Speaking of which...
Because I already posted a lot of pictures and information about my trip on Thursday, I just wanted to record a few observations for the usual Monday post.
The first thing is that Brazilians tend to speak all at the same time, so any conversation will likely have two or more people speaking at once. I'm not sure how this affects one's listening ability, but it makes it quite difficult for a foreigner to understand sometimes, particularly if people are joking and laughing and voices are raised. It seems to be kind of a contest at first--the one who speaks the loudest and the longest wins so that the other one eventually stops talking and listens, or at least stops talking. Coming from a culture where we generally wait until the other person is finished talking, this is quite an adjustment for me.
The second thing I've noticed on multiple occasions is how Brazilians will be sitting down to a good meal and will have a whole conversation on other food that they have previously enjoyed or like to eat.
When an American visitor asked me about what types of jobs are common here, I began to think about Brazilian businesses that we don't have in the U.S. For example, I haven't ever encountered motorcycle couriers or businesses that only repair tires in the U.S., but here, both are quite common. Then there are other businesses that we also have in the U.S. but that play a much bigger part here in Brazil, such as bus lines, paint and construction material stores, recycling, bakeries, car washes and test preparation companies.
And speaking of Americans, my colleague, David, who has been volunteering in Brazil (in Belo Horizonte, Manaus, and most recently Rio) is getting ready to return to the U.S. after several months here. When he was in Belo Horizonte, he helped us with the English classes and helped Chris re-format the computers at São Gabriel. Now he'll head back home to finish up college and go to medical school.
On Sunday, I returned to Betânia Methodist Church, where the recent Volunteers in Mission team was working. I was suprised to see how much progress has been made on the retaining wall (I'll try to take pictures later in the week so the team can see for themselves). As requested by the team members, I conveyed their greetings, hugs, etc. and told the church how much the team is missing being here. Everyone there echoed their "saudades" for the group (how much they are missing having them here).
Finally, for those who know Daniel in São Gabriel, today he had a little mishap that was hilarious, although he did not find it funny at the time. After lunch, he was in the kitchen drinking some kool-aid, and he suddenly began to hop up and down, screaming and crying. Teresa, who was working in the kitchen, was frightened and unable to understand what had happened. Finally, Daniel was able to say "BEE!". It turned out that, unbeknownst to him, a bee was in the kool-aid, and it stung the inside of his bottom lip when he tried to drink it. When I came upon the scene, he was still hopping up and down and crying, but at least Teresa could tell me why. I went to prepare my mom's old remedy of baking soda paste to put on his lip, but he was too distracted to keep it there more than a couple of minutes. Later in the afternoon when it was time for him to go to school, I found him trying to cover up his fat lip with gauze so his classmates wouldn't tease him. I tried to explain that I thought the gauze would call more attention to his injury, but he was determined, so we used some small bandaids to secure gauze over his bottom lip, and off he went. Tomorrow, Daniel will accompany David and I to visit the favela close to the center in São Gabriel before David leaves.
There are two more things that I keep forgetting. First, my colleague's husband died the Thursday before I was headed to Brasilia. He had been in the hospital for almost three months. Creides' (I think her name means "believer") faith in the face of loss has been a true testimony to the Christian spirit. Their family is Baptist, and they had a 24-hour vigil with the body on Friday, which another colleague and I dropped by, and then we went to Creides' house because her family hadn't been at the church. The funeral was on Saturday, and several colleagues from both projects attended.
The other thing is that we finally have switched to "summer time" or daylight savings time, moving our clocks ahead one hour this weekend. We are now three hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time in the U.S. The original date to change the clocks was mid-October, but because there was a run-off presidential election and the election folks didn't want to have to re-set the time on all of the voting machines across the country, they post-poned daylight savings time for the whole country by three weeks until after the election. By the way, the run-off election was the Sunday-before-last, and Lula da Silva was re-elected.
The first thing is that Brazilians tend to speak all at the same time, so any conversation will likely have two or more people speaking at once. I'm not sure how this affects one's listening ability, but it makes it quite difficult for a foreigner to understand sometimes, particularly if people are joking and laughing and voices are raised. It seems to be kind of a contest at first--the one who speaks the loudest and the longest wins so that the other one eventually stops talking and listens, or at least stops talking. Coming from a culture where we generally wait until the other person is finished talking, this is quite an adjustment for me.
The second thing I've noticed on multiple occasions is how Brazilians will be sitting down to a good meal and will have a whole conversation on other food that they have previously enjoyed or like to eat.
When an American visitor asked me about what types of jobs are common here, I began to think about Brazilian businesses that we don't have in the U.S. For example, I haven't ever encountered motorcycle couriers or businesses that only repair tires in the U.S., but here, both are quite common. Then there are other businesses that we also have in the U.S. but that play a much bigger part here in Brazil, such as bus lines, paint and construction material stores, recycling, bakeries, car washes and test preparation companies.
And speaking of Americans, my colleague, David, who has been volunteering in Brazil (in Belo Horizonte, Manaus, and most recently Rio) is getting ready to return to the U.S. after several months here. When he was in Belo Horizonte, he helped us with the English classes and helped Chris re-format the computers at São Gabriel. Now he'll head back home to finish up college and go to medical school.
On Sunday, I returned to Betânia Methodist Church, where the recent Volunteers in Mission team was working. I was suprised to see how much progress has been made on the retaining wall (I'll try to take pictures later in the week so the team can see for themselves). As requested by the team members, I conveyed their greetings, hugs, etc. and told the church how much the team is missing being here. Everyone there echoed their "saudades" for the group (how much they are missing having them here).
Finally, for those who know Daniel in São Gabriel, today he had a little mishap that was hilarious, although he did not find it funny at the time. After lunch, he was in the kitchen drinking some kool-aid, and he suddenly began to hop up and down, screaming and crying. Teresa, who was working in the kitchen, was frightened and unable to understand what had happened. Finally, Daniel was able to say "BEE!". It turned out that, unbeknownst to him, a bee was in the kool-aid, and it stung the inside of his bottom lip when he tried to drink it. When I came upon the scene, he was still hopping up and down and crying, but at least Teresa could tell me why. I went to prepare my mom's old remedy of baking soda paste to put on his lip, but he was too distracted to keep it there more than a couple of minutes. Later in the afternoon when it was time for him to go to school, I found him trying to cover up his fat lip with gauze so his classmates wouldn't tease him. I tried to explain that I thought the gauze would call more attention to his injury, but he was determined, so we used some small bandaids to secure gauze over his bottom lip, and off he went. Tomorrow, Daniel will accompany David and I to visit the favela close to the center in São Gabriel before David leaves.
There are two more things that I keep forgetting. First, my colleague's husband died the Thursday before I was headed to Brasilia. He had been in the hospital for almost three months. Creides' (I think her name means "believer") faith in the face of loss has been a true testimony to the Christian spirit. Their family is Baptist, and they had a 24-hour vigil with the body on Friday, which another colleague and I dropped by, and then we went to Creides' house because her family hadn't been at the church. The funeral was on Saturday, and several colleagues from both projects attended.
The other thing is that we finally have switched to "summer time" or daylight savings time, moving our clocks ahead one hour this weekend. We are now three hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time in the U.S. The original date to change the clocks was mid-October, but because there was a run-off presidential election and the election folks didn't want to have to re-set the time on all of the voting machines across the country, they post-poned daylight savings time for the whole country by three weeks until after the election. By the way, the run-off election was the Sunday-before-last, and Lula da Silva was re-elected.
posted by Christine Piggee at
7:48 PM
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