week 2 starts...

there´s been a couple of things happen over the last few days since my last post, so i´ll try to be as brief as possible as i´ve only got a few minutes on the family computer tonight... here goes:

on saturday, we helped at the NAC´s festa de familha (family party) and it was awesome!!! aside from learning a VERY expensive lesson about taking the bus from home to the creche (just a $50 taxi ride later and i made it to the creche on time... don´t ask! lol) everything else went great... we were asked to bring some ´american´ food items to share with the kids and their families so we decided on making brownies to share... i found a very simple recipe online for ´one bowl brownies´and we bought all the ingredients we needed at the mercado central and a local market... i thought we were good to go, but nope! i nixed the brownies after attempting to bake 2 different batches of these brownies :( poor jaka´s mom probably wanted to kill us for burning something in her oven, because the brownies didn´t turn out right at all and instead they rose about 4 inches high and were soupy in the middle... bummer. they overflowed onto the bottom of the oven and filled the kitchen with a charred sugar smell... yuck. but, nick, diego and leo made a guacamole--admitted, not exactly typical american food, but it´s about as texan as they come!-- and paired it with doritos since there was not a tostada chip to be found in all of belo... i also brought koolaid mixes to make and share, but there were so many drinks there that the kitchen staff decided not to make the koolaid and saved it for sometime in the near future. :( in any case, the program went really well and the kids did an outstanding job... this was their first time speaking in public, owning and developing and creating and carrying through with a program, and they were all so proud! one of the local benefactors of the NAC was also in attendance and she was so proud of how far the kids have come since she last saw them! at the end of the program, diego, nick, leo and i got to show the kids and their families some ´american´ dances like the cupid shuffle and the electric slide... the kids went nuts. ´twas a good day!

this is the creche packed full with guests of the kids... parents, siblings, friends... PACKED!!!

the menores (little kids) doing their dance routine... they were so cute!!!

me & a little girl named lorena... she is a handful, but i think she just likes the attention! haha

nicki thanking the kids, parents and guests for coming to their first family day at the creche... when she talks, everyone listens :)


the rest of the weekend was rather short since we were at the creche early saturday, however, i ended my saturday by going to Mass with two of my sisters at their family´s church nearby... they have since moved out of the neighborhood where the church is located but they still consider it their home church... much like i still consider st. john neumann back home as my home church, i guess... anyway, i was so moved and overwhelmed at Mass that even in a country thousands of miles away, the readings were the same that my family and friends were reading back home in the states, and Christ was present in the Eucharist. seriously, just overwhelmed, it was amazing... i´ll try to post my reflections on the readings for the day soon, so you´ll have a little understanding of where i´m at right now... in short, Mass was just what i needed!

on sunday morning, my sister bianca, my host mom sayonahara and i set out at 7 AM for feira hippe, a street fair-artisan/crafts sale type thing in the middle of the city... hundreds of exhibitors come out every sunday to sell their hand-made wares of furniture, food, clothing, jewelry, toys and more... literally everything you can think of! we had a good time for the most part, except that bianca was pickpocketed at the end of the day :( bianca and my host mom made some purchases throughout the morning without incident, and i even bought a pair of running pants and a running shirt, and literally as bianca was making her last purchase and waiting for her change, she noticed that her bag had been sliced open on the side and her wallet had been stolen! we walked a few short blocks to the downtown police station and spent the next hour and a half filing a report so that bianca could freeze her bank cards and get new identification... as we waited for bianca´s report to be done, i counted 12-14 others who had been robbed in the same manner (and some more aggressively assaulted face-to-face)... it was quite an eye opener about maintaining awareness of myself and my belongings... all the things we learned in training were flashing through my head and i thought about how it could have been me that had been pickpocketed... literally, in the blink of an eye, bianca´s wallet was gone and neither of us had seen a thing and we were right there the whole time! sheesh.

this is feira hippe, tons and tons of local vendors selling everything you could possibly think of...

some of the most beautiful handmade jewelry i´ve ever seen!

one of those real-live statue guys that i got to take a picture with me. ha!


on a more serious note, i learned that on saturday some people i know had been robbed at gunpoint on the street while walking from one place to another... two teenagers popped out of a doorway and demanded their money, phones, and the girls´purses... somewhere in the confrontation, as the robbers were leaving with the stolen items, they fired off a shot in the air... it was pretty scary and everyone´s shaken up a little bit, but thankfully no one was injured, or worse... surely it could happen anywhere, but it seems scarier when your safety is compromised and you don´t speak the native language... things are more confusing, more hectic. just another reminder for you all to please pray for our safety while we´re here in brasil.

today, segunda-feira, was a rather awesome day as mondays are ´dia livre´... the one thing we did differently was actually go into the favelas guided by nicki, one of the directors of NAC, and met some of our kiddos´parents and saw where they lived... i can honestly say that i have never seen anything like i saw today, and the conditions that my kids live in... i´ve never been around the corner of the neighborhood center as i arrive every morning and leave every evening with sylvia by car...
today, however, nicki asked us if we´d like to go meet our neighbors with her, which i suspected was more for us than for her... we walked up a short hill past the graffiti covered walls of the creche, continued up the mountain to where the street no longer is a street and it becomes a gravel road, past the gravel road to where it becomes a dirt path... past the dirt path and into houses carved into the side of the mountains... there were stray, mangy dogs hobbling and barking all over the place, some chained up, some walking freely on the streets... i noticed broken windows, and even lack of windows, just openings where windows should go... there was broken glass from bottles everywhere, trash strewn all over the place, and the smell of urine and feces wafted from gutters flowing nearby the houses... we made our way down the street greeting the people as they peeked out of their windows and doors to see the strangers walk around in their neighborhood... as we´d walk by a house of a family that nicki knew, she´d tell us and then shout into the house to see if anyone was home... many of our little kids were home and getting ready for school as we were walking around during our lunch break... from the kids we got high fives, hugs and shout-outs, from the grown-ups and neighbors, we got a bunch of inquisitive and untrusting looks... as we were introduced to our kids´ parents, they would come out of their homes and shake our hands, give us a kiss on the cheek, and then a warm hug... most of the parents looked like they had been through a lot, haggard and tired, though i guessed their ages to be younger than me... nick, diego, leo and i followed nicki through paths, twists and turns, inbetween buildings and climbed over boulders to go from house to house... one house in particular, we found out, is actually home to three families... two parents each and i believe four kids total... the house could barely be called a house as the roof was patched together scrap materials and the walls looked like discarded bricks stacked on top of each other... there was an old door at the entrance to the home with a lock made out of a bent nail... when we were invited in, i noticed three of our kiddos getting ready for school, washing their faces and combing their hair with the same water from a small bowl... i saw one light in the house, fashioned from spliced electrical wires dangling from a makeshift hook in the center of the room... there was trash strewn about the room and there were pallets of blankets on the floor... as we visited with the family--in portuguese, no less--the mom told us it was time for the kids to walk to school and asked if we wanted to see how they get to school... we all said sure and followed her and the children around the rocks on the mountainside, down the street and made an unassuming turn into an alley... the alley twisted and turned inbetween buildings, down 3-foot drops of stairs, down a slanted walkway, down a rain gutter and finally to a free-standing flight of stone steps that continued down the mountainside... the kids walked past us like we were taking too much time and going to make them late, laughing at us really, while we all just walked in silence or commented about how steep the descent down the mountain was for us... we couldn~t imagine how their little legs and feet could carry them safely up and down the mountain every day, or even imagine how unsafe it must be in the rain...

i think after seeing where our kids come from, we all understood a little more about why they are the way they are... they will literally hug a chair if you let them, they are so liberal with their hugs and kisses... they love a handshake, high-five, a hug and a kiss back... with so little at home i can imagine that their parents have their hands full trying to figure out how to pay the bills or put food on the table, it´s no wonder they are so eager to eat a bowl of rice & beans at the creche every day...

seeing what i saw changed my life and the lives of my fellow bip´s... a while later, after we got back to the creche, we all kind of looked at each other and didn´t say a word... later on that evening, one of the guys, leo, commented that the biggest problem he had before coming to brasil was trying to figure out what color he wanted to order for his new bmw... now, i think he´s re-thinking some things... i know for sure that i´m looking at some things differently and am thinking about my life and how i´ve managed my resources... and how i want to make a difference here at the creche...

many of you, my family and friends, have donated your hard-earned money to help me with expenses while i´m here in brasil this summer... i´ve learned that the creche has a priority list of things they need repaired or need to purchase for the creche and i´m hoping to help with a couple of things on their list because of your contributions... please know that your financial help will be making a difference in the lives of 300+ kids now and for years to come... from the bottom of my heart, thank you for your generosity...

please continue to pray for me that i do what God wants me to do and go where He asks me to go.

muito obrigada,
~crystal

halfway through week 1...

bom dia!

just wanted to let you know that we started work at the creche this week, monday was the first day and today is dia de ferias--day off! what a crazy week it´s turned out to be!

leo, nick and diego have to commute by taking 2 busses just to get to the creche... fortunately, one of the directors of the creche lives sort of nearby the sabarense family´s house and agreed to pick me up from a local bus stop and drop me off at the federal university in belo (UMFG) so i can take a bus back to my house... so although my commute time is relatively short, i have to be at the bus stop by 7 in the morning, meaning i´m out the door by 6:30 to walk to my stop... we´re at the creche by 8, a full hour before i actually have to be there, so i get an extra hour to help with the kids... makes for a long day, but could be worse! lol

the creche decided to keep all 4 of us together to work at one location all summer, which has had its up´s and down´s... i believe all in all there are a couple hundred kids a day that come through the doors of the creche in two shifts, morning and afternoon sessions...

the creche is a neighborhood arts center with children varied in ages from 4-5 to 18... their needs are all different as we are told that most of the children lack proper attention and physical affection in their homes... i´m guessing that some kids lack many other things in their homes, too, as most of the kids have been wearing the same clothes all week, lack adequate bathing and smell of urine and sweat and probably lack proper nourishment at home, too, as they are much to eager to eat the same bowl of rice with beans every day... i´ve had some serious introspection going on this week because of what i´ve experienced and witnessed, and it´s only been a few days so far...

on monday, i walked to the bus stop where sylvia (creche worker) picked me up and we drove in traffic for a full hour until we got to the outskirts of BH in the mountains... the kids trickled in by 8:15 and began their ´´roda´´ or group circle discussion. in the roda, i got to introduce myself and tell the little kids (meninhos) about myself in portuguese... what a funny speech it must have been for them to hear!!! they giggled a lot and the little girls would take turns walking by me and feeling my hair... they said my hair was the prettiest they´d ever seen! the whole group had about 50-60 meninhos and they all wanted me to say say their name in english... some were easy to say (like caro lynha = carolina or caroline) while others were not so easy (tamires = does it even have an english equivalent???)...

all the kids asked why i looked different from what they thought an american should look like, white with blonde hair... some of them said i was probably not even american... i definitely erased all their doubts when i started speaking in english! i explained as best as i could that i was born in america, but my family is mexican-american, and that we have lots of cultures in america... lol it was so funny to see their faces, they just laugh and say they don´t understand me...

a while later they boys made it to the creche and we all had morning ´cafezinho´... monday was ´dia livre´ so there wasn´t much structure to the day at all, we just did whatever the kids wanted to do, playing outside, drawing, singing, dancing... most of the kids played soccer outside on a makeshift field about half of normal size that had a net covering on the top and side of the field, making sure the ball isn´t sent over the side of the mountain... behind the soccer field is a makeshift volleyball court, but it doesn´t have a protective net, so it looks like it´s rarely used... it is also littered with trash from the apartments that border the creche, i think the tenants just dump their trash out of their windows onto the court. we´ve been talking about making a ´pick-up trash day´as an activity for the kids which would help the area be suitable for them to play a different kind of game in but might also help us teach a lesson on recycling or preserving the environment... not sure about that one, still trying to figure out what would work.

for most of the day we played in the sun in one of two groups, either playing ´quemada´, which turned out to be a cross between dodgeball and nuke-em, and soccer or ´futebol.´ near the end of the morning session, i brought out some face-paints that i brought for the kids... so diego and i did our best to meet their requests and they really got a kick out of the facepaints! we had many requests for ´cruzeiro´or ´galo,´two of the more popular soccer teams in bh... the other requests were for flowers, butterflies, stars & moons, a fox of all animals! haha

soon thereafter, the kids were collected in the main ´sala´for a lunch of rice and beans, and then picked up for school, if they went to school. the kids who don´t go to school were dismissed to go home. we had a short pow-wow with the creche workers (sylvia, nicki, leo, pamela), ate our lunch of rice & beans and then went to one of the small upstairs dark rooms for a nap. we knocked out for a solid 45 minutes and woke up just in time to receive the afternoon kiddos. phew!

basically, the same process was repeated with the second group except they were a bit older, probably from 10 - 17 years old, so we played quemada and futebol until it was almost time to dismiss for the day. instead of face painting, diego made some ´pulseiras´or bracelets out of colored pipe cleaners that the kids went nuts for! we ended the day with more rice & beans and the kids went home. all in all a good first day...

at the creche, the staff gets together to pow-wow after each session and talk about how things went, what to do better next time, which kids had issues, etc. monday was a crazy day for a few of the kids who were acting up, which the staff have been having problems with those particular kids for quite some time, and the staff discussion was laced with tension and brazilian gestures and raised voices. they are certainly more animated than us americans are, that´s for sure. one of the staff got up and left the group because he was so upset or frustrated or something, and that´s how our monday ended. we all kind of walked out in silence and akwardness and left for home. the boys walked down the hill to the bus stop and i went with sylvia.

tuesday was a much different day, though... at some point during the day, i´m guessing while we had the kids outside playing games or while we were teaching different english classes, the regular creche staff got together and aired out all their grievances, cried and hugged it out... tuesday was rather normal.

we did learn, though, that the kids have a family program on saturday... from the looks of the schedule it will be a talent show of sorts as the ´menores´and ´maiores´each have a different dance they´ve been practicing for weeks, choreographed by one of the instructors at the creche, leo... their dances are all set to american pop songs!!! all the little boys can moonwalk and do their best michael jackson impressions for you upon request... lol. the older kids dance to hip-hop and some of their moves are more suggestive than we´d allow in the states, but apparently they are ok here... there will also be some kiddos doing poetry, singing songs and showing some of their artwork. they have a great ´profesor de artes´named levi, who from what i can tell is a graffiti artist and sketch artist. under his instruction, the kids have produced some pretty awesome creations well beyond their capabilities as munchkins, in my opinion...

anyway, there will be a small snack area for the parents and kids that are able to come, and we were asked to bring american snacks to share... a iccp (a past brasilian exhange participant to the u.s.) told me that there is a specialty shop downtown that sells american-style brownies for $8 u.s. dollars each!!! we figured this might be a dessert that most brasilians might not try, so we agreed to bring brownies. i also brought about 20 kool-aid mixes so we will also provide a different kind of ´suco´or juice for them to try. the bip´s are meeting this afternoon downtown to buy our ingredients at an import-grocery store where i am hoping to find what i need for the brownies.

phew. it´s been an interesting week, a tiresome week, but a totally awesome week, too! more updates soon to come...

thanks for your continued prayers and support... :)

~crystal

familha sabarense e sua casa no lagoa santa...

super awesome day with the sabarenses...

brasil, brasil!

this is a continuation of the last post, a small picture journal of what´s been going on here... just wanted to show yall what i´ve been up to here with my awesome host family, the sabarenses... the it´s hard to believe that i´ve only been here since wednesday, it seems like such a long time ago that i got to belo and have become sabarense sister #5... it´s been great so far, everything is so new and exciting, i´m sure there will come a point when i will get a tad bit homesick (hopefully it won´t happen soon and i don´t get too homesick) but for right now, all´s well...

now, on to the pictures...

my host dad bought us tickets to go see galo play their second-to-last game in the stadium until the world cup in a few years... the stadium will be shut down for renovations until then, and he thought it was absurd that i´ve never been to a professional soccer match! so, off we went today, after visiting his parents at their country house earlier this afternoon... (pics to come)

one side note: i kept calling the big blow-up mascot the ´big chicken´but apparently, that´s not his name... my little brother, cuau says that this is GALO ATLETICO MINEIRO... he is six, by the way! :]

tchau houston!!!

hi everyone, just wanted to get you guys some pics of the last few days leading up to my departure from houston to brazil... i put some captions on here, but you´ll have to read the blog post later... agora, esperou que voce disfruta nestes fotos!!! [now, i hope you enjoy these photos!!!]

my super-awesome friend and former co-worker katie organized a happy hour with my officemates at a local hangout, jax grill... they pitched in and bought me a cookie-cake with south america frosted on it, and the approximate location of belo horizonte marked as well... it was so sweet of them!!! the group pics we took didn´t come out but these are the ones that did! (anyone in the HRC have a group pic?)

me with my cookie cake!

me and elaine (eeeeeeeelaine), bud (a.k.a. chip) and andrew (a.k.a. scrappy doo) :]

me & ms. mary

me & ms. katie

this is the wonderful ´chahhhhlessss´(a.k.a. charles du rapau, world-traveling linguist and volunteer BIP portuguese teacher)... seriously, everyone in brazil comments about what a great teacher i must have had to have learned so much in just two and a half months!!! thanks, chahhhlessss!!!

haha, i don´t think charles knew i took this picture... proof that we did LOTS of work in our language classes every week!

already in shock...

we are officially on the plane in miami, waiting to depart for rio de janiero... it's already been a comedy of errors, slight delays and hunger... but we are troopers and we are excited to get to brazil!
I will post an update hopefully soon after we land, but until then, prat for our safe travels and safe return...
totallyexcitedtobeinbrazil!!! :)

peace and love to all and thanks so much for believing in me and what I'm doing! :)

home sweet home!

yes, folks, i'm in windy lubbock, texas, today!!! drove in last night from houston with my sister and her kids for a dinner with family & friends at my parents' house tonight... just a little 'send-off' before i leave for south america in a few days... i'll be explaining to everyone a little more in-depth about what i'm doing with the International YMCA in Brazil this summer and how they can help if they are so moved... towards the end of the dinner, i'm asking everyone to join in prayer to bless our trip, for my safety and the safety of my fellow interns, and that this time is a powerful and eye-opening time of reflection and discernment... i'll post highlights later!

things are whizzing by SO FAST (seriously, at LEAST 17 things on my to-do list at last count!), but i had to stop and take a look at the South Plains Catholic newspaper, which carried an article on what i'm doing this summer... my cousin called and said she saw me in the paper and she couldn't believe her eyes! i'll admit, i'm ecstatic to see the write-up in my hometown catholic newspaper!!! i really hope that someone sees what i'm doing and thinks about where & how God may be calling them, whatever their current circumstances are... anyway, take a look at the article online here on page 4: www.catholiclubbock.org/SPC.pdf

ahh, lubbock... i <3 being home! last night when we arrived it was still in the 90's, clear, dark skies lit up with millions of bright stars, and just felt right. today, of course, it's in the 60's, kinda breezy and overcast... what can i say, that's what you get with lubbock weather! still, i love it even though it's not the best cookout weather, lol...

well, that's all for now... more in the coming days, stay tuned!

peace and love!

T-15 days and counting...

well, folks, we officially got our itineraries yesterday at my third-to-last portuguese class and i can't believe it! it's totally happening!!! ahhhhhh!!!!!

every week for the past two months my fellow interns and i have been attending weekly portuguese language classes with a private tutor on sunday afternoons and wednesday nights, along with brazilian culture and travel classes on saturdays... it has been such a BIG commitment every week that it has been hard remembering that there would be an end in sight and that all of these classes and trainings would eventually not be there anymore, instead replaced with real life experiences!

departure time is almost upon us and i can't believe it! there's so much to do in less than two weeks, ay ay ay...

just off the top of my head, i came up with a list of 13 essential, must-do items to take care of between now and my leave date... ohhhmmmyyygggggggggosh! i know this list will keep growing if i continue to think about it all... [gulp!]

well, i just wanted to give you a small update on my travel... it'll be here before i know it! woohoo!