As I stated at the end of my last post, this may be the last Brazil post for a while. I'm definitely planning to talk about my trip more in the future, but need to come back to it at a later date. I previously wrote that I couldn't go into detail about what Hot Brazilian has been working on down there and why he's been gone for so long. I know a lot of people don't understand why he isn't back here yet, why I'm being so patient, etc., but he had asked me to keep it a secret so I've had to be a bit mysterious about it for the past 8 or 9 months since he started working on this project. I've had to listen to a lot of people telling me what an idiot I am for waiting around, that I'm wasting my life waiting on him, that he must be cheating on me and that's why he isn't back, that he's up to something illegal because he wouldn't tell me what he's doing (he WAS telling me what he was doing - I just couldn't tell anyone else and when I said that they didn't believe me), that I needed to move on, I needed to meet someone else, I needed to stand up for myself, I needed to give him an ultimatum and see if he came back, etc. It hasn't been easy to listen to all of that from the people who surround me. I heard it from at least one person almost daily. It's been a tough year. It wasn't something he planned on getting involved in when he left to go down there last year; he expected to be back here before the end of last year. But things changed. I've known a lot more than I've been able to tell anyone. And I know a lot more than what I can tell you at this point. My family didn't know exactly what he was doing, my friends didn't know, and I certainly wasn't talking about it on the internet. It isn't because he's ashamed of what he's doing and, in fact, I've told him it would be impossible for me to be any prouder of him than I am. But he was in the planning stages, research stages, etc. and telling anyone what he's working on could have caused huge problems for him, particularly if I had put it on the internet where someone could find out about his plans with a google search. It could have put him in grave danger. He has said to me on several occasions that if he dies while he's doing this, he hopes I'm proud of him. I've told him over and over that he needs to stop saying stuff like that to me because it makes me cry just to think about it and that yes, of course, I am extremely proud. Besides that, he's quite a private person and doesn't like for many people to know all about his business. (I understood his obsession with privacy a whole lot more after visiting Brazil - turns out almost all of them are obsessed with keeping their private lives, well, private.) While I was down there, he said I could start telling people a little about it, but I didn't want to put anything out here on the internet before he got through a certain event last week because I felt like it could put him in danger if I did. You know, google searches and all of that. I still don't feel comfortable going into many of the details on here at this point, but in a nutshell, Hot Brazilian is working in a small city in the Amazon jungle to help the poor. He's got a tough job ahead of him but feels that God is calling him to do this. He's up against some people who will be fighting what he's trying to do. And I'm very scared for him. One of his friends working with him has already come extremely close to losing his life and has been in the hospital for almost 3 months. The reaction of people down there to what he's trying to do is much more violent than it would ever be here in the U.S. I should be able to tell more by the beginning of the year because Hot Brazilian plans to put up a website to help spread the word of his cause. He's been working on it for a while and once he gets to a certain point he wants me to edit it for him and then he'll be ready to go public with everything he's doing. But I don't want to jeopardize his safety until he's ready to tell all so to speak. All of this is the reason I'm not blogging the name of the city I visited. Hopefully I'll be able to tell y'all much more in the next few months. Actually, I feel like I'm about to burst because I want to tell y'all everything right now, right now, right this minute, today for pete's sake. But I can't.
All of this is also part of the reason I want to move to Brazil. Would it scare the bejebus out of me to be there with him on a daily basis? Absolutely. There were a few instances while I was down there that I felt a bit uncomfortable. I kind of stood out like a sore thumb - me, the large "pink" American girl hanging out with a 6'5" Brazilian guy from another area of the country who looks very different and towers over the very petite Amazon Indians who live in this particular city. Let's just say we didn't exactly blend in and people gawked at us almost everywhere we went and I could hear lots of whispering going on around us. HB has been traveling to and from this city for almost a year and apparently a lot of people have wondered what exactly he's up to (it's a small town). Now he's got an American girl with him? You could tell certain people had a lot of questions. And there was one person in particular who began questioning some people HB knows while I was there and this person could potentially cause a lot of problems. See? Scary! But after seeing the people he's trying to help and the way in which they have to live, I want nothing more than to be down there helping him in any way I can. And I know, I know. There are tons of people here in the U.S. who are poor and need help that I could be doing work for. I can't really explain why I'm so drawn to Brazil and wanting to help HB. Obviously a huge part of it is because I love HB in ways I've never loved anyone else in my life. But there are other things that I can't really put into words and I'm not sure I even understand myself. It's just an overwhelming feeling I have in my heart and soul. And I'm not entirely sure I'll get to help in the way my heart wants to because HB would never allow me to be in the dangerous situations he puts himself in, but I hope I'll be able to help him somehow.
I took some photos of how the really poor live and HB pleaded with me not to show them to anyone. He loves his country and doesn't want people here in the U.S. to think everyone lives the way the poor live. I tried to explain to him that people would understand since we have very poor areas here too. But I will honor his wishes and not share them with y'all. Perhaps he'll show some of it on the website he's putting together. But I will tell you that it made me cry. I had the opportunity to look into the eyes of small children and they looked haunted and hopeless. I'll never forget their eyes as long as I live. And those are the ones HB wants to help most - the children. He realizes it might be impossible to change the parents and the older people, but he feels like if he can change just a couple of the children and make them realize there is hope and there are opportunities beyond their imaginations then they will in turn change other children and in this way he hopes to break the cycle that has a death grip on the poor souls in this town. We were driving through a poor area one afternoon and there was a mom with her two kids on the back of her bicycle taking them home from school. One of the boys was probably 5 or 6 years old. He happened to look over as we were passing them and he saw someone (me) who looked different than anyone else. His eyes lit up, he grinned from ear to ear, and he began waving at me frantically. I waved back and he began to giggle and scrunch up his adorable little face. I have no idea, but I kind of got the feeling that he may have thought I was coming to save them. Those are the kids HB wants to touch somehow. And I want to do everything I can to help him.
HB and I were at breakfast one morning and he overheard a lady at the next table talking (it was all in Portuguese so I couldn't understand it). I don't want to say who she works for and HB didn't know her and she's not working with him, but he said she had apparently gone the day before and saw how the poor people live and she was telling the person she was with that it broke her heart and she wasn't sure if she could handle going back that day and seeing it again. She said that seeing the children's faces made her want to look away because it was so sad to see their eyes. It's awful. I can't tell y'all how proud I am of HB and what he's doing. He is such a good man and I have no idea why God granted me the good fortune of a relationship with him but I thank Him every single day for it.
I was going to post some photos I took when we were driving through the jungle, but they really don't go along with the tone of this post. So perhaps I have one more Brazil post after this one before I move on and start talking about my normal boring daily life here in Atlanta.
......to be continued.......