Day 32: Day of the Chickens!!

Ahhhh, we are under attack!  I need all units to respond, we are being invaded by...wait, what is that?  Chickens?  I mean, that´s right, we are being invaded by giant, multicolored chickens.  Please act accordingly!

 They had these bad boys...and girls all over.  Think Park City with it´s moose statues, now change all the moose...meese...moosen ;) to chickens and change the location from the mountians to a beautiful beach and there you have it, you are now at Porto de Galinhas in Brazil, and a warm welcome to you!

 This beautiful beach is about an hour and a half from Recife and has some awesome natural pool things that collect fish when the tide is out and then you can take a cool sailboat (like we did in Maceió) out to see them.  The difference between here and Maceió is that the fish actually get caught in pools in the reefs so they are stuck there and can´t get away, whereas in Maceió you had to swim around to find them.

 These are some of the cute little fishies that we say, they would nibble our hand if you stuck it in thinking that you had food, it was crazy!  Below is a photo of one of the pools the fish would get stuck in.  They call it the map of Brazil because it is kind of shaped like the country, cool ne!

 

 I love walking pictures, whether they are walking towards me, or away from me.  Don´t know why but they are fun.  This is the group, we are kind of a motley crew aren´t we!

 This guy was really cool, he only has one leg and carries all of this stuff around with him, on the beach, using his crutches- in the sand, all day long!  He has all sorts of balls and buckets and whatnot on his left and then on his right is a board that has all sorts of earingg, bracelets and fun stuff like that.  I super wanted to give him some money, so I bought a pair of earings, I figure that even if he makes bank because people feel bad for him, he stinkin deserves it because he is doing all that in spite of his physical disability!  Later Vanessa went over and bought the same kind of earings from him, and then I took Berkeley over and she bought some too.  Because of that he told me that I was good luck for him and he was very grateful, it was so sweet.

This is the Berkster and I at the pools, aren´t we just adorable.  I somehow got appointed at one point to be the bag holder of our group and had like, three backpacks as well as a hat and a headband, I am still wearing the hat and headband in this picture, cute huh!





Then just a few bright colorful pictures to end our day for us.

 One last thing, then I really am done.  I just wanted to add some pictures of the family that we are staying with.  Here we have Gabriel, he is 2 and is just the cutest little guy.  He was super shy at first, but wouldn´t just hide from us, he would hide with a huge smile on his face, kind of like he has in this picture and just giggle and giggle.  He is super happy and energetic.  The next one is a picture of his dad, Donny- Sílvias ex, they still have a super good relationship though and he is over all the time to see Gabriel, or Biel as they call him.

 This is Sílvia.  She is the best, she is super nice and always willing to help us out, give us directions and just whatever we need.  She works three jobs and is a psychiatrist.  We super love her!  She wants to have two more kids some day and just showers Gabriel with love and affection!  Below is a picture of all of us, Sílvia, Donny, me, Gabriel, Carla and Adelma.

Adelma has worked for Sílvia for two years now helping to take care of Gabriel, cook the meals and keep the apartment clean and nice looking.  She lives here most of the time and gets two or three days off every two weeks when she goes and stays at the house of her mother-in-law...really the mother of her boyfriend.  She has a four year old son that lives in the interior of Recife with her mother but she hardly ever sees them.  She is awesome, she cooks the best meals and is always singing and happy.  Her birthday is tomorrow and she will be turning 26.  Donnys birthday is also coming up on Monday, so yesterday we had a little party for them.  We all went out for pizza, and then Carla and I tried to make a cake, we bought a little cake mixture but some of the eggs in the fridge were bad so while I was in the shower Carla ruined the mixture with one of those.  I get out to find her trying to air out the kitchen and almost dry heaving because of the smell.  She tried to rinse it all down the sink, but it got clogged up and she didn´t know how to unclog it, so it was smelly!  I tried to make some brownies and we eventually found enough eggs that were not bad that we could do it, but let me tell you, it is definitely an adventure when you go to crack that egg open not knowing whether or not it will come out all nice, or if you will be attacked with the scent of doom and destruction!  Next problem, they don´t really have cocoa here so I had to use the powder for chocolate milk.  For awhile there while it was cooking I didn´t know if it was going to turn out, it looked super funky and was like bubbling around the edges, but it turned out alright if maybe a little too sweet.

 

Day 31: ♪Downtown, things will be great for sure♫!

So yesterday we went downtown to old Recife again and went and toured some of the cool things down there.  The first place was a Jewish synagogue which is said to have been the very first one built on the South American continent!  We watched a movie while we were there and I honestly went to bed singing that one song that is always played at things pertaining to Jews-kind of sounds like the bagpipes or something.  We also went to ground zero, which I can´t really remember whether it was where people first landed in Recife, or if that is where they got everything started, but it is a very significant place any way you look at it.

This is a cute picture of all of our cute mugs...er well our cute/slightly dirty and oh so lovely feet touching the spot that marks ground zero. 

These were taken at the same spot, Ground Zero.  There is a dance that they do here with these little umbrellas, you should look it up on youtube or something, but we all just decided to jump and pose with them and play all cool and whatnot! 

We have, starting on the left, Shawndeen, Carla, Natalia, Michelle, me and Cristina.








Ok, for the people that you are going to meet today, we have an excellent lineup.  We will be starting with Michael James (Chiago as I like to call him) Andraszczyk-his ancestors are from Poland and yes, that really is his last name!

Michael is actually doing the same major as I am, Latin American Studies but he is doing a business minor as well.  He served his mission in São Paulo, though I doubt it was the same mission or even the same time that Mandy served there.  Michael used to play the violin utnil he was about 10.  He wants to learn how to play the piano and the guitar.  Lucky for him he is dating (quite seriously I might add) a girl named Jessie and she just happens to play the guitar as well as she is a concert pianist!







Michael really enjoys singing and while we were painting CCJ him, me, and a bunch of other people were just singing our little hearts out to Disney and everything else, he has a super good singing voice.  Michael used to play football, but broke his back while playing it so he quite.  He also used to play basketball, but one game his dad told him that he shouldn´t go and play, he went anyway and ended up either breaking or really hurting his ankle so that he wasn´t able to play in the championship-moral of the story is to obey your father!  He eventually gave all that up though in order to run crosscountry and track which he currently does as a part of the BYU track team.

Michael is super funny, has great ´dad hair´as some of the girls like to tell him, and is just an outstanding person. He knows what he wants and he is not afraid to go and get it.  He is from California, Jessie is from good old Sandy, UT.

Next up we have Danilo, he is the son of our director, Vanessa, and is 13 years old.  This kid is big though, kind of like Riley he just sprouted up and looks like he should be a lot older than he really is, and sometimes we forget that.  He likes playing baseball-he plays on first base, and also basketball.  He knows how to play the violin and he is going to take guitar lessons from Berkley when we get back.

When I asked him what his favorite food was he said simply that it was food.  He is hungry all the time, and when he is hungry he gets a little bit grumpy-but Vanessa is quick to feed him so we haven´t had any meltdowns!  I next asked him what his favoite band was and he came up with this awesome analogy.  He said that picking a favorite band was like picking a favorite child, you just don´t do it (unless you are my mother, then you most certainly pick the youngest as the favorite!), and then he added in that picking a favorite food was like

Picking a favorite ancestor-you don´t know most of them, they are pretty much all good, and how the heck are you supposed to pick a favorite!  He´s a funny kid and has tons of energy.  He is a student body officer right now at his school, and his dream is to get a record contract someday.

Last, but definitely not least we have Shawndeen.  Shawndeen is also currently dating someone, his name is Steve and they met before she served her mission in Brazil when they both worked as EFY counselors together.  Yea, she is cool enough to have done that as well!  Shawndeen is into dancing and was a cheerleader for many years, working more with competitive cheer than the ones that jump and yell at sports games.

Shawndeen was super involved in community theatre and drama while growing up.  She has been in a lot of plays and musicals, her latest being the BYU production of `Thoroughly Modern Milly`whenever it is that they did that.  Her and her sister even used to direct a show choir and just had a blast with that.

Shawndeen is studying Portuguese with a minor in math.  Her and her roomate Michelle live with a Chinese family here that actually own China town.  So instead of getting Brazilian food while living in Brazil, they are actually eating Chinese food all the time!  Shawndeen also plays the guitar, and she loves to sing-hence the reason she has been in musicals and enjoyed doing community theatre.

Days 29 and 30: Natal-Sand Dunes and Camels

I am in love!!!!  Maybe I will move to Natal, this place is absolutely amazing...then again maybe it is becaue I am a tourist and so I had two days to enjoy it and only saw the fun, awesome things...nah!

We went to an awesome beach-well the water was kind of dirty with wood chips and seaweed and lots of dirt floating around in it which clung to my body like crabs to a fanny pack, but the waves were fun and we ran out there and just had fun floating on top of them.  But the amazing part came when we went out to the sand dunes in these awesome doon buggies!  We had four people to each buggie-one in front and three in back with two sitting on the seat and one sitting on the back-so fun!  It was an hour to two hours long and we stopped a few times at the most beautiful places to take pictures.

This was one of the scenic stops, this pool is made by rain water that collects in this valley, the water is crystal clear and the location is simply beautiful!  These are all the gals on our wonderful trip, don´t they all just look like so much fun.  I tell you, don´t try to contain all of this or there will be consequences!  We have, starting from the left, Michelle, Cindy, Shawndeen, Michele, Carla, Sara, the one and only Tawnya, Cristina, Natalia, Berkely and our fearless leader Vanessa!

Just another picture of our cool doon buggies and the water pool in the middle of the sand dunes, I think it is super pretty.

 This was the next stop we made.  This dune drops off pretty steep till it gets down to another thing of water.  Some of the guys decided that they wanted to go running and jump off the edge and see how far down they could get, it was actually pretty cool if maybe a little bit silly of them to do.  The sand here is super soft and fine, the perfect sand for jumpin in, laying in, walking in and just enjoying life in!  Here´s another picture of Carla and me.

In this picture we have Brady Squires and Doug Porter ( they are two of the people that decided to jump off the edge, and they last jump they decided to do flips over the edge-boys will be boys I guess huh!)  Well Doug is married to a beautiful woman named Abigail.  She actually graduated from Duke and they got married while both of them were still going to school, so what they did is she would do one semester at Duke, and then they would move back to Provo and he would do a semester, then back to Duke for a semester and so on and so forth until she graduated, how crazy is that!?  If I remember correctly they met at the wedding of one of his mission companions who was actually marrying Abigail´s sister.  Doug is studying Spanish translation and is hoping to graduate soon.  If there is one thing that anybody in this group would tell you about Doug it is that he has got to be the nicest person we know.  Doug is genuinely a good person, super thoughtful of others, always helping, the first to do anything to make another person feel good.  He is always at the front of the group paying attention to whoever is talking, asking sincere questions and making all the people we visit feel really good about themselves.  He has a habit of noticing anyone hanging on the outskirts and bringing them in and involving them.  One example is, when we were in the sertão we went out for dinner one night to this square that had a bunch of different stalls to choose from.

 When we got there this kid watched us walk past and heard us talking, he kind of followed us and then was leaning up against the counter of where a lot of us were ordering our food.  When Doug started to order the kid scooted over to hear better-just listening to our accents and to us speak English I figured.  Anyway, no one else even noticed him or bothered, but Doug saw him and started up a conversation and it was just super nice.  Another night we were all waiting outside of the office of Diaconia, the place we are doing the internship with.  We were all tired from a super busy day.  A lady that lived next door came out and was sweeping the leaves and dirt from the sidewalk into the gutter, and then into a dustbin to throw away.  Well Doug went right over as she was working and offered to help with the dustbin and help the work go quicker.  That is the kind of guy that Doug is.

No, I did not pull this picture off of the internet and pretend that there are camels in Brazil, there really are!  We were super excited to ride these fellas along the beach, but it turns out that it cost 40 reais (approximately $20) per person, for a 10 minute ride, being led by a guide pulling the rope, around a small enclosure-and you don´t even get to sit on the hump but to the side of it!  We came to them after the doon buggy ride and since nothing could have beaten that anyway we just didn´t feel like this scam was worth it.  Sure, it would be cool to say I have been on a camel, but I will save that for when I travel to Egypt.  Nonetheless, it was still super cool to see them, aren´t they just cute!

Day 27 and 28: João Pessoa

Ok, I have some time and some photos so let´s back trach just a little bit shall we?  So, João Pessoa means John the Person, nice eh!  Well we got there and checked into a different hotel.  Poor Doug, he is super tall and his feet were hanging off the edge of his bed, oh the joys of being short, hee hee, never really have to worry about that one.

 

    Anyway, we went to the beach and there was this ship anchored just off the shore called Pirata, the Pirate.  We were sorely tempted to go and comandeer the ship and then attack all the other ships in the harbor-but figured we would probably get in trouble or some such rubbish, and there´s the little problem that we don´t know how to man a ship...

 This is the beach where we went to and a view of the city.  The water was so pretty here, nice and clean, but the current was strong and kept pulling us away from the city and away from our group.  One could look at that as an analogy-we can´t be content with where we are in life and simply stop swimming, cause the minute we do we are slowly carried farther away from where we really want to be and if we don´t look to shore we can be swept away from everything-dun dun dun, deep huh!

This is Roger the crab, Natalia likes to name things about as much as I do and we always come up with really good names together, though Roger is all her.  A bunch of people in the group worked on this elaborate castle, some of the Brazilians even came and helped out, and then they found Roger and we pronounced him kind of the castle-only problem was he didn´t want to be king of the castle and kept trying to escape.  This picture shows him slowly trying to edge his way over the wall!



Only a few of us actually went swimming, here we have (starting from the right back) Michelle, Shawndeen, Cristina and I, and then in the front is Danilo, he is Vanessa´s 13 year old son and he sure does have a bunch of energy-he is fun to have around.

 A few people from our group decided to play a rousing game of football while we were there, Josh scraped up his knee unfortunately and we had some of our first bloodshed of the trip (well the first that I know of anyway-other than the horrendous blisters that Michelle McMurry got at the beginning of the trip)

After the beach we hurried and cleaned ourselves up, got real respectable and presentable lookin and all, some of the guys even washed behind their ears (though I have never understood the reason behind that, it´s not like anyone really looks there, so why should we wash it ;) ) and then we headed of to the pier so that we could get something to fill our growling bellies and also to listen to this guy play the saxaphone, he is pretty good.  Good enough that this other guy is willing to row him around for a long time while he stands there and does nothing but breathe in and out and blow air through this instrument.  It was really fun actually, he even came later and preformed Ave Maria at the restaurant where we decided to eat.

The last thing I want to mention about the trip is that I went absolutely crazy for earings (which I hardly ever wear but maybe this will be the start of something beautiful) and I bought 5 pairs-I know right!  These are some of the ones I bought and I just love them.  I also went a little bit crazy out in the sertão and bought a bunch of bracelets and stuff made from the seeds of the caatinga out there.  I know that I don´t really wear this kind of stuff, but maybe I will start, and if not then the money went to a super good cause anyway.  I think I mentioned this in a past blog, but the kids get together and make this stuff-first of all to give them something to do, second to give them an income and a way to help out their families.

A few of these belong to Carla-they just helped to complete my picture (the two necklaces on the right and the bracelet just to the right of them).  These are what I bought from the group of kids in the desert-no calling dibs on anything, I may or may not let anyone steal these from me (cough-Erika-cough)




A few more introductions now:

Cristina Cowley is the one on the right, sitting at the end of my chair in this photo.  She is super funny!  She is the proud mother of four kids, three girls-Tiffany, Vanessa and Jessica, and then one boy-John.  Cristina is getting her masters right now in Portuguese.  She really wants to use her native language-she was born in Portugal and so has a funny accent sometimes, especially with the letter s, she often turns it into a sh.  Her kids understand a lot of Portuguese but don´t really know it and she is kind of sad about that and so looking for a way to really leave a  heritage of Portuguese one way or another.

Cristina is a trouble maker, she is always in the thick of everything and always making everyone laugh.  She is always up for anything, one of the first to jump in the ocean everytime we get there, always involving herself in any game that we play and just making the most of everything.  She has a hard time sleeping and only gets a few hours a night so she is always up late talking and laughing and most likely causing trouble, and then she is back up bright and early in the morning.  I knew her a little bit before the study abroad because she taught one of the language labs that I had to go to for Portuguese 101.  She is just a really nice person, fun to be around and always enthusiastic.  One of her little quirks is that she does not like to put on sunscreen.  She will put protector on her lips, cause she hates for those to burn, but everywhere else she generally will refuse.  We keep warning her that she will probably get skin cancer and she bluntly informs us that everyone has to die sometime, and if she does then she wants white roses at her funeral!  What a kid huh!

This is just another example of how fun she is, aren´t we cute with our George Washington hair styles?
Oh, and if that wasn´t cool enough, she actually served in the same mission as Brent Bishop!  Elder Bishop (as she so fondly calls him) was one of her district leaders or something, how funny is that, the world is super small, especially within the church.



Next we have Joshua Barton- AKA The double dub- I have officially dubbed him, as of today, the walking wikipedia of the group!

Josh is a history major and knows pretty much everything!  He is one smart cookie, today Michelle came up to me today in a museum and asked me why some of the monks and stuff had marks on their hands like Christ did, if it was symbolism or if they had been crucified as well or what.  Well I had no idea, so I sent her Josh´s way and he was able to give her a text book answer!  And that is just one example, he is super knowledgable and a really great guy.  He served in Brazil as well, actually in the same mission as Natalia in Brasilia.  I think that they also live in the same stake, or ward or something so that is fun.  Her mom really wants her to marry him, but neither of them are very keen on the idea so it is super funny!

She´s the one on the left if you forgot what she looks like and he is on the right (if you forgot what he looks like as well!)  Josh has been growing out a moustache while here and took a vote the other day with our group to decide whether or not he should keep it.  At first I vehemently declared that he should get rid of it as all staches are disgusting.  But upon further contemplation I came to realize that he is one of the few people I have EVER seen that can actually pull it off and not look like a pedifile or something equally disturbing! PS-this picture has three of my very most favorite people of all time in it-I have made such good friends on this trip!

So that is a little bit about Josh.  Oh, and he loves Star Wars and in class he is constantly doodling pictures in his notebook, pictures of Darth Vader and other Star Wars characters!  He is super good at remember directions and landmarks.  He is staying in a house with three other people in our group and none of them have bothered to learn their way around or remember what stop is theirs or anything, they just follow Josh!  It kind of annoys him, but what can ya do besides ditch them and let them suffer-bahahahaha, but he is too nice for that!