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Day 217 - 5 February 2006 Orphanage project & Superbowl Sunday! so my roomie and our buddy on the island next door coordinated a project to fix up the playground at the orphanage he works at over there. luckily for us they got it arranged for the weekend of the superbowl and it became quite the trip! in order for the kids at the orphanage to be able to use the playground there, our buddy had to clean it up by emptying out all the sand that was full of glass, animal excrement and other hazardous materials. then we basically came in with two of my roomie’s students and laid a cement slab. that way the kids could at least walk and play on a much safer surface. yes, I know it’s cement and a bit hard to fall on and all that. our buddy is tryin to get those rubber mats to create a much more fun and softer surface for the kids to play on, but for now, cement is better than biohazards and shards of glass... so it took us two days to mix and lay the cement down in two layers (one thick rough layer to even out the height around the playground and another smoother thinner layer as a finish). it was a lot of hard labor with all the lifting, carrying, mixing and sure got to us fraku ‘merkans (my buddy & i), while the roomie and his 2 students pounded it out like no other since they do that every day in class anyways. man was I sore! I could barely move on Sunday to walk somewhere and get lunch, let alone mix and lay the second layer. I am sooooo out of shape. guess I should take up joggin again. or mountain climbin...so with that job done Sunday afternoon, what a great reward to watch the late night Superbowl game! it started at 10:00pm our time and we had to go to the only bar that would stay open for the next 4 hours- Sports Café! (how appropriate) the Dono used to be in the military in the states and his family has strong ties back there. thus, a bunch of folks came by to walk with us. it sure was interesting watching it through a European channel over what I can only assume was not the most legitimately acquired satellite box that showed up after the first quarter, then disappeared quickly after the end of the game. good thing about that box was that it took out all the boring Portuguese announcer chatter about a sport they know nothing about. the bad thing- NO AMERICAN COMMERCIALS! poop on a stick! so instead of watchin commercials, the camera stayed fixed on whatever scene it just shot before the commercials stated in the states and we got to hear the American sportcasters chatter during what they thought was a commercial break. it reminds me of aaalllll those jokes about the pilot forgetting to turn off the loudspeaker for the plane and everybody hearing the cockpit chatter. at one point it even sounded like they were runnin bets in the background! (just kiddin) so the great thing about this place is that they serve a few American things like pizza & tacos (I know I know, those aren’t exactly American dishes, BUT we do eat them a lot back in the states, and are basically unacquirable elsewhere in the city). needless to say, there were good eats, good drinks and an interesting game which was great to watch on foreign soil. great weekend of the hardest manual labor here to date, which makes for a sleepyCVstevie... <--- island reunion                CARNAVAL! --->