ELEANOR STANFORD

The Serrano, which is just outside of town, is our most frequently visited waterfall. It's about a 20-minute hike, up smooth eroded rock. The Serrano is a great place to swim. There are three main pools, usually very cold, but refreshing. There is a natural slide that leads from one pool to another. There are red rocks there that you can paint your face with. Or pretty much paint anything with. There's a mural in town painted with just these rocks. It's a great place to find

A page from the records of Dona Bela, a traditional midwife in Lencois who died about 10 years ago. According to the hash marks, she caught 1120 babies over 60-some years of practice. And not a single maternal or fetal mortality. How to verify this? I'm not sure yet...but I do think in such a small town, the gossip mill would keep one honest.

Monday was supposed to be the first day of kindergarten for J. He put on his backpack with colored pencils and a notebook, and we headed up the hill with N. and her mother to get the school bus. J. was a little nervous, but excited. Kindergarten here is a half day, and part of nursery school, not elementary. (First grade here is called alfabetizacao, when they start learning to read.) N. looked very cute and neat in her tight braids and uniform. The bus pulled up after a few

The boys' Portuguese is progressing apace. J's vocabulary right now, though, consists primarily of "para" (stop), "desce" (get off of me), and "eu nao gosto disso" (I don't like that). Let me explain. The family we are renting from has three kids, too: a 14-year old boy, an 11-year old girl, and five-year old N., who spends most of her waking hours hanging around our house, asking the boys for gum, listening to our iPod, swinging in the hammock with whoever's in it. (The comp

No hot water for the past couple of days. When I asked the owner of the house, he said, philosophically, it must be broken. But Brazil is about to play, so I philosophical musing is really all I can ask for at the moment. Everyone else shivered through a cold shower, but I pulled out my Peace Corps skills and heated water on the stove for what we used to call a banho di kaneka, a cup bath. And now I'm going to follow the sounds of fireworks and drum corps to the town square t

It's always in the forefront when you've got a bunch of kids to feed. Especially when you're blessed/cursed with children who eat as much as mine do. The little house where we are staying has a "kitchen" of sorts: a small stove, an outdoor sink that doubles for washing dishes and clothes. This would be fine, I suppose, for a single person or a couple of young backpackers. But we quickly realized that if we were to cook three, or even two meals a day here, that would consume m

The Internet is soooo slow here! I keep waiting to post pictures--we have a ton of incredible ones--but if I do that I may end waiting until we get back to the States. So for now, just words. Here's the place we're staying: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/1649022?s=wJ-9 It is just as beautiful and idyllic as it looks. It is also ALL ONE ROOM. Somehow the pictures hadn't conveyed that to me before we got here. But we spend most of our waking hours outdoors. And privacy is overrat