Last night, I was lying on the couch, doing stuff on the phone. I was feeling quite good because I had been able to work well, embracing the process and even did a couple of extra hours which are paid here, miserably, but it seems acceptable considering I'm not currently spending any money and eating well, showing with hot water, and sleeping on a bed (can be a luxury for a traveler you know?)
In case you want to know how miserable, it's 1.93 USD per hour. To be fair, Brasil isn't as expensive as other countries so it's useable money. I got four shirts and a pair of shorts for less than that, there's plenty of food hanging from the trees here and there, and the volunteer work covers my lodgings. I was getting rather excited on the prospect of being able to stack up some cash and invest while I'm at it so that I can eventually go back to my project in the forest with more resources or perhaps even start one here.
My positive outline of the future collapsed when I heard someone carefully creeping in through the door. The room mate who had left the day before was back, and I was not at all thrilled by his arrival. I actually felt very vulnerable and a bit in danger, after all, Krishna's favor was gone. Note to self:never put your faith in any other god than the nameless one that dwells within you. The guy had left the day before without telling the host anything, and now he was back without telling him either.
I had to inform the host because otherwise I would be involved later, as I thought he would be kicked out. But nope, the host is desperate for workers so he just gave him a quick sermon and went on his way.
In the absence of my room mate, a lady who works here gave me all the sauce on how he had been a bad companion to a previous volunteer, making her life impossible. My disgust towards him now had more substance, it was not just that I didn't like him, it was that he actually wasn't a good person. Now it made sense why I felt so uncomfortable in his presence.
His energy felt violent and I took a couple of the sharpest knives to the bed with me, just in case. The density of the energy I felt was corroborated when I asked him if he was going to inform the host about staying here and he replied with an angry face: "you tell him if you want to". Then I asked him if he was ok, if he was going through something, to which he replied: "are you a psychologist?"
I felt like taking the initiative on the violence but controlled myself. It wasn't going to do me any good, it would be goodbye to traveling and the chance to find a proper place to be in.
What to do? Staying a whole month with this going on would be hell.
All of this made me think about a lot of things and in the end I figured that fear was behind it all. He wasn't the enemy, fear was. So I'm working on that right now, just being cautious and accepting all the chaos that is going on within me. I have sent a message to Worldpackers hoping that they will help me move out of here without harming my rating on the platform, but this consideration of fear and the desire to overcome it makes me feel ok about staying here and dealing with the situation.