Yesterday was a day for new things. It turns out that we stayed here in São Paulo rather than heading off to the first city we were going to visit, and so we got to see a bit of the city which was nice because every time I've ever been here it seems like I'm just pasing through. Silvia had class in the morning so we went left around 8 in the morning and wandered Avenida Paulista (one of the main business streets) for about 4 hours. We found a mall to go into because the weather has been pretty cold. Colder than we packed for. I know 13 degrees isn't that close to freezing, but when you've got all your warmest layers on and you're still cold, it feels just short of unbearable.
We witnessed our first mugging on the way back to meet Silvia. It was almost like watching a movie slow-mo. This guy about 50m or so in front of us (the street was busy with lots of people) was yanking on this older Asian lady's purse. But she wasn't about to let him have it -she put up a good fight and yanked right back. Everything happened really quickly and I didn't see whether or not he got it (because after it was all over she was still clutching a purse) but then he jumped on the motorcycle where another guy was waiting and they took off. Nobody did anything while it was happening but everyone was helping the lady after and talking about the scoundrels that attacked her. Silvia was surprised when we told her because in three years of leaving here, she's never seen that. It didn't really scare me, because we've already been plenty warned about the dangers of being foreigners in Brazil. But it did make us stop and offer up a prayer to the Lord, remembering that our safety and our lives are in His hands. At this point it's either trust him or stay home with the doors bolted shut.
For lunch the three of us met up with Omar who took us to an extremely hipped out (as in hippie) restaurant - no name on the outside, you walk up a flight of stairs and then past the kitchen where the food is being prepared. We payed 10 reais (about $6.25 in real money :) for our meal, which was a mix of ultra-health foods: tofu (actually the best of I've had), some kind of cooked greens, miso soup, brown rice, various veggies and some slimy bean thing that Silvia, Jess and I couldn't get down due to texture/taste issues. It was definintely a fun experience and we felt very healthy walking away. We decided that the none of the London girls would have wanted to try any of it except maybe Kiran. Woot woot Kiran!
We went to the zero mark (from where distances are measured when you're travelling on the highway), went into the São Paulo stock market building (BOVESPA) and learned all about investing in stocks in Portuguese, and walked around downtown streets. It reminded me a lot of Santiago, Chile. People everywhere, big, old architecture, and vendors running from the police with the wares they are selling illegally. We then took a tour of some used books stores to try to get some Portuguese reading but ended up with sensory overload and came away with nothing.
We ate pastels - kind of a deep-fried pastry - and then açai - it's a fruit from the amazon that they blend up with frozen banana to make like a thick shake and you put granola and fresh banana on top. The kind of thing you're happy you'll get to eat again sometime.
I'm going to have to end here for today because we're leaving to head to the bus station in a little less than an hour and I've got to get some things done. We're going to Piracicaba and staying with a friend we made this summer through teaching ESL in London. Jess is going to get to see a lot of the students that she taught. I'll try to write again when we know how soon we'll be moving on.
One last thing. I've come to the point where I'm okay with the fact that we don't know exactly what we're doing here or where we're headed (long-term), but it gets hard to repeat the same answer over and over to various people, "We don't know. We don't know that either. Nope, we still don't know about that". I'm okay with it because I have to be. Any time I start making plans beyond the immediate future, I panic and want to go back to Canada. Jess and I are constantly talking through the strange sensations we get in doing what we're doing, and the Lord is definitely asking a little more every day, "So, do you REALLY trust Me?" Anyway, yesterady I had to laugh when we met someone new and went through the whole spiel about how we came to live here or a while and we're looking for work etc. She asked (in Portuguese), "So, where are you living?" and I started into telling her that we're actually just travelling for now and praying to see where the Lord wants us to be, but she interrupted me and turned to the person beside her and said, "She doesn't understand me". At which point I laughed and said, "Yes, I did . . ." and proceeded to explain again. I know it's hard to understand. I don't get it either. I'm just living it one step at a time.
No comments:
Post a Comment