bahia or bust

The premise: What happens when an American woman and her Brazilian American husband pack up their life in Philadelphia and move with their five-year old Jimmie Rodgers wannabe, their three-year old with a head of wild curls and a temperment to match, and their newborn babe to Salvador, Bahia to work at an international school?

The answer: a whole new level of chaos ensues.

Herein, a chronicle of said adventure. Will the boys learn to speak Portuguese? Or will the five-year old be content to continue to speak English with a strange approximation of his friend’s Portuguese accent which sounds like a cross between Borat and Speedy Gonzalez?

Will the three-year old allow his parents to leave him in his nursery school class without negotiations that rival the North Korean nuclear treaties (with at least as much threat of detonation)?

Will the baby ever poop? More importantly, will he ever nap?

Will their mother manage to convince a school of six hundred students that she can in fact handle her new job as a guidance and college counselor, despite the fact that her only experience in counseling to this point has involved poetry writing, holistic nutrition, and unsuccessful whining abatement attempts with two certain preschool children?

Will she make it to the school nurse’s office with all parts of her breast pump, ice pack, bottles, ipod and earbuds, to express more than a meager two ounces which she proceeds to drip onto her only clean skirt?

Will the boys’ father hone his soccer playing skills enough to join the Saturday evening game on the condominium field?

Stay tuned.

I hereby promise weekly updates (circumstances permitting): agua de coco on the beach, Muleskinner Blues renditions on the cavaquinho, banana-stealing marmosets, and the occasional temper tantrum.

So without further ado: welcome to the Golden Papaya!