So live has been wild, exciting and crazy but its all been good. I'm really enjoying my time here and I feel like I am growing exponentially.
Highlights from the last month:
Ok so somehow I was a bus monitor for 42 twelve and thirteen year olds on a a public school trip to Hopi Hari, the largest amusement park in Latin America. My friend Guto is a math teacher at one of the schools here in town and when the school put out a list to have people sign up to go they only thought they would have 7 buses worth of students sign up(its a big school) but they had 12 sign up, so they were scrambling to get more. So Guto put my name in, and apparently no one better arrived. So I got to spend the day at the amusement park for free...and free is generally good.
Mark, Barbara and I went to Belo Horizante to go pick up our friend Eric from seminary and pick up our another friend named Eduardo (I will relate the Saga of Du in a second) to come back to Itu. Eric came back in order to have 10/10/10 with us. 10/10/10 was a camp reunion, so everyone came back from camp and we all had a blast. What was really interesting is that we went and picked up Xic Xou, the campers parents were there, and a bunch of people from the states all Skyped in so a whole lot of worlds that rarely interact with each other all came together at once...and it was my birthday!
So we went to go pick up Du in BH. Do was one of the homeless here in Itu, and in my first week here Mark had been able to find him place in a the rehab clinic in BH. So after three months he was clean and headed home. The difference was incredible he was a completely different person. The plan was that he would go back and live with his family, but after a few days of Du staying here in the house with us as a halfway options his family decided that they wouldn't take him back. So Du moved in. He was doing really well, he was working here around the house getting used to working daily. After about two weeks Mark found him a job at a construction site and Du went to work. He worked the entire day, but when it came to walking home he didn't make it back to the house. He came back at around 2 that night in pretty bad shape, with the key to the house. He decided that the life on the street is easier and that he would get his things and leave. It was hard for everyone, but its important to respect his decisions. We are still hoping that something might happen and he might choose a different life, I saw Du today and he said that he wanted to change so we are praying he can make some good changes.
Ok so we have started taking capoeira classes on Sunday afternoons. Capoeira is a Brazilian Martial art that was developed by the slaves during portuguese colonization. Its supposed to look like a dance because the slaves were not allowed to practice fighting. So your not actually supposed to hit each other...but since we are all just starting out sometimes we do hit each other...its not like the pretty youtube videos...I am pathetic but it is a whole lot of fun.
So a few weeks ago Jackie Beth arrived, JB was here for camp and she has come back to stay with Mark and Ali until January
Ok another cool that that has happened out of the ordinary in the last we weeks is we went hiking to the the top of a mountain in Atibaia, a city close to here. It took us around 5 and a half hours to ascend and descend. It was fun, I got burned, I got to relive my fear of heights and we had a great view of the city. At the top there were even people taking off in para-gliders
Tomorrow my friend Rolando Diaz gets here, he is going to help us with a project called Louvarte and meet with Robson Britto.
Wow so it really is a crazy life. I'm learning about time changes, early morning ovens, how almost every tree has fruit here, and that ticks in South America don't have limes disease.
Love and miss you all,
Brandon
