Oi de novo! Hi again!

Time flies when you’re having fun! And we are having fun! I am having a harder time keeping this updated than I thought I would! (Too many things to do! J)

The main news since I wrote last is our Thanksgiving trip. Thanksgiving is not celebrated here, but being at an American School we got the Thursday and Friday off. I took off the previous three days and we flew to Salvador, a city on the coast. We visited and stayed with a family that my parents had their three children as exchange students, the first one 22 years ago. I met the children when I went to my parents’ home at Christmases. The parents, whom we stayed with, were even there one Christmas! Later my parents had the cousin and a friend of this family. My parents have been to Brazil twice to visit this family and were even witnesses at the wedding of the oldest daughter. Anyway, the cousin and one of the children and his wife were revisiting my parents in Illinois during the time I interviewed and was hired here. The cousin got married this past weekend in Salvador and they wanted us to attend!

What an experience! The wedding itself was in a beautiful, old Catholic church. Instead of bridesmaids and groomsmen, there were numerous couples that went up, yet different single and married people went up to sign the marriage certificate during the ceremony. Her grandmother carried up the rings, but they did have flower girls and one little boy. It was not a really long ceremony. The reception was incredible! It was at a hotel along the beach and had many more guests than the wedding. I heard 500 invitations were sent out. The food was spectacular-shrimp, salmon, other fish, chicken, beef, many other fancy little pastry-like things, and sweets, plus the wedding cake. The drinks were unlimited. There was a juice bar with numerous fresh fruits that I didn’t even know, that were made into alcoholic drinks or just juice. The dancing and music was lots of fun! They had some Carnival music and a miniature float to push people around on. The girls, as well as Bill and I loved it! I’m sure they could have made a huge down payment on a new home for the amount spent on the wedding, but his parents gave them a 2-bedroom apartment as a wedding gift. It never ceases to amaze me the difference between the two social-economic classes in this country.



Salvador itself was also a neat city to visit! It is over 500 years old-settled first by the Portuguese. It is also where most of the slaves settled in Brazil after slavery was illegal. So the city has lots of culture! The family picked us up and first took us to their beach home. You literally walked out their backyard, across the sidewalk and were at the beach. And what a beautiful beach! After a couple days at the beach home, we went to the apartment in Salvador. Various family members, took us all around to see the sites-a huge artesian market, the old part of town, the area most settled by the blacks with a lot of African influence, and a couple of huge, very old Catholic churches. We went up an elevator that connected the lower part of the city with the upper part on the side of a hill. A family member took us to a beach that was in conjunction with the Tamar Project to help protect the sea turtles.

Family members were in and out lots. One of the girls that had been an exchange student with mom and dad had two young girls, a little younger than Courtney and Annie. They lived just down the street and were back and forth playing constantly. A sister to the family we stayed with had a daughter a little older that was anxious to practice her English. She bonded with our girls instantly and we saw them often too. The apartment we stayed at was just up the hill from one of the beaches in the city too. It fact the internet has it listed as third best beach in Brazil. We went there four times! The girls raved at the fact that they got to go to the beach more times in a week than they had been in their entire life! I’m afraid they will expect all the future beaches they got to, to be that nice! Needless to say we had a wonderful Thanksgiving although it didn’t seem like Thanksgiving! It makes me anxious for our five week Christmas break!

At school my class had a Thanksgiving dinner. Parents brought in food. I had my class present a song, poem, and short skit. I missed the actual presentation, but my assistant was my sub. We are now practicing for our winter music program. We have two more weeks until our five week break. Some Brazilian schools are already out for their summer break, so my kids are really wild! The American School tries to semi-compensate with the Brazilian calendar. That is why we have five weeks off now and seven weeks in June and July. It is summer now, but the temperature has not varied too much since we arrived last winter. It is the rainy season now. The rain actually cools things down a little bit, but is not bad. You never know when the rain is going to hit. You just carry an umbrella all the time and after it rains, the sun comes back out.

Courtney and Annie are excited for Christmas! Annie finally talked us into getting a tree. We bought some lights and we made some red and green chains so our apartment now looks like Christmas! It’s hard for me to think Christmas when it is so warm, although stores are all decorated like in the US. Advertising hits everywhere, I guess! You even see some lights around and some street light poles are decorated.

The girls have met a couple of girls in our apartment building. They are Brazilian and speak Portuguese so that’s fun! Courtney has a pretty good Portuguese vocabulary, but Annie is more hesitant to speak unless she can do it perfectly!

We are having fun learning the public transportation. Just today, we got on a couple buses and rode them around-making a complete circuit. One even went to a neighboring town! We are also having fun trying all the new tropical fruits and new foods. The food in Salvador reminded me of flavors I ate as a kid in Africa. We can get mangos year around, but there are many trees around that are full of ripe mangos now. They are quite stringy, but have a wonderful flavor.

Ate proxima! Until next time!

Connie