A few things around Recife and São Lourenço

Just a few of our pictures of this beautiful city we're living in...

This is a picture of Marco Zero in Recife Antigo.  It's a beautiful historical part of the city with a lot of really beautiful buildings.

This is a little view of São Lourenço from a different part of the city than where we live.  We actually live around the top right corner, but were out visiting some other people who had a great view of the city from their roof.  The blue church in the middle is a really old Catholic church in the center of town.

 Another part of Recife Antigo with an awesome bookstore and shopping mall.

 Olinda! And all the pretty colorful houses.  Who wants to paint their house like these?

 There's a huge market in downtown Recife where you can buy just about anything.  There are lots and lots of fruit vendors, spice vendors, and random craft vendors.  It's a pretty fun place to look around.

The beautiful beach at Boa Viagem.  You can sit under the umbrellas and order agua de coco (the water that's inside the coconut).  Most of those buildings are residential.  

Defrosting the Freezer...

Well, we all defrosted freezers at the end of each semester in college, but that consisted of taking everything out, unplugging it, opening the door, putting a towel underneath, walking away, and coming back to a mildly damp towel and a clean fridge.  It was a little bit of a different experience when we had to do it last week...

It all started when Annika called me to tell me that the door to the freezer had popped off and wouldn't go back on.  The ice had been building up for almost three months and I guess the door had finally just had it.  It wasn't a huge deal because the freezer is just in the top section of the fridge, so everything would stay cold...just maybe a little too cold with the freezer being open to the fridge.  So we chose not to deal with it for a few days.

(It was actually way worse than this...this is after a few hours of defrosting and Alisha chipping away at it with a knife.)

We finally got brave enough to deal with it, and after asking the advice of our wonderful neighbor, moved all of our food that had to be refrigerated to her fridge, and unplugged our silly little fridge.  We were home for a few hours after unplugging it and didn't see much progress so we weren't too worried when Alzenira told us that it was time to leave for a church event (she was walking with us so we could learn a new part of the city...it resulted in us walking almost 2 miles up hill).  When we got back, there was water EVERYWHERE.  The freezer was almost completely defrosted, the drawer that was supposed to catch the water was completely full, and there was water spilling onto the floor.

We froze our hands trying to get the rest of it off and empty out the drawer and clean everything that was being dripped on.  But, eventually, the defrosting was over, everything was clean, we could turn our fridge back on and collect our food from our neighbor's fridge.

(Our mess of stuff that used to be in our fridge..and if you look closely you can see lots of ice chunks in the sink.)

A few days later we decided it was time to put the freezer door back on.  I have NO IDEA how that door popped off because we had to get a screwdriver, develop a strategy and spend almost 20 minutes trying to get it back on.

One week later: There is a fresh layer of ice in the freezer and we're about to defrost again (because apparently once every 3 months isn't going to cut it)

Language Mishaps

A few more language blunders for your enjoyment :)

A little over a month ago I was trying to distinguish between two different past tense ways of saying "I wanted" to figure out which was correct for the sentence that I was trying to say.  So I asked someone across from me how to say "I wanted" and he replied "Queria" to which I replied "Ok, well, what does 'Quis' mean?" That word sounds an awful lot like the word 'Kiss' (Beijo) and with me switching from English to Portuguese he didn't realize that I had switched to Portuguese and told me that "Quis" meant "Beijo."  We all laughed for a while because I had essentially just told him that "I wanted a kiss."

The next story needs a little bit of explanation.  Whenever we are taken off guard, surprised, or just trying to talk too fast we sometimes switch into English mode.  This results in us saying "thank you," "sorry," or other random bursts of explanation at times.

So, last week, Annika was trying to order espetinho (delicious meat on a stick) from a street vendor, and she said "Queiro two" (I want two), but the word 'two' sounds like 'tu' which is another way for saying 'you'.  So pretty much, Annika told the street vendor "I want you."

The Blessings of Visiting

We have been going with a woman from our church, Marilia, on visits to the houses of other members of the church every once in a while. We are wanting to do this on our own someday, but are still trying to learn the city and figure out how to get around a little better.

On Tuesday, we were blessed to be able to meet a woman from the church named, Ligia ,who has some problems hearing and seeing.  We arrived at her house just to say "hi" and see how she was doing because she hadn't been to church recently, but immediately saw an opportunity to serve.  She lives alone and had just spent the last five days or so with her sister in another part of town.  While she was gone, her power had been turned off and all of the food in her fridge had spoiled.  As she was trying to clean, water had gotten everywhere and everything was just dirty.

As an older woman without children to be there to help her, we felt called to serve her and help her clean her house.  We stayed for a while just scrubbing, helping her put things back where they belonged and talking with her about her life.

It was a huge blessing to all of us to be able to be part of that day, and has really reminded us why we are here.  There are so many people that God puts in our path who are simply in need of a friend or someone just to come along and pause long enough to see a way to help.

A few of the things that have kept us busy and entertained recently...

 Annika turned 23 at the beginning of this month and we had a party for her at the church.  It's a tradition here to stick your finger in the cake before they cut it.

 Valeska likes to help us cook.  This was Annika's birthday as well...we were making chocolate chip pancakes! Alzenira, Valeska and Marlene thought they were too sweet, but they liked them a little bit.  We LOVED them.

 

 This is a little view of our house.  Probably the cleanest it's ever been and the cleanest it will ever be. We were having some people over and making Mexican food for them to try!

 We got to go to a Brazilian wedding a few weeks ago and had fun getting all dressed up.  

Daniel and Dara were the "little bride and groom" and got to walk down the isle and be beautiful all night long.  We love them.  Also, they spent most of the day scared that they were actually going to marry each other that night...luckily their parents were able to assure them that they were not the ones getting married.  

Ever tried popcorn covered in condensed milk? It's delicious!

Our other neighbors bought three little chicks one day...then their dog killed them the next day.  It was sad.

We helped make a lot of little gifts for Mother's Day :) We also got to put some Banana Bread inside the bags for everyone to try.

A Churrasco: A Brazilian Night of Grilling

Last weekend the men from our church went on a men's retreat...so the women decided to have a party :)  Sandra, a woman from the church, invited the women and kids over for a night of grilling, conversations, and fun.  

 Everyone brought a different kind of meat, so Annika signed us up to bring shrimp.  Which proved to be a difficult task and one that we needed a bit of help with.  Luckily Alzenira and Valeska (our neighbors) were a huge help in teaching us how to prepare the shrimp.

 We even found a little surprise for Cassie among all the little shrimp, but she refused to eat it.

 Then we skewered some vegetables to take along with us as well.   

 The lovely grill (and griller).  Everyone took turns making sure everything cooked and nothing burned.

So much food! There were all kinds of different types of meat and it was a wonderful dinner. Oh, and that white stuff in the middle-back is queijo coalho (it's a squeaky cheese that you grill and eat with bread or on a stick)...I'm obsessed with it.

Lots of wonderful women!

Meet Some of Our Animal Friends

We've encountered lots of bugs and animals here.  Some of them are fun and some of them are not so fun.  Above-- Annika with a giant frog that was hanging out in our street the first week we arrived.  They make fun noises.

 This is a turtle we encountered in a bread shop one day.  We thought he was adorable and bought him to take to the family we were staying with that night.  We've seen some other giant turtles in the park as well, but sadly we don't have pictures of them.

 There are a few horses that like to hang out in the street.  Sometimes they like to eat the trash before it gets picked up.  This is a regular occurrence for chickens as well.

 Lizards are a pretty common animal here and we've seen a lot around our house.  So far I don't know that we've seen any inside our house, but when we first arrived we saw a lot of lizard poop lying around.  We were assured by many people that lizard poop is clean and we shouldn't be worried.  Once our ceiling was installed we stopped seeing it lying around and are quite thankful :)

This is our cat, Cassiopeia, who appeared a few weeks into our stay on our neighbor's roof and hasn't left since.  It might help that we feed her pretty often and pet her :) She likes to kill animals and bring them for us to see. 

There are lots more that I could introduce you to, but these are the only ones I have pictures of.