sunday fun

Hello All,

Well we had a wonderful first Sunday here in Maragogi. Their church services are 8 and 6, when it is a little cooler (and by cooler we mean high 20s instead of low 30s). I think today's high was 33. The day started by us having to jumpstart our car in the blazing heat. Apparently it was due to poor quality gas. We were 5 minutes late for church...so they hadn't started yet. I'm beginning to think I should have been Brazilian. There is a real mixture of clothing worn at the church, some fancy, some jeans and some shorts. I guess skirts and dresses actually are hotter with your legs sticking together. I'm trying to catch on to the reasons Brazilians do the things they do, as I figure they know how to deal with this climate. We went home and Lyla and I napped, and Shaun took Seth and Hazel to the beach. The church had a lunch social at noon right beside our house, so when they came back, we went to that. We were also late for that. We tried many interesting foods, at least to us. Goat, some quiche thingy, pizza (or what they call pizza) with things like corn on it. Another favorite dish of the Brazilians is called Manioc flour, which is made from the Manioc, or cassava plant. This flour also is what tapioca is made from. It was mixed with black beans. Also almost every meal has rice with it. The Brazilians eat their hot meal at noon. I've heard they think we're strange for eating our large meal in the evening, when you don't need the energy, but it feels weird to eat a hot meal in the heat of the day. I guess cooking in the mornng is cooler. We went to church at 6 o' clock and ended up having Lord's supper with the church there. It is amazing that God's church is all over the world, and even if you don't speak the same language, you speak the same language. We talked to Pastor Alessandro about getting his sermon so we could read along. We also asked about getting a Portuguese/English Bible, but we were told Recife would be the best place to look. People are very friendly and everyone makes a good effort to communicate with us, but there are not many Anglophones it seems in this part of Brazil. The members of the churches here love the Canadian churches, they have a really grateful and friendly vibe towards us. For example, in the school on the principal's desk there is a stand with the Canadian and Brazilian flags together. It is amazing to see the vibrant faith of the people here. We were invited to the principal and his wife's house (Bete and Moizes) for some octopus after dinner. It is cut up legs served in a sauce of things I don't know served with pasta. Kind of chewy. Shaun really likes it. We also had some paca, which is like a small capybara...now that was tasty. We had some delicious caiparoscas to wash it down, which is lime juice, vodka and sugar/mint. They taste amazing in the heat. I need to learn how to make them! A number of visitors were also there at the same time as us, and two of them was Bete and Moizes daughter, Thacianne, and her husband Hermes (who was the Caiparosca maker!). Thacianne spent I think 8 months in Canada when she was 14, and speaks English very well. It was very helpful to have her as a translater when needed. In general though, we attempted to speak Portuguese and say "how do you say....?" an awful lot. We had a fabulous time, and hope that this is something that happens often in the future.