Welcome to the first ever 2011 edition of my newsletter. These last two weeks have been very family orientated which made me miss home a little bit, but in two weeks today I’ll be leaving. Time certainly does fly when you’re having fun.
Christmas was a little bit different for me this year, mostly not celebrating it with my own family. Other than that Christmas was a relaxing, family orientated weekend. My host family and I spent the Christmas weekend in Santa Cruz de Monte Castello which is a small city where my host mother was born and raised. We have been there a few times before to relax for the weekend. Just before we arrived there it started to absolutely bucket down. Your line of sight was literally only 5 metres at most which was a bit frightening sitting in the back seat of the car. Nevertheless we arrived safely.
The Friday night was a more peaceful and a close family occasion. We had a barbeque of various meats and continuing in the holiday spirit much beer was consumed. It turned out that we actually missed the church service because we were all talking and enjoying ourselves ,not watching the time. However once it struck midnight presents were given to everyone and we all indulged ourselves into those gifts. My host family got me a pair of Santos soccer shorts (for those of who you don’t know, Santos is the best soccer team in Brasil) so I was greatly delighted. I gave my host parents a bottle of wine and one of my bigger cross-stitches that I had been doing over the last few months. I also thought that I needed to give my host grandma something so I made her a kookaburra cross-stitch. Some of you may remember that it was the first one that I finished here, however the one I gave her I had just finished that afternoon.
The Saturday (or Christmas Day) followed in the same manner as the day before it. Most of the day was spent sitting around talking and sharing memories of the year that had nearly finished. During the day, once again following in the holiday spirit, much beer was consumed. Between 4 of them on Friday about 16L of beer was consumed compared to the 26L that was had on the Saturday between 6 people. After everyone recovering on the Sunday, we returned late on Sunday evening to Maringa.
During the week I was taken by my host father to his two soccer games. Towards the end of the first game one team was left without a player. My host father then decided that he would put me in goal so then he could fill the spot in the field. I have never played goalkeeper in a game before so as you would expect I was a little bit nervous and still surprised that my host father had that much confidence in me. However over the next 10 minutes, the ball never passed me. Yes there were only two attempts at goal from the other team but neither of those attempts got passed me. I also totally embarrassed one of the attackers from the other team as I passed the ball through his legs to get passed him.
The next game on the Thursday was in a slightly different light. There had been massive confusion from the other team if there was going to be a game so only about half of them turned up. After some conversing they eventually decided to just play with mixed up teams. While everyone was changing, I was mucking around with one of the kids in the goal. My host father then said to me “Go down to the other end of the field for us in the goal”. At first I thought it was just to practice so they could take shots at me, but then came “Also put this shirt on” at which point I realised that I would be actually playing. Well to be short I did play the whole game as goalkeeper. Everyone was surprised, including me, at how decent I was but soon the other team found the hole in my defence. As most of you know I have fairly good hand-eye coordination, so any ball in the air was not much of a challenge for me. The chink in my armour was ground balls as it takes me forever for me to get my hands to the ground. However, even with the gigantic hole in my defence my team won. I had saved enough attempts at goal that we had managed to stay in front for the whole game.
On the Wednesday night my host parents took me to the centre of the city to see the decorations and lights that had been placed on the cathedral. The sight of the cathedral all lit up was amazing. I took several photos of all the decorations and lights.
For the New Year’s Eve weekend, my host parents and I travelled back to Monte Castello. This weekend was a lot more relaxed than the Christmas weekend, but still many good times were had. Late on the Friday night we all went to Porto Rico, which I went to about a month before with the men from my host mum’s family, to watch the fireworks. There were about 20,000 people there partying and according to my host family that was the most amount of people that they had ever seen in Porto Rico. The fireworks were fairly amazing. They had placed boats on the river full of fireworks so it was quite a spectacular sight. I managed to take some very cool photos of the fireworks just as they were about to explode.
The next Saturday and Sunday were spent relaxing and enjoying the first moments of 2011. For me it still seems a bit strange to consider that we are now into 2011. I don’t know why, but seeing the date “3/1/11” just looks weird to me.
Well as you’ve read these last two weeks have been very relaxing and very family orientated. I have less than two weeks in Brasil until I start heading home. It will take me 53 hours to get home (thanks to the International Date Line) but I’ll eventually get there on the 18th of January. I will try to get a newsletter down when I get home to finish off the year.
I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and New Years and I look forward to catching up with a lot of you when I get back.
Abraço,
James Dodd
