Fagiolete on day 21

Maya (on the left and Vanna is on the right) is from brazil and is the cleaning person at the B&B. I don’t like calling her “the cleaning person” but I guess that’s the simplest way to put it. she speaks no English and communicates with others with a mix of Portuguese and Italian. she came to italy for work and was introduced to the B&B by our neighbor, who is also Brazilian (married an Italian who went on vacation to brazil and met her) and a childhood friend (since they were 5!) of Maya’s. I like Maya a lot and her happiness tends to spread like wildfire. She’s fun, a hardworker, and has a big heart to love and be loved. Someone once said that she was beautiful because of her open need for love. I thought that was a beautiful statement about a person because maybe we try too hard to pretend like we don’t need love or maybe we try too hard to get love, but maya’s balance of vulnerability and openness to love is graceful. This picture is when maya cooked a typical and famous brazilian dish for us.

The dish is called fagiolete and is red beans cooked with meat then drizzled with this special type of flour and spicy olive oil. It probably doesn’t look too appetizing but it was good! I had 3 platefuls :p. I think what also made it good was how happy maya was to eat something from her hometown. She misses her home, family (she left her one year old son), friends, food, culture, and country very much. By the way, maybe it’s just me, but I’m beginning to feel that america’s love for their country is really shallow. The love and devotion Brazilians and Italians have for their country is deeply rooted in their history, culture, and family – something really special for me to see. But maybe it’s just me and the way I was raised in a Chinese-American family, shrugs.