Little Christmas Miracles ... This is a Must See!

Being in Brazil this Christmas has shown me and Jonathan more about the different cultures around the world than I think we imagined it would. Of course, there is difficulty everywhere, but coming from the United States to Brazil can show a person just how much we sometimes take for granted. Don't get me wrong, there isn't necessarily fault in this - if you have never been anywhere else, how do you know what you have? I am hoping this post will portray the happiness that is felt through the smallest things in life, and show us all how blessed we truly are.

Jonathan and I have spent a little time with Kenia and Brad, a couple that lives in our building. Kenia is from Brazil, and Brad is from Canada (he was very thankful for English speaking folks to move into the building ;) ). Kenia volunteers at Casa do Menor Nova Canaa, a nonprofit program/extra school for children from ages 5 to 13. She asked me if I would like to join her in giving presents to the children when Santa Claus visited the school - I immediately said yes.

Casa do Menor provides these kids with things they aren't necessarily able to get at home. Stability, an afternoon meal, dental services, extra schooling in each subject, a computer lab, etc. Every day, each child goes to his or her normal school, and then goes to Casa do Menor Nova Canaa.

To give you a little insight on the type of children that attend this school, it is mainly for those who are poor and/or have a very difficult home life. There is no one 'type' of child in attendance. We were told the unfortunate story of how a few of them would put meat in their pockets to bring home to their younger brothers and sisters who weren't yet old enough to attend Casa do Menor. For some of them, the meal they eat at Casa do Menor is the only one they receive. Many of the children's parents work multiple jobs and are not able to be home at night to cook.

In order to raise money for the school, the women that volunteer make items to sell at auctions. They were kind enough to show me a few things:

A knit bag for your swimsuit when it is wet :)

After speaking with these women, Kenia took me inside the school:



Computer lab for the kids

 

The dental room

Kenia shared with me that there are five prominent dentists in Uberlandia that volunteer at the school three to four days a week to make sure the children are receiving check-ups and their teeth are coming in properly.
After my tour of the school area, Kenia took me to where the children were playing and where Santa was going to be coming.

Before we could even get underneath the canopy, the children came rushing over, immediately asking questions: Who are you? Where are you from? Do you have a boyfriend? Ha ha!


Me and a few of the kids

There are about 150 children that attend this school, and a few of them were definitely camera lovers, so they stuck with me for most of the day :) :

Aren't they just adorable? Right after I finished snapping these, I saw the face of an angel! This little one, Pedro, was one of my favorites:



He's just beautiful!

In the play area, the volunteers have provided the children with a trampoline, a moon walk and a fooseball table.

Before Santa arrived, the children wanted me to snap a few more pictures; and I, of course, had no objections:

The part that just really tugs at my heart ... these little ones are so happy, and they really have nothing. All of the people that volunteer here live for these kids, in the hopes of giving them a better life. If that's not Christmas, I really don't know what is :).

It took me awhile to finally get a picture of my favorite volunteer (these kids LOVE to move around, I wish I had their energy!) and the person that made this experience possible for me, Miss Kenia:



Kenia with the kiddos

The next thing we know, here comes Santa Claus! The kids were on him before he even reached the building!

I can't imagine how hot Santa must have been. Wearing that suit in Brazil .... thank goodness there was a fan for him:

Santa and his fan

Once everyone was settled, the children told a Christmas story and sang Christmas songs, and then it was time for presents. These kids were so thankful for each gift they received. For some of them, this will be their only Christmas gifts:



I just love her!

One of the men that makes this all possible for them is Jaime. He cooks for the children every day, and when you hear him talk about the school and wanting to help these kids as much as he can, it is evident that every word is coming straight from his heart:


Jaime with a few of the kids

 

The woman in the picture above is one of the volunteers at the school. Her daughter sponsors the little girl she is standing with, so she is the one who bought her these precious Christmas gifts.

This little man was my boyfriend before the end of the day:

It was so hot that day!

After all of the gifts were distributed and the children went back to playing, Kenia and I were about to head home. But first, I wanted a group shot with some of the kids in front of the Christmas tree. Remember how I said they like to move around? Well, here's the proof! Our attempt at a group shot:

They are definitely quite the little posers! After seven attempts at it, we assumed at least one of them would work ... but when I got home and looked through all of the pictures, I just couldn't resist putting every single one of them up here!

Such a wonderful and humbling experience.

A few days later, Enio (a sales rep Jonathan works with) asked us if we would like to go to his church with him on Saturday night. We were excited about this because one of the things I wanted to do before leaving Brazil was attend a church here.

Enio's church is wonderfully quiant. It is tiny, probably one of the smallest ones we have ever been in. Enio told us the story of how the church was created, and it quickly became apparent to us that this small group of people was responsible for every single dime that went into its creation.

We were lucky enough to attend the church on the night of its Christmas program. One of the women that attends the church, Lilia, is from Jamaica and married an American - so, she spoke perfect English! She sat with us and translated the entire sermon for us.

The night began with the choir singing to the band, in which Enio plays electric guitar:

Enio is on the far left (back)

The man sitting closest to the camera is sitting on his 'drum' (I cannot remember the proper name for this). The church couldn't affort to buy a drumset, so they built this instrument for him (and the man knows what he is doing, which you will see in just a few moments!).

The church choir

The group proceeded to tell the story of the Birth of Jesus, and the props that were used for each scene were all hand drawn and painted:

Next, the children all lined up to sing for the audience. While the children sang, the pastor played guitar:

Lilia, the woman that was sitting next to us, teaches English at the university here. She has also been working with a group of people at the church on singing a few songs in English, and THAT is when they graced us with "Silent Night" in English! It was great.

After the program and sermon ended, we were all standing around talking, and Enio had mentioned to a few of the guys that Jonathan can sing and play the guitar. They had been begging him to play for most of the night, but he kept saying, "I have no idea what you are talking about. I am not any good." HOGWASH! After a little sweet-talking, I was able to get him to participate with the guys. It was truly, truly a great thing to watch ... which is why I am SO glad that I got it on VIDEO! The volume is a little shaky at times due to the echo and amp being a little too loud. (Watch them both :)):

The honesty and rawness of playing with these guys ... maybe you just had to be in the room, but I really don't think Jonathan could ever repeat this type of experience again - me neither, for that matter. When Jonathan started playing 'Hotel California', it was amazing (and quite funny) to see all of these Portuguese-speaking people start singing the words to the song! They were all so happy and thankful that he played; a few of them were literally tipping their hats at him to the end of the night.

These small things ... probably two of the best days we have had in Brazil.

To our families:

My how we miss you so! As difficult as it is to be away from you during this time of year, please know that you are in our thoughts every single day. Even though we are wishing we were with you, we can't say that we aren't enjoying this gift God has given us.

We are headed to the beaches of Ubatuba, Brazil, next week to celebrate New Year's with Mariana and her family. We will definitely be blogging about that experience!

Merry Christmas, everyone :).

Caldas Novas and SOUTHERN Food!

Jonathan and I have had yet another amazing week! I am so happy that we decided to do this blog of our adventures in Brazil; I know that we will be so thankful to be able to look back on this experience in years to come...

This post is going to be a mini-dedication to Jaedino and his wife, Sonia. They have been so good to us since our arrival in Brazil, and we have done a good number of things with them. So, I am going to use this post to highlight a few of the day-to-day things we have done.

The day after Jonathan played soccer, we went to a water park called Caldas Novas with Jaedino and Sonia for the weekend. Caldas Novas (a.k.a. "Hot/New Springs" in English) is a water park/resort/city pretty much sitting on top of natural hot water springs. There is no chlorine in the water at Caldas Novas, (thank the Lord, or my head would be green) ... the water comes directly from the hot springs, so it is heated year round! Because there is so much water pumping through the area, the park and surrounding hotels empty each pool every single day and provide new, fresh hot water for their guests.

While we were driving to Caldas Novas, Jaedino's oldest son called him on his cell phone. When they hung up, Jaedino told us, "My son is coming home on Wednesday, and he said to tell you he has a rug for you."

Jonathan and I just looked at each other with the same thought: 'Holy smokes. This cat doesn't even know us and he bought us a rug?! Brazilians are too generous!' Being the American female that I am, I couldn't help but wonder, 'How big is it? How am I going to get it back to the U.S.?'

We looked at Jaedino and said, "Wow, tell him thank you VERY much! That is incredibly generous of him."

Keep this in mind for later on in this post.

As we arrived at the park, this is the view we were walking into:

You just can't get lanscaping like that in the U.S.

I haven't been to a water park in years, so I was practically jumping out of my pants. We needed to get a locker, so I was able to take pictures until we reached the locker location. I was terrified of the camera getting wet, so I didn't get pictures of everything the park has to offer, but hopefully you will be able to get the idea. Some of the pools are blue, and some are natural-colored with dirt bottoms. There is also an area where you can kayak or swim with the fish all swimming around you. It's insane that the fish don't automatically bolt when they see you - they swim around your legs! I had already put the camera up when we visited that area, otherwise I would have a few pics. 

In a couple of the photos, you may notice that most men wear Itty-Bitty Teenie Bikinis (which actually cover more than the Brazilian women's bikinis). Jonathan says he is going to buy one before we leave. I can't WAIT to see that.

My favorite part of any water park is the floating river. We must have gone around this thing four times, with a couple of amusing things happening along the way:

Once we retrieved our floats, all of us had adult-sized, clear-colored floats ... except for Jaedino. He had a yellow float, which I am assuming was sized for a child. I was trying to remember how to ever-so-gracefully get into this thing (donut over my head, fold body in half, squeeze legs through the hole, and voila - I am floating on top of my tube without dunking myself by simply jumping on the top of it backwards).

Well. As I am attempting my mount, Jaedino tells me, "No, Darla...like this." That did not work out the way he planned. Jaedino jumped up to sit on his tube made for a 10 year old, and completely flipped backwards into the water. We all were so flipping tickled! To make it even better, he came up, got his bearings, and attempted it again - simply to produce the same result of a backflip into the water! This time, Sonia and I were laughing so hard, I didn't know if I would ever recover.

As a solution, Jonathan insisted on switching floats with Jaedino. I thought that had 'bad idea' written all over it, but he actually managed in the mini-float - he looked ridiculous - but he managed! Ya know how an ostrich looks when it stands straight up? Well, Jonathan had to balance and sit completely upright in that thing, and that's what he reminded me of. He is such a good sport!

After the floating river, we continued our walk through the park. As we walked past this slide, Jaedino got so excited. He said this is one of his favorites to ride with his sons:

Across from the ride above, this tunnel slide was calling my name! It is one of those slides that is completely dark, so you can't see where you are going. Well, we decided to do it, and Sonia even came (which, according to Jaedino, she never does). After we got our tubes, we began the walk to the top. Jaedino immediately announced, "I will go down first." Separately, Jonathan and I were both wondering why he was so intent on going first. Well, we'll figure that out in just a second:

See the three tunnels you come out of above? All four of us came out of the first one. I ended up being the last one to go down the slide. So, even though I came flying out of the tunnel faster than a coyote on crack, it was actually like slow motion in my head. I see Jaedino, Sonia and Jonathan. All standing there in the water waiting for me to appear. The next thing I know, I have more water up my nose than I know what to do with. Apparently, I had lost complete control and flipped my tube (to everyone's amusement), and when I finally came up, my hair was covering my face, so I couldn't see a thing - but I could hear them laughing!

Jonathan said, "You doofus. You are the only one that flipped. The rest of us just came out of there, smooth-sailing."

My reply (in my head of course), "Well. Con-grat-u-freakin-lations." THAT'S why Jaedino wanted to go first! If he flipped, he didn't want anyone to see (not after our floating river incident ;) )!

The park also had a pretty tall slide that is still in the process of being built, a beach area, and multiple wave pools:

At the end of the day, we returned to our hotel, which was also beautiful:

Each room/apartment has a hammock hanging on the back porch to use at your leisure:

The pool area has three pools, which contain water from the hot springs. Once we returned from Caldas Novas, we went to the pool area for the rest of the night (about six hours!):

As the night wore on, it started raining, so we went to the hot tub that was covered. This is where Jonathan said to Jaedino, "Jaedino, tell me about this rug your son is bringing us."

Jaedino's face looked downright confused. Jonathan proceeded to describe a rug. "We are talking about a rug ... right, like carpet? The square thing you wipe your feet on when you walk into someone's house?"

Then, Jaedino's face changed. "No, no, no! I mean a RUG; like this."  At this point, Jaedino gave Jonathan a HUG.

We. Fell. Out. Laughing.

Jonathan quickly explained how to pronounce this in English, and said that from now on, any time Jaedino wants to use an H in English, he must first practice the word.

Jonathan said, "If it doesn't sound like the H in our last name (Huff), then you are using it wrong, and I will make fun of you." (Keep in mind, Jonathan and Jaedino banter back and forth like this all the time).

For some reason, some Brazilians mix up their Rs and Hs - case in point, Jaedino also says Dodge Ham instead of Dodge Ram and Ford Hanjer instead of Ford Ranger! Well, he did until Jonathan corrected him :).

Incredibly awesome weekend!

Another great thing about Jaedino and Sonia is that they introduce us to some great food! A few Sundays ago, they took us to a restaurant about 30 minutes outside of Uberlandia called Porteira da Serra. Let me tell you - this was like going HOME:



My plate (which included pork rinds, okra, meatballs, and fried eggs, among many other Southern Louisiana and Mississippi dishes)

The food here was all cooked over open fire in these cast iron pots. It was so good (and insanely fattening). Outside, there was a pond shaped like a guitar and a small chapel:

On the way home, we stopped at a popsicle place that has over 100 flavors of popsicles. The ones we ate were good, except Sonia's popsicle choice took us by surprise:

CORN popsicle, anyone?

Jonathan and I both tasted it, and it is pretty much what you are probably imagining: opening a bag of frozen cream corn and dumping it in your mouth. Yuck! We explained that most of the time, corn is not used as a dessert dish in the U.S. They were surprised.

If corn doesn't suit your fancy, how about a cheese popsicle?



Quiejo (a.k.a CHEESE) popsicle

Sonia and Jaedino didn't like this one. Thank goodness.

For the past two weeks, we have gone to Jaedino's house once a week for dinner. Last week, Jaedino and his youngest son did the cooking:


An amazing fish dish with a green cream sauce that was PHENOMENAL

A beef and cheese dish that Jaedino's son made. We LOVED!

 This past week, JONATHAN did the cooking :) :

The above picture is the infamous deer meat dish that is stuffed with cream cheese and jalapenos, and wrapped in bacon. However, we don't have deer meat here, so we used picanha. Jaedino and his family raved over this! They absolutely loved it. Camilla, one of the Dow interns, was also at Jaedino's for dinner this week, and she told us, "This is now my favorite food. Along with the molten chocolate brownies from Domino's."

Ha! Ha! Uberlandia just got a Domino's, and everyone around here loves it.

So, as you can see, Jaedino and his family are a huge part of our happiness here in Uberlandia, AND the six pounds I have gained since being here. Yes, six. As in, 6. The number that's closer to 10 than it is to zero.

Stay tuned! Our next post will be up in a couple of days, and it is by far one of our favorite things we have done so far .... and just in time for Christmas ;).