6/100

Nothing like a bird who whistles appreciatively as you walk by to boost the ego. At least, it puts a smile on your face.

5/100 - getting smothered in hugs

Today I spent an afternoon at Esther's Children in Vera Cruz. Esther's Children (End Sex Trafficking for HER) is an organization that works to provide young girls with the opportunity to avoid a world of prostitution - a harsh and not unexpected reality for many of these girls. 

find the one that doesn't belong

According to the website, "ESTHERS uses a holistic approach to restore lives physically, spiritually, academically, emotionally, socially and psychologically.  This program provides each girl with balanced nutrition, spiritual development, academic tutoring, training in the arts, healthcare – when needed, and group counselling."  

learning the colour red bilingually

One of the ladies here (pictured below) volunteers here once a week and invited me along. Together, we taught two classes. Well, to be honest, she taught and I read out a couple of books which she then translated for the girls who were there. The ages reach from 5 to 15 and the grades vary in each group, and can be as expansive as covering grades 3 though 7 in a single group.

Esther's Children
the Reformed church here rents this space on Sundays and worships on the top level of this building

classrooms to the left of the above picture

Although the girls are the primary focus of Esther's Children, the outreach does not stop at them. Many others are brought under the care of the staff and many volunteers who come to help out with this project.

Although I didn't understand a word the girls said, it was a special experience to have. Some girls even had their first English lesson today! Despite the hardships that they have undergone, they are so willing to love and reach out. One hug quickly multiplied into a positive epidemic. Can you convey love and tenderness through a single touch and a quick smile?

For a short documentary on how Esther's Children works and has worked to transform lives, please click here.

4/100

Nothing puts you in a good mood like a good song.

I can't count how many times I have listened this song today. Sara Bareilles is a wonder singer/songwriter and her live recordings are fantastic - definitely worth a listen!

3/100

Oh Enid Blyton.

I have always loved her books and today I picked up one of her Adventure series novels. These stores never cease to delight me, no matter how many times I reread them.

2/100

I had a scare while touring around Recife as my memory card decided to quit on me. Since I love taking pictures in order to share them with those back home, this was an unwelcome turn of events especially since electronic devices have high import taxes here. However, I tried it again with no hiccups! 

1/100

Skype.

Today I had the opportunity to connect with family and friends back home. What a wonderful way to spend a day of rest to see familiar faces! Skype truly makes the world a smaller place. 

singing your blessings

Recently I saw a challenge on Facebook called 100 Happy Days. The basic premise is to post a picture each day of something that makes you happy with the hashtag #100happydays. (You can follow me on twitter here for an abbreviated version of this numeration.) As I have been working to focus on the positive aspects of my life as of late (some days it is easier than others), I thought this would be a good challenge to accept. All of these posts are collected under the tab "thoughtful things" seen above.

Please follow me as I think about the gifts and blessings of daily life and I challenge you to do the same!

strolling with the rich and famous

Oh Thursday. The last day to play tourist with these other foreigners. I did my teacherly duties in the morning, and joined the few who were still up for looking at more things for the afternoon.

The afternoon's agenda: the Instituto Ricardo Brennand, a museum, art gallery, library (which was closed :-( ), and a park. Mr. Brennand has an impressive collection and has shared them with the public, with headquarters that look like a castle. Why not, right?

With copies of things like Michelangelo's David and Rodin's The Thinker, the man has expensive tastes. He has collections of art from when the Dutch lived in the northeast of Brazil as well as many other pieces. Only some of these are protected by motion or heat sensors, so you can get pretty close to some of them. 

Wikipedia tells me that his armoury has nearly 3,000 pieces, including swords with Egyptian gold, coats of armour, an old Bible that did not have a plaque to date it, and a room of clocks, including a replica of the Big Ben.  

this sword is actually a gun

did I mention the armoury has a moat? 

One of my favourite moments was meeting an elderly gentleman who kindly welcomed us, said something nice about each of our names, and wished us a pleasant day. It wasn't until after that we realized we had met Mr. Brennand himself who was giving some guests a personal tour of his grounds. Since he owns everything, he was allowed to play the old bells that were hung in the armoury and play the pipe organ also housed there. Why not, right? He patiently posed on pictures with many eager tourists, so we didn't want to impose any further on him. However, here he is proudly showing off this old music box:

the Brennand himself

He also had what was probably an original jukebox, which one of the employees played for us. The selections were limited, but Verdi's "Le Trouvere" came out clearly.

We slowly made our way back to the car. Well, to be honest, I made my way slowly back to the car and the others had to wait for me to catch up. But who can resist the scenery?

a slightly dark view of the driveway. not too shabby…

I was particularly interested in these birds that  rested on the trees like blossoms. At first glance, I believed them to be flowers until they started moving. I couldn't get a great picture of them as I had to stand on tiptoe in order to focus my zoom lens over the hedge, so take this picture and times it by ten to get an idea of how many birds there were.

Sunsets here are spectacular, but short - none of these lingering rays of light that we have in southern Ontario. Like the demanding photo-taker I am, I asked if the car could be stopped to take a few pictures of the landscape.

A final hurrah was held in the evening as we once again clambered into the vehicles for an outing, this time for a brief one of drinks and appetizers. I remember more of the late homecoming than the actual party, unfortunately, as my sleepy state was jolted awake when I found the door locked and barred. This isn't what you want to find late at night when you just want to crawl into bed. Thankfully one of the family members heard my timid by desperate knock and let me in.

No admonitions met me in the morning, only apologies, which probably won't curb my late night gallivanting, but I'm not too keen on the late nights here when the sun pours through the windows bright and early in the morning. My newfound friends were leaving that morning, and I managed to make my tousle-headed way to say goodbye to them.

And so life has quietly returned to more of a schedule with many pleasant memories added to the collection that will come home with me.

shop 'til you drop

What defines life as normal? A schedule and a routine? If so, the past week has been anything but that.

Life did not have a chance to return to normal after an eventful and marvellous weekend in Maragogi.  On Wednesday we (the Canadians and I) headed off to Recife with our voluntary tour guide (this was an appropriate and beneficial title for him as we got some free parking out of it) for the day. After the brilliant and burning sunshine of Monday, the slightly cooler and overcast Wednesday was a welcome reprieve.

The first stop was a museum about the history of the people from the northeast of Brazil. The familiar objects of old-fashioned cameras and and fine china are juxtaposed against the religious/superstitious objects, such as these little carvings:

People who were healed of their illness after much prayer would bring a token to show their appreciation and thankfulness for the restoration of their health. Some of these limbs were rather grotesque, showing large sores and gaping wounds. Not all of them were this graphic. Carvings of babies were included in the collection for mothers who prayed for children. 

Point of interest #2: the bank and the Christian book store. The bank for self-explanatory reasons, and the store for interest. (Note: this is different than the reading room.) It's so wonderful to see a familiar looking store so far from home. I found my souvenir here too: a Portuguese Bible. Not that I can read it, of course, but, perhaps, with time… 

From there we walked along streets that lined the rivers with fish for sale in tanks and bags. What's a more logical to sell pet fish than by a riverbank? 

The Casa da Cultura was practically right around the corner where we had parked with our guide's unofficial and unasked for club card. The Casa used to be a prison but has been converted to a shopping centre within the past 40-50 years; cells have been transformed into tiny shops and bathrooms; and the building is complete with steep stairs and its original three wings. There is a lookout on the top floor in the middle of the jail from where the jailers could see in every direction. A clever design, really.

Markets were next, after lunch of course, both indoor and outdoor. (Incidentally, we had lunch at the same shopping centre where I had been less than a week before on my minister's tour. I didn't remember this from the previous time, but there is a skating rink in the centre of the mall. Brazilians wear more protection skating than they do riding motorbikes.) The small stalls are closely set together and the narrow aisles are filled with people. Similar items can be found from stall to stall, which makes the souvenir shopping for younger siblings somewhat disappointing: no one of a kind gifts here. To be fair, buying gifts for them is hard enough when half of them only want Lord of the Rings Lego… I think the largest disappointment were the lovely straw fedora hats that all came from China. Negativity aside, navigating the aisles was a fun adventure, as was attempting to communicate in a combination of broken Portuguese and English. Brownie points for understanding the prices!

We could have spent all day in the market and surrounding stores, but were herded into vehicle in order to make it to Olinda in time for the sunset. Our smooth-talking tour guide deftly managed to avoid a parking ticket and we darted through traffic to a monastery at the top of a hill in order to view the city and ocean below. 

Recife in the evening

Recife is known as the Venice of Brazil with its web of rivers that wind their way through the city at various points. Stopped at a traffic light, we saw the contrast of social classes. Shacks thrown together  of various materials with siphoned electricity next to the polished and sturdy high rises. A collision of worlds and yet never the twain shall meet.

Olinda is a historic city and a part of Carnival fills these streets. We parked at the Igreja da Misericordia, which was built in 1540, and walked along the cobblestone streets. Thankfully we didn't have to walk up or down any of them as they could give a European city a run for its money. We poked around in a few shops and then made our way to a restaurant for yet another meal. This past week has given the week that includes Christmas and New Year's some heavy competition in the food consumption department; so much so that I think this week has won. It has felt a little like a spring break. We leisurely shared a meal, admired the lights of the city, and watched the set up for the  birthday party next to us that we weren't invited to, even though the popping of the curly balloons (yes, curly balloons) interrupted our meal. There was some live music inside that we couldn't really hear, but that was fine; our own conversations were entertaining enough. 

not the greatest quality due to the light, but this is what the streets look like

I really ought to blog more often instead of lumping several days' worth of adventure into a single blog post. So let's move on to the next scene.

wearing the tourist hat

The past week has been filled busy days, quiet days, and days spent on the beach. Brazil truly is a beautiful part of the world! Perhaps I appreciate it even more because of the daily updates about all the snow back home…

Thursday was the religious tour of the city, noting important buildings that fall under that category. (I felt a little like the odd object in the "which object doesn't belong" game because of touring around with 4 ministers.)

One of the interesting things we saw was Kilometre 0, the very centre of Recife from which everything was measured. Sadly, I did not stand exactly on that point as I had to hurry and catch up with the men who had moved on already.

the streets of historic Recife

Recife is beautiful, alive with a multitude of colours. We wandered through the historic part of the city in order to make it to the Kahal Zur Israel Synagogue, the first one in the New World. It was established in 1636 by Spanish/Portuguese Jews who had lived in the Netherlands. The synagogue flourished while the Dutch controlled the Northeast part of Brazil - a little bit of history from the home front (-:. Eventually, the Jews were kicked out of Brazil and moved to New Holland, which is now known as New York. 

prayers stuck in the wall of the interior

From there, we went to lunch, and then on to the Reading Room - the Centro de Literatura Reformada - where you can find your Reformed reading resources. It's really neat to see familiar names and book covers, yet in an unfamiliar language.

so colourful even inside

And then (and then, and then) the long weekend! I was able to go to Maragogi with "the Canadians" for the weekend, a town along the Atlantic Ocean. The waters are so blue, the area so photographic. It was hard to put away my camera for even a few moments, trying to capture the beauty in order to share it and take a little bit of it home with me instead of relying on a faulty memory. We did so much that there is not anything else to do but sum up: walks along the beach, lunches in restaurants that overlooked the ocean (inches away from sand), early morning rains, attempting to order pizza without a translator, sand, waves, and brilliantly blue skies. 

One of the more memorable experiences was to have a conversation with a couple of ladies who did not speak English, and yet we were able to communicate that we were from Canada, that this was our first time in Brazil; we exchanged names, were told that the mangoes we had been eating were no good, and were generally made to feel welcome at the pousada (bed and breakfast) where we were staying. Oh, did I mention that we could walk out of the front door, across the street, and onto the beach from the pousada? Ocean lovers, be envious. The skies and waters were spectacular. 

Monday morning began ridiculously early after a late night eating an R.O.U.S. - a capybara which is the largest rodent in the world. (Do a quick google image search. They're actually rather cute. For a rodent.) I was worried when I woke up to the rain in the morning, but it cleared up just as we reached the beach to walk out to the reefs and sand bars. 

The way out was somewhat treacherous, slowly picking our way over the sea urchin-inhabited reefs. But it was more than worth it. There is nothing like standing out in the ocean, feeling the waves wash over you, watching the sun rise higher in the sky as the clouds slowly dissipate, and eating cake for breakfast. 

We did actually make it back to the pousada in time for a proper breakfast of fruit, tapioca, and coffee, before going our separate ways between breakfast and check out time. I went for a walk along the beach with a friend, stopping every few feet to gush over the beauty of creation and to snap a couple other shots. 

A hasty departure marked the beginning of the end of our stay in Maragogi, although we managed to prolong our relationship with the ocean by yet again eating practically on the beach and then lounging about, patiently waiting for traffic to die down (what a tough thing to do!) Now I can check "nap on a beach in Brazil" off my bucket list (after I quickly add it) and share yet a few more pictures that reminds me how insignificant and special I am:

ah yes, the unavoidable touristy shot

It is really special to be able to share experiences like this with others, and I am so thankful for the relationships I was able to cultivate over the weekend. 

changing my relationship status

"The Canadians" have arrived.

6 people from the Aldergrove CanRef Church, Smithers, and "the States" have come to do various jobs at the CTA - get in touch with the mission field, that sort of thing. Suddenly, I am no longer the foreigner but my status has been upgraded to familiar.

Life has settled into a routine after two weeks of being here. It's strange to think two weeks have elapsed already because the time continuum has bended (the ongoing conversation about superpowers and superheroes is catching, apparently) - days blur together in a good way, kind of like the Wood Between the Worlds. I've just arrived, but I've also been here for months. The lack of Portuguese comprehension supports the former, rather than the latter.

No exciting adventures to report since the last update, so until next time!