Sydney makes a splash
Our youngest daughter is getting bigger every day. Next year she'll be in middle school (grade 6-8 for our Canadian friends.) One of her big accomplishments of late has been learning how to dive. The school's guidance counselor has been giving Sydney some encouragement and tips on how to dive. Sydney has overcome her fears and now can dive quite well, even from the starting block!
One of our real items of praise has been the fact that Sydney has quickly found a friend. In Canada, she had many friends, but one clear best friend, Brenna Thompson. We were quite concerned that Sydney might not find anyone to take Brenna's place. But God is good and Alyssa found Sydney right off the bat. The two have been good friends ever since. Alyssa is a great girl, and a daughter of fellow staff at the school. We praise God for bringing Alyssa into our lives, and especially Sydney's.
Conference month
In March, Cary has had the opportunity to attend two conferences for professional development. The first was a principals conference here in Sao Paulo. The second was a technology/library/curriculum conference in Santiago, Chile. He was thrilled that PACA was interested in sending him to this conference, since it meant that he would not only get to attend a great conference, but he'd get to travel to another country as well.
This is the school in Chile that Cary visited as the host of the conference. It is the largest American school in Chile with about 1200 students. They had over 400 computers at this school - most of which were Macs!
The city of Santiago is in a valley surrounded by mountains. We got a great view of some of those mountains from the school.
On the second day there, Cary and the others from PACA who went to Chile visited the center of the city. It was very interesting with street performers everywhere and huge buildings surrounding this massive central square.
I had to put this picture in for our friends on PEI. We have seen bottles on occasion in Brazil, but they use bottles for pop extensively in Chile - just like in PEI. However, I thought it was funny to see the pop measured in CCs. I have only known hospitals and pharmacies to measure things in CCs. "Nurse, give that patient 350 CCs of Sprite--STAT!"
On the way home, Cary had a window seat and got some great pictures of the Andes mountains between Chile and Argentina. Since he has never seen mountains bigger than the Appalacians before, this was quite a treat.
So you think that things are the same here...
One of the things that is truly unimaginable until you live here is how different life can be on another continent. Take, for instance, the bathroom. This looks like a fairly ordinary bathroom in many ways, but believe me, just about everything about this bathroom is different from what we were used to. You're going to want to click on the picture to enlarge it. Some of the differences are very subtle.
The presence of the bidet is the most obvious difference. We have not used the bidet even once - and we have no intention of using it. Nobody we know uses theirs, but they are common in houses of average quality and better. Some use theirs to store toilet paper in, others actually plant flowers in theirs. The color of the toilets is another thing...it's different, but in other ways. Take a look at the drain hole between the bidet and the toilet. You're thinking, "It's a drain in case the toilet overflows," right? Wrong! It would serve this purpose, but that's not why it's there. In North American homes, you might have noticed that nearly every home has a small black pipe (or pipes) extending out of the roof. These exist to carry the foul odor from the toilet outside the house, while allowing the toilet to have air for flushing. This hole does the same thing. It's an air vent, and it allows the foul smells to enter the room right where the toilet is. In fact all of the water from the sink and the shower also pass through this vent. You can see and hear the water running by as you brush your teeth. Let's just say that the North American way is better. Next is the little waste basket near the toilet. "That's where you put your tissues, right?" Wrong! That's where you put your toilet paper after it's been used! Most homes don't have plumbing hardy enough to handle getting toilet paper out to the sewage drains, so people put their waste paper in the trash (always with a lid.) There's also the issue of no tank or flush handle on the toilet. In Brazil, the water comes from large water tanks in the attic or on the roof. The flush "handle" is actually a large button on the wall above the toilet that simply allows the water from above to pass through. Moving on to the things you can't see in the picture...most sinks have only one handle to turn water on--and it's cold water only. Only the rich can afford to have hot water, and nobody I know has hot water on-demand like North Americans take for granted. Our home is truly wonderful. We have a hot water heater (a rarity) but we can only afford to run it for 4 hours a day. Fortunately, we also have a solar panel which heats our water, so we have loads of hot water on sunny days, and just enough for showers, laundry and washing on cloudy days. We are also very blessed to have both hot and cold water taps in each shower stall. Most people only have cold water and they use an aparatus that literally heats the water as it passes over the coils for showers. Of course, this means that water pressure is minimal, because if you turn up the water pressure, the water temperature goes down because the coils can't heat all the water that fast. Washing machines only wash in cold water as well. Rod MacLean will appreciate this one. In Brazil they do not use traps. All pipes run straight, adding to the foul odors that we often are treated to in the bathroom. There are some very modern places where I've seen with traps, but they are truly a rarity here.
Lombadas
Lombadas (not to be confused with "lambada", which is a sensual dance) are not uncommon to any of us. We've all encountered speed bumps in parking lots before. However, in Brazil they are used extensively throughout Sao Paulo, at least, to keep people from speeding on the roads. You find these huge bumps in the road about every 200-300 metres on major roads, and as often as every 20m on residential streets. If you're not paying attention and you hit one of these beauties at 50 km/h, the jolt is enough to send a life lesson to you (assuming the car survives.) The lombada shown here is a gentle one (you come to appreciate these ones) There is no standardized method of making them here, so they're all different heights, therefore different levels of damage. Brazilians take speeding very seriously. Speed bumps are only part of the plan to keep speeders under control. In fact, they are so effective at keeping speeders at bay that you never see police stopping people for speeding--ever! They don't need to! Buses get a free pass on lombadas on bus lanes, but anyone thinking they'll save their shocks by swerving into the bus lane get a shock that's even worse. About 50m before a lombada they have 2 to 3 inch high reflectors set up between the regular lanes and the bus lane so that anyone swerving out of the regular lane runs the risk of popping a tire or wrecking their shocks. Fortunately, they don't have lombadas on the higways outside the city, but since we rarely drive outside the city, lombadas have become a fact of life for us.
Kilah goes "native"
We have encouraged our children to embrace the Brazilian culture, but Kilah might have taken our advice too far. A primitive Brazilian tribe from several hours drive away from Sao Paulo, showed up one day at the home of some missionary friends of ours who have grandchildren attending PACA. They came to raise money for their church by selling genuine native artifacts like bows and arrows, blow guns, wooden swords, spears, etc. Fortunately for Kilah, she had just done some babysitting for a PACA family and was flush with cash the day the natives set up their sales table at the school. (We won't go into how it came about that we actually sold weapons at school - let's just say this is Brazil.) Kilah bought a full-sized bow with two arrows. When she got them home, before they became decorations for her bedroom walls, the spirit of the articles seemed to overtake her and she "went native" for a while, hunting her sisters and the dog. (Just kidding, all the photos were staged -- but it makes for good reading, doesn't it?) Kilah really enjoys having her weapons on the wall in her room. It makes the place feel very "homey?" For those of you who know Kilah, you can appreciate her somewhat unique sense of taste.
The beach
One of the nice things about living in Brazil is that they have great beaches. In January we made our first trip outside the city to a coastal town called Mangugua. The beach there was not as nice as some that you would find in the Caribbean, but it was every bit as nice as any beach we've seen in North America. Because the beach isn't "spectacular" it wasn't very crowded (only about 10,000 people there that day). Since the beach is huge, it didn't seem cramped. It is supposedly a more modest beach than some other beaches, and our experience seemed to confirm that. (Not that we have any other beach experience to compare it to.) We had a great time with another PACA family that has five boys. We all got sunburned, despite using spf 45 sunblock. The water was really warm (like an indoor pool) which we all enjoyed. It was great to escape the city for a day. The drive down the mountain was quite spectacular.