Day 16 - An Outing!

Today we had an outing for staff and volunteers at Free Flight as a kind of one-day retreat before the semester starts next week. It was such an incredible day! The retreat centre where we went was a little bit ridiculous to get to because of the conditions in the road, and on the way back we were basically scraping the bottom of the car the whole way because of the pot holes and speed bumps. While we were there though, there were some areas to play sports, a pool table and a mini pool table, and pool, and picnic tables to sit at.
I was a little bit of a non-participator with the pool for part of the morning because I didn't know a lot of the people who came and I felt awkward, plus I didn't want to be cold, and the weather was a little unpredictable so I couldn't count on the sun to dry off. But then I had a little chat with myself to remind myself that I wasn't just at this fantastic retreat place, but that I was there in BRAZIL, and that it would hang over me the whole day if I didn't get over my hangups and go in the pool, so I did, and it was so fun, and I was really happy. I also wore tons of sunscreen and reapplied even though it made me smell really delicious to the flies and bees that were around, so that was stressful, but I think I made it through the day without any bad sunburns!! This is a big accomplishment, but I won't say any more because (as I honestly keep forgetting) most people in Canada are not strategizing to avoid sunburns.

Here is my white self going down the waterslide. I tried to act like I was going to go in with my arms up, but you can see I am about to plug my nose. After she took the picture, Catherine called me rollercoaster Alyssa. We had a devotion today about being the light of the world, and I'm not sure of the spiritual merit that I get for this, but of most people in Brazil I am confident to say that I reflect light better than most =PThis is me playing dominoes, a pretty popular pastime (I just learned how to spell pastime) here.
This is me having some watermelon, because as Catherine reminded me, it is very fantastic that we were eating watermelon outside at the end of January. She used to live in Winnipeg, so it is okay for her to relish the fact that there is no Winter here. One of the highlights of this afternoon was witnessing a cockfight! There were lots of birds (chicken and turkeys etc.) on this property, so sometimes when we were sitting playing dominoes or when Catherine was playing guitar in the picnic table area, these birds would wander through, and this rooster was cracking me up, so Catherine took a picture of it for me. This was not one of the birds in the fight, and I WISH I had had my camera with me to film it because it was one of the funniest things I've seen. We were talking about how we felt kind of like gangsters for watching this cockfight, and then this huge turkey was kind of reffing the match, and sometimes when the birds were biting each other or kicking at each other, this turkey would just cuff one of them with its wing, or lift up its big foot and step on one of the birds' heads. We decided that he was the Godfather of the birds and the fight was to determine who would become his successor, so when he wasn't happy with the fight he would get involved a little bit. It was hilarious and ridiculous, and good to watch and laugh.