July 7, 2005
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July 7, 2005
I got my suitcase! Oh, praise the Lord! There were many necessary things in there. I had gifts I brought to, so as I was opening my suitcase David was almost salivatating over the chocolate. I started unpacking…and no chocolate. I had brought a box with 36 Hershey bars. It is hard to miss. I get to the bottom of the suitcase, and no chocolate. Grr. You should have seen David: “That is horrible! Someone needs to give us our chocolate! How corrupt can they be—taking chocolate? I am going to call them right now!” And he did, but it has not gotten anywhere yet. Karine said that once when Tele was bringing them back some sweets, they were examining his suitcase and they dumped it all out—and then in front of him—took a big swipe of the candy and put in his drawer and then continued searching the bad! Yikes.
Well, the bug bites are up to 50 and as I was religiously itching them I was trying to talk in Portuguese and said something about the horrible “moo-sa-kas.” Well, apparently that is NOT the word for mosquitoes. It is something similar, but enough different that David and Silvio (another seminary student who is hilarious) could not stop laughing at me. They have determined to call the bugs “moo-sa-kas” from now on. David says it like on Lion King when the hyenas say “Mufasa.” Then I was complaining about this huge zit I have under my nose (interesting what is important to you in another country, isn’t it?) and I called it a “biscoitos” well, I knew as soon as that came out of my mouth that it was wrong. As they started laughing I remembered that “biscoitos” was the word for cookies. This is just the beginning of my mutilation of Portuguese.
Tele and Karine came and we began to work on “pantomime.” Now, my only claim to fame is doing mime when I came in 99, but that seemed to be enough for them to let me join. This is much harder—it is 16 minutes long, just instruments—no words—and five people. There is the victim (Karine), Jesus (Gilson), and then the three bad people (Ricardo, Katia, and I). It is the story of the victim being used by each of us (I represent deception, Ricardo drugs, and Katia witchcraft) and then Jesus comes to save her but she will not trust him…he dies (well, we kill him) and is raised and then she believes and finally each of us are saved also. It is incredible. A lot of work too. Karine took charge and I must say, she was fantastic. She not only is one of the best mime people I have seen, but she also has great leadership skills as she had us all stretch out and learn our parts (only Gilson had done it before). And she had to do it all in Portuguese and English.
The problem is that I am just not very good at aggression. Karine was like “think of someone you hate—oh, wait, you don’t hate anyone do you? Come on Rachel—be mean—think evil!” so now I have homework to look in the mirror and find a way to make my face express evil and deception. They kept laughing at me because the harder I tried; the more bouncy I got instead of more evil. Oh well. I know I am not the greatest, but I will give it my best shot. It is definitely a stretch for me. Outside my box.
You know what is funny? Edjane understands English, but hardly ever says it, and I understand more Portuguese, but mutilate my attempts to speak. So normally what happens is I ask her something in English and she responds in Portuguese and we understand each other perfectlyJ. Here was our conversation today:
Me: Bom Dia! Voce aqui hoje? (Good morning! You here today?)
Edjane: Nao. Trabalha (No, work)
Me: Todos dia? (all day?)
Edjane: Sim. No trabalha Sabido o Domingo (yes. No work Saturday or Sunday)
Does this remind you of the caveman “oohh ohh me eat now!” stuff? But hey, I am learning. The shower head loomed over me again. If you did not know, the water is heated only as it comes through this huge shower head thing. There is no on-off switch, so whatever comes out is what you get…the less water pressure the hotter it is because it can heat it more. The problem is when you adjust it because the knob is metal. If you are standing under the water and try to make it hotter or colder you get a nice little ZAP. It certainly wakes you up in the morning!
