Let Me Smell You

Brazilians love children. When Seth, Hazel and Lyla walk into a place everyone looks at them, smiles, pats their head....and smells them. Yes, that's right, Brazilians love to smell children...mostly in their hair. A friend of ours who lived here told us it is common to put a spritz of perfume on children's heads. Well, unfortunately I find our children do not smell good. Even two minutes after they are cleaned and bathed, they become a damp, slightly sweaty, with limp hair (Hazel) and it's almost embarrassing that they get smelled. And I've even tried to perfume them up. Embarrassing, but still highly entertaining. And you will see husbands doing this to their wives too. It is a very physical culture, where in church today I noticed everyone sits super close with their arms around the back of whoever is sitting around them. And Isabel's daughter sat with us, and I think it was expressly for the purpose of the potential to hold Lyla. When church is over, groups of people surround Lyla and everyone tries to touch Hazel's hair and Seth...well Seth just runs around and the older boys will occasionally punch his knuckles. Also in Portuguese the "th" sound does not get used, so unfortunately no one can pronounce Seth's name properly. In the Bible, Seth is "Sete" so that is what they call him here. This, however, is also the word for seven. And I get the impression that Sete is not a popular name here. So when Seth says (or actually I say for him), his name is Sete, we get some very strange looks. Although I find most of the names here I can't remember because I've never heard them before and they don't sound like names to me either.

The funny oxymoronic thing about how much they love children, is how little their families are. When talking to people in the church here, they tell me that it is uncommon to have more than one or two children. Kind of like Canada, where if you have one of each sex you are either crazy or you must have had an "accident" to have a third. Which is a sad word to use when we know that children are such a blessing.