Santo Antonio do Descoberto

Not much happened in my last few days in Sao Paulo, though I was very sad to leave when I did. Firstly because of all the friends I made there and how welcoming the people were. But also because I was settled there and knew everyone and coming to Santo Antonio felt like starting all over again. 

But that's just what I did - got on the plane on Saturday morning and arrived about lunch-time. I slept a bit in the afternoon as we'd stayed up late the night before watching a movie. And then in the evening we went to church. I suppose at this point I should explain who "we" refers to, but that requires considerable back-story: skip the next paragraph if you already know what brought me here. 

I've come to Santo Antonio do Descoberto (a small town near the capital of Brasilia in a central state called Goias) to visit the Evangelical Christian Church here. A couple of years ago my church, Temple Methodist in Taunton, started something called the Canaa Project. The congregation (and in particular my youth group) aimed to raise 3000 pounds (there's no pound sign on this keyboard) to carry out building work for this church. We enabled them to have a youth room built, among other things. So the Reverend Ubiracy (pronunced oo-bi-ra-see, be like biscuit, roll the r and a like cat) said did anyone want to come and visit. At the same time I was casting around for somethingto occupy me during my gap-year, so here I am. 

So "we" is the Reverend (or Pastor, as they say here) Ubiracy, his wife Adriana and their two daughters. Julia is five and Helena (pronounced Elaine-a) is two. They are both very sweet. Julia can count to ten and say "good morning", "good day" and "good night" in English and is understandably proud of the achievement. She has about as much English as any of them. Helena says "bye-bye" so often that she has left me in little doubt that she has no idea what this scrap of English means. She is probably not even aware that it's foreign. I talk English to her and she talks Portuguese back and it all works very nicely. Interestingly I didn't know what the word for "stop" was until I got here. But with a toddler in the house house you often hear "Pare Helena, pare!"

Another language point to note is my difficulty in adjusting. In Sao Paulo I usually hung out with Bruno and his 20-something male friends who spoke with a lot of street slang. To go from that to hearing little girls lisping about Christ is a big change. Also if you have spoken with a toddler lately you will know they are sometimes hard to understand even when speaking the same language. I believe my five year-old cousin has yet to master the pronounciation of "th". So Helena is usually unintelligible - but she's two, so it's not hard to guess what she's on about. 

Back to my story: we went to church Saturday evening and I got the grand tour, which didn't take long. I took some photos of the rooms and will post them later today. I also met two of the young people - Bruna and Francisco who I think are both 17. They were very nice and I think they might have a little English, but they lack confidence, they told me their English teacher at school wasn't very good. Anyway I think we were there for a singing practice, which took place at such a volume I was surprised the neighbours didn't complain. However on driving back through Santo Antonio I realised there were between twenty and thirty churches in this one small town - I'd judge it to be smaller than Wellington (a reference most readers will get). This is missionary country I can see that. 

On Sunday morning we were up and out of the house before 8 and at the church for breakfast. I got to meet many more children and teenagers. They were only a few adults there and I quickly understood why. The main service in Brazil is held in the evenings, the morning services include a few hymns, a bible reading and then youth/Bible study groups. I attended the teens' Bible Study group, armed with an English New Testament and understood parts of what was going on. The reading was taken from Genesis, so I'm not entirely sure which one it was. However next week I think we are reading from the Gospels, so that's okay. 

We went home for lunch and I read, went online and had a little nap, before the evening service. This was much more like the services we have on a Sunday morning in England (the main difference being the age-range, there were as many under-18s as over). They don't have an instrument in the church, but quite a good cd player (you know what, it wasn't a cd player, it was like some speakers and a laptop and one of those boards with all the dials and stuff on, but I don't know the name for it). So we sang some hymns, had a Bible reading, prayers, sermon, communion and then notices. Ubiracy made me stand up and he presented me to the church and told everyone I was giving free English lessons every evening at 6 o'clock. After that the service ended and I think I shook every hand in the church. They made me feel very welcome. A couple of points of difference tht church-goers might be interested in - dress, Ubiracy was wearing a t-shirt and shorts for the morning service, but changed into a suit for the evening. The girls wore what looked a bit like bridesmaid dresses (photos to follow) and so I thought to myself that this was obviously expected, so I changed into a smart shirt. When I got there however I saw that I hadn't gone nearly far enough. Most girls my age were in high-heels and dresses and looked like they were going out for dinner, or to one of those posh family occasions, maybe a wedding or something (photos to follow). Also they sang during the communion, unaccompanied, it was very beautiful, I might see if I can get a copy of the lyrics and translate it for you. 

So on Monday Ubiracy and Adriana went to work and in the morning Julia went to school and I was left in the house with Helena and the maid/nanny. By the by, we've had some hilarious translations courtesy of Google - the best being, on Sunday night from Adriana, "tomorrow I will go to work and the scullery-maid will be here while Ubiracy is leading the Cult". Fantastic. Anyway, I whiled away the day by reading, going online, playing with the children and preparing for my first English class that evening. 

At about ten to six we left for the church and when I arrived there were a few girls there already. By the time we got to six I had a rather excitable class of ten girls and one boy (the boy:girl ratio in that church is way off kilter). They ranged from 17 to one little girl in purple who looked about 10, I didn't ask though as I had enough trouble with names. I was quite glad that the worst in the class was one of the oldest as she took it much better than one of the little ones might have. In fact it turned into a bit of a joke, which was great. We did numbers, which some of them already had, but they were very patient and good about it. After running through one to twenty and 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90 we played bingo. Which really went down well and they all got quite competitive as I called out numbers in English, they were much better by the end. Then we did a short piece on telling the time and finished at 8. 

On Tuesday we all left the house at 9:30 to go to Anapolis, which is a city about two hours drive away, when we got there we went to a place that I think was some sort of University. Ubiracy had a meeting there, I'm not sure if it was exclusively Christian or not. Anyway, we took the girls to the park and then had lunch and met some family friends. I sat with the adults while they talked for a bit, before going to hang out with their teenage kids and watching some English TV. A bit later on we went to the pool and Adriana asked me if I could swim. This reminded me of Bruno in Sao Paulo telling me proudly that he could swim and I realised that it's not a very common achievement here - Adriana can't swim for example. Anyway Julia quickly decided that the most exciting thing to do in the pool was have me pick her up and throw her in. So that was pretty funny, but fairly detrimental to my cloud-watching scheme. After the pool we went back to the other family's house and had a meal, before heading home. 

Random thoughts from Brazil: 

I don't know whether it's because they have young children, or whether it's the custom here but we have four meals a day - breakfast, lunch at midday, tea at 5:30 and then supper at about 9. I quite like it. 

I have read about two and a half books since Sunday morning, purely because I can't watch TV - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and now I've started reading The Children of the New Forest. 

Praying. It's a bit of an issue. They sometimes say grace, and sometimes don't bother, and I can't seem to find any pattern to it, and I don't want to be rude by eating when I'm not meant to. Usually I just wait until someone else takes the first mouthful. Also they have invited me to pray on two occasions now, in English obviously, and it shouldn't be an issue because I pray already, but I don't think I've ever prayed out loud before and it does make you incredibly self-conscious, even though you know no one can understand you. Oh and they also pray at really random times, like in the car yesterday before we set off. I was just looking out the window and not paying attention to the conversation (trying to understand is very tiring, so if I know they're not talking to me I usually just tune out) and all of a sudden I realise they're praying and I've been staring out of the window instead of doing the repectful bow-your-head-and-clasp-your-hands thing. I'll have to watch out a bit more in future. 


A couple of things I've been meaning to say for a while, when we went to the club in Sao Paulo to go swimming we had to queue up and go into this little room in groups and stand against a white wall while a man in a white coat stared at you. Then you had to turn around and he'd stare again, then you were allowed to leave. Apparently he's looking for signs of infection on your skin, so the pool stays clean but honestly it was completely bizarre. 


In Rio we were sat in a cafe by the beach and a woman came over from another table who'd obviously been drinking and said something to me in fairly slurred portuguese. I explained that I was English and so she repeated herself and stroked my nose, which was honestly one of the most disturbing things that has ever happened to me. Edilson explained that she thought European peoples' noses were perfect. Then she wandered off. 


The temperature here in Santo Antonio is pretty much the same as Sao Paulo. 


Foo in Brazil is boring. After two and a half weeks here I can safely predict that on 90% of the nations plates tonight will be rice, beans, beef, lettuce and tomato. Every day. 


When I first arrived in Brazil I told them I could speak a little French, which was true at the time, but honestly? I can barely remember the numbers to ten and I learnt that when I was about seven. It's like the Portuguese has shoved all my high-school French out of my ear. On the plus side my Portuguese is much better and is getting better every day. 


All my mosquito bites have gone. 


My heat rash hasn't. 


As we drove to Anapolis yesterday I saw the landscape typical of the central region. I suppose it has it's equivalent in British moorland/woodland. There were rolling hills covered in wild grasses, shrubs and vine-covered trees. 


I also saw the great soya plantations of central Brazil. They stretch as far as the eye can see on the plains. 

I have my second English class tonight, I think we will run over everyone's numbers, do dates and days and maybe food and drink if we have time. I've never taught a language before and am not really sure how to do it, but they really enjoyed the last session and didn't want to leave at the end, so I must be doing okay. 

Had another bout of homesickness the other day, but got on skype and chatted to friends, so feeling better now. 


The kindle is causing a bit of a stir and is a total life-saver. I love it. 


It's weird to live in a place with dragonflies longer than your index finger and where the equivalent of common-or-garden birds like sparrows are bright green or blue. 


That's enough for now, and congratulations if you made it to the end (I'm probably only speaking to my mum now). Love to everyone xx