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