English Class and Hanging out with the neices!

I have an English Class every Saturday where I help out a friend from church and answer questions about culture and ask the students about their culture.
Last Saturday everybody brought some Brazilian cuisine. There was brigadeiro, ¨sighs¨i dont remember the word in portuguese, 2 types of cake that wasnt made with flour but was good, some kind of lemon mousse, pão de queijo (that was my favorite!), and I brought my chocolate chip cookies and snickerdoodles. It was cool.

When I came home from class, Sarah and Sophia were playing and I guess we decided to be a bunch of fatties! hahahahaha The pictures are the events that followed...

Fake-o chunkers!
Too much coxinha for Sarah! rsrsrsWe did surprised faces...Sad faces...Just weird faces I guess...
I think we´re singing...or tired?
And Sophia had a diet shake and last weight...sell-out! rsrsrsrsSarah, Sophia, and me

Futbol!!!

Downtown Campina Grande!!

Downtown!!!

I really don´t remember what the name of this is...but it´s beautiful and it´s kind of a big landmark for the city. It looks like a postcard to me! rsrsrs

Some statues downtown!

Palmtrees! You don´t see that in NY! rsrsrsrs

When we first went to one of these I had no idea what was going on...but now I´m a regular! rsrsrs

One of the many churches downtown...

The Parque de Crianças!!! This is where I go to the library!!!

The Library!!!!! I go here for my interviews and find out more!!

Cool animals next to the park.

Really funny...right before lunch, the roads get really full of kids coming home from school. I was late to take a good picture of the roads really full, but I think it´s really funny because it´s like clockwork. Every day. right after school. home. for...LUNCH!!!! dun dun DUN!!!
Just an awesome picture of houses in Brazil!

My next attempt to post pics...hopefully it works!!!

COOKING SHOWS!
This was about a week ago...
But it was Sarah´s birthday party! All the girls got dressed up! Sarah turned 7!!!

Me, Sarah, Sue-ellen, e Sophia

I helped make coxinha!!! It doesn´t actually take 5 hours to make...so maybe I´ll make it more often! rsrsrsrs

I made ¨chocolate chip cookies¨ (they didn´t have chips, so we settled for sprinkles rsrssrsrs) and snickerdoodles.

Salgados e doce! Mainha and Danielle!

Chocolate Cake and coconut everything else!

Cleumar e Danielle!!! Com Roberto Carlos!

Deborah was a little attached to the Roberto Carlos dvd she got for her birthday...rsrsrs

Danielle putting the finishing touches on the cake!

Daysi and the birthday girl!

Mainha e Sarah! Bonitinha!

Festa!!

Parabens pra Sarah!

Cutting the cake!

I think Avo got the first slice!!!

So far, I can´t download any photos. I think it´s because the pictures are too ginormous for blogger to handle...

The Party Bus

Saturday:

We woke up at 10am and realized we slept really soundly. After having a little breakfast of cheese with bread and some yogurt drink that I really like *super filling and tastes good, two really good things*, we piled into the party bus and went to pick up Danielle and Maeinha from Olinda (they went to a business meeting). After picking them up, we went to Old Olinda and it was amazing!!!! I loved everything!!! As we got into this old downtown where they have Carnival, some guy jumped into our car and told us he´d help us get around. Apparently he noticed what kind of an obvious tourist I was with my head out the window taking pictures of everything I saw because it was all new and exciting and different and in another language. So like any official tour guide, he told us all kinds of crazy stuff about the old city. We saw the first law college of Brazil that was established, big dolls that they use for Carnival, an old hospital, ¨the most beautiful woman in the world, or maybe it was just brazil¨i forget...but we took a picture of her, and little carts selling different knick knacks. Apparently, Dayvisson haggled to lower the price of a pair of earrings and a necklace that we bought. I also tried tapioca for the first time with cheese, butter, and coconut. The tapioca wasn´t like anything I feel like I could describe and the coconut wasn´t sweet, it was just crunchy, but it was good and different. We took lots of pictures there. We also bought little umbrellas from a guy on the street for a good price according to everyone since Dayvisson´s Dad is one of the best world hagglers.

After that, we went back to the temple´s lodge and bought some different church things in portuguese. I really like hanging out with the neices and they seem to like correcting me a lot and it´s pretty funny to understand that my portuguese isn´t good because i´m an american and they only speak the truth. hahahahaha. but I think I´m getting better!!!

After the lodge, we went to a local church that was apparently an old church that the family used to go to when they lived in Recife. It was really awesome to meet so many great people and speak with different people and understand more. I tried my first coxinha in brasil and seafood type coxinha which I forget the name for right now. We also met Dayvisson´s brother Junior and his wife Julianne for the first time for me. They´re all just really nice. After the party or reunion of a few friends, we went outside and I saw an American for the first time since the day before which was kind of weird, so I was really excited. It was an American missionary and I just yelled at him ¨hey you´re an american me too!!!!! Where are u from???!!!¨and talked with him a little bit. I guess he was surrounded by a lot of kids under the age of 8 which I hadn´t realized until a little boy about that age came up to me while I was about to get into the party bus and just stared at me for a good 15 seconds like I was an alien. I asked him how he was in portuguese and english and he barely answered me and then ran away. It was really funny!!!

We piled into the party bus again to go to Campina Grande where Dayvisson´s family is living right now because Dayvisson´s sister´s husband is studying to get a degree there to get a PhD. Anyways, we got in the bus and watched ¨Provo de Fogo¨which was kind of different.
We were on our way there and finally got to his parents house and slept like rocks.

Brasil so far!

Just some brief updates.

Friday:

The first thing we noticed when we got off the plane was that everyone was wearing masks at the receiving point when Brazilians and ¨others¨. Apparently, Brasil´s airport in Recife is taking all preventative and non-necessary precautions to protect their country.
Next, Kelsi met all of the nieces, and the 3 sisters. Deborah, Dayvisson´s sister who´s had some medical problems in the past was a back-breaker hugger and she´s known for not taking no for an answer...very strong.

We all piled into a party bus and I was given my first taste of juice ¨suco de ova¨which was different and some sweet popcorn called ¨pipoca doce¨ and the nieces are all under the age of 6 and all really awesome to be with because they speak simple things.
Our first stop was at a bunch of houses to meet old friends and places that their family has lived in Recife. It was all very different, and I almost smacked a motorcyclist in the head when I stuck out my hand out the window. The cars drive pretty close together on the roads.

First thing I ate was at a churrasco where the ketchup had a hint of a rum taste and the place had mouthwash in the bathrooms and there were two vendors who just walked into this outdoor restaurant. One vendor sold cds which one dayvisson bought two cds from and lowered the price, and the other was selling belts and demonstrating how cool they were at the table. Really funny! Another thing cool about the food I noticed there was that the flavors were super strong! Nobody beat around the bush to demonstrate that their was salt or that soda was soda or vinagrette was vinagrette. Everything had a kick and it was awesome. We took pictures

After, we went to a friend´s house (Marlene) (*this was very awesome because I tried Dayvisson´s favorite juice suco de caja*) and tried to fix our party bus´s AC because it wasn´t working which was pretty difficult because it was extremely hot and humid. After a few hours that Dayvisson´s Dad and the driver were gone and playing with the neices, we went to the Recife Temple lodge, left all of our huge luggages there, took showers (after the 24 hour trip, so I was way excited), and went to an institute dance nearby to see some old friends of the family and dance. EVERYBODY went, including the neices but apparently it´s common. It was really hot but a lot of fun and we took pictures and met Fred and other friends.

We went back to the temple lodge to sleep and I continued to try to communicate with everybody. Especially the neices and Daysiane who speak slow enough for me to understand things. We played Uno and went to bed. Awesome day!