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Ok, so yet again I haven't written this for a while! Here's whats been happening in the past month since I last wrote:
 Gemma and I have developed an extremly strange placement partner relationship. Seeing as we are the only english living in the midst of Carlita Pamplona (the ghetto where we live and work) we spent pretty much all our time together and for some reason have begun to resemble an extremly disfunctional married couple. Every morning, out of pure spite, Gemma deliberatly makes sure to wake up at least 2 hours earlier than me (which, in all honesty, isnt that hard: I rarely wake before 11 anyways) and trots round merrily to my house, wakes me up with a loud call of 'levantar', then drinks coffee with my Brazilian mother (who is relieved to have another female in an all-male household) whilst b****ing about how lazy men, and in particular me, are in general. In return I take every single chance available to me to embarass, humilate and degrade  her in front of my Brazilian hosts. Sadly, my lack of portugese means she always has the upper hand in these dealings and conciously mis-translates my sentances into having dubious meanings much to the amusements of the other Brazilians! However, despite our jokes, we do get along very well which is essential seeing as living in a different culture can be extremly strenous at times!
 Since my last post, me and Gemma have been exploring the local beaches and area. At the end of March we headed out to a beach 30km from Fortaleza called Cumbuco, it was a paradise. Somehow, through some dodgy connection, Gemma knew a crazy pommy kite-surfer who knew a dutch Billionare who owns a hotel there and before we knew it we were allowed full permission to hang out at this Billionares paradise for as long as we wanted. Not only was there a great pool and bar area but also private access to the beach. We spent one lazy afternoon lounging around there before getting back onto the bus to return back to Fortaleza. The contrast between the gringo paradise the tourists see and the gritty impoverished surburbs of Fortaleza where we live couldnt have been emphasised more and it was a little surreal in church watching people praying for a better life when others just a few kilometers away live in complete luxory - its a very typical Brazilian scenario!
The following wednesday was a little strange. Rather than heading to the beach, Gemma and I went on a wander of central Fortaleza. The rest of the day was a bit of a blur and very random so I'll describe it as best as possible: got to central Forts, got lost, ended up outside a deserted nightclub, got more lost, started to rain, went into random bar, they try to sell us a car, they then ply us with alcohol, married man with kids then hits on Gemma, they try and sell us drugs, vietnam veteran gets in fight with Gemma, they try and sell us a prostitute, rain stops, we leave as soon as possible, eat pizza, goto beach, watch sunset, go home watch mindnumbing Brazilian soap operas until eventually our brains pack in and we fall asleep. Thus ended quite possibly one of the most random days we've had here!
The following weekend was our Easter holiday, or Pascoa, as they call it here, so we'd been given time off to go somewhere on holiday. Gemma's mother and sisters came to visit her and they went back to the hotel in Cumbuco and I decided to visit some of the other Gappers living in Pipa near Natal. Distances in Brazil are extremly deceptive, despite the fact that Natal is the nearest city to Fortaleza it is still 800km away and my nightbus took 10 hours to reach Natal before I switched to a local bus. I was travelling alone as the other two english in Fortaleza, Tom and Cat, couldnt come until the following night. Sitting on a nightbus is a bit like waiting on Death Row. You sit and pray that your going to get some nice-old lady sitting next to you, who isn't going to hog up any space, snore, have disgusting habits or perhaps drool on you whilst you sleep (on hindsight maybe a nice old lady is perfectly capable of all these feats!)! I sat, in terror waiting to find out which Brazilian I would be seated next to me, from looking out the window the options didnt look too good. I was either going to be next to a 20 stone woman who was struggling getting through the door, an extremly lanky 'footspace hogger' or someone who looked so dirty they actually resembled a tramp. Luckily, each one of these came and went and just at the last moment when I was holding my silent celebration at having an empty seat next to me a man who combined all three of the above characteristics came and plonked himself next to me, and so the next ten hours began. I didnt really get alot of sleep that night as I was positive, judging by the way my new seating companion kept trying to grab my hand or leg, that he was in someway homosexually inclined (the other gappers just say I'm being homophobic, but they werent there!) however, I was relieved to meet Liam and Matt in Pipa at 11am the following day!
Pipa is a paradise. Golden sandy beaches, dolphin filled waters, great night-life and it's so good that some of the rarest turtles in the world choose to lay their eggs there which has caused one ecological project to rely on the help of four english gappers a year to help protect them. However, the word 'work' could be a bit of an understatement given the gappers there actually do nothing. Whilst chatting with Liam and Matt over a beer on Pipa beach, I realised that they were pretty much on holiday for 4 months in one of the worlds most beautiful places and all they had to do was sleep on the beach at night and occasionally count turtle eggs - simple! They were a little shocked at the fact that I'd been mugged twice on my placement, and even more surprised that I didnt seem to care very much about it (hey - its dangerous round here get used to it!) and we caught up on what had changed in the last 6 weeks of placement which was actually very little! We headed back to their house, which again was paradise, and I listened intently to them grumbling about how hard their work was - they have to water the garden once a day - I again reiiterated that me and Gem work 4 hours a day, this was overrided with a comment from Helen (who used to work in the prison education system and now takes it upon herself to constantly remind people of the fact) that this was more hard work than prison itself! I was cynical but lapped up the chilled out atmosphere as the guys played guitar in the patio area and we watched the tropical sun set.
 That night, with very little else to do, I went with the Pipa gappers for a night out turtle hunting, the already high adreniline was furthered by an action packed ride on the back of a pickup truck full of 10 other people (yes, it was crammed) to distant beach location. Once there the adreniline quickly faded on realising I was to spend the next 10 hours sitting on the beach looking for imaginery turtles. Any romance of the situation was quickly drowned out after 2 hours of listening to Helens prison stories, its quite extrodinary what happens behind those bars and to make things more bearable, me and Ceri a welsh gapper working in Pipa listened to Maroon 5, The Killers and other easy-listening indie music for a few hours until we gradually fell asleep. Sleep didnt last for long as, every 40 minutes we were frogmarched, by Helen, 1km up the beach looking for turtle tracks, we found nothing, I began to despair and lamented my lack of sacred sleep! Helen, not understanding my lack of team spirit, quickly commented that I wouldnt last long in prison to which I promptly replied that in prison one doesn't generally go looking for imaginery turtles!
The next day was generally spent recounting the lack of turtlage on the night before and lounging on Pipa's beaches. The other gappers arrived and we went swimming for at least two hours in the sea at the ecological centres private beach. The water was really clear and warm and although we couldnt touch the bottom we swam round for ages! At this point there were now 10 gappers: Me, Tom, Cat, Liam, Matt, Laura, Ceri, Conor, Fiona and Helen. It was a great little reunion and after dinner that night out at a local restaurant we headed back for another night on the beaches (much to my protests) however, I was assured that this time I could sleep as long as I liked whenever I wanted, so I was happy! The other gappers, who had just arrived from Fortaleza and Recife, were still at this point full of fruitless energy and were convinced that my pesimism was ill-placed, that turtles did actually exist and that they were personally be the first to find and rescue them. Such Animal-Hospital fantasies never materilised and Rolf Harris certainly didn't make a guest appearance although one bleary eyed gapper claimed to have spotted him skinny dipping with turtles at 4am although I personally discount this as nothing more than a malicious myth (although you never know!)! For the first hour I was assigned with Tom to looking after some of the Brazilian girls working on the placement as girls cant work on the beach alone. Determined to get away from this tedious line of work, me and Tom informed the girls, in portugese, that we were working for a British goverment agency designed to cull the worlds turtle-population as Britain, and London in particular, had been over-run by a plague of man-eating turtles and we were a few of the last surivors. Eventually, the girls informed the project manager that we were a little stange and they'd prefer some other, sane, company so me and Tom were discharged and then ran up to beach to join the other english gappers. We enjoyed our mid-night run so much we actually ran past them and ran 5km up the wrong beach before returning. When we found them in was 2am and they were sleeping so, rather than leaving them, we decided to jump them which didnt make us too popular - maybe it would have been best to let sleeping dogs lie. We then got some sleep at a nearby beachhut which the turtlers crash at if they need a bed!
We got up really late the following day and lounged round generally achieving not much. I got to an internet cafe and emailed off some passport photos to Dad for my UCL application, I then met Matt and Liam and we headed to the beach. The beach was crowded, it was good Friday and all the rich and beautiful Brazilians from Recife had flocked to Pipa to party and lap up the sun. Armani, Gucci, flash designer brands far out of the reach of normal Brazilians were on show as were an impressive array of sports cars. That night all ten of us gappers headed for a big meal at a buffet style Brazilian restaurant before heading out round the bars and clubs. The streets crowded full of young Brazilians dancing and partying in the streets and it was hard to keep track of everyone! By the end of the night there were only a few of us left and after an incredible non-stop night of partying we retired to bed. The rest of the weekend following pretty much the same trend until on Sunday night, sleep-deprived but after having an amazing time in Pipa me, Cat and Tom jumped on a nightbus back to Fortaleza with plans to definitly return again!
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