Postcards from Far Away

A girl with peeling skin scurries along the streets of rain-sprinkled São Paulo, her broken umbrella barely covering her inexplicably frizzy hair. She trips and notices the floor is covered with white tangled string. She looks up and sees that the plethora of telephone wires are covered with black shiny dangly things. What is going on? As she turns the corner, her question is answered, hundreds of young boys and teenagers reeling in their home made kites and counting their losses...

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Inexplicably large fruits dangling from a tree that smell suspiciously like feet and look like pineapples on steroids. A few days later one is cut open on the table for trying and it is named Jacá by the many brazilians surrounding it. And slightly unsurprisingly, it tastes just like feet.

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Just another evening walk with Dad, though the scenery is slightly different. Coconut in hand, smell of fish and salt, sun slowly setting, giant Santa and snowman made out of sand on Copacabana beach...just another evening winding its way to a gentle halt in Rio de Janeiro as the airplane to England waits paitently.

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Streets littered with what look like piles of abandoned blankets. Suddenly one moves and a face emerges... just one of the many evacuees from the nearby "crackolandia", the drug metapolis of Brazil...

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A sleepy Heather hears her name being called at 7.30 am and refuses to wake up. Soon she is literally dragged out of bed and her heart sinks... it´s dad´s first morning in Brazil... what has happened?

H: Dad is everything OK?

Dad: absolutely.

P: Your Dad´s hungry, you need to make him something to eat

H: But we´d arranged 9am for breakfast... are you hungry dad?

Dad: No, but Paulo said I had to get up and get dressed... at least he was making some funny gestures...

P: Oh.

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Friends getting offended because I put my seatbelt on. If you'd seen how they drive, you'd have done the same...

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A muddy figure emerges from the rain, water casacading from his glasses, all the CEMite boys cheering. Dad has been taught to play football the Brazilian way.

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The sound of sea, samba and fireworks... everyone dancing and hugging on the sand...3...2....1.... Feliz Ano Novo! Happy New Year!

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Opening lots of little bundles of love on Christmas morning in São Paulo, feeling like my heart would implode with homesickness. Feeling a million miles away. Waking up the next day to find that most of my English chocolate has been eaten by a "mystery" intruder...

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Arriving at a Baby Shower in my last week in Viçosa, baby wipes in tow... new parents Felipe and Milena hanging bibs on the line and playing the "nappy test" game... 3 nappies to sniff... what did the baby eat??

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16 hours on a bus to São Paulo with sunstroke and severely burnt back, no water and a stomach dancing the conga...

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Bathing in Guarapari´s ocean, singing worship songs and swimming for miles and miles

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A C Major arpeggio blaring out at 7am. Doo doo doo doooooooo. What could it be? An introduction to a Beethoven symphony or a Bach cantata? The announcement on a train platform? A slightly demented ice-cream van? No, it's the gas man doing his deliveries...

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A vending machine on a Metro platform... only instead of selling Dairy Milk and KitKats it sells... books. And a sign saying "pay as much as you think it's worth." Ahhh bliss.

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Crying in Toboão da Serra´s square, feeling hopeless. Will we ever get the support we need to be able to go to Belém and do our project? After deciding to pray and trust everything to God´s care, Tió, the exact person we had been trying to contact for days, pulled up in his car, took us to his house and took care of everything. The next day, the church had been informed, we were in the notice sheet and the tickets were booked with his credit card, 200 reais cheaper than the wallet-crippling prices we had seen! Feeling overwhelmed at how real God is and how faithful he is in his care.

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Hearing a Christmas cantata that sounded like the choir of heaven and being powerfully reminded of why I´m here and how He is here. Crying many times (Again) as I reflect on how far I´ve come in a year, how wonderful 2011 has been, how I am still visibly and slowly being moulded in order to make me more like Christ, as painful as the process may be.

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Wandering in Sao Paulo's extensive range of department stores, drooling at the sight of an aero bar that costs about 8 pounds...

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Eating Chicken, rice, salad and lemon tart at midnight on Christmas Eve, and playing "trick or treat" pass the parcel... do you open or not, knowing that there could be a nasty surprise inside? Hoping for a chocolatey treat my heart sinks... a piece of paper reads "make a declaration of love in front of everyone." Merry Christmas one and all!

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And here are some photos that tell their own stories..

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100148753583790.2533338.36919546&type=1&l=582eb0107a

Wish you were here.

Happy 2012.

Heather

x x x