May: A Retrospective

May was my last full month in Brazil. Crazy! Here’s some fun stuff I did.

-       Took a French cooking class. It was very fancy and I learned some good stuff. But mostly I ate good stuff

good stuff

-       Went to the zoo! I went with the ladies and the kids who stay permanently at the convent. It was such a fun time. I found out there is another Missionarios do Caridade in the city that only accepts men. They met us there (I didn’t know it was going to happen – one minute I looked up, completely surrounded by nuns. It was confusing). The kids loved the animals – it was such a treat to show them around and share their enthusiasm. 

       We had a “picnic” of sorts, and I’m pretty sure I had some slave-style feijoada. After lunch, we just chilled for a long time. We spread a blanket out on top of a grassy hill overlooking the ocean so the kids could nap. I layed down with them for a while. It was so peaceful. I also got to see the nuns just hanging out and having fun. Normally, it seems like their always in the midst of doing something. That day they just had a good time – laughing and teasing eachother. It was nice. This was the first time I spoke Portuguese all by myself basically all day. It went really well. It was one of my favorite days.

-       Sanjay’s Surprise Party: Our good friend Kavita threw a surprise birthday party for her husband, Sanjay. We went over a little early to help her set up, and we thought we saw him outside the house. We all immediately ducked our heads down in the car and dad tried to stealthily and quickly drive in reverse, head-down, until we were out of sight. Turns out it wasn’t Sanjay. We just panic easy, I guess. The party was lovely 

-       Ripley caught a baby monkey, and Mom and I got her to let go of it, but it ran and hid in the TV room. It’s mother was screaming for it from the tree, but it hid under the couch, in a cabinet, under a mountain of yarn…not knowing what to do. We had to catch it four or five times before we really secured it and could put it out in the tree with its mom.

-       We visited Escolar Aberta do Calabar in a Salvador favela with ASI. The American Society supports this school financially. I was very impressed by it! It seemed like an awesome school, and all of the kids were remarkably friendly. Fantastically. The curriculum is neat – the school teaches the core academics, computer skills, and capoeira. The kids did capoeira and hip hop demonstrations for us, it was very impressive. 

-       I visited the orphanage the twins like to go to – Ajuda Social das Criancas. These kids were also super friendly. We just went to play for a couple hours – very fun. One girl, Raquel, was very attached to me, and I gave her piggy back rides forever. She showed me an awesome plant she called “Maria, fecha a porta” (Maria, shut the door). When you tap it, it wilts and seems like it dies, but it revives and goes back to normal in an hour or so. I think I tried to close every one. We drew pictures, played hide-and-seek, I got but by dengue mosquitos…all around good time. The kids were so sweet. At the end, A boy named Daniel, kept blowing me kisses and making a heart shape with his hands. A girl told Amanda, “Your mom is my mom and you are my sister.”

-       I tried to make some cakes. My first attempt, a 1-2-3-4 layer lemon cake was the worst. All the batter overflowed, so I put a cookie sheet underneath it. Then more batter overflowed and the previously fallen batter burned and filled out entire house with smoke.

disaster

       I still tried to assemble the cake. It looked stupid and almost fell apart. The strawberries on top molded in record time. The second cake, a simple vanilla, fell severely. I tried to pour some glaze on top, but it basically just made a glaze pool in the middle. Then I made a buttermilk cake with strawberries. It tasted good, but it stuck to the pan badly and looked really ugly on a plate. I gave up on cakes and made blueberry pie instead.

-       Myra’s Despidida! We had Myra’s going away party at our house. We cooked a lot. We had red, white, and blue balloons. We had a caiparoska guy, which always makes a party awesome. The whole thing went really well and we had a nice turnout. Amanda held a baby for the first time ever. 

       It seemed like everyone had a good time, but most importantly, I think the Abbas’ had a good time, and Jehad wasn’t disappointed with the food

-       We finally met the twins’ best friend’s parents. They had us over for a barbeque. Pauline and her dad are Belgian and her stepmom is Brazilian. They all speak English, Portuguese, and Dutch, but her stepmom doesn’t speak English very well at all. It led to some real awesomeness at dinner. It was a really fun and funny.