Campos

Each year many of the female teachers head up to Campos, a little European type town in the mountains just north of the city.  Because of everyone's busy schedule we didn't go until October.  

On the way there and home we stopped at this restaurant that means "milk in the middle of the road".  There was a pond out back and a couple of cows...there's breakfast. ;)

Here we are at the entrance to the town.  It has a Swiss feel to it.

In the afternoon we went to this kind of farm/nature area.  There were sheep some sheep (who left great quantities of "evidence" all around).

I decided to get a photo by the sheep.  

My friend said, go sit on the alligator and I'll take your picture.  Well...I sat on the snout, but evidently the alligator was not connected to the legs and I flipped off with my hand landing MILLIMETERS from a large pile of sheep poo!!!!!  The waiters in the restaurant behind had a great laugh...as did we (since I didn't actually touch any!)

 

We went on a little trail that had a waterfall.  It was really beautiful.  Tawni I thought of you!!

There was a restaurant area that kind of reminded me a little of a ski lodge.  They had a player piano with a "wonderful pianist"!  

Here I am in our room that overlooks the mountains.  My friend suggested I close my eyes and she wanted to take my picture when she opened the window...Well, it was pretty hazy so I couldn't see much so I just pretended the view was amazing.  The next morning when we got up it actually was pretty amazing!

The man who owns the little Inn we stayed at has a house down the mountain a bit and we could see it out our window.

We went to a fondue restaurant for dinner...sooo delicious!

It was called the Crocodile Restaurant, and outback there was this huge crocodile you could go down.  It reminded me of Aladdin.  I went down with a couple other girls and it was actually kind of scary!  You could not see the bottom and it got skinny so you couldn't stand up.  We were holding onto this bar over our heads and kind of shimmying down the stairs until we came out of the tail!

Then we did some shopping at night.

 Breakfast the next morning at the Inn.

In the afternoon 3 of us went horseback riding.  This little man has lived here his whole life and has been doing the same job for about 56 years.  

The view was wonderful.

 

This horse kept turning his head all the way around and "nibbling" on my pants!  He was a teenage horse...crazy teenagers!! ;)  (14 years old)

 

A stop on the way home.  I think it was called a Chinese Lookout Point or something like that. 

Color Run!

So I finally did it...I RAN A RACE!!  Thank you to Marianne, Laura, Jon, Karin, and many others for continuing to motivate me to try running.  I finally did it...and IT WAS FUN!  This race was less than 5K and they spray you with this colored powder (cornstarch) and everyone gets a pack of colored powder to dump on others.  Its loads of fun!  I still have green on one foot and in my ears. :P  

Many people from my school ran.  I only have a few pictures though because I didn't want to bring my camera.

 

 

 

Fun on the Farm

One of my students' families invited me to their family farm for an over-nighter.  I was excited to see a new place and spend some more time with this family who has really blessed me since arriving.  They told me we would have a birthday celebration for their youngest son who just turned 5, and we would be celebrating Children's Day (which was Saturday).  They are in charge of the missions and evangelism division of their church and so they used this opportunity to bless others.
Around 10:30 PM on Friday night probably 30-40 people showed up.  I heard 22 of them were kids.  The place went crazy!  I had no idea all these people would be spending the night, but it was really fun.  We ate dinner at 11.  The kids took a nap in the afternoon and were ready to go at night.  Most of the people there did not know any English so it was fun trying to communicate or just watch them and see how they did things.  Everyone just came in dropped off their bedding and got to work.  Some went to play, others went to watch the kids, others came to the kitchen to help out.  I was really blessed to sleep on a bunk bed.  We were in a small room with probably 10-12 people.  They all love being close and spending time together.  It was really good for me to experience.  I was so tired when we went to bed I don't even remember them turning out the lights!  When it was time to go home on Saturday everyone just cleaned up- some were in the kitchen, others mopped the floors, others took care of the kids.  Everyone did their part.  Here are some photos.

On the way there this bus kept getting so close to our car so I touched it just to be able to say I had done it.  Then I decided to take a picture so I had some proof.  Traffic is soo squishy here!

Here is the bus as it was finally passing us.

 This property reminded me a lot of my families cottage.  I was told it was a very simple place, which it was, but there was running water, electricity, and bathrooms so it had everything we needed!  It was a child's paradise.  There was a raft out in a small pond.  It was floating using empty pop bottles.  There was a rope swing made from a Banyan Tree.  There was some play equipment for the kids.  I have seen this a couple times here and am amazed, but the slides are wooden.  I would think that could be painful, but the kids seem to love it.  I guess they know how to go down without getting slivers!  There is an area where they had a big bonfire too.  I didn't see them, but they have 2 horses, and I did see the 2 dogs that live there.

There were also baby chicks!

For the birthday the kids all heard, and some helped act out, the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.  My student's mother did an amazing job with decorations and she is a preschool teacher.  Of course she is an excellent story-teller (even if I couldn't understand most of it!).  Fortunately on Saturday another person from the church arrived and he spoke some English and translated some for me.  

We blew up a lot of balloons that morning!

 One of the best cakes I have tasted so far here.

 Blowing out the candle I found at a local "sweets" store.  It had such a long wick that it kept catching flame after the birthday boy blew it out.  He must have blown it out 5 or 6 times before it stopped!

We got to play some ping-pong, which was a lot of fun.  They are good!  Here they call it "pingy pongy"!  Its really cute. 

An Eventful Evening

Wednesday was Parent Teacher Conferences at school.  I think they went pretty well.  One parents even gave me a box of chocolates!!

Wednesday evening I went to Restoration Ministries, where Karin, Marianne, and their group went when they came down in August.  I had some interesting experiences I thought I'd share.  First, the traffic was horrible.  It took us 3 hours to get there.  I saw a man laying dead on the road from a motorcycle accident.  I hear this is frequent (daily), but I have never seen the dead person just laying before.  On the way home I saw another motorcycle accident, but the person was already in the ambulance.  I made sure to look away so I didn't see what was going on inside the vehicle.  The other man who was there was picking up pieces from his taillight.  Motorcycles here go in between the lanes of traffic (which are much narrower than in the U.S.) and they dodge in and out of traffic because, well, sitting for 3 hours isn't that much fun! Its really dangerous, but people get so sick of the traffic.  If you don't have money for a helicopter you might try a motorcycle. 

We also drove through the second largest favela here in Sao Paulo.  Favela's are the very poor neighborhoods/areas (shantytown).  This one has over 100,000 people living in it with schools, medical services etc. These are the areas where organized crime and drugs rule the streets.  Don't get lost in one!

Something else I found interesting that night was at one point (maybe 2.5 hours into the drive) I saw 8 green lights facing us at one intersection.  However, we were sitting completely still.  Oh joy!

When I got to the ministry center the director dropped me off in a room.  We were obviously late quite late and this class was already in session.  There was a teacher in the front and she asked me to share a little about myself.  I determined that it must be an English class, and the teacher had me help with the instruction.  It was fun for me to practice some Portuguese verbs I had been working on while helping them with some English words.  I think they would win the prize if there was a competition!

On the way home we stopped for "dinner" at this roadside stand for a Pastel (10:45 PM -people here eat dinner late!!).  A pastel is a thin piece of fried dough with a filling.  Mine had a little hamburg and cheese (carne e quejo).  I was shown a bowl in a tree right next to this roadstand that evidently is used to practice VooDoo!  

All in all it was a good cultural experience for me.