I have news. Some of you may be surprised but most will not. I decided to stay longer in Brazil. Before arriving, I had been open to the idea but once I arrived I started to ask around and search the possibilities. I met quite a few foreigners and locals who gave me adivce, suggestions, and even better recommended me at English schools that they knew. Within just 2 days I already had 2 schools hire me (problem is it takes a little time to build up hours). Now after a few weeks here I have 4 schools in total and decided to not consider any more. I like the ones I´m working with (some more than others) and it looks like they will add classes soon enough and I prefer to stick to the same schools. I prefer to teach Spanish (which I WILL do for one private class, Im so excited!) or even better work at a hostel but it seems like teaching English is pretty much my only reliable option at the moment.

So then I asked myself, "Can I pull this off?" and "Do I really want to pull this off?" I mean, it´s BRAZIL so it seems kind of obvious but realistically there are pro´s and con´s.

Pro´s to staying: Improving Portuguse (maybe lol), having a fuller experience, more time to see things and learn more, be able to volunteer and get the experience I really wanted to get, be in Brazil and tan during "winter".

Con´s to staying: I don´t love teaching English (I thought before, but lately I do enjoy it a lot. Some students are a lot of fun), missing home, having to find a place to live (a room in an apartment or something), having to spend money to get started (buy pillow, towel, etc. little things), change plane ticket, send money for Rafa...

I considered the difference between just thoroughly enjoying Brazil for the month then going back to reality when I go home. Because once I go home, once again I will be job hunting like I was here and possibly apartment hunting too. BUT I also thought (and after talking to a few wise confidants), "Why NOT?" This is really my only chance I will probably have like this, Im already here and I have no idea when I could come back. If anything goes wrong, I can just go right home (my confidant assured me!) It is possible to make this work, so Im going to go for it.

The thing is, I love it here but I already know that dont want to stay forever. Everyday I miss San Diego and my friends and family and my life in general. Im happy here but I think it´s because I know Im getting a good experience and it has an end. And Im going to get the experience I wanted for my career goals which is to volunteer in a favela (Brazilian slum). I found an NGO Comunidade de Açao (Community of Action) in a pacified favela called Alemão. Right now they have an untouched garden and are looking to do something with it. Within half an hour, I had 100 ideas about involving the community, inviting the kids from the elementary school, painting the walls and rocks, growing vegetables and medicinal herbs... my goal is to make the community feel like THEY did it and it´s theirs. Not just some gringos who came while on vacation and go back home later. Basically, we were all very excited (and my horrible Portuguse improved slightly) and so now we are in the process of proposing our ideas to the community and looking for donations. Im so excited! This is exactly the type of work I wanted and it definitely makes being a little homesick worth it.

I found a place to stay. After a lot of looking and discovering my dream of living in Copacabana was as likelly as finding corn tortillas in Brazil (refer to last blog) and the cheaper places are usually in dangerous areas, I took a friend on the offer to stay with him and his family. So it´s not an apartment with other foreigners like I thought it would be, and it´s exactly bike-riding distance to the beach but it´s nice. Now I have a family (again haha. It´s him, his 2 brothers, mom, grandmother and 2 dogs), I live in a nice quiet area, safe, close to everything- metro, buses, mall, outdoor flower market (I love that!) and apparently there is a national park with a waterfall. I´m going to pay some rent to help out and buy my food but realistically, it´s the cheapest rent I could ever find. So I´m pretty content :-). I´m almost settled, I have a few things I need to buy and I still haven´t actually moved my stuff there yet but in the next week or so I should be all good.

My idea right now is to stay until about December. I thought before to have my birthday here in Brazil but then later I thought, "Why? What´s the difference?" Back at home, we have 4 birthdays that week and it might be nice to go home to celebrations and family time. Im not sure if I´ll make it by Thanksgiving or not but I have some time to decide. Totally ironic, when I called to ask about changing my ticket, the airlines had made a mistake so now they´re going to change my flight free of charge. What a quinky dink! Haha. But I´m really excited to have this new chapter and I think it will be good experience. Of course, I will also be excited to go home after a little while, but first thing´s first :-).