About rain, religiosity and growing up

This post comes to you in five parts, because apparently parts are fun. And because I have a few things I want to talk about, and they have nothing to do with each other.

Part one: First things first
I am currently out in the field, because I have a field course. (Well, technically I am currently on Thursday evening avoiding studying for the aquatic ecosystems exam I have tomorrow by starting on this post, but when you're reading this, I will be in the field.) This is a bit odd, since I spent my entire two years as a biology bachelor's student successfully avoiding all field courses, and yet, here I am, out in the rain forest. I tell myself it's because in Finland, field work will be cold and wet. Or possibly not, you can never be sure when it's Finnish weather, but the chances are that it's cold and wet. Either way, here at least I can be sure it won't be cold. It will probably be wet, though. I am literally in the middle of a rain forest, after all. However, I will be in the field until next week's Thursday. This means that I will be internetless between today and next Tuesday, which in turn means I will not be able to write a post. Of course I could write it before I leave for the field, but I don't really have two posts worth of things to say right now, so instead there will be no post from me next week. I will make it up to you, though. I'll make an extra post some time. I have a post about the fruits here that I've been working on, and yes, I could post it next week, but I want to give it some more time. Because I'm not quite done with this place yet, and I hope to find some more odd fruits to share with you before I leave. So instead of posting it next week, I will post it as an extra post once I deem it ready. By mid-July, the very latest.
Wow, that part turned out to be longer than I expected.

Part two: The rain
While studying for the aforementioned aquatic ecosystems exam, I realised that despite being in a rain forest, I haven't talked about the rain at all here, I think. So here goes.

If you look at the weather forecast for Manaus, you will see that it basically says it's always thirty degrees and raining. That's been pretty much the case all four times I've bothered to check the forecast over the last few months. There have been some odd days in the forecast without rain, but that's what it's always for most days. Because that does not mean what it seems to mean to a Finnish person, because the rain here works with a completely different logic here than it does in Finland. In Finland that forecast would mean there are five days of unending grey clouds and constant drizzle with some heavier showers in between. But here that's not what happens. Here we (they) don't get eight days of unending rain. Or at least they haven't, during my time here. It does rain almost every day, this is the rain forest, after all. But usually it only rains for a half an hour, or maybe two or three hours at a time, and then the sun peeks around the clouds again. The thing here is that when it rains, it rains hard. Soaked-through-in-a-few-minutes-probably-even-with-an-umbrella hard. We do get this kind of rain occasionally in Finland too, but it's not that common. So yeah, despite the fact that I'm in a rain forest, I've only been caught in the rain maybe four times while I've been here, and been completely soaked every time. Ok, that's not entirely true, I think I've been out a few times also when it's been raining when the rain hasn't been that hard, or I've been able to get to some shelter for a while to wait it out. But like I said, mostly the rain is fast and hard when it comes. So it's quite easy to avoid.
Unless you're in the field. I'll let you know in a couple of weeks how that turned out.
But this isn't even the area here that gets the most rainfall per year. Manaus only gets an average of 2300 mm/y. The place around here with most rainfall is in northern Peru and Columbia and that area right next to the Andes. That's where I'm going next. So yay. But it's the dry season, which means only ~200mm/month in Iquitos, so it's probably fine.

Part three: Deus é fiel
Brazil, like all of Latin America, is very Christian (is apparently spelled with a capital letter?). I'm able to avoid most of it by simply not talking about religion with people, but the thing is it's also visible all around, and not only in the fact that there are churches everywhere. One of the things that I keep seeing all over the place from car bumpers to restaurant names is the phrase "Deus é fiel". (Seriously, you almost can't go outside without running into it somewhere.) In English this translates to "God is faithful". I find it incredibly odd. I'm definitely and expert on religion, but I'm almost completely certain that in Christianity it's the people who are supposed to faithful to God and not the other way round. I mean, that's the point of the whole religion, right? That if you, a person, believe in (this particular) God and are faithful to him, he will then reward you with a place in heaven once you die. So... yeah. Can someone explain to me why suddenly God is supposed to be the faithful one?

Part four: Time, and growing up
I don't really know how to get into this, or how to make my separate points into one thing.
*stares at the screen for ten minutes*
My little brother just graduated high school. (I'd say congrats, bro, but let's face it, he'll never read this.)I'm the oldest of four, and suddenly not only I don't have any siblings young enough to be in elementary school, because the youngest just finished high school. And I have no idea where those years that must have been in between those two points went, because it makes no sense. It hasn't been that long.
I increasingly find myself thinking about something, and realise it's been ten years. Since when have I been old enough that things that happened ten years ago are not the same things that happened when I was a kid? (The answer, of course, depending on your definition of a kid, is anywhere between about two or three years ago and five years onwards from now. But at least I, at least for now, think that a fourteen-year-old isn't a kid anymore. Also definitely not an adult, but a kid in my head is someone maybe twelve or under.) It's just that ten years is supposed to be a long time, but ten years ago doesn't seem like as long ago as it should.
I have also apparently reached the age when people get married and have babies. Just last summer there were four weddings or something among my facebook friends. Three of them (facebook friends, not necessarily the same people who got married last summer) have had a baby in the last couple of years, and a fourth one just posted this week that she'll have one later this year. And half of those people are younger than me. And it's not that I'm not happy for them, I am, but as Ted said in How I Met Your Mother when Lily and Marshall came with the news Lily was pregnant: "When your friends have great news you're happy for them for like a millisecond and then you start thinking about yourself: What am I doing with my life?" Seriously, why is everyone having babies except me? Yes, I do realise four people isn't everyone.
My point is this: I have no idea when I become old enough that I have only siblings that are technically adults, and that people my age are doing actual grow-up things, with jobs and mortgages and weddings and babies. I wish I wasn't quite that old. No, you know what, that's not actually true. I wish I was doing the grown-up things too.

Part five: Velho
This is a minor detail that I simply find incredibly amusing. Velho is a word in both Portuguese and Finnish. In Portuguese it means old man, or just old, since it can be used as either a noun or an adjective. In Finnish it means wizard. And I like the idea that in Portuguese all old men are wizards.

Ok, that's enough from me. I'll get back to you again in two weeks. Assuming I don't die in the field. My roommates had a lot of fun the other night introducing me to all the dangerous animals that live around these parts of the world.

~matu