Possibly the first and last Brasilian wedding I will ever attend or the longest of Blake's rambling rants ever.

I love new experiences which is one of the big reasons that I love to live, work and travel abroad but seriously by the end of this grueling day we were at the point where we could either laugh, cry or get really upset and fortunately we chose to joke about the ludicrous happenings of the day. This might be a good time to remind you all that "this website does not represent the views of Amigos de Iracambi, its founders, staff, volunteers, etc."ONLY MINE, BLAKE H. SCHMIDT.
Myself with the groom, Fabio, and one of his relatives. We are at Fabio's parent's home a few hours before the wedding for lunch and this is the room where the wedding loot was being torn into as the guests were waiting outside for food to be served. The bride wasn't even here to see the present be opened. Not exactly as I have seen it done in the US. The painting was done by Toni, one of our long term volunteers, from Spain (Catalonia) who spends part of his time painting (to bring in some income) and the rest of the time in the nursery and overseeing reforestation projects. All of us from Iracambi (staff, volunteers and researcher) who went to the wedding contributed to buy this painting from Toni and give it to the lovely couple.

"Hurry up and wait" seemed to be the theme of the day and those without patience were basically doomed from the start. The scene before your ideas is of people milling around the tables where food was "soon" to be placed so that the over hundred people at the lunch before the wedding could dig in and fill their faces. For those of us that call ourselves vegetarians we had the choice of beans and rice or pasta which aren't bad options and heck beans and rice is the main staple for what I would imagine is the most of the world's population. That said in Mozambique at weddings I went to even veggies normally got more interesting food or at least something more than beans, rice and pasta. The worst part might have been the dish I served myself having been told it was vegetarian and then finding out after a bite that I had most likely consumed at least a bit of intestines. When you haven't eaten meat in 7 years the last thing you want is the entrails of some unidentified animal for lunch.

From left to right, Rosa Virginia, Ruud, Bryan and Lucy. Rosa Virginia is from SIT (born in Venezuela and now living in the US) getting her Masters in International Education and helping with our Environmental Education program here. Ruud, who sadly enough just left today, was here for six weeks on his vacation from his job at a "handyman" store in the Netherlands to do a ton of carpentry work, step building with rocks, wood and dirt, and more here. Bryan, from the England, is our resident ornithologist and cake/bread baker and it is always fun to tease Bryan by describing some "exotic" bird you have just seen and pointing him in the direction of it and seeing him run off to see it. Lucy, also from England, is a long term volunteer doing grant writing, using her skills as a sound tech, helping Ruud build stairs, Toni and others plant trees and much more. This will serve as our before picture, although I don't have an after, when we were still happy, clean and full of food.

Some of the forms of transport used to get to the lunch. Not pictured horses, cars, a bus and feet. By the end of the night most all of these vehicles would be obsolete as they would be stuck in the mud or overcrowded with those trying to reach home without taking a mud bath. As lunch was finally being served (it really wasn't that late) it started to sprinkle and then rain rather heavily and then after everyone had eaten, chatted and was ready to head out to go to the bus to travel to the church, head home to change to get other transport to the church or go home having enjoyed a free meal it the heavens opened and it began to pour. It came down heavily for a good 45 minutes and when the leprechaun and pot of gold had finally come out most people were gone and those of us that remained started to slow head to the bus. At least it let up long enough to get there but if the muddy roads were any indication what the rest of the day would bring and we had really been thinking we probably would have headed home and called it a day.

Binka, one of Iracambi's founders, along with Alana, a volunteer helping Iracambi and me greatly with volunteer coordinating. Binka is very boisterous and forward thinking person who has written books, had at least one adapted into a radio piece, worked on National Geographic documentaries, founded a growing and successful NGO, Iracambi, lived around the world and much more. Alana, other than being a Florida Gator alum and fan is a great person and has really brought a great spirit to Iracambi not to mention excellent baking that has made most add one or more notches to their belts.

Some scenery after the first rain shower when it was still daylight and could dry a bit and between lunch, wedding and the day that would never end.

These ugly mugs, no not the guys below, are one of the main reasons that this area has been deforested. But we have to live and work with some of the same people that caused the problems Iracambi is working to reverse and this includes keeping our friends close and our enemies closer.

Gustavo, Virgilio (a former volunteer who just came for the wedding), and Rosa Virginia in the background waiting for the bus. As I said below wait was the "word of the day" as Pee-Wee Herman used to call it. Of course the last person to show was the bus driver, 30 minutes late.

The main square in the small town of Belahorzario, where Fabio and his bride ???? got married. I know it is rude to not know the bride's name but I hadn't even met the groom until earlier in the day and supposedly we were invited by him. To be fair his brother was working here up until the end of last month, his mother is our cook and he has other family that works for Iracambi. In fact their family makes up over half of the family in the community of Graminha which is one of nine that Iracambi calls its neighbors and with which we are trying to work to fulfill our mission "to work with the community to make the conservation of the forest more attractive than its destruction."

More pics from around this little town. It was clear that the wedding was the "thing" happening last night. I think that many of the people in the church were most likely neither friends of the groom or the bride but those who decide to join the wedding and see what the "fun" was all about.

This building with the radio antennae is where Iracambi's weekly radio program, written and recorded by Junior, is broadcast each Thursday. Supposedly it (the radio signal, not our segment) is only supposed to cover a small radius but illegally reaches far beyond its boundaries. Lucy who is our "Coordinator of Fund Raising and Sound Engineering" is working with Junior to improve the quality of our segment and also get it up on the internet in Portuguese and English as a "podcast".

Lucy and Alana having a snack before the wedding still on a honeymoon of sorts where the idea of attending still sounded like a good idea. Oh ye of little premonition.

The blushing bride and her father (I assume) but like most of you I have never met him and only said "ola" and "parabens" to her so I honestly don't know their names or much more about them than you at home do. Now I know this might not seem very SIT (my very politically correct grad school) to say this but at 16 years of age how the heck does she know that she is in love let alone have the education and life skills to get married. Just something to ponder and her, now husband, is only 20 so he is not far ahead. Really though it was great to be invited and involved and the alternative would have been sitting home emailing or doing something else "outside" of Brasil and it was good to have this cross-cultural experience as painful as it might have been at times.

We weren't really sure which side to sit on so we choose the right which might have actually been the wrong side but since many of the events of this wedding day were different then what most of us were used to it didn't seem to matter anyway. The part that I haven't photographed mainly as mud, rain and an expensive digital camera don't go well together happened after the "reception" at the bride's parent's house. We were told to get on the bus immediately after the ceremony so 45 minutes later when the driver started the bus we dashed on only to wait a few more minutes for those who obviously didn't take the driver revving the engine as a sign that we were leaving. Then we rushed to the bride's parent's home only to wait about an hour for the bride and groom to arrive, take photos for over 30 minutes and finally almost two hours after getting there start handing out the BIGGEST cake you have ever seen in your life. At least it wasn't chocolate but it also wasn't moist. When it became clear that food, drink and entertainment was hours away, that is if it was even going to come, we thought to leave. We found the driver who was also thinking to bail, rounded up the rest of the people who had ridden with us, said our goodbyes and got in the bus. Upon entering Ruud was good enough to point out that our bus was nose to nose with another bus on a road just barely big enough for one road to go down. This was perfect as that bus was loaded and it began to rain. Now rain, dirt and two big buses facing each other on a hilly rural road with not enough room to pass each other go really well together. For a while we followed the other bus (which was in reverse) until surprise surprise it got stuck. A heroic effort was made by some (not us as we knew it was impossible with out a tractor) to push the other bus and get it going and after playing "10 fingers" for about 45 minutes we decided to walk home. 10 kms, 2 plus hours and lots of rain and mud later we made it home and I haven't risen from my bed since. J/K (just kidding). In fact Rosa Virginia and I got a ride about half the way home but the others spent another hour or so walking. It sure wasn't we had bargained for or envisioned and I am sure we each could come up with a list of all the "important" things that we could have done with our Saturday instead but really it was a day we can't and don't want to recreate, won't forget and really couldn't miss. From noon on Saturday until almost midnight we were "victims" of circumstance and complaints aside, while I wouldn't choose to do it again, this was the kind of thing that I came to Brasil to experience. Best to the bride and groom!