Among famous traitors of history one might mention the weather.


GOOD EVENING ALL!!!

It is still Monday, officially, so I'm still on the right side of keeping my word. But only just. The last week has pretty figuratively FLOWN by. Although now that I should write about it, I of course can't remember a single interesting thing to say.

Well, I should start at the Project. This past week was a big week for us at the project (although the current one is looking like quite a big week as well). Our project. ZOE has three locations around Recife. One is Cha Da Cruz (the a in Cha, has a funny squiggle on top of it, but I can't find it in blogger), one is a church in the centre of the city called Igreja Congrecional Pernanbucana, and the third is here, where I live and work, in TEJIPIO. So this week in Tejipio we received the keys to our kingdom, which is a large building containing several classrooms, two shower rooms, two bathrooms and a big tiled bathroom type space, which isn't a bathroom, but it has sinks in it. I have yet to figure out exactly what it was used for. SO Hannah and I got pretty excited about having this space, which would make working with the children a little easier, as it would mean that we wouldn't have to drag a massive table outside for each of our classes or have the children running around the big refectory/church hall sliding in the puddles of water that come through the windows and ceiling when it rains.

Although we have this amazing space it needs a little (read: A LOT) of work done to it, we've been stripping the walls and repainting them, as well as sanding the grating and fencing on the windows and front door, and repainting them. It's been a lot of hard work, and usually the time runs ahead of us (I'm pretty sure it's cheating, because I seem to loose several hours just to painting one part of the door). Luckily for us, we have a team of young, fit and enthusiastic British youth, whom we managed to trick into helping us for a whole day last week, and they managed to sort through a lot of the junk that had been left in the rooms (random random things like you would not believe-Brazilians, I believe, due to the socio-economic climate over here, are hoarders, believing that everything will have another use one day. I am of the belief that no, in fact, 7 years worth of used notebooks that have mould all over them, and scorpions lying in wait between the pages, are not of use at all - Unfortunately it is a cultural thing, and since I am trying to adapt myself, rather than trying to adapt those around me, I have had to hold my breath and keep many of the things that I have wanted to throw out, even so, when we threw out several bags of rubbish the people in our community were all over it, opening the bags and boxes to take whatever they could use inside, spilling everything else all over the road. We felt pretty bad, and have taken to keeping the rest of the rubbish in the building until we see the rubbishman come, when we will run at him with bags in each hand, and probably one between our teeth as well).

Much happened last week that I can't remember now, I seem to remember something with a drunken heckler at church on Sunday, and 4 hours of youth football in the 40 degree sunshine also on Sunday, which I mainly remember because of the 'suntan' (read:sunburn) all over my arms and face. But it was a really good time, in fact everyday that we wake up has been a blessing, and we're excited to go to sleep at night just for what the next day will bring.

I have been told to, in no uncertain terms, go have a shower because for the past week I have been covered in different colours of paints, and I think I'm embarrassing my family, although this paint doesn't come out quite that easily, but I'm to go try anyway.

We are very excited awaiting the arrival of the infamous BECKY LONG, to join our little duo to make it a trio for a month. Becky arrives on Thursday - Right Smack Bang in the middle of a busy week with the kids (SEMANA SANTA- the Holy Easter Week). She's bringing chocolate. And Bluetac.

Love and Hugs, and Blessings

Yours,
Emma

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Men are seldom more commonplace than on supreme occasions-Samuel Butler

Image
Man, Brazil has a lot of bank holidays. THANK the LORD. This month of November there are two coming up, and to be honest, we need them. There are loads of exciting things happening in the next month or two, but it means that we are snowed under with preparation and kids, loving it, but add that to a particularly busy time at seminary handing in essays and such, means that I am a little fed up, and a little more than a little tired. This week has been particularly hard, and at the start of the week on Monday made we want to cry that it wasn't already Friday, but then I was blessed, and blessed again (with the help of our awesome teens) and have been blessed all week, and have made it to Wednesday without incident, and with several good days at the project, so I think I'm going to make it! On Sunday we had an amazing time at Children's day, we rented 5 different 'games' for the kids, two trampolines, two bouncy castles and one ballpit for the little ones and it was a
Read more

“Once you'd resolved to go, there was nothing to it at all.”

Image
We have moved into our new space! Giving thanks! Especially since we have managed to go down from four services to two services, since in our new temporary home in the side hall we have more space for more people, although having said that, the services were full and we might have to add a third service. The worship band is nervous, it's a long day for them and the teaching pastor! Since we have moved into the side hall there are some new challenges that we need to over come and of course the first weeks will be trying to resolve any issues big or small. This week we realised that the air conditioning isn't enough and that the exit is a bottle neck. These are issues we can fix, small fiddly things, our bigger problem is that in between services someone tried to break in through our back door, which is not as secure because of the building project. This alongside some beaurocratic paperwork has taken away a little from the joy of the blessing of the new space. But, ultimate
Read more

Wednesday: I'm writing this from a hammock

Tid Bit about living in Recife: In the UK, even in London and larger cities, I don’t think that we really have a full understanding of what Noise Pollution is, or how it can affect you, both positively and negatively. For example, last night when really, all I wanted to do at 3.30am was sleep, I was kept awake by fireworks and by the fact that this community has finally discovered Despacito and was playing it on a loop (although I must say that this is quite rare for the community here. They don’t usually have parties until 5am, and the whole place is abuzz with the scandal this morning). Despacito is just universally a cruel tune. So, yes, there are times that it seems quite unfair to have to adjust your body clock along with others who have made the decision for you! On the other hand, I must say, thanks to the light and the movement and the music in the mornings, I find that I wake up much easier and much happier, it feels more natural, the cocks crow at sun-up (they really do!) an
Read more