Cooking, painting, celebrating

7/2/2012
The majority of my service at CCJ today was to cook for 25 people. It may sound weird for my family, but I actually missed cooking! A few of us shopped for food at a store by CCJ. It was an interesting experience to try to look for the ingredients for our American recipes and we did well overall, but we couldn’t find pepper. Such a simple little item, but essential for Alfredo sauce. Well, we didn’t find any so our sauce was made without pepper! It still tasted good, so the students said…

Perhaps the biggest adjustment for me was the lack of running water at CCJ. It’s amazing the things I take for granted back home. Cooking and cleaning without running water or hot water was not my favorite, but it helped me appreciate what I have and realize I have so much.

We all helped with the painting job, and it was great to see everyone working as a team. Even though we are not done with the job, what we did today already made a big difference in that building. A lot of paint and a lot of cleaning made the place look so much better already. It will be fun to look at it when our service is all finished.

At night, Michele and I were invited to our Brazilian’s mom birthday party. It was my second time today singing happy birthday because we had a little party for Professor Fitzgibbon and her daughter, Natalia, at CCJ. It’s interesting that the birthday song I am used to (Portugal) is different than the one Brazilians sing. I like both, since it adds variety to the boring English version… (not too many people read my blog, so it’s ok to say this).

The birthday party for Gracia was a lot of fun. Plenty of snack foods, a wonderful dinner, and the best part was watching everyone talk to each other, laugh and have a good time. The background music was provided by a novela and only 2 or 3 people were watching. I love how everyone greeted us with “beijinhos”, because that is what we do in Portugal and I miss it; it’s a friendly way of saying “nice to meet you, welcome to my life”. Brazilians in the northeast (and other places in the country I'm sure) are very close to their families and I love it! Family truly is the best thing one can have:)