bom Dia
It's 7:50 a.m. Sunday morning and I'm thinking this may be what death feels like.
If you've ever seen me in action you know I teach with my whole body. I've very active and could not stand still if I was chained in place. So after teaching for eight hours yesterday my body feels like...
You know that feeling when you get out of the pool after having been in the water for several hours? Like you suddenly weigh about 50 pounds more than you did when you were in the water?
Something like that.
In my brain, too.
But teaching is my drug of choice and I'd do it all over again if given the opportunity.
OK, I am getting the opportunity next week.
Today I'll preach at two churches, one in the community of Ibura and the other in a place with a name I can't remember and couldn't pronounce our spell anyway. Sunday services in Brazil are held in the evening and Joe told me we'll go first to Ibura for their 4:00 service before going directly to the second one.
August here in the southern hemisphere is the middle of their winter. In Recife that means daily highs in the mid-80s and the mid-70s overnight. It's pretty humid, but the ocean is about 1/2 mile away from Joe & Michelle's place. There's a chance of a.m. rain every day next week, typical for the rainy season here. It POURS for a couple of hours and then the sun comes out. Humidity climbs to uncomfortable levels before things slowly improve throughout the day.
As I was last year I'm lovin' the fruit. On a plate or juiced and in a glass. For reasons I can't begin to figure out, they add sucar (sugar) to their juiced fruit drinks. NO!! They are so sweet all by themselves, probably because the fruit wasn't picked green and then loaded into a cargo ship for a 3-week trip to the States.
I think my favorite is guava, but there's another one I really like with a name totally new to me. Can't remember what it is, either.
Joe & Michelle are pretty much the ideal hosts. They make staying at their place as easy as being on Baker Rd. And their work to organize and facilitate my teaching is superlative. Michelle translated all my slides and handouts into Portuguese and has organized the snacks and lunches for the sessions. Joe.... poor Joe.
Translating for someone who is speaking is challenging under any circumstances. Doing it for someone who talks 150 mph and uses words from all over the place only makes it more difficult. We quickly struck a rhythm that works well, except for those times that I use a word or phrase that doesn't (and probably shouldn't) exist in Portuguese.
Speaking of Portuguese, I work to use the few words I know whether or not I can pronounce them correctly. (For example, the word no is nao, which gets a very nasal sound Americans don't have in our speech.) These people laugh with & at me as I make my feeble attempts and actually clap when I guess at the Portuguese word and get it right.
We're having fun.
I'm going downstairs for breakfast now. Here that will mean a glass of fruit juice - maybe a smoothie made of several - and a piece of toasted bread similar to French bread with some cheese melted on top. It's a very good cheese I've only ever had here.
If that seems like a meager breakfast compared to what I normally fix myself on Baker Rd., it's OK. The mid-day meal is their big one and it will be BIG. Brazilians can pack it away when they want to.
There's so much more, but I don't want to keep my gracious hosts waiting on me.
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