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:
