it still is a small world: May 2008

What's up with you guys?
I'm waiting for interesting articles about your life after Rotary...

...so I'm going to start - maybe that gets you going.
Here's a summary of my 13 years after Rotary:

After returning to Germany I finished German Highschool (another two years). It sucked. I found it very difficult to reintegrate into my old class and into family life. I wanted everyone to realize and acknowledge that I had changed, that I had grown up. I must have behaved pretty arrogant - isolating myself from my old friends and desperately longing for my own life - somewhere far away. So, I worked besides school at the cashdesk of a supermarket and saved money for another year abroad.
After finishing highschool I joined a danish NGO called UFF (danish) or Humana (german) or DAPP (english) or ADPP (portuguese). I went on a six month preparation course in Fakse, Sydsjaelland, Denmark. We were 17 students from all over Europe and Japan. It felt like an extended Rotary weekend and I loved it... besides those strange rules of the organization. They made us collect money in the streets what they called fundraising. So I spent a few winter nights on the streets of Copenhagen selling roses and feeling like a street child. I guess that was the appropriate preparation for my later job in Mozambique. And I learned to hate the danish language (sorry, Thomas and Luisa!). The six month in Denmark were very hard and most of my teammembers/classmates gave up; in the end of the course we were only three.
The three of us went to Maputo, Mozambique. I worked in a street childrens town in a suburb of fishermen, Bairro dos Pescadores, in the north of Maputo. Much more than how I had disliked Denmark I loved Mozambique. I loved the children in the Childrens Town, their smiles and laughter. I loved the strange sounds of the local languages, Maxangane e Maronga, I loved the spicy food, the red soil, the small huts, the fisher boats with those huge sails. I loved the colorful capulanas which women wear around their waste over their skirts, on their head and around their shoulders, in which they carry their babies or goods that they bring to the market or take home from the fields. I loved the way of life, an open air life: everything happens outside, cooking, eating, taking a bath, washing clothes, taking a nap, ... everything but sleeping at night. I loved the overloaded "chapas" - pick-up trucks or vans used for the transportation of people, animals and all kinds of commodities. I loved the chaos, the dirt, the noise, the simplicity. I wanted this life. But I didn't want it enough to stay.
I also wanted to study. I returned to Germany and started to study economics, political economy and political science at the University of Cologne (Köln). And I started to work as a callcenter agent in order to finance my rent, food, books, parties, ... and my husband. I had been crazy and in love enough to marry. I got to know Raúl in Mozambique. He came to Germany about a year later and we stayed married for exactly three difficult years. Just before messing up both of our lifes, we split up. That was in summer 2003, Europes hottest summer of the past five centuries, and the summer of my 25th birthday.
The 26th year of my life I spent partying and travelling. I spent the turn of the year in the States visiting my former hostfamilies in Leavenworth and experiencing a huge déjà vu. And right after my 26th birthday I commited myself to a new relationship. I met Robson in Lisbon. He is Brazilian and had been working already for five years as a grafic designer in Portugal. We started a very-very-long-distance-relationship between Cologne and Lisbon and got to meet every two month for about two weeks. All other days of the year, we met on the phone and in the www. We dreamt of our life together: a house, a dog and family, simple life without material luxury. Robson found a place in Brazil called Vila da Glória: Affordable real estate at the coast of southern Brazil, a fishers village, beautiful nature, simple life, ... all we wanted - it seemed. So we booked our flights, cancelled our contracts (work, rent, telephone, etc...), packed our suitcases and left Europe on the 16th of Octobre, 2006.
I remember how happy I was sitting next to the man I loved on our flight into the future. I adored listening to him talking about his country that he hadn't seen since five years. He explained every little thing and was fascinated about changes and thrilled with everything that hadn't changed. Accompanying him was as if I would return as well. And everything which was completely new to me got painted in the colors of his memory. We married in his hometown Londrina where we had spent the first two month. And then we travelled south. We found our house in the Vila da Glória, adopted one dog after the other and opened a Cyber Cafe in this village of fishermen (aka: digital inclusion). I taught English, Robson taught basic computer skills. I started to write articles about the Brazilian economy for the german office for foreign trade, Robson started to work as a Shiatsu-massagist. He had switched his profession during the two years of our long-distance-relationship. Everything worked out well, besides our feeling for each other. I can't explain it because I still don't understand and wonder if I ever will. He lost his passion for me, that's what he said... So what do you do in such cases? Question without standard answers are tricky, or maybe not? Our solution was separation - after one year of marriage and two days before christmas 2007.
So here I am: Almost thirty and for the second time divorced, owner of a house and a cyber cafe and holder of three dogs in a fishers village in southern Brazil, an aunt that never saw her niece who's walking already in the streets and playgrounds of Berlin, a stranger that had found great new friends that make her feel at home... So what do you do in such cases? Do you change direction when you lose your orientation? Maybe, but which direction do you chose?
I'm enjoying my life as it is. It's a present, a pleasure, a miracle.

Ahhh... here are some pictures of me and how I live... www.rose-oliveira.blogspot.com
I gotta update my Blog more often, I know, but lately I've been so busy living that there was no time for documenting it.