Welcome to Salvador!

I arrived here in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil last night at around 6:30 and after waiting forever for my luggage (I think they had one guy unloading 4 planes one piece of luggage at a time!) I made my way to the homebase in time for dinner. There are going to be about 26 of us in the house volunteering in different parts of the city. Some of the people have been here for week already while 14 of us came in yesterday (or rather 12 of us did, 2 people are still stuck in the U.S because of bad weather!)
What I've learned so far about Salvador is that it was the first capital of Brazil and that it's heavily influenced by Portuguese colonization and the history of slavery that came with the establishment of sugarcane plantations. This Afro-Brazilian heritage is seen in the music, the dancing, the artwork and on the faces of the people. On a more practical note, the beautiful geography of Salvador, the steep hillsides plunging down to the coast line, makes it very difficult to get water to homes so water conservation is an important factor in day to day life. This makes for very short showers! A related plumbing fact - the sewage system here is such that toilet paper cannot be flushed. Ahh the joys of international plumbing - oh well, it's not the first time I've had to deal with that and it won't be the last! At least there's no Asian squat toilets here.
We start work bright and early tomorrow morning and four of us will be off to Santa Teresa to play with the kids - It's going to be fun.