Just another day

It rained for three days straight last week.  Straight.  Day and night, didn't stop (well, ok, it stopped for about 20 minutes one afternoon, but I was in the chapel and didn't see it).  Padre Arnaud (French, speaks a little English and so is always wanting to practice with me, very funny padre) asked me in his British accent where I had hidden the sun.  I wish I knew!  One day Rafaela was grounded and it was the best sort of day to be grounded because no one wanted to go outside.  We all wanted to be grounded so that we didn't have to go outside!  The road to the Fazenda was impassable on Friday and so no one could leave, which meant the kids couldn't go to school.  We spent the whole day cleaning and studying.  When the sun came out Saturday morning it was a shiny new world.  And with the sun came Luis Antonio, our friend from the Passagem.  He arrived late Saturday morning singing his felicidade song and brought us a kitchen sponge.  

Oh, a funny thing I forgot to tell you about Rafaela's birthday dinner: I set the table with a tablecloth, embroidered cloth napkins and napkin rings (VERY fancy!).  The kids asked what the napkins were.  When I told them they were napkins they didn't believe me because they've only ever seen paper napkins, and even those are not an everyday item.  They couldn't believe that people would use something so fancy to wipe their hands and mouths.  And then I told them that I was going to wash them after we used them and to them that sounded like way too much work. (I have to agree!)  They were really impressed when I folded one into a little crown.  Diego was so excited he put it on his head and exclaimed, "look at me!  I'm a bishop!!"  LOL!    Oh and the napkin rings were even more baffling!  They never did fully understand the purpose of those, but they were fun to play with during dinner.  I don't think I've ever had so much fun with napkins :)  (Thanks Mom & Dad for sending them!!)  

So I told you before that I am doing some of the "men's work" in the Fazenda.  Well, some days I feel like I have to re-invent the wheel.  The suffrage wheel that is.  Maybe it's because I'm American or maybe because I'm used to taking care of myself, but I don't understand why people doubt that I know how to use a screwdriver.  I don't want to have to prove myself; I just want to fix things when they are broken.  And oh how I miss Ace Hardware!  Last week our kitchen drain pipe broke in pieces.  It's just PVC and had rotted out.  So I disconnected it and thought, "no big deal.  I can have this fixed in 7 minutes or less."...three days later we were finally able to use our kitchen sink again.  We didn't have the right parts here, and then one guy stopped at the hardware store but wasn't sure exactly what I needed, and then it started to rain and no one could leave, etc.  Every time I need to fix something I have to go to at least 3 different locations in the Fazenda to find the tools or hardware.  I think the guys are getting sick of me borrowing their screwdrivers because a couple of them asked Padre to buy me some tools to keep in my house.  Fabulous idea!  Now our kitchen faucet is broken.  I know what the problem is and how to fix it but of course we don't have the right parts and I can't just run to Ace.  Plus trying to explain the problem in Portuguese to someone who is driving into the city and could pick up the parts isn't easy.    (At least it's helping me improve my vocabulary!)  So we are now on day five of a broken kitchen faucet that I could have fixed in 2 minutes!  God is trying to teach me patience, I know.  I just wish it wasn't so frustrating!  And I hope all of you American Standard folks (current or ex) appreciate the irony that I am here fixing faucets!  

Yesterday Erica, Adriano, Irma Maria Adela, and I went to Passagem for our apostolate.  Erica and I went to visit a family who lives outside of the village at the end of the train tracks.  I was really tired and didn’t feel like walking that far, but it had been a few weeks since we had visited them.  It's amazing how just a 10 minute walk from the center of the village it seems like a completely different world.  Everything is clean and lush green there.  We met the family through one of their daughters (Manuela) who is in the catechism class led by Irma Miriam.  One day when we were in Passagem we saw her and she was on her way home so we asked if we could go with her and meet her family. So now we’ve gone to visit them several times and yesterday when we arrived no one was home.  A young girl saw us and motioned to us to “come ‘on back!”  Reluctantly we made our way up the hill and further into the jungle.  There were 2 more houses behind the one we know, made of mud and sticks.  (Still not sure how they make that work, but it’s a typical house here.)  Then we arrived at a concrete house and were greeted by 7 small children with ash crosses on their foreheads!  We had to laugh out loud because here we had been a little scared to search out this house and yet we find it to be quite the holy place!  They were playing baptism because their sister/cousin is getting baptized on Sunday.  The house turned out to be the home of Manuela’s grandparents, so we got to meet them, her aunt and cousins, and her mom and siblings were there too.  All of the children were playing so well together and we laughed, sang, and danced for about an hour.  It’s really beautiful the way they have preserved their family.  I don’t think that is an easy task in this poverty and culture.  They sent us home with 3 bunches of bananas and two long stalks of sugar cane, and a renewed energy.  Sometimes we bring life and laughter to the people we visit, and others they are the ones who feed us with the love we need <3

Sunday I'm going to stay in the Heart's Home in Simoes Filho for 2 weeks.  I'm excited to go and experience a traditional Heart's Home.  Irma Miriam came home Monday.  She had been gone for over 2 weeks.  Soooo happy to have her back.  Also Monday Irma Maria Adela moved into our house.   So now there are five ladies sharing one bathroom!  I really want to make a showering schedule and post it on the bathroom door, but I know that's taking things too far.  Plus Caroline will be gone for 6 days, I'll be gone for 2 weeks, and then in 3 weeks Irma Miriam moves to Peru, so it's all going to change over the next month. 

love,

Sunny

Rafaela

I have taken on the role of kinda-mom, which I wasn't ready for.  Who is ready for motherhood, right?  Yes, but most women don't give birth to a 10-year old with a depressing past.  Oh my darling Rafaela...

She is the baby girl with 5 older brothers, and they all have the same parents, which is a rare beauty in the favelas.  But her parents aren't capable of taking care of their children: her dad is an alcoholic and her mom is...well, not right in the head, but I don't know exactly why.  I don't know what went on in her life before she came here, but I know that none of the children ever went to school and it was an abusive household.  Three years ago she and three of her brothers (Rafael, Mateus, and Diego) were brought to the Fazenda.  Rafael is 19 and has since moved into the city where he has a decent job considering his lack of education.  He comes to the Fazenda about once a month to spend the weekend, help out, and check on his younger siblings. Mateus (14) and Diego (12) are both good kids and are very protective of their little princess sister. 

Every night in vespers Rafaela prays for her family, and when she is sad that she doesn't live with her parents we try to focus on the positive and remind her that her brothers are here with her.  But no matter how much we take care of her and show her that we love her, she suffers deeply.  I can't even begin to imagine how it feels to know that your mom doesn't want you.  Still, she laughs easily, loves to sing and dance and play jokes.  I can see the constant struggle in her between the joy and sorrow in her heart.  Joy for people who love her and the beauty around her, but sorrow for the mother she will always lack.  She can turn from giggling to crying in the blink of an eye and if you try to talk to her, to reason with her, she closes all doors.

Oh, one strange thing is that she has high cholesterol.  Crazy high, her LDL is 142 and her HDL is only 50.  How does a seemingly healthy 10-year old, who's very active and not overweight have high cholesterol?  It's quite the chore trying to get her to eat healthy and telling her she can't have any cake.  She doesn't understand and so sneaks and eats fatty foods at school or other people's houses when she can.  I can't say that I blame her.  Even as an adult I would have a hard time accepting it if I couldn't eat butter and sausage.

She turned 11 on Sunday.  She is more innocent than most 11-year olds I've met, which is a gift to us since she's not interested in boys or make-up (except nail polish, of course).  In the barrios some of the girls, as young as 8, dress and act so provocatively it makes me want to drag them all to a convent.  Probably not the best answer, but truly they are so shocking you just want to lock them away from the world.  So I am very grateful that somehow Rafa has so far escaped that curse of the culture.  For her birthday she spent the weekend at a friend's house in Passagem; they stayed up until 1am!  Silly girls!!  Sunday she went to the beach with all the people in the Fazenda who have a birthday in October and had a fabulous time.  Sunday night we had dinner with her brothers, Caroline, and Irma Maria Adela (Argentinean, arrived in the Fazenda last week, will live with us after Irma Miriam leaves next month).  I went to great pains to make a delicious low-fat, low-cholesterol dinner for her.  Ok, it wasn't painful, but it is nearly impossible for me to cook without cream and butter.  Well on Sunday she got to have her cake and eat it too because it was a low-fat chocolate cake with non-fat meringue frosting.  We invited more people over for cake, she got a few presents, including a beautiful rosary (thank you Michelle!) and earrings.  (We're taking her to get her ears pierced on Saturday.)  That night there was a true happiness inside her that I don't see very often.  We prayed a decade of the rosary before she went to bed smiling.

We sing and dance together a lot.  I love it when she sings Sound of Music in the shower trying to copy me J  I help her with her math homework and she helps me with my Portuguese.  She says she wants to learn to cook, but of course she never wants to actually stay in the kitchen working for an hour.  Pray for me to always be patient with her.  I pray that we are helping her draw closer to Mary, the Mother of us all.  No one else can fill the hole in her heart.  

love,

Sunny

Not soft, but definitely tender

How did I get so busy?  I thought this life would be more on the contemplative side, but I don't even have time to type my blog once a week!  sheesh!!  I didn't post last week and this week's blog was lame--I was distracted and didn't have much time.  Although my brother told me that he likes it when their short because then it doesn't take as long to read it!  HA!  I guess everyone's busy...

Anyways, I'm on a rest day and I just woke up from 9 hours of soft, pillowy, blissful sleep!  I didn't even move in my sleep which tells you how exhausted I was.  My life before seems like a vacation compared to now.  Literally every hour is scheduled and then other things always come up.  Cook, clean, mow the grass, paint something, fix something, cook, play with the kids, clean, help with homework, cook, visit the neighbors,  wash clothes, wash clothes, wash clothes.    And pray.  I try to pray and find I am so preoccupied with what I have to do next that the silence is filled with endless chatter.  Sometimes even prayer seems like a chore, or just a chance to sit down.  Plus, in the Fazenda we don't have anything soft.  We sit on wooden benches or plastic chairs at wooden tables to eat.  We sit on wooden benches and kneel on a stone floor in the chapel.  In my house we have a "sofa" which is a wooden frame with a 1" thick old cushion on it.  I am convinced that if I cut open the vinyl cover on my mattress I'd find only plywood.  There is no carpet anywhere.  My feet ache after cooking for hours, my knees give out when I stand up after adoration, and I am sore to the bone in the mornings.  This life is hard, on so many levels.

...and then someone smiles, another laughs. Someone leaves flowers on my windowsill, draws me a picture,  a child says "Ti amo"  (I love you).  Jesus gets through to me despite all the racket in my head.  A friend sees that I am exhausted and invites me to sit for a bit drinking coffee and asks how I am.  Because the laundry can wait.  We are here to spread compassion, to exemplify tenderness.  Sometimes I am so busy that I feel far from my mission, but maybe I can't see the forest for all the trees.  Isn't all of this a reflection of "real life"?  Won't there always be dirty clothes, hungry bellies, and energetic children?  Won't there will always be lonliness, anger, anxiety, and the deep need for tenderness?  True, my life isn't soft, but it is definitely tender.  I am learning better not only how to love others, but to let them love me.

Friday I went on an apostolate to Lar Vida.  It's a home for people with all sorts of disabilities.  About 100 children and adults live there, some with Down Syndrome, some with cerebal palsy, some with physical deformities, and some that I just can't explain.  It's become a regular apostolate for me and I go every other Friday now.  I must admit the first time I went I was thinking "I can't do this, it's going to freak me out, I'm not going to feel comfortable," and then I ended up so bursting with love and smiles that my face hurt.  They are always so happy to see us when we arrive, showing us their new shoes or games or flowers.  We run around tickling each other, kicking a soccer ball, drawing, laughing.  In one room there are those who can't get out of bed and most of them at first glance seem like they wouldn't respond at all.  But then I talk to them--in Portuguese or English, they don't mind--and I touch their faces and hold their hands and you wouldn't believe the smiles.  That's the only way some of them can communicate is to smile.  Erica went with us a couple weeks ago and it was the first time she had been there.  She told me that when I'm there I light up like she's never seen me in the Fazenda.  I was surprised to hear that because there are lots of times that I absolutely love being in the Fazenda and I do like living there better than I would like living at Lar Vida.  Why would it seem that I am happier at Lar Vida?  I think it's because I know that I don't have to hide anything there.  As much as I have opened up to my community, still there are times, maybe subconsciously, when I guard my emotions.  (It's a hard habit to break.)  But there in Lar Vida no one knows me from Eve, and because of their disabilities and seclusion from the world they have a sort of innocence that's not easy to find elsewhere.  They are the easiest people in the world to love.

This past Friday in particular was a ton of fun because another group of visitors was there with a trampoline, bouncy house and DJ.  To see the children who are usually in wheelchair squealing with delight on the trampoline was especially touching.  I got up and danced with some of them, which was especially entertaining.  I'm not the greatest dancer and I was trying to learn how to dance like a Brazilian.  The teenagers from the Fazenda who were with me were at first horrified with embarrassment for me (I wasn't embarrassed at all, mind you) and then were laughing so hard they were crying.  So in that 10 minutes I made a whole bunch of people smile, including myself.  A special friend of mine is Marta.  She's probably between 18-25 and in a wheelchair.  Her body is perfectly formed from the hips up (her arms and  back would make Madonna jealous) and then about mid-thigh her legs get smaller and smaller and below the knee are just 2 dangling appendages that are smaller than her forearms.  But Friday she was out of her wheelchair and playing soccer.  She would hold her body up by her arms and then swing her body so that her little foot could make contact with the ball.  There's no strength in her foot or leg though so all the force was coming from her arms.  It was incredible!  I wish I had pictures to show you.    

Ok, I'm going to hug this scrumptious pillow some more and enjoy my soft rest day.  Today is Rafaela's birthday.  She spent  the weekend with a friend and today is at the beach with the other 9 people in the Fazenda who have birthdays in October. When I get home (home, aka the Fazenda, yes, it feels like home) I'm going to cook dinner and frost the cake I made for Friday night.  Her brothers are coming over for dinner along with Irma Maria Adela, the nun who arrived last week to live here.  I'm looking forward to seeing Rafa's sweet face and hearing all about her weekend.

in all tenderness,
Sunny

Kids' Day

Today is a big festival day in Brazil.  It seems like they have 2 or 3 holidays a month!  It's the day to celebrate Nossa Senhora Aparecida and O Dia das Crianças (Children's Day).  I remember one year when I was little around the time of Mother's Day and Father's Day I asked my mom "when is Kids' Day?"  she said, "Every other day is Kids' Day!"  Well here they actually have a day for the kids.  We brought in a bus full of 30 kids from Passagem, plus our 10 made for an exciting day.  It was like herding cats, but overall a success.  Erica organized the entire thing, and even found sponsors for the day, which was really amazing. We had mass, ate lunch, then someone "kidnapped" Nossa Senhora Aparecida.  So the kids had to go all around the Fazenda playing games and completing tasks to win pieces of a puzzle map that would tell them where the kidnapper had hidden her....anyways, I have tons of pictures (big surprise!) and will post those with more details in a blog this weekend.

Other happenings here in the Fazenda lately: 

Erica had a birthday last week and so we spent a few days celebrating.  It was touching to experience with her being away from family for her birthday.  She expressed how it was hard to be away from home for her birthday but how happy she was to have so many caring friends here to celebrate with her.  I know what she means--my birthday, and Christmas, will be hard, but at least those times are hard for all of us, so we share in the sorrow and the joy together.

A friend of ours from Salvador teaches Spanish dance and came to the Fazenda last Saturday.  We thought she was just going to teach the teenagers some suave dance moves, but she showed up with all kinds of percussion instruments.  It was amazing how she held everyone's attention for hours teaching us how to make music out of just about anything.  Who knew you could play a pinecone?  Oh and I am going to be an expert at playing the spoons before this mission in over!  Of course, now all the kids are banging together anything they can find:  spoons, pans, garden tools, rocks. 

Aldo left on Sunday.  He's Peruvian and had spent 14 months on mission in Ecuador and then 6 months here.  I already miss his joy and laughter.  He had the loudest laugh in the whole Fazenda, so now it's a tie between Tata (20-year-old Brazilian woman who is living here for 6 months) and me.  I know I'm going to do a lot of saying good-byes over the next year and so I remember what one of my French friends said, "See you in Heaven." :) 

I went swimming in the lagoon for the first time.  It wasn't as dirty as I thought it would be...or my idea of "dirty" has changed in the past few months.  It's warming up and some days are already hot, so I'm sure I will appreciate the lagoon even more once summer comes and we are roasting. 

Hope all of you in North America are enjoying cool autumn weather!

love,

Sunny