Come Sail Away

So, last...Thursday maybe, or Wednesday we went on a daylong boat ride out to two different islands off the coast of Salvador and they were just beautiful.  The first one we were able to get in some good beach volleyball time.  My team was struggling and that might be the reason why, but I was actually not doing too poorly :) Then I got a little bit of time to swim and it was pretty cool because there were these little fish in the water that would come and nibble at your fingers and toes.  Apparently I am not the right flavor because there was only one little fish who tried to nibble on me, then he warned the rest to stay away because I tasted vile.  Everyone else got quite nibbled over.  Maybe I should try swimming with the sharks one day to see if I am appealing to them.  It is kind of disheartening to know that if I were to drown in the ocean I would not become fish food because they don't like me, I mean, how would that make you feel?  I feel just downright undesirable and plain now, they just shot my self confidence and self esteem right out the window.  It has taken years to get it to where it was, not I have to start all over again, oh bother.
    Well, if I come home all depressed and unhappy with life at least you know who to blame and you can remedy the situation by taking a fishing trip to Salvador and getting rid of all those dratted fish!

 This is the little band that was playing on our boat ride.  They were a lot of fun and played fun Portuguese songs, I didn't know any of the words, but I tried because he was leading us along and trying to get us to sing with him-it was a blast, that would be like the best job ever!

And we had an awesome sunset to finish off the day just as we were pulling back into Salvador.  We also saw some flying fish or something cool like that.  Michelle, Cristina and I sat up on the prow for the entire trip, there and back, we absolutely loved it out in the sun, feeling the wind in our hair.  It was glorious!

Doom on You

Hold an eel-check
Pet a stingray-check for the top and check for the belly
Feed a monkey-check
Go to one of the most dangerous cities in the world-check
Send my roommate to the Hospital-check
Lounge in a hammock, on the beach, on an island, in Brazil-check, check, check and check

Good times here in Brazil to be had by all.  If you have any comments or concerns about anything I just told you...well you will actually have to email me to find out since apparently my comments thingy majigger still isn't working.  Moving on

Yesterday here in Fortaleza, with my roomie in the hospital and our director with her we were sent out in small groups to infiltrate the government and plant spies throughout the network...or just to look at some historical sites-go with whatever story you like best.  I ended up going with my friend Fernanda as well as Shawndeen, Cristina, and Brady.  We had fun, but we ended up going to the wrong place and went to a theater instead of a statue, one was called the Teatro Sao Jose, and the other was called Theatro Jose de Alencar, so with Jose being in both of the names and then Teatro and Theatro being so close to one another...we ended up going to a cool theater instead of a kind of cool but not really statue (thought we did finally get over to that as well-do not worry Vanessa, we went to everything that we were supposed to!)

This church had some of the most beautiful stained glass windows in it, I feel like I just said that somewhere...maybe the last blog.  Darn it, I am officially losing my mind.  I know most of you saw it coming, you can now point at me and laugh and say I told you so, but who would expect it at the ripe young age of 25?  This is an utter disaster, hoo hoo, hee hee, hoo hoo, hee hee...breathing in and out like that isn't even helping, ahhhhhhh!
    Alright, my mind is back, crisis averted.  Anyway, this is in the top three largest churches in Brazil and if I could figure out how to rotate pictures on this computer maybe I would put in some pictures of the windows from the inside as well as the statue we went to, but alas, I have yet to figure out how to work a Mac, curse you aqua scum!
    We also went to Centro Mercado which is kind of like the swapmeet in Hawaii with just tons of stands selling different things, till you get about halfway around, or even sooner, and they start repeating themselves.  Only difference is that it is in a building, a huge building with multiple floors.

You can kind of see some of the shops behind Brady and me, cool huh!  All in all the day was really long because we decided to walk to all these places from our hotel and it was a long way, and Fortaleza is hot, hot, hot!  The way back was pure torture, but we made it. 
    I went later with Fernanda, Cristina, Brady, Mitch and Carla to a club playing techno music.  We were pretty much the only ones there at first, and then about 5 other people came but we totally rocked that joint!  I did the worm for the first time since high school, didn't know if I still had it in me and I was super nervous, but I did it twice even-my arms are sore today though, as is my neck from whipping my hair back and forth and headbanging.  If you can't tell, I had a lot of fun!

Holy Guacamole!

Speaking of guacamole...not that I really know how to spell it or anything, but you know how I was completely addicted before I left?  I am really craving some of that piece of heaven right now, (sigh of long suffering) but instead of being able to eat that I had to go to some mom and pops joint and eat a delicious hamburger, drink some Guarana (Kevin, Jimmy and Derek will be able to feel for me on that one) and watch a soccer game between Brazil and...somewhere that doesn't really matter, all while surrounded by Brazilians in the beautiful city of Fortaleza-and some people think I am lucky-meh!  Just kidding, it was awesome, you really can't get too much more into the culture than when you are gathered with your friends on Sunday, eating and having fun while watching the Brazilian soccer team win a game.  It was super funny too because after we ate we went over to a military fort and our teacher Vanessa, thought that she needed to share the score of the game and what happened during it, with the guard at the gate, haha, I love Brazilians!
     So I still need to backtrack and finish the awesomeness that was Salvador, but might as well start with what is fresh and at the front of my mind.
    First things first though, I still have a few people that I need to tell you about from the group.  So let's start with Cindy and Jordan Guillory (I hope I spelled their last name right!)  They are a young married couple, they actually had their 2 year anniversary on July 2nd out here with us.  They met while Jordan was on his mission.  He served here in Brazil, and her mom is Brazilian so she was here visiting family and they met once or twice but didn't really talk a ton.  Anyway when he got home things just worked out.  They are super cute together.  Cindy is studying speech therapy and something like...audiology or I don't know what and then Jordan is studying to be a pharmacist and also to get an MBA and he seems super excited about it.  I will have to get pictures of them on here later.
     Here are just some fun pics from Fortaleza.

 Shawndeen, Fernanda-she is a student from the English immersion program we played sports with and had the 4th of July party with.  She lives here in Fortaleza and we have been plotting to meet up ever since we met in Recife.  Hopefully I will have some pictures with Marcilio as well, another one of those students who live here.  Good group of people!  Then there is me, rocking my Porto de Galinhas shirt, and Brady is on the end.  His birthday was actually on Friday the 27th, but I will write more about him in a minute.

Above is the sunset from our first night here, so glorious isn't it.  We decided to eat dinner at a little beach front place, but even being beach front it was still a little bit in for obvious reasons (such as the tide and whatnot) but we decided to run down to the beach while we were waiting for our food and this is what was waiting for us.
    The picture on the right is in front of a stained glass window they have up on a theater downtown, fun stuff!

Fernanda and me again, goodness I just love the ocean and walking along the beach.  The sand here is super nice, soft and almost even fluffy.  If sand wasn't so messy I would just get a box of this for my living room instead of a comfy rug, this stuff feels amazing!  Almost powder-like really and it doesn't stick to your feet and legs like other sand.  Anyway, I feel like I am becoming a sand and beach snob the more we travel and go to different beaches.  Never saw that one coming.

Ok, so Brady Squires is next on our list of peeps to describe.  Like I said he just had his birthday and turned 23, happy birthday to him!  He is a great kid, one of the few guys on this trip that I have had an actual conversation with for an extended period of time.  He has really interesting conversations stored up in him so it is fun.  He served in Florida and didn't know Portuguese hardly at all before the trip but he is super dedicated to learning it and so is always taking notes, jotting down vocab and reading in his language books.  He is not too much into technology like texting, emailing, chatting and whatnot and also would rather be doing stuff 

than watching a movie.  He is trying to get into dental school right now and is really looking into doing about a year of his schooling at a school which I think is in Sao Paulo (sorry I don't have the computer with the built in accents anymore and I don't remember how to do them so the a in Sao Paulo should really have a squiggly line over it-use your imaginations).  Anyway, if he were to do a year there then he would be licensed both in the US and in Brazil so once he got a practice up and going back home he would like to come and start some down here as well.

Questions, comments, concerns or bad mouthing!

Hey there ladies and gents, fasten your seatbelts because there is a new and improved option in Tawnya's wonderful world of blog posts!  Yes that's right, you hit it right on the nose, I have finally looked into my settings and made it so anyone who ever had even the tiniest desire to leave a comment is now able to.  That's right, you can comment, be sarcastic, moan, make fun of or compliment me anytime you want (actually the real point of this message is not to let you know that you can do, it is rather a cheerful way of telling you that now that this is an option YOU BETTER START LEAVING ME COMMENTS AND LETTING ME KNOW YOU ARE ALIVE!!!)
     Phew, I almost lost my cool there.
Anywho, back to Salvador

Here are just a few pictures of the beauty, not only of Salvador, but of Michelle and I as well!

We were twinners today with our hair, so cute.  She actually did my hair for me today, but I have been doing some mean french braids since coming here, Erika and Heather would be proud!

Now on to some historical things.  Like i mentioned before, Salvador was a huge port for slave traders.  Our first day we went to a market that used to hold slaves before they were sold.  There is a basement there where they actually used to keep slaves that tried to start riots and were leaders of the revolution.  Now this basement part is actually below sea level so if the water were to rise or there was a storm, well the people being held down there would drown, and the guards wouldn't save them.  Vanessa was actually telling us that at one point President Eyring actually came here and he was going down the stairs to go and tour the place, but got such a bad feeling that he couldn't do it.  We didn't even get the option as it is closed for renovations, but this stuff is real and there were bad things that happened down there.

  There are only like, a billion churches in Salvador.  We actually got to go to mass at one of them and it is super interesting to see how they have mixed Catholicism with Canumble-the religion and practices of the slaves.  They had all sorts of singing, drums, dances, people coming in carrying stuff, it was really cool.

The only thing that I could have done without in Salvador are the cobbled streets.  Sure they are historic, look nice and are different, but walking around in flip flops for hours on end kind of takes away any appreciation one might have had for their unique beauty.  Our poor little feet were so tired after our march through the city, but it was still fun.

Parlsey on Your Plate

Hmmm, I just finished spending like, 4 days in one of the most dangerous cities in the world, where just about anything could happen, I didn't have internet access to write any blogs or emails, but do I get any concerned emails from a caring family or friends?  Nope, not one single email or facebook message, boo hoo.  I feel like the Parsley on your plate so I think it appropriate to include this song in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AiNXGFjHiY

It's more of a love song, but I think it still applies to my situation :(

Just kidding, I know you are all busy and, what's that old saying? Out of sight, out of mind, hee hee!

Ok, so Salvador is beautiful.  It might be a really dangerous city, but it was stunning.  We went to see turtles, they have a project going to protect them and help them, to show some of what they do they have a park where you can go and see some of the types of turtles they work with and they were incredible!!!  There was one pool that even had stingrays in it, I named one of them Adolfo (I am, clap clap, Adolfo).  It was so cool because you could put your hand in and touch them.  Well some of the kids from our group were petting Adolfo and he was just chilling, unmoving and unfazed at the bottom of the pool.  So I went over with a girl named Shawndeen from the group and we both reached in to touch him and he totally lifted up his...fin...thingy and caressed our hands!  It frightened me so I screamed and jumped back and got water everywhere (as did she) and we made fools of ourselves and had everyone laugh at us, it was great!  Then he started doing tricks, popping his nose out of the water, swimming up along the ledge so that his fin thingy was partly out of the water and showing off kind of like a dolphin.  I got a great video of it, I will show it to you someday, it is incredible!  They had baby turtles, they were so small and adorable, medium sized ones and really big ones.  Also they had sharks and lots of different fish.  It was really super fun to go and see.  I will include pictures at a later date but right now I am feeling too downright lazy, and no one cares about me anyway, so why would they care about seeing the most amazing pictures ever???
   Fine, I will include some

Wow, pretty cool right!?  Yeah for turtles.  For the record, I feel really silly, but I totally didn't know or realize that not all turtles have feet that they walk around on.  These sea turtles just have their little fin things.  I am assuming the can get around on land with them since that is where they lay their eggs, but it surprised me when I noticed that.  So for anyone else out there who also didn't realize this, you have now had your first lesson!

So on top you have what the bathrooms look like at this place, pretty creative huh, shell bathrooms, genious!  Then you have some of the big bad turtle guys, me and some friends hatching from our shells, and little baby, not so big and bad, turtle guys, isn't he just the cutest!!!

  

     Next we have Shawndeen, Michelle (who for the record, is not my roommate and we just laugh super duper hard every single waking moment, quote movies like crazy and have a blast!) and Natalia (we have been watching musicals together at night, Mama Mia and Hairspray, I sure love those movies, watching them, singing along and laughing my little heart out when the guys dance on the dock in their flippers, bless their souls they are a funny lot! Oh, and to top off the day I wore my brand spankin new Brazilian soccer jersey that I bought in Salvador, isn't it so cute!  Just my color as well.  So all in all the day was a success!

Day 35-we´re dropping off like flies!

Everyone is gettting sick, slowly, one at a time.  They are picking us off like we are nothing.  We are running on a skeleton crew.  Mayday, mayday, please send reinforcements!  No, but really it has been crazy lately.  Luckily it hasn´t gotten to me, and it is going to stay that way.
    Friday night we were invited to BYU Prom...which was really a Stake Dance kind of thingamajiggy where they wanted us to come and teach them some line dances....and by ´they´ I really mean the leaders, the kids were all chanting for them to keep playing forró music all night, but it was still fun.  We spent our last day of class brushing up on the boot scootin boogy and the electric slide, and then we went all out and learned the hoedown-throwdown.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fds_vawxE2Y&feature=related
That should be the link for that song, as a warning it is from the Hannah Montana movie, so if you have anything against Miley Cyrus than avoid it at all costs, but the dance is kind of fun actually!
   Yesterday we went to a museum that was about the Northeast people.  There were all sorts of cool things in there, and really disturbing ones that they used on slaves, it is sad to think of how terribly they were treated.  My favorite part of the museum was this

This is a huge pot that they would boil sugar cane in, but I fondly refer to it as my people-cooker-pot and decided that if I ever decide to take up cannibalism (which is actually frowned upon in most societies in case you didn´t know, though when I was at BYU Hawaii mom sent me some girls scout cookies, some of which were the ever so tasty Samoas.  Needless to say I just so happened to have some friends from Samoa and when I gave them a taste they no longer wondered why Maori´s used to practice canabilism because they all suddenly knew exactly how good they tasted!).  Anyway, back to my story, if I ever take up cannibalism (cause anything is possible with the economy these days you know) I need to get me one of these.  Honestly, it would be a nice way to go, just like getting into a hot tub ;)
My song that goes with it is ♫ ´slide down my rainbow, into my peoplecookerpot, and we´ll be jolly friends forever more-more, shut the door, yackety yack and don´t ´bite´back!´ ♪

 I just told Erika that I would post this picture for her, it reminds me of her and of Heather and is a general shout out to any and all girls that enjoy showering and then getting ready before getting dressed, this is from the museum we went to weeks ago.  This is an actual painting, made me laugh, sorry if it offends anyone.  Just imagine that she is a baby, you look at naked baby bums all the time when you change them and when you look at their photo albums (for some reason people are obsessed with taking naked baby pictures, what to the evs is what I say!)




Back to the museum we went to yesterday, just a few more photos.

There were a lot of pictures and objects in the museum from slaves as I already mentioned and that leads into the culture that is super strong in Salvador.  We fly there tomorrow by the way, woot woot.  It is sad that our time in Recife is over, but we have so many exciting things coming up that it makes it worth it.  And besides, that means that I will be coming home to all of you sooner than you would think, bahahaha, you thought you were rid of me forever, well sorry to burst your bubble, but I will be back!  Anyway, there is still a huge African influence in Salvador.  There is a lot of Candumblé and Maracumba which are mixtures of African beliefs and the Catholic religion.  There are some scary things that go along with these religions, dark stuff.  Think along the lines of curses and voodoo and black magic.  We´ll be super careful, now worries, but I am excited!

 Just a little bit of fun at the park tonight.  The picture above is of us doing a thing, like a racing car or horse or something, where you move your lips really fast...the next ones are of us doing our chub faces.  Above you have Matt, Michelle and me, in the chub faces picture we have me, Michelle, Brady, Carla and Cristina, and below is me and Michelle again, we are too cool for school if you couldn´t tell!  And mom, are you so proud, look at my painted fingernails, will wonders never cease!  I have painted them more since coming here than ever before in my entire life!

This is a candid photo where you shake your head really fast and take a picture just so you look really deformed and exciting, I turned out aweseome right!  We had a goodbye party in the park tonight for Carbonel, he is one of the head honchos for CCJ, where we did most of our internship, you know, the one that helped us grafitti in the favelas!  I will post a picture later of him, his wife, and me with his hair as my hair.  Yes, actually I am growing out a big black afro, thank you for asking!  You will see what I mean...one day ;)

 These last photos are just a collage of pictures and memories from Recife, I am bidding a fond farewell to this beautiful place.  Not just Recife even, but all the places we have visited so far.  Some might be on other posts that I have already done, but I love them so you just get to see them again!

 This is from Catamarão, they had quite a few little things that you could take pictures with, one was a mermaid, one was really weird and this was the other one, the captain and his first mate, aren´t we cute!  The picture above is when Carla and I went to the beach.  We had gone the week before and could walk out to the reefs, we went the next week at the exact same time and the tide was completely in and there was no beach-what the heck!  But still beautiful.

 Just a little fisherman out earning a living while riding, or rather rowing, into the sunset.

Above we have flooding in the streets, we took a bus through this to get to CCJ, they just drove through like it was no big deal.  The picture to the right and the one below were taken on our boat ride at Catamarão where we just got to explore a lot of Recife by boat and the rivers.

Just some sights around Recife, it is a big city with tons of beautifl things to see.

This old, crumbly, beautiful building is donw in old Recife.  We went there on our first day of classes when we went out to meet them people from CCJ.  They showed us around this area and this is where we got to meet all the kids and just have fun.  Below is the Recife temple, I love how beautiful our temples are, no matter where you go there is just a feeling there.  Even just looking at a picture of a temple, it is peaceful.

This is a crafts store from Caramaru, they just had a bunch of these lined up and down the street with whatever you could ever wish for inside

Above is a picture of the sunset in the sertão, to the right is a picture inside of the Brenand museum and below is a picture in the favelas where we went to graffiti.

  Some figurines.  They have a weird fascination with making ones of pregnant women, it is kind of funny.  Some other funny ones that they have are the ones that show different professions, so there is a dentist pulling a tooth out of some persons face and there is blood, or a doctor sticking something up someones little behind...they choose the most random scenes for the people to be in.

 These were taken out in the sertão, Afogados I think is the name of the place.  The table above is a kind of game (mostly played when people are drunk I do believe).  From what I understand you flip a coin and whatever circle it lands on you have to do that, some of them are funny like, walk around like a monkey, and some were probably inappropriate, but I didn´t understand them anyway!  The monkeys below, they were living in a tree in the courtyard of our little inn, so cute.

 This is from Natal when we rode the doon buggies.  this is part of the track we went on, doesn´t it just look like so much fun?  Below we have, what I think I was told, sugar cane fields.  They are super pretty, super green and everywhere on the way to Porto de Galinhas

 Fish from Porto de Galinhas, they loved to nibble my hand and they totally freaked Berkely out when she tried it, she has a hard time with fish trying to eat her.  I don´t understand it myself but you just have to smile and nod!  Below is from our doon buggy ride as well at one of the stops we made to take pictures.

 The saibloats from Porto de Galinhas.  Below is some yummy pizza that we got when we went out to eat with our family-so tasty!

 These are just some of the local crafts, I am absolutely obsessed with the little figurines of the Bahian women like the ones to the right and also two pictures down.  These ones are big, super nice and more expensive, but I bought a few of the smaller, less expensive ones and they make me super happy!  Also below is a tray that has seeds, fruit, leaves and different things in it.  I bought a clock that is similar to this and I absolutely love it!

Aren´t they beautiful?!

 These are two more of the corn dishes that we got to eat all throughout the month of June.  In the picture above is corn on the cob and then the other thing is what I made, if you remember the picture of me with a hairnet on holding some weird stuff-well that is what came out of the weird stuff!

Above I have Gil on the left and Sílvia on the right.  I love these ladies and am sad to be leaving them, of course I will get to see them the day before I fly out of Recife so that will be great.  To the right is a picture of one of the awesome guys that work in Sílvia´s building.  They are security people and are in charge of opening the doors and the gate to the garage to let people into the building.  If you aint on the list then you aint getting in-luckily we were on the list.  He usually works in the morning and is always super friendly and nice.