Halfway Mark | Living in Bahia for the Past 6 Months

Today we've hit our 6 month mark of living in Itacare Bahia Brazil. I have mixed feelings about leaving in September. For one thing I despise moving and the thought of packing our stuff and then unpacking our stuff...yeah I'd rather not even think about it. For another thing I'm really going to miss it here. Not everything, but a lot of things.

For the past 6 months I've showed you pictures of the beach and waterfalls and fresh delicious fish that is always so readily available. Mostly though I've showed you a piece of what our life looks like. A life I love.

But the truth is I have a love/hate relationship with living here. I think this is normal of any place you live and has more to do with attitude than with anything else. So instead of focusing on the things that are hard I tend to focus on the things that are great, because not only is life too short to play the role of a Debbie Downer but my time here is too short to even be down at all. When you live some place where you have an expiration date I say enjoy it as much as you can. Even if there are some things that just plain piss you off.

So in all fairness here are the things I love/hate about living in Itacare

|1| I love our big wooden table / I hate the bathroom in our bedroom that is more often stinky than not.
|2| I love that everyone is so friendly / I hate that it's hard to have anyone over for dinner because everyone works in the tourism business and they all work until late at night.
|3| I love our big open kitchen / I hate our wimpy fridge
|4| I love how fresh shrimp is / I hate that good cheese is hard to come by
|5| I love the weather / I hate that sunblock is so expensive
|6| I love Brazilian waxes, manicures, and pedicures / I hate that I can not find a swim suit or a tankini to buy.
|7| I love that we can walk anywhere we need to in the town / I hate that there is no L.D.S church in Itacare and in order for us to attend church we have to rent a car and drive an hour and half each way.
|8| I love that we are surrounded by amazing historial sites / I hate that the local government is so junk that it doesn't care a thing about the historial sites, or anything for that matter.
|9| I love that we found a wonderful, trustworthy, talented person to help us. Yes, I love that we have a maid / I hate that we live next to a dirt road and that as soon as you clean, it just gets dirty all over again.
|10| I love that we have so many vistors/ I hate that our visitors always leave.

On Saturday my once student now turned good friend moved to our house. She and my sister Iris are now roomies. Juliana is here to volunteer at an NGO and to help document Baby Maria's fashion statements. My favorite thing about living here is that I get to share this experience with my family, with friends like Juliana, and with you.

So you have 6 months to come and visit. What do you say?