So how did get here...?? Well I had travelled to Salvador Brazil twice before to study dance. If you've ever been to Salvador, then you are familiar with the powerful lure that this place has for those that long for a certain intangible freedom that can't be found in any American city. A certain spiritual and physical freedom that grants you permission to slow down, rest for a moment, take in life, breath, feel, experience, LIVE! Anyone that comes to Salvador finds difficulty in leaving. And once you do leave, you find yourself inexplicably yearning to return. There is a particular peacefulness and serenity in living here. There is a lack of distraction....distraction from technology, from familiarity, from pressure to succeed, from the need to impress, from the desire to obtain more material gains. None of these things exist in Salvador. You are left with only yourself. Sometimes that can be good....sometimes, not so good. You really find out who you are after spending enough time in Bahia. Everything within you becomes amplified. If you are a lonely person, you will find yourself feeling extremely lonely and isolated in Salvador. If you worry, your worries will be amplified 100x in Salvador. If you are happy within yourself, you will find extreme joy in Salvador. The people here are celebratory and happy with the simplest things in life...for the most part. Culture is abundant in Salvador. Music lives in the streets. Traditional food is part of everyday life. You are surrounded by history, the ocean, and some of the world's most aesthetically beautiful people. Yet at the same time, there is a heaviness in the air that can weigh down on you at times. Poverty is extremely rampant, and even worse, it is accepted as a part of life. Homeless children begging for food. Pregnant crackhead prostitutes. Senior citizens and children who support themselves or their families by walking the beach in 98 degree weather all day selling random goods, like hot cheese or bags of peanuts. Racism is still a huge problem here as well. The general manifesto is that the darker you are, the poorer you will be. From what I've seen, it seems to hold true. Blacks are taught at a very young age that their role in life is servitude. Education is virtually non-existent.....unless you are rich. My fiance's mother, along with a great part of the population here, is illiterate. Corruption is an accepted standard. Policemen are corrupt. The government is corrupt. And the worst factor in all of this is the apathy of the common people. No one is fighting to change any of this. No one seems to care. And for this reason, I cannot raise my child in this country.
Back to the original subject...how I got here. So after my second visit to Bahia, I got pulled in by "the lure", the magic of Bahia. I decided that I would find a way to return to Salvador....and stay. I spent the entire year of 2009 working and saving money to make my big move. January 9, 2010, I hopped on the plane in Los Angeles and returned to LIFE! I had no plans about how I would support myself or pay for all of the debt that I had built up from living in LA for the past 10 years. I didn't care. All I knew was that I would have freedom. A moment to think. To catch up with myself. To get to know me. I had spent the last 10 years of my life hustling as an actress in Los Angeles. 10 years of trying to be someone else. Character after character. Audition after audition. Day job after day job. Always thinking ahead about where the next rent check would come from. At some points within those years I would settle down with a full time accounting gig(which is what I have a degree in) and acting would be put on the backburner. This was great as far as having loot to pay bills on time. But that's just trading one type of stress for another. Now I was on someone else's clock. I needed to be in the office when they wanted me to be in the office. Leave the office when they tell my I can leave the office. Take a lunch break when they want me to take a lunch break. Ask permission to take a day off. Drive in almost 2 hours of traffic each day. All of the things that a "normal" person does on a daily basis, yes. But as an artist, being confined to someone else's authority is like a slow death. On top of all that, my 3 year relationship with my live in boyfriend was virtually non existent. This time apart was meant to be a make it or break it move for our relationship.(Obviously, we didn't make it. LOL) So coming to Salvador would be the sabbatical that I needed to get back to "me". Call it a quarter/mid-life crisis if you will.
So I arrived in Salvador on January 10. I was staying with friend of mine from Los Angeles who rented out rooms in her 3 room apartment. I spent the first month taking intensive dance classes for about 6-8 hours per day. It was great! FREEDOM!! My days were mine to do whatever I wanted to do. I even brought my guitar with me with the intent of teaching myself how to play.(Sidenote: I haven't touched the damned thing in months.) I was loving life. In February, Carnaval started. My very first Brazilian Carnaval. Woooohooooo! It actually gets old really fast. The streets are cluttered with drunks people. The city's public transportation shuts down and you can't go anywhere. The beaches are trashed and disgusting. Urine and feces are all over the streets...more than usual. Rampant ass grabbing, fornicating, and an overall heightened level of debauchery. The one good thing that came out of my first Carnaval was meeting my fiance, Edson. The first time that I laid eyes on Edson was February 12, 2010. I was riding atop a Carnival trio(open top bus) in Salvador with my friend and his Uncle’s Ijexa band. Halfway through the evening I noticed this tall, stocky individual with a rather large head struggling to get his band t-shirt over his head. When he finally pulled the t-shirt over his face and opened his eyes, I saw his eyes sparkle! I was fixated on him for the remainder of the evening. I was too timid to speak to him and my Portuguese skills left much to be desired. So I just observed him from afar. During the entire evening he was nothing but courteous to everyone on the trio and always had a friendly smile on his face. I finally mustered up the courage to ask my friend about him. He told me that they were friends as children and that he would introduce me when the band finished playing. As the night came to an end, my friend searched for Edson but he was nowhere to be found. I later found out that he had taken his cousin who had become ill to the infirmary for help. About a month later, after much nagging on my end, my friend informs me that he’d finally gotten in touch with Edson and that he was coming over to meet me. After several misses, he finally made it to our first encounter on March 17, 2010. Apparently my friend had failed to mention to him that I was an American that spoke only a few words of Portuguese until the moment just before he entered our apartment. He was in shock and extremely nervous because he spoke very little English. Initially another friend of my translated some basic conversation, but soon exited and left Edson and I sitting alone. I pulled out my Portuguese phrasebook and the two of us spent the remainder of the afternoon pointing out words and phrases in effort to conduct a somewhat cohesive conversation. I “explained” to him that I was soon enrolling in a Portuguese class at the local university but would be appreciative if he could be my personal tutor, and I, in turn, would teach him English. He happily agreed! Later that evening, a group of us went out for pizza. At the conclusion of the evening, I invited Edson to come out with the group of us on the following Saturday to a jazz concert at the Modern Art Museum. He accepted the invitation….and we have been inseparable ever since.
Ladies if you have dreams of finding love and getting pregnant, come to Brazil. I guarantee that it will happen. As a matter of fact....that's pretty much ALL that happens here. Seriously though, Latin men are the most attentive, caring, affectionate, selfless men in existence. Do yourself a favor and date one! You will never date another American man again. Believe it. So here is the kicker. On tourist visa, an American can only stay in Brazil for 6 months per year. After 6 months, you must leave the country and cannot re-enter until another 6 months has passed. This just wasn't going to work for me and my new found love. So I needed to figure out a solution fast. I decided to enroll in school in the MBA program at one of the local universities. This would allow me to apply for a student visa and would grant me the right to stay in Brazil for another year. I had to return to LA in July to apply for the student visa. When I returned to Salvador on August 4, Edson and I had a candid conversation about never wanting to be separated again. This would require marriage. We both gave it a thumbs up. Then we talked about where we wanted to live. The US got 2 thumbs up. The next step, apply for a fiance visa so that he can come to the US. The sad truth is, if you are Brazilian and aren't filthy rich, it is nearly impossible to get a visa to the US. I have a friend who applied 5 times for an artist's visa before he finally got approved. Tourist visa's for Brazilians are virtually non existent. Its extremely unfair and frustrating. The fiance visa that we applied for can take anywhere from 5 months to over a year to be approved. Our application was received by the USCIS on August 20. So the count down has begun.
Now this is where things get really interesting. For all of you ladies wondering "am I pregnant?" or "what do these symptoms mean?", read on. The month that I was in LA, I decided to start taking birth control. I just wanted to keep things "simple" and worry free. This first month that I was on it, my menstrual cycle lasted for 8 days! 8 friggin' days! My cycle usually lasts for about 3 days and is always regular right down to the day. 8 days was just not acceptable. That is 8 days of not being able to hit the beach or have sex. Neither of which is acceptable in Brazil. So I decided to nix the birth control. Like I said, my cycle had always been regular and I knew my "safe days" to have unprotected sex as I was extremely in tune with my body. Well....the birth control screwed up my day count in a BIG way. According to my count, I should have started ovulating around August 23. August 23 rolled around and there were no symptoms of ovulation. August 24, same thing. August 25, I wake up, sit up in bed, my boobs hurt like hell! and they are huge! Out of nowhere! This is not a normal symptom of ovulation for me. I knew at that very moment that something was suspect.....
(I have to get ready to go and teach my english class. I will continue when I get home tonight...or tomorrow. I promise.)
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