, a few in English and one in Spanish. Afterwards, there was conversation. We switched partners every few minutes and just had conversations. There were people from many different levels, but it was nice to see how it worked. Every friday night, everyone practices their English. After the conversation class was over, I went to talk to Teixeira, the director. He started with, "So, if you´d like, you could come by and work every Friday, maybe Saturdays too. It´s all I can offer right now, since it´s the end of the season." I was not expecting this. I told him that I was actually traveling, and that I was interested in starting in February. He said that that would work as well, since that´s when he´s going to need more people. He said that work is available every Friday, whenever I happen to be in Salvador, and that I should come back in December for work. Then, I asked him about my work visa, if he´d be able to help me. His response: "Just let me know what you need, I´ll do it." All of this, without an interview... crazy! I´m a little worried. I chatted for a while with one of the students, and it turns out that he knows a few people who run English schools here in Salvador. I will send him my resume and cover letter and he will see if he can find me more work. And on Tuesday, I was suuuper worried about finding a job. Haha

Saturday, Lobo and I woke up super early and left for Praia do Forte. The bus was an hour late leaving, and it took more than two hours to get there. But it was absolutely gorgeous!! We laid on the beach, grabbed lunch and walked out on the reef. So worth the travel time. We borrowed a camera from a friend of his, kind of a shitty camera, but it was nice to take some pictures. The one thing I really wanted a picture of was of the two of us. Now I have plenty :) I´m really sad that he´s going to Toronto, though. Bad timing, and a really weird coincidence. Of all countries, he´s going to Canada for one year and I´ll be staying here in Salvador for one year. Pretty fucked up, but right now I´m trying not to think about it. I´m just enjoying what we have right now.

Today was election day. I went with him to vote, the streets were filled with people. Everyone getting ready to vote. Very different than Canada, where there´s only really a few people. Here, it´s mandatory to vote, so everyone was there. Here in Brazil, they use numbers to represent each candidate, so each person needs to remember the number of the people they are voting for. So, there are little pamphlets of the politicians everywhere and have been everywhere since I arrived in Brazil. Today, however, the streets were absolutely covered in the propaganda crap. It was disgusting!! But at least I know that all of that is over now. There will be no more propaganda thrown at me. Every time I would ask them what I was going to do with it, I can´t even vote! But somehow they would get me to take it anyway.

So the plan is now to stay for another week. I´m doing this so I can go to another conversation class and work, do some investigation concerning my visa and talk to Teixeira some more about the job. I also want to stay to spend some more time before Lobo leaves for Canada on October 15th.

Anyways, I don´t think I really have anything else to add. I haven´t really been doing much since I´ve been back to Salvador, not that I haven´t been enjoying myself ;)