Vacation Time

Sorry for the lag between blogs. Although our students are on vacation for another week, free time has been limited. Following my last post, we were able to be a part of a very special reunion. Isabelle, a girl whom my mom breast fed when we lived here 17 years ago, met her mom for the first time at Sister Rose´s house. Her mother has a skin disease that ended up killing all but 4 of the 20 kids she gave birth to. We were able to spend the afternoon with Isabelle, her adoptive parents and her entire birth family. It was unlike anything I have ever been a part of before and I felt honored to just be there. We started our Monday night English lessons with only one student, Bubbles, our trainer from the gym, but as of this past Monday we are up 8 maybe 9 students. Word has spread and we have many prospective students although we decided early on that we could not successfully handle more than 10 so we may have to turn some people away. It has been a test of my Portuguese skills surprisingly as I have to convey the English message in Portuguese. Our first homework assignment was "2 Truths and 1 Lie" all in English and for the most part our students did a wonderful job in coming up with creative statements. The money we are earning is going towards paying for our amazing maid who comes once a week. Different than I originally thought, we ended up painting a mural with the mother´s club on the walls outside of Petchi so we arrive each morning now to the beautiful sky blue walls with cute pictures of critters and children. We let the children and mothers do most of the painting but it was really neat to watch the mural come to life! We had a great turnout the first week of vacation for both Capoeida and our English class but the following week the students traveled to another city for a soccer tournament. We contemplated traveling with them but Katie got an ear infection that led to a much more serious sickness. We ended up visiting the PAM, or public hospital one night to ensure that she did not need her tonsils removed. Luckily they just prescribed another medicine and she was feeling better the next day! I spent one morning traveling with Sister Rose visiting 3 bairros that are a part of our sister parish. They are requesting monetary support to continue the construction on their individual chapels. It was amazing to me to see these poor communities working hard and fundraising to earn their share of the cost that goes into building these chapels. The gratitude from our visit was quite evident on their faces and I even walked away with a jar of honey from an appreciative family. Us girls were invited to a special dinner at the house of Amari, a close friend of my dad´s for many years. They had played baseball together back when we lived here many years ago and he has been to the United States to visit us. He lives right down the street from us with his adorable son and wife. We enjoyed a traditional Brazilian barbeque and we were in great company with many English speakers including his brother, his wife and their child as well. We have now had the opportunity to spend two morning at a company, Brass Lumber. They have a very selective program called Projecto Pescar for young adults ages 16- 19 who come from poor living situations. They attend classes at the company during the morning and go to high school at night. They are given a chance to learn about the business, health care coverage and a job internship with the company. It is a great group of hard working, dedicated students. We spent our time with them dancing and playing games such as the human knot and the macarina. We always have an amazing time with them and we have hopes to do something with them and our kids in Imbau in the future. Exposing our kids to these young adults who come from the same living situations yet have chosen to make something of their futures could be very reassuring and motivating for our students. Late last week and early this week there was a group of high school students from Sao Paulo visiting and spending each day visiting bairros and playing all sorts of games with the kids. They are kind of like a key club from the States. We were able to spend several days with them and it was amazing. Quite a few of them spoke a good amount of English and challenged myself and Megan to speak in Portuguese with them since they were so willing to practice their English. It was a good challenge for us! They were inspirational because at such a young age, they came each day with so much energy and love for the children they were interacting with. It was really special for me to get to know them and be a small part of the work they were doing. This week we missed the bus to Imbau one day and went the next day only to discover that no kids had come, so it has now been almost 2 weeks since we have seen our children and I am really starting to miss them. We have one more week of vacation in which we will still go to Imbau on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and after that we will get back into our schedule with the Project. We continue to go to the gym everyday and this has become my favorite place to test out my language skills. Generally the girls do Capoeida while I have a workout regime with Bubbles, whom I mentioned earlier. He really pushes me to speak Portuguese with him and I have learned so much from our conversations. I am continually surprised at the amount of vocabulary I have stored in my head from all my studying but it really comes out with him. The weather has been really cold this past week and I find myself never quite warming up but the past few days the sun has started to come out again! :) The weather would not be such a big deal except that without sun, our clothes do not dry. This week laundry was done on Monday but our clothes were not dry until Thursday. Other than this, really no complaints from the small town of Telemaco Borba. The three of us continue to get along way better than I could have ever expected; we never cease to stop laughing and enjoying each moment of the day. No one is ever down and out for long because we quickly step in to ensure everyone´s happiness! I continue to think of my family often, especially my Grandpa who took a spill and needed stitches and also for my Uncle Carl who was having some health issues. We have vigilantly continued our tradition of morning prayer and these special intentions are always included. We love being able to pray for special intentions from the States so if you have any that you would like us to include, please email me at lzatkulak@yahoo.com Thanks once again for your continued support of our Project and the work we are doing down here, none of this would be possible without everyone´s constant prayers and support in so many ways. I wish everyone the best as summer wraps up and kids start preparing to head back to school, something I will not miss! :)