All is good in Brasil.

Today I met like 15 members of my new gigantic family and I now have a gaggle of kids who call me aunty (that didn´t take long). I also went to Luciano´s house for the first time. It´s big but needs a lot of work. Luciano suggested to me in Japan that we rent a place for 6 months while we fix up the house, I thought the idea was silly but now I understand why he suggested it. At the moment it´s slightly lacking in some basic necessities (phone, lights...a second floor) but once we get it all finished it will be beautiful. It´s on a 7000 square meter lot so we have a fair amount of landscaping to do in addition to finishing the house. It´s quite far out of the city too and none of the roads are paved so I think we are going to need a 4X4, I can´t imagine being able to get in or out of there in the rain. But it´s in a really beautiful area with lots of nature and trees and apparently some wierd ass animal things that look like a cross between and pig and a beaver.

As for any of you who are wanting to come to Brasil in the near future (my family included) you are going to have to wait a while...a fairly long while. There is a lot more to do here than I originally thought plus I need to learn how to speak portuguese and learn how to drive the treacherous streets.

I also met Luciano´s daughter. She is a super cutie and had absolutely no qualms about me. I was aunty Joe right off the bat and she introduced me to all her little ballet friends by saying that I was Japanese. Once we got back into the car she asked my why I didn´t have slanted eyes (her grandmother is Japanese so I can see why she would be confused). But where she is concerned there will be absolutely no problem. We talked,...well she talked and I nodded and pretended I understood and then we had a riveting game of Mr Potato Head and all was good. Everytime I would turn my head of talk to someone she would be pulling on my sleeve saying ´aunty Joe...play with me!!´. Brasilian children are nothing like they are in Canada. Sayuri is 4 years old going on 8 and I met a little 7 year old girl today who acts like she´s twelve (and drinks espresso with her mothers full consent). Luciano told me you have to grow up fast here, he wasn´t joking.

On the whole everything is going well. Luciano had a chat with his mom so that she would give me a bit more space (I was feeling a bit smothered) and he told her to stop force feeding me which will also be nice since the first thing to go when I´m stressed is my appetite.

The hotel I am staying in is nice and I have discovered that it has English TV! Horray!

chau chau for now.

J