Day 3

Each day has so many things to say about it that it gets overwhelming, and it also seems strange just to write down little moments without anything to tie them together... too many years of writing essays has done this to me!

Today I spent most of the morning with a group of kids at Free Flight - they were children who live across the street and the children of the Director, all really sweet kids who were so patient with my halting Portuguese and who would point and repeat to get whatever they were saying across.

Catherine and I went across the street to visit two of the girls' house - it is built of scrap wood and metal with a dirt floor. It is hard to describe the atmosphere there because it was small and dark, but it was also just their home, and the older girl gave me a keychain, and the younger girl taught me some Portuguese from pictures in an English activity book she had. She showed me their Bible too and sang me some hymns from the back of it. They offered Catherine and I coffee and gave me some bread to eat - it was not long after breakfast and neither of us needed anything, but they were determined in their hospitality and I was really humbled by it.

When we went back to Free Flight we played a bit on a playground there and then the girls knocked a mango out of the tree for me! It was my first real mango I have ever eaten, and it was really good! They showed me how to peel the skin off with my teeth, and they were really shocked when they heard that we don't have any mango trees in Canada.

Later in the morning we played a game on the basketball court taking shots and played UNO with an obviously well used deck of cards - it was the first time I've played UNO in probably five years (which will be funny to the people who were at the last game =P)

That is what I remember most about the day - there was a lot else but the highlights were visiting across the street and eating a mango and just playing games and chatting with really sweet, bright kids who love attention :)

Oh also, Catherine told me that she found a cockroach in her room this morning on its back but still alive, so she threw it out her window... by it's feeler!! I don't expect that I will be doing the same by the end of this trip, but I did take a picture of a cockroach I saw on the wall in the back yard so I will post it and you all can imagine how tough I am just for looking at it!