After Meat, Don't Count on Me

I have attached a few pictures of Tefe, this one being one of the typical houses in a poorer part of the city. Kids are often playing soccer in the middle of the road, as, of course, soccer is the most important sport in Brazil. Stephan was telling us that usally the poorer kids take to playing soccer at an early age, and learn to be able to play in many different conditions, which makes them extremely good players as they grow older. Incidentally, Stephan's favorite team, the Flamengos, just lost and he's not feeling like talking about soccer much today. Anyway, while this picture is quite picturesque from an artish standpoint, it also makes me appreciate my cold showers, Brazilian morning coffee, mosquito net and belching air conditioner.

That being said, I feel obligated to show you my mosquito net ... I feel like a pretty pretty princess underneath my sheath of protection. Funny how every little girl wishes for this sort of decoration, and now that I have it, I feel like my life is complete.

I have become an expert at setting up my princess protection - I pull and tuck the head region first, then the far corner, then the close corner, leaving a little teensy tiny place to slink inside. It's a bit like that movie, Entrapment, with Katherine Zeta-Jones and Sean Connery, in which she navigates under the laser beams; although, I am far from replicating her elegance.

Of course, when the air conditioning starts belching in the middle of the night, my pretty pretty princess feeling is replaced by obscenities directed towards the A/C unit and a mad display of extreme lack of grace as I yank myself out from under my netting to fiddle with the Brazilian controls to figure out exactly at what temperature and flow would serve as Milk of Magnesia for the A/C's extreme indigestion. Still cursing, I crawl back under my pretty pretty princess net and pray to not have to go through the ongoing fight with the A/C unit.

Here is a picture of the "main drag" or the square in the middle of town, which is often populated with people hanging out, eating, drinking beer (Brazilians in Tefe drink more beer than a fraternity) and ... dogs. Motos are everywhere. You can see the river in the distance, if you look closely enough. And of course, the team - a picture taken from outside of the Institute which we are working. Stephan, Me, Maiken and Steve. Nice view, no?