Natal, Brazil 2007: A Not So Sweet Smelling Savor...

Sunday morning led me directly where it should have, to the door of the hall in the Planalto. With Caroline and William following behind me, we had left Lobster Road with 30 minutes to get to the hall. The streets of Natal are empty on Sunday morning. Nobody is up! Most people go to church on Sunday Night, so they take the opportunity to sleep in on Sunday morning. It took less than 20 minutes to get to the hall, which was the quickest amount of time that I had ever made there in. We pulled in directly behind Lillia and Luis. After we first exited the car, Lillia instructed me that I should move to give the other neighbor more room to pull out of the driveway.

I did as she asked, and parked in some tall grass to the side of the road. We went into the hall and morning meeting commenced soon afterward. About 5 minutes into meeting I began to notice a smell. I looked around wondering which member of the church had failed to use deodorant. The closest one to me was Raimundo, but Raimundo is Mr. Hygiene himself, so that did not make sense. The rest of the people relatively close to me were women, and if it was one of them it had to be the worst female body odor I had ever smelled in my entire life. The smell continued to permeate the air throughout the remainder of meeting. Sometimes it would be stronger and other times it would be weaker. I couldn't figure it out.

After meeting I was shaking hands with everyone, and Neto came over to me and put his elbow on my shoulder. "You have poop on your shoe", he told me in his thick accent. Slightly embarrassed after seeing the brown trail my shoe had left behind, I slinked outside and casually scraped the bottom of my sneaker on the dirt road. I checked the grass near where I had parked and found a newly squished pile. I sarcastically thanked Lillia silently in my mind for the mental disruption that had been caused during that mornings service.

Caroline, William and I left after the Sunday school singing. There was no point in sticking around if we couldn't understand the language. We went back to the house to change before lunch. We had a bit of time to spare since we were meeting Lillia and Luis. I took the opportunity to blog for a bit. Caroline was feeling ill and didn't even want to go to the restaurant for lunch, but I forced her to go. We met up with Aunt Lori and Uncle Mark, Lillia, Luis, Dona Nier and Pietro shortly thereafter. Caroline and I left abruptly after another delicious Sunday lunch of meat, beans, rice, cheese and grilled pineapple. We went home and I floated in the pool on Uncle Mark's raft for a while. I got sick of keeping my finder over the hole in the seam, so I soon abandoned that plan and just went inside to take a nap.

William came home about 20 minutes later. They had stayed at the restaurant for another hour, which caused me to regret not asking William to come home with us too. Poor kid was stuck with the adults and Pietro for an extended period of time. He likely did not hear anything other than Portuguese. After I woke up from my nap I got ready for meeting. Uncle Mark had headed back to Santa Maria to preach the Gospel that evening. I packed an overnight bag, since I was sleeping at Neto's that evening, then hopped into the Gol and headed back to the Planalto. Meeting went by super slowly, as is the custom when you don't speak enough of the language to get what the speaker is saying.

After meeting I joked around with some of the kids, and went to find Dudu to give her the pictures that she had directed me to take after the distribution on Friday. Her mother thanked me for them, and now it seemed I had a friend for life in Dudu. After I refused to sing La Bamba as one of the kids played it on the guitar, Paulo and I loaded the sound equipment and instruments in the Gol to drive them the short distance to Suzete’s house. We could not have fit another thing into the car if we wanted to unless Paulo had walked. We drove back to the hall and picked up Paula and Neto who were still talking with Luis. After we had all our passengers present and accounted for, we headed to the Pastel place next to Luiz's for dinner.

We were joined shortly thereafter by 20 others. All of the young people at the hall minus Suzete and Rodrigo, who were in Santa Maria, had come out for pastels. I had a great evening with everyone. We ate, laughed, joked and allowed Neto to translate for us all. When the bill came I couldn't believe it. Every single one of us was stuffed. These pastels were huge and stuffed with whatever filling you desired. It was basically a much lighter calzone. We each had had at least one pastel and Coke and yet the cost for everything was only 60 Raies ($30 American Dollars). When is the last time you have seen 24 people stuffed full of food for a price less than $30. I don't think I ever have!

We gave some of the girls a ride home, then Neto, Paula, Chiquinho and I headed to Neto’s house. Chiquinho went to bed shortly after getting home, but Neto and I stayed up to work on creating the logo for the cooperative on the design programs that were installed on my computer. We finished the logo, stationary and mailing labels around 2:30 AM, and retired to bed for the night. I had to be up at 6:30 the next morning in order to get the car back to Ponta Negra in time for Uncle Mark to leave for the hall by 8:00. It didn't help the "falling asleep situation" that Chiquinho, whom I was sharing a room with, snores louder than my father...