Jabuticaba

Marli took us to her family’s chacara (farm) last Wednesday afternoon. When her father bought the farm he planted fruit and nut trees all over the property and around the perimeter he planted white pines which are now massive and make you feel especially tiny as you walk beside them. It was a beautiful day, and so fun to have Marli take us around to see all the different fruit trees . I don’t know if I’ll be able to remember them all, but there were trees (and vines) of cashew, macadamia, pecan, tamarind, mango, orange, coffee, grape, passion fruit, pear, star fruit, and papaya, but our favourite of all was the jabuticaba (ja-boo-chee-cah-bah).

Speaking in terms of theme and variation, Jabuticaba is definitely the variation of a theme. I would never have imagined a fruit tree like it. In fact, it’s the kind of tree you come to expect to come across in a Dr. Seuss book. Jabuticaba fruit are small and perfectly round and they look like something of a cross between a cherry and a grape. They have a thick skin that you don’t eat, like on concord grapes. You pop the white insides into your mouth, and there’s a crunchy seed in the centre that you can eat. The flavour of the fruit is something like a black currant. The coolest part about them, though, is the way they grow on the tree. They grow directly on the branches and trunk of the tree, attached in bunches by short green stems that you can’t actually see until you start picking them. By far, this was the easiest fruit picking I’ve ever done. You can just run your hand along the tree and the Jabuticaba fall into your bucket below. This is no Blueberries for Sal picking. It's more like, "Kuplink-kuplank-ku-WOAH the whole bucket is full!"

Jabuticaba trees from afar - cute and unassuming:

Jabuticaba up close:

Jabuticaba up closer:

After seeing Jabuticaba trees, Jess and I talked about how amazing Life is . . . of all the different life forms that exist on the earth, you can't divide them into right ways and wrong ways of growing, for instance. Life forms are so vast, and yet each is so unique. There’s definite organization, and yet somehow Life is still spontaneous - full of amazing surprises that don’t quite fit the mold . . . like the Jabuticaba.

Piracicaba Continues

Yesterday Jessica and I went to meet with the lady who runs a well-known English school here in Piracicaba. She's actually about the same age as we are, so don't think lady as in old lady :). Marli (the friend we are staying with) had already made the contact for us, which was great. Neither Jess nor I were thrilled about the meeting, just because it's a little nerve-wracking to meet with someone who may be hoping to hire you when you still haven't figured out just what you're doing here, or where you're going, or how long you're staying . . . But it turned out to be so much better than we expected, that I'm still a little blown away by everything that happened during our conversation. Essentially, all the fears and doubts that had built up over the last two weeks about being able to work here in Brazil were were not only calmed, but my expectations of teaching situations here were far surpassed. This lady is willing to help us in any way possible, whether or not we end up teaching in her school or not. She has offered to send us to an all-expenses training course for one month, which would essentially set us up to teach in many different areas of the country. For this particular school, the hours are great and the pay is just right. The school atmosphere was extremely comfortable . . . the kind of place that makes you want to teach. You can be a real person with the students as opposed to just being "the teacher". She was super understanding of our current inability to commit to anything. Actually, she articulated our situation quite well for us - we hardly had to say anything. I walked away with a better understanding of what I'm doing right now in terms of job searching. We don't have to make any quick decisions - we've got over a month to continue travelling and feeling out different cities and schools before she needs an answer from us. And to top it all off, she gave us her personal email at the end and told us to contact her anytime we need anything or if we just want to hang out as friends. Brasilians never cease to amaze me with their friendliness!

Today we went to school with Marli. She teaches English in a private school. Jess and I did a Question and Answer sessions in English with five of her classes. It was a lot of fun, and it was especially great getting to see a school here from the inside. We have lots of schools back home to compare to! A lot of the stressful parts of being a teacher back home just don't exist here. Again, you can be a real human being with the students.

Yesterday and today we were able to spend time with Davi and Camilla, oh, and of course Giovana too! It was really nice. Giovana is the Brasilian Aeden - she's got blue eyes and curly blond hair. It's cute because I remember how much Camilla loved playing with Aeden when they lived with us.

The current plans are as follows. Marli's family has invited us to spend the weekend with them at their beach house, and then we will be going to a city called Barretos on Monday. We're looking forward to see what Barretos is all about because everytime (without fail) we tell people we are going to Barretos they either laugh at us, or ask, "WHY are you going THERE?" When we say we're visiting a friend, everyone's like, "Oh, okay". Apparently Barretos is well-known for a big rodeo that unfortunately just ended a little while ago. My curiosity is piqued . . .

Today the Lord's word to me is this:

"But now, this is what the LORD says— He who created you, O [Joy], He who formed you, O [Joy]: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine."
(Isaiah 43:1)

I wish I could explain the impact it's having on me to realize and see and know that I belong to Jesus , but I hardly understand it myself. It's hitting something deep in my being, and I'm really at a loss for words.

A Few Days in Pictures

We've been in Piracicaba for a few days now, and we're not sure how much longer we'll be staying. Here's a little of what we've seen and done since we arrived.

Community Gardens (Hortas comunitárias) – Gardens on plots of land right within the city which provide the surrounding neighbourhoods with fresh leafy greens. This one is just around the corner from our house and they grow lettuce (alface) , arugula (rúcula) , collards (couve) and swiss chard (almerão). Definitely cooler than Food Basics :).

Barbecued banana (Banana assada) – There happened to be a churrasco (Brazilian-style BBQ) for the group of Brasilian students that Jessica taught in London this summer (we are staying with the teacher that brought all of them. She and her family have been so incredibly welcoming since even before we arrived!) I got to eat my beloved coração (chicken heart) yet again (that was for you Karla!) as well as lots of other meats and salads. I’ve never been a huge meat-eater, but I have to admit that I’m liking churrascos more and more. For dessert we had something I’d never tried before – they barbecued a banana, sprinkled cinnamon and then added ice cream with nuts and a bit of caramel glaze. I thought this was a dessert right up Hannah and Joel and Dave (Marcus’) alley . . . it would have gone well with our last meal together, eh?

Off-road motorcycle racing (Enduro) – The son of the family we are staying with had a race this weekend and we met up with him at two of the stops where the racers re-fuel (with gasoline and food). They start early in the morning and have to ride all day, following a special kind of map through all kinds of terrain. What’s really interesting about it is that it’s not a race for speed, but an endurance race. There are specific posts where their time is noted down, and they have to aim to pass those points at an exact time. It’s better to be late than to be early. If you pass earlier than the ideal time, it’s minus two points for every second, but if you’re late, it’s minus one point per second. The person with the fewest faults is the winner. It was a cold, wet day but we couldn’t very well complain about how we felt after seeing all the shivering, muddy drivers come in.

A wood burning stove (Fogão a lenha) – On our way back from the first re-fuelling station we stopped to have lunch in the country at a restaurant called Leite do pé da vaca (which quite literally means Milk of Cows Foot . . . I’m probably losing a little in the translation :). The food we ate is apparently very typical of Minas Gerais, the state above São Paulo. We had feijoada (a dish of beans, sausage and meat), mandioca (yucca), and doce de abóbora (pumpkin that’s been cooked down with sugar and spice and is mmm, mmm delicious) among other things . . . It felt so nice to eat a warm meal after having stood outside for a while. The way the food was kept warm on this wood stove was also a welcome sight coming in from the cold.

VW Beetles (Fuscas) – This is a shot just outside the restaurant. VW bugs are so cool-looking. They even make parking lots look scenic.

Show and Tell

Here are a couple of photos. The first is in Sao Paulo with Silvia, and the second is at the International Conference with a couple of kids we met (in reverse chronological order because I'm just learning how to post photos and I'm too tired to fix it).

A Day in São Paulo

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.

He is With Us

The adventures have begun. Jess and I arrived a little over a week ago and have been slowly re-immersing ourselves into Brasilianness. I say slowly because we've actually been speaking more English than when we were in Africa, since we'd already established English relationships with so many of the people we've been with. Plus, Portuguese felt rather awkard at first. If you can imagine stuffing cotton balls into your mouth and speaking, that's kind of what it was like. Yeah, you can get the words out and yeah, people understand you. But it feels funny. And you sound funny too.

It's been a week of a little bit of everything - from feelings of sheer bliss and feeling alive and being able to breathe once more, to moments of doubt where whoever was currently strong told the other to stop asking what we're doing here. The true truth, though, is that Jess and I can both say that although we don't really have any clear idea about what we are doing here specifically, that there is a deep peace within each of our beings that overrides all the feelings of uncertainty that accompany the unknown.

Although we lost sight of the goal at various points this week (and we haven't yet left the comfort of being with dear friends!), the Lord has already shown in undeniable ways that He is with us and that the only thing that matters is to follow Him. It means lots of letting go. When I packed my suitcase to come, I already felt relieved because I was forced into letting go of a large part of my life. The size of suitcase I wanted to travel with meant that most of what I hold onto as "me" had to be left behind. No room for the past. No room for the future. Only enough space for the present.

But this week I realized that there's more difficult letting go of to do - letting go of fears, letting go of the closeness of relationships, and letting go of the 'need' to have a plan and a clear goal to head towards. Not that these aren't appropriate or legitimate, but because if I give them too much weight, they hold me back from following the Lord wherever He will go. I'm beginning to learn to surrender the intangible things to the Lord. It's hard, because they're things in my heart and I can't just decide to get rid of them. I can see, though, that if something is truly necessary or valuable, it's better left in the Lord's hands than in mine. Things I hold on to somehow manage to crowd my heart, but things I give to Him make me free.

After the events of the past week I've come to the conclusion that there aren't right decisions and wrong decisions. Instead, I think there's following the Lord and then everything else. I'm excited to follow Jesus. It's such a strange feeling to not know where you are going, but to know that everything is just the way it should be . . . I'd like to capture this feeling in a bottle.

For the next two weeks or so we are going to be travelling to visit friends in 3 different cities and we'll be checking out some schools we've already contacted. A friend of ours has been kind enough to lend us his cell phone, so if you'd like to call us (no pressure but it would be VERY nice :) send me an email and I'll send you the number. We'll only have the phone for the next week and a half or so because we'll be giving it back once we get to his city. So if you're planning to call, don't wait forever. Of course, emails are always accepted with pleasure :)

Pray for us!