Photos
03 Aug 2010 1 Comment
I’ve put some photos on the blog, but if you are interested in seeing all of the ones I have taken since I’ve been here, you can use these 2 links:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=182295&id=506484582&l=a5976853ea
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=187180&id=506484582&l=d121d22a5c
Ponteio Grill/Calhetas
03 Aug 2010 Leave a Comment
I’m skipping ahead in the sequence of what has happened here so I can go ahead and write about this past weekend. One of Samuel’s mom’s friends from Paraiba (the state to the north of Pernambuco) came to the apartment in Recife and stayed during the last week of our travels in Jurema. On Saturday night, her son and daughter-in-law came to Recife and stayed with us as well. They had made plans to go out for dinner with another couple and invited Samuel and I to go along with them. So we ended up at a churrascaria called “Ponteio Grill”. If you have never been to a churrascaria, or never heard of one, I’ll need to explain a little bit. First of all, there is a buffet with everything but meat on it. This one had different types of vegetables, cheeses, salami, pasta salads, bread, soup, etc. It also had a great sushi bar. I had never eaten sushi in Brazil before, but I must say that was the best sushi I have ever tasted. And now for the unique part: the waiters bring around skewers with several different types of meat and you just pick what you want…and as much as you want.. They bring the meats by your table several times throughout the whole meal. Here are the meats that I can remember: picanha (a delicious cut of beef), sirloin, steak with parmesan cheese cooked on it, a very tender roast beef, about 4 other types of beef, chicken, chicken wrapped in bacon, chicken hearts (I saw these on my 1st trip to Brazil, and I still haven’t worked up the courage to try one. I will one day though…), and 2 different kinds of sausage. You get all of this plus the buffet for around US$16.00 per person. It’s pretty awesome.
While we were at dinner, it somehow came up that the other couple wanted to go to Porto de Galinhas on Sunday. (a beach which is about 40 km away). They invited Samuel and I to go again, so we decided to go. The plan was to leave at 8:00 a.m….we left around 9:15., and that’s when things got a little crazy. We were in 2 separate cars, and the guy driving the other car called us around 9:40 as we were driving to the beach to say that he was in a wreck. So we turned around to go find them and help. It turned out that a lady rear-ended him while he was driving through huge potholes on a side road. What was supposed to be a quick thing turned into an hour and a half of us standing on the sidewalk waiting for the police to show up and then get the thing resolved. (Of course I shouldn’t expect anything different in the country of perpetual lateness.) Since we had lost a lot of time, and our friends still had to drive back to Paraiba later in the day, they decided Porto de Galinhas was too far. Someone then came up with the idea to go to Calhetas (another beach). So we all piled back in the cars and headed there. Even the scenery on the way there was beautiful…
After driving down a narrow, washed-out dirt road with cars parked on both sides, we finally made it to the beach. We ate lunch at a restaurant there and enjoyed the view. After such a struggle to get there, it was definitely worth it…
Jurema
01 Aug 2010 Leave a Comment
Regrettably, I didn’t take pictures of our pousada, but I can tell you it was nothing spectacular. I stayed in a room with 2 girls from Judson College, and thankfully we had a lot of fun together. Our room had 3 twin size beds, a fan and a small tv mounted on the wall. The bathroom consisted of a shower head, a drain in the floor, a toilet, a small sink and a mirror. Needless to say, it was pretty bare. The first night that we stayed there (Monday night) was horrible for me. I went to bed around 9:45 p.m., but didn’t fall asleep until sometime after 3:00 a.m….and then woke up at 6 a.m. Even though I was exhausted, I just couldn’t sleep. And the worst part was the fact that there were mosquitoes that kept attacking me while I was trying to go to sleep. When I woke up on Tuesday morning, I felt pretty rough, and I knew it was going to be a long day. Tuesday was the first day of work in Jurema. We started construction, the eyeglass clinic and ESL/VBS with the kids. There were only 4 translators for the whole team: me, Samuel, an older American man (Houston) who was a missionary in Brazil for over 20 years, and an older Brazilian woman (Sonya) who now lives in California. Samuel and Houston translated for the men working on the construction of the church; Sonya translated for the eyeglass clinic; and I I translated for the ESL/VBS sessions…and also occasionally did some translating for the eye exams when they really needed help. It would have been ideal to have at least 2 more translators, but in the end, it all worked out. So when we arrived in Jurema on Tuesday morning (after driving 20-25 minutes from our pousada in Panelas) we ate breakfast and then started setting everything up for the eye exams and also getting ready for the first session of ESL. I have no idea how many people came to the first day of the eye clinic, but I know we started out with around 15-20 kids on the first day. Things were pretty hectic at first, and everything was held in the same building (the daycare), so while they clinic people finished setting up, my 2 roomies and I took 3 bottles of bubbles and a bunch of bubble wands outside and played with the kids. They loved it, and it really turned out to be a great way to break the ice with them. When they finally got bored with bubbles, we took them inside and started teaching them numbers and letters in English. A few of the older kids (10-12 years old) already knew some of the numbers, which was pretty cool. And they were really into learning a little bit of English. After about 2 hours total, we sent the kids home and then had lunch with the whole team. In the afternoon, the kids came back for 2 more hours of VBS where we read them a Bible story and did a craft with them. We could tell that many of the kids were just excited to have someone pay attention to them…especially someone from another country. Here are some pics of the first day:
