Sorry, I haven´t been updating my blog for a while. Like some of you have been suspecting I have just been really, really busy. I finally managed to turn in my MA, and after I recovered from that I realized that I don´t actually have that much time left in which to pull together my research here. I still only have 3 interviews. I do have 5 more scheduled, but as expected when you don´t have that much time something else always comes up, and you have to postpone things. I´m starting to notice how busy Candomble can keep people. Something comes up - a spiritual problem with an irma de santo (someone who belongs to the same temple as you), the spirits request a ceremony or your pai or mae de santo (head of the temple) simply needs you to go and help out clean the temple - and you will have to leave everything else and go and spend several days at the temple.
But I feel I´m still doing pretty good with the research. I started a Yoruba language course for Candomble people. It is difficult, yoruba is a tonal language, so what looks like the same word can actually mean completely different thing depending on the tone. But it is great, I´ve met some new Candomble people, and learned to understand a little Candomble talk too. So many people in the Candomble community use words in yoruba in the speech that I have been having a hard time keeping up with conversations.
But it hasnt been all work. The weather has finally been getting better, and I´ve actually gone to the beach a couple of times, and the international capoeira event of my group is coming up a week from now so a lot of my capoeira friends have been coming into town in the past week, so we´ve spending a lot of time just hanging out, going out in the evenings and playing as well as talking capoeira.