Day 78 (my testimony)

I went to the market with Catherine this morning - we bought fruit and fresh spices and went by the bakery. It was a beautiful day and just all Brazilian and wonderful. Catherine is in the market for a new bag since she lost her old purse, so we looked in some stores on the main street in our area, and it was there that I found a beautiful dress. We also found a million ridiculous shirts that neither of us would ever fit into or be able to wear outside of our own bedrooms, but it was fun to look around, and then I saw this beautiful black and white dress with sequins all over it so it sparkles! And I tried it on, and it was gorgeous. So I bought it and wore it to give my testimony at church tonight.

But first, a hilarious story that you probably had to be there for, but oh well. Catherine was trying on a dress as well, and there was a little boy whose mom was in the store, and suddenly I heard Catherine say in a very serious voice, "Sai, por favor" which means Get out. And yeah... this little boy was creeping on Catherine in the change room... not THAT funny, but it made me laugh :)

So.. my testimony. I was so nervous from the time that we arrived at church through the whole time that I was speaking, and there was a lot of singing and even an offering in between! Catherine invited two brothers from Free Flight that we're friends with to come, and it was nice to have them there, although it didn't make me any less nervous! I was having a terrible time understanding anything and kept listening for key words to know when I should go up to the front, but finally the time came, and Catherine came up with me to introduce me a little bit, which was so nice! And then I read my testimony :) It went well, and the pastor even made some references to it in his sermon, so I thought that was cool. Catherine videotaped my testimony, but I'm not going to put the whole thing up because it would never load, and it would be five minutes of just noise to most of you, but here is a clip to prove that I did it =)
(and you can get a glimpse of that dress!)

By the way, it's been pretty cool here for the last few nights - I'm wearing that jean jacket because I needed it! So for anyone who has Brazil envy... well it's still amazing. But it's not always tropically hot! We were commenting on the cold before church and one woman said "yeah, it's freezing!" and I said to Catherine... "that woman does not know our country!"

Videos from Week 7

Remember what you thought was an empty promise to upload videos? Here they are!

Ridiculous rain

and ridiculous moves!

Day 76

Today was great! I have taken over teaching Joyce's English class while she is in India - it is level 3B, so these students are in their fourth year of studying English (there is the intro level A and B, 1A and B, 2A and B, 3A and B and technically a level 4 although everyone who could be in that class is teaching lower level English classes and doesn't have time!). I speak very little Portuguese with this class, and Joyce organized everything before she left - she even photocopied the worksheets we're supposed to do! - so it has been really easy to take over.

After class, Frank's class was cancelled today so I read my Bible and my last textbook to get through. I practiced my testimony with Maricildes (which I still need to practice a lot!), and then I spent the rest of my afternoon in the break dance room!

There were only three guys there today, and I've hung out with all of them before so I wasn't too embarassed and got to try lots of things :) I kind of fell on my head once, and fell from a handstand flat on my back, which knocked the wind out of me BUT I also managed to finally roll out of a handstand instead of falling to my death so overall it was worth it!! I also practiced stopping in the middle of a cartwheel, which is a way safer way for me to go into a handstand and... other stuff. The plan is to practice more tomorrow, although Saturdays are often really busy days in the breakdance room and I prefer to have lots of space so I don't fall on/kick anybody's head! =)

Catherine went to visit a friend's mom today, so I got a ride home with Frank on the motorcycle... all was normal until we got a flat tire, but we weren't very far from the borracharia (which I don't think has an equivalent in English, someone please let me know if this exists in Canada: a place that only fixes flat tires. They fix car, motorcycle and bike tires, but they don't do repairs like a mechanic does. What do we do in Canada when a flat tire happens? If someone could let me know that would be great.) so Frank pushed the bike there.

While we were waiting for the tire to get changed (we had run over a nail the length of my pinky finger, it was crazy!), we saw our friend Bruno there - he does construction work at Free Flight and knows the lyrics to SO many English songs. Bruno bought Frank and I each a coke - the cutest coke I have ever seen! They came in glass bottles and were 200ml size. Aw! It was all a very South American moment, drinking coke in glass bottles while over-full buses rumbled by and blew dust through the air and families in cars with giant speakers on the roof navigated potholes in front of the borracharia.

The woman who sold the coke was also working some meat on a barbeque next to the borracharia (contributing to the overall very Brazilian ambiance of the day!), and Frank bought a meat kebab. Wow was that the best decision he made all day - he cut me a piece of it to try, and I was kind of sketchy about Brazilian street meat BUT.. it tasted like the most gorgeous steak I've had in my life... I will probably dream about that meat kebab tonight lol.

And then Frank's tire was fixed and we came home, and here I am! It's definitely been a good day =)

Day 75

This is actually a picture from Tuesday night, but I had already blogged that day! Catherine and I made chili for supper with a spice package from Canada that her friend sent her - it was so good! We had leftovers tonight, which were also delicious!

Last night Catherine's friend Cabelo came over (cabelo is a nickname - it means 'hair.' Cabelo has long hair) and we hung out for a couple hours, it was really fun. He speaks really quickly, so it was kind of hard to understand him sometimes, but Catherine helped and he repeated himself lots and it all worked out. Cabelo is a musician and plays in a band, so he and Catherine played some songs on guitar and talked about music that they love, and we talked about our families and church and lots of things. It was fun.

And today I finished a 500-page book that has taken me forever to get through! It is like a shackle falling off me lol - now I just have one more book to finish and infinite assignments before I go =) I have been spending a lot of time on assignments this week to try to catch up on everything I haven't been doing while I was making friends and helping out at Free Flight. I don't think that it was time badly spent at all, and it has been hard to choose to read instead of spending time with kids, although I did go by the breakdance room again Tuesday. I am hoping that by really buckling down I will be able to finish all of my assignments early and have the last few days of my time here completely free from academic responsibility and I can just soak everything in until the very end.

Frank and I translated my testimony this afternoon, so I will practice it tomorrow with my tutor and probably a couple times Saturday with whoever will listen to me - I'm nervous but also looking forward to it, and I think it will be a great experience! It looks like a couple friends from Free Flight are going to come on Sunday to hear my testimony, which is really cool. Deep down, I'm definitely excited!

Day 73

Well the bugs are back to biting me with a vengeance. Just now I caught myself scratching a bite on my elbow, and when I looked at it I saw that what had been one bite is now three. The same thing happened on my side - I had one bite the other night and today I have three. I have more bites on my legs now than I can bother to count, and this round they are from mosquitos, not fleas, so they are itchy!!!

I've been making pretty good progress so far this week on assignments and reading, so even though there is still tons to do I am not feeling too stressed out about it.

This Sunday I am going to give my testimony at Catherine's church where I have also been going most Sundays. I've typed it out, and I think tomorrow in Frank's English class we are going to work on translating it. Yep, I'm going to try to do it in Portuguese, which I am totally nervous about but think will be a great experience, and so much better than doing it in English and needing it to be translated by another person. After we translate it tomorrow, I'll have a couple classes to practice it with my tutor, and then I will just do my best to speak slowly and clearly even if I feel ridiculous.

That's about it - I've been working on assignments this morning and will be heading up to Free Flight soon for lunch, Portuguese, and a keyboard class this afternoon. Wait, there is one more thing. Last night Catherine made banana bread, and it was amazing. :)
Tchau!

Day 71

Joyce left on her travels to India today - it will take her a few days to get there, but she is on her way there for a conference and will be back Easter weekend. Catherine, Frank and I will be holding down the fort, and I'm not worried about anything.

I'm definitely feeling more pressure these days to get to work on my assignments! I have been working on them and reading and doing what I can, but I now have just under four weeks before classes end in Toronto and my work will be due! Yikes. My goal is to finish my assignments before Joyce gets back (three weeks) so that my last week here can be completely without distractions or stress from school stuff - I'm sure there will be enough stress from complicated emotions about leaving here! We'll see how it all goes.

I've had a fun couple of days since my last post! Friday after my Portuguese class I was walking by the breakdance room, "sala de break" lol, and my friend Donisete ("don-knee-Zetchy" oh Brazilian names) asked if I was going to train. I've spent the last month or so telling him and his friend Junho (which is the equivalent of Junior, I think) that I would one day, and for once the room wasn't packed with sweaty guys, so I decided to take the chance. It was so fun! My muscles are still kind of sore today from the half hour or so of "training", but it was worth it, and I will definitely try to do it again. It was kind of embarassing and I felt like such a white girl in the worst way, but everyone who was there was so encouraging and didn't make fun of me. One guy said that I'm already better than his brother! lol. I learned some standing up footwork and some weird running around in a circle with my hands on the ground footwork and two freezes, both of which require more strength than I have to actually hold. BUT I have a month to build that strength! Wish me luck!

Saturday I spent an hour and a half putting tiny pieces of double sided tape on strips of paper as part of a project for the graphics shop. There are 30 000 strips of paper to tape, so the couple hundred that I did made depressingly little impact. That's how it is though with a big project like that... everyone chips away at it when they have the chance and eventually the tape runs out or our spines are permanently bent or the project gets finished.Saturday afternoon, Andressa shared with me the exciting discovery that some of the piles of gravel at Free Flight have tiny seashells in them!! She and her brother started looking for as many as they could find, and another girl named Leony joined them. I was the holder of the shells - they found almost as many shells as I could hold in one hand, so there were actually quite a lot.Andressa was so cute - she must have heard somewhere that if you put a shell up to your ear you can hear the ocean because she was doing that with these shells. I explained that the shell needs to be bigger for it to work... these shells were no bigger than the size of my fingernail. She and Leony were pretty impressed when I told them that there were seashells in the world bigger than my hand. Anyways, it was a fun afternoon looking for seashells in central Brazil =)

Day 68

This is my token sunset picture :) Catherine and I were talking about some stereotypes of missions presentations, which include greeting the audience in the "native language" and concluding the presentation with a picture of a sunset. The sunset was way more beautiful than this picture captures, but at least its a picture of a memory.
This is a knitting project that I finished Monday - I am going to give it to my Portuguese tutor to thank her for being so amazing. I decided that since I'm giving it away I should have a picture of how cool (if not very square) this washcloth/hot plate. The thing is, people here do dishes very differently, and they use sponges instead of cloths and way less water. So if this cloth came to Canada it might one day be a dishcloth, but that is not its destiny. It's a pretty complicated pattern though, and considering that I've learned how to knit since I arrived here I'm pretty proud of myself :)

This week has kind of gotten away from me blog-wise. As I settle in more and more and get more comfortable here I find that my schedule varies a lot more, so rather than come home and blog about the day I.. do lots of different things. Sometimes I help make supper or do some reading for classes (especially now that March is half over and I have all kinds of assignments left lol), or knit something or read something or just hang out... anyways, so all of a sudden it's Thursday!

I was feeling sick today so I came home at lunch and napped and then worked on assignments (surprise surprise), but it was good - I feel much better and hope that I keep feeling better tomorrow!

Tomorrow is Friday, which means English classes in the morning and possibly in the last afternoon (I haven't been helping in the last afternoon class for the last few weeks because it is very small and there aren't many ways to help that the teacher can't just do himself, plus by the last period of Wednesdays and Fridays I'm usually pretty tired from classes in the morning and my Portuguese session after lunch. I might work on some reading or hang out with some kids or watch a soccer game... time will tell :)

Disappointingly, my bug bites are increasing and intensifying... I had a really good stretch where I had hardly any! I don't know if there are more mosquitos lately because we've been having crazy rain or what... thank the Lord that I don't have fleas in my bed any more, but mosquitos are getting to me somehow... even under my clothes. Catherine's still worse off than me though, and I'm toughing them out... I would WAY rather have bug bites than wake up to cockroaches on their backs in my room, which has happened in the past but mercifully not in the last little while. Every day when I wake up I peek over the edge of my bed and scope out the floor so that no bugs catch me by surprise :) I am also very sketchy going into the bathrooms... hidden camera footage would probably look really ridiculous as I push the door open and look all around before I go in, check behind the door, look up the wall in case any cockroaches are above my line of sight, and then close the door once I know it's safe. It's quite a process, mentally, emotionally and physically!

Well that's it for me today - tchau!

Day 64

Sunday school was really great today, and church was pretty good too, although Catherine and I had to wait an hour and a half after the service for a ride home. The pastor was catching up on meetings he had missed that day since he had been in court finding out who would pay for the church's gate being wrecked by a drunk driver. Happily, it will be the drunk driver paying for it!

I realized while I was sitting in church though, that my purse is very different here than it usually is in Canada. Normally I'd have my wallet and some lip gloss, a pen and my Bible. Here I pack my Bible, my Portuguese flash cards (they have a white ring to hold them together - you can see them in the top left of my purse) AND toilet paper, in case I need to use the bathroom at church, which I did. Not as glamorous as lip gloss maybe, but definitely more important!

Day 63

Tonight after our day at Free Flight, Catherine, Diego and I went out for pizza. It took forever to be made and we were all starving by the time it arrived, but it was so delicious and worth it! The best part of the whole night though is that we only spoke Portuguese from the time we left the house until the time we got back! Having moments like that and being able to see the progress that I'm making in the language and enjoying the perks - hanging out with friends! - are high points :)

That's all, I was just proud of myself and wanted to share :P

Day 62

No pictures today. This week has been great, especially in the afterglow of Pirenopolis! We haven't had the most reliable internet, but I've been managing to work away on assignments, finish a knitting project and have a great week in all the classes I helped with! My Portuguese is still improving, so that is great too.

I had a great talk with Joyce today about how things are going so far, and we talked about the book of Amos, which she had given me an assignment for. She is going to India for a conference in just over a week, so she will be away for a few weeks and it will definitely be a change. I'm not worried about it because Catherine and Frank are here and have been here without her before, but it will be strange.

I have a lot of thoughts in my head - I've been journaling quite a bit lately and thinking about different things but I don't have anything coherent to say yet, so I think that's the end of this post :) Tchau.

Day 58 - A Day Trip! pt.1

Oh my goodness... I think this was one of the best days of my life. Catherine, Frank, Adilio, Joel and I went to Pirenopolis for the day - about an hour and a half's drive away from Aguas Lindas. It was a gorgeous drive and a fun group of friends and just generally incredible.Part way to Pirenopolis we stopped to look at a waterfall, and the green hills all around it are basically the same as the scenery that we drove through the whole way.

So the drive down the highway was great - Catherine and I talked in the front while the guys beat each other up in the back in between all of us singing songs until we arrived in Pirenopolis. It is an old city that dates back to Portuguese colonizers looking for gold, and it is now famous for its celebrations during the Festa do Divino Espirito Santo. I asked Frank what giant bull heads have to do with the Holy Spirit Festival, but apparently part of the celebration involves people dressing up with these big cow masks. I still don't see the connection lol, but the colourful statues around the city were cool, and the city is SO pretty! The streets are all cobblestone and the houses are lovely, and it is so clean! :)There is a church that you can just sort of see at the top of the street through the trees. We didn't go here, but it is the oldest church in the state and there were lots of souvenirs that had a picture of it. There is also a picture of this church on the Wikipedia site, so you know it's real!

Our first mission in Pirenopolis was to see the amazing waterfalls. There is a hiking trail where Joyce always takes groups here on short term mission trips, so we went there.

The hike started quite a ways out of the city, probably 15 or 20 minutes down a dirt road. The drive was no big deal because we are used to the roads in Aguas Lindas which are still terrible compared to this, but I took a video for the scenery and to share a little bit of the experience :)

Continue on to Part 2 for more!!

A Day Trip! pt.2

This is the tough barn at the beginning of the trail up to the waterfalls.

And this is some of the scenery from the path... amazing.

Like a bridge over troubled water (?)The first waterfall along the path

Yet another bridge that rustically bent under your weight and was totally fall-offable

Another waterfall on our way up the mountain! Interesting fact: the woman whose head you can see at the bottom was wearing a one-piece bathing suit. Catherine thinks she's probably not from Brazil because... that just doesn't happen here.
This is where the path got steep. And by steep I mean... climbing with hands and feet, holding onto tree roots and the ever-present cable wires. What you see in this picture is tame.
But the path was so worth it! Part way up the path carved into the side of the mountain was another waterfall, and I braved the current to cross over onto the rock where you see me standing :) It was cool and misty and great, and then we kept climbing up.
This is THE waterfall. And that's my head swimming in it! Joel is standing in the place where we eventually jumped off, but that didn't happen until like 45 minutes of deliberation. I am proud to say that he finally decided to jump after I said I'd do it first, and my deliberations only lasted like... 10 minutes? It was a lot harder once I was actually standing in the place looking down at the trees growing out of the cliff and imagining what would happen if the impact broke all of my bones.

But then I jumped anyways! This pose is what I like to call the "fear position" where you've just jumped off a cliff and are bracing for impact, for drowning, for a wedgie... whatever you happen to get. My first jump was amazing and I was so proud of myself! My second jump was more painful and a lot of water washed through my nose into my lungs, so that was kind of a buzz killer, but it was Totally worth it!!

International Women's Day (57)

Today we had a feijoada at Free Flight - a lunch that we sold tickets for to raise some money. Apparently it was also to celebrate International Women's Day, although a lot of women had to give up their weekends to help with the event so that aspect is debateable! Food was cooked all day Saturday and also Sunday morning before the lunch started, and it was so good!

This was my plate of food - no I didn't manage to eat it all.

Feijoada is a traditional Brazilian meal (wikipedia says it's the national dish!) named for the meat and black bean stew. It is usually served with rice, couve (collard greens), farofa (roasted coarse cassava flour) and some orange slices to help your digestion :)
My job, after helping with setup, was pop girl! Also, tickets for ice cream girl because we served ice cream as desert. It was pretty complicated once people started arriving and had their hands full with a big plate and heavy food, and by the time it was over I was so exhausted from all of the Portuguese and all of the busyness that I could only lie in my bed for the first hour after we got home.

Day 55 - Back on Track

A couple weeks have passed since I've posted any updates, but there is actually not too much to catch up on. Things have been more or less the same at Free Flight, although the week of Carnaval had fewer classes and way more people around the play sports.

On Tuesday night after making cookies during the day with Catherine, I went out with her, Joel, Frank and Adilio to a concert in Braslandia (a city nearby, just over the line in the Federal District where they have more money). It was lots of fun, although also ridiculous. The first person who performed danced almost like he was teaching a Jazzercise class, except with more pelvic thrusts than I have ever seen at a rec centre.

The second group had much better music and more variation in their dancing, and it was so cool to be listening to live music in a crowd under the stars with friends in a foreign country. It was probably the highlight of my week! There are no pictures though because we didn't bring our cameras because we didn't want to have things to steal. I also abstained from buying any souvenirs they had there, including the ever-popular headband with light-up horns. You may admire my fortitude.

This next bit is a creature update: I caught a little lizard in my laundry hamper! I keep the hamper on its side on top of my wardrobe because it is both convenient and out of the way. I think I was going to toss something in when I noticed this shadow:
I don't mind lizards because
a) they aren't cockroaches
b) they eat cockroaches!
So instead of being grossed out or freaked out I was kind of excited and grabbed my camera and took pictures. I took a picture as best I could without being able to look through the viewfinder to see what the little guy actually looked like and -surprise!- it looks exactly like the gecko keychain I made at camp when I was ten. Except not blue.
Anyways, after this charming photo shoot, I poked the laundry hamper until the lizard jumped out onto a pile of clothes on my suitcase beside the wardrobe and slipped underneath a shirt. I threw shirts onto my bed, because I didn't really want the lizard living in my clothes and growing to full size and startling me to death the next time I do laundry, so I eliminated his hiding places until he finally jumped onto the floor and ran underneath the wardrobe. Fine by me, maybe he'll find something to eat under there!

Fast forward to last night: a bunch of people from Free Flight rented a nearby soccer field for an hour, and I went to watch the games. It was really fun, and it was great to have a night out. It also got pretty chilly because the hour of playing didn't start until 10:20pm, but I didn't mind because it's the first time I've been cold all week! I think that the heat has actually been making me sick because I've been exhausted beyond all reason, but I am drinking lots of water and trying to keep out of the sun. I'm feeling okay tonight, and I am heading to bed early-ish so hopefully that helps!

A Promise that I am still Alive

Well hi strangers! Last week was kind of a strange and busy week, and I think I was still catching up from not having had internet for a week. Or at least that's my excuse! Anyways, I am hoping to put up pictures and a proper update soon, but the internet isn't always reliable enough to load pictures (or video!). Also the last week or so has been kind of uneventful (and I don't want to bore you with gloating over the weather =P) so there isn't too too much to say.

Thanks to those of you who are praying for me though - I had a pretty rough patch of homesickness, and it was so important to remember all the people who believe in me being here and all the reasons I came etc. So yeah, thanks :)

The internet has crashed again... hopefully I can get this post up before going to bed.
Until next time!