Added a new link, just under the Free Rice banner. The Breast Cancer Site sponsors mammograms for clicks on their site. I checked it out on Snopes and it is true, you can read their fact finding here. Hat tip to my mom, who sent me the email on this one, as well as Free Rice.
Sad links I provide today. Rachel, who is an American living in Rio writes on her blog today about Ulrich Rosenzweig, a elderly gentleman who lived in her building and was murdered. Rachel touches a bit about violence in Brazil and writes a nice tribute to Mr. Rosenzweig, recounting his story. Mr. Rosenzweig was a Holocaust survivor who came to Brazil after the war and established a new life for himself and his family. Very sad albeit interesting reading.
Got some emails about the Indian tribe found in the western part of the country close to the Peru border. BBC has a few photos here, and here is a good shot that details what the items are in the photo. Here is National Geographic's take on the story. Keep in mind that while many articles are saying "uncontacted" that may not be entirely accurate. It's not like they have never encountered life outside the tribe. Many of these tribes have come in contact with rubber trappers, loggers, etc., but for the most part have kept to themselves and decided not to organize with FUNAI which is the Brazilian government's National Indian Foundation
Well, I want to start off by saying sorry I did not update for a while. After the season ended a lot of things came up and I truly did not have the time. I thought the season ending would mean a lighter load, and nothing could be further from the truth. Let me recap the situation with the team. It won its final game and we got the result we needed in the other game, and Sete stayed in the first division. It went down to the wire, but the balls bounced our way. We are already working towards next season, and hopefully we can do better.
On the family side, I had to play a huge "daddy" role today. One of the dogs that lives at the stadium had puppies some time back, and little by little they went missing. One day when I went to take food for her, I found the head of one of the puppies. I don't know what was worse, the fact that I found the head, or the fact that I did not find the rest of the body. Their pen is separated by fences from the rest of the stadium, but I thought maybe the guard dogs, real mean pitbulls, found a way in and got to them. I took the remaining puppy home for the night to clean her up and keep her out of the cold (winter is starting here, more on that later). The next day I took her mom up to one of the press boxes where I know the other dogs could not get to them and put the puppy with her. The kids enjoyed taking care of the puppy for the night, and they took turns staying up and holding her so she would not be cold. Today, when I went to take food for them I found the puppy in bad shape. It seems it was their mom who was the guilty one. The puppy had some bite marks, but she wasn't bleeding or anything and was whimpering. I carried her back home but I knew she would not last long. I thought maybe we could make the last few moments a bit calmer. The kids laid her in a basket and wrapped her up. They started to pull some fleas off her. In about half an hour she just gave out. The kids of course were sad, but I explained about the circle of life and The Lion King and how nothing lasts for ever, but the important thing was we helped the puppy when she needed us. After some crying and a talk about doggie heaven they felt better.
In regards to Garanhuns, winter is starting to creep in. People joke that Miami has two seasons, Summer A and Summer B. Well, Garanhuns has two seasons, Summer and Winter. No in-between changes at all. One day the sun is blazing close to 95 F, the next it is raining, the wind is blowing and you can kiss the sun goodbye. I happed to love winter here. The rain is usually a fine mist, sometimes heavier, and constant. The wind blows hard, and since the city is tucked into 7 hills, it can be pretty hard at times. During the day the temperature is in the mid 50s and at night it is in the 40s. Never freezing but it can feel very cold at times. Some days it rains for 24 hours. You have 3 or 4 days of light rain and then all of a sudden you have a whole day which is beautiful, only to have the rain start up again once the sun sets. A curious thing is most of the people who have lived here all their lives never seem to get used to it, they all bundle up looking like something out of Nanook from the North.
Make sure and read my post about this.
