Hopefully My Home Cooking Will Cure My Saudades

It's a bit of a lonely night in the Amaro household. Rico is in Nampula this week facilitating a workshop and I am enjoying some alone-time, though certainly feeling his absence.

At the moment I am making butter beans with jalapeños, have just finished feeding the boys some liver, and am trying to get motivated to make some jewelry. The National Crafts Fair is just over a week away, and I am trying to get a reasonable volume of pieces together ahead of time, thus avoiding a last-minute production scramble as was the case last year. I just hope the turnout at the fair is near or above what it was the first time I participated...

I've been thinking a lot about my highschool friends these days. My very best friend from high school just got engaged over the weekend to her long-term boyfriend, and I keep meaning to call her and wish them congratulations the closest to "in-person" that I can manage from half a world away. Another friend got married on the 23rd, and I have enjoyed looking at her photos on Facebook. I wonder if she'll find photo uploading and organizing and sharing as dauting as I have.

On a more somber note, an acquaintance from the class ahead of us in school was hit by a car while crossing the street in Brooklyn a couple of weeks ago. She was a dancer, pursuing her PhD in performance arts in London, but spending the summer in New York while she attended some courses. She is incredibly lucky to be alive, but had to undergo brain surgery and has yet to regain full consciousness. She is awake and able to respond to simple commands, like "hold up two fingers", but she's not yet recognizing friends and family. A group of this girl's friends have started a blog to post updates on her recovery, and I check it every day even though we were never particularly close.

Today while at work I decided to do something useful in my idle time and donated some money to the above-mentioned girl's recovery fund (like many artists and students she has no health insurance), and also made a donation to the New Mexico Humane Society, where I adopted my beloved cat Azul in 2002. She now lives with my mom, and we have carried on the pet adoption legacy here in Mozambique with Pria and Parceiro.

I'm really looking forward to Rico coming back from Nampula. I miss him, though I admit I do enjoy the time alone, being the crafty sometimes-introvert that I am. Tomorrow I have plans to go to African Dance class again and make an utter fool of myself. Hopefully I will get increasingly coordinated as time goes on. There are also plans in the works for a girl's night centered around basil mojitos, which I am certainly excited about.

Even with things to look forward to, though, and my time occupied for the most part, I have to admit that I feel very lonely without Rico here. Maybe it's because we are married now - who knows - but I find it harder to be apart.

Ooh - there goes my cell phone ringing. And what do you know...it's Rico!