Sunday, March 22, 2009

Goodbye Brazil. Hello Canada.



The time you give to something signals to others how important it is

I came across this in my textbook this week while studying for my final exam (which I write on the 27th). It made me wonder if what I spend time on is a good reflection of what is really important to me, and who are those “others” observing me anyway?! I’m ashamed to say that, worked out time-wise, sleeping ranks right up there. The disqualifier (thankfully) is that no one’s watching me then. Phew!

Moving right alone here, we’re now in snowy but not-too-cold Salmon Arm B.C. Our week in Brazil was GREAT. When we go there, it feels like we’ve come home and the time to leave always comes too soon.

Here are some pictures of the people and things we visited during our last few days in Brazil:


This is Sirley and I. When I was 16, we were as thick as thieves. Here we are laughing at Sirley's solution to the difference in height (see below) between the two of us that neither of us remembers being there before. I guess we just remembered the more important stuff about each other.


Sirley and her husband and their family run an orphanage outside of Curitiba. They are wholeheartedly committed to needy kids and have adopted several of the orphaned children themselves. I’m proud to say that the one girl in the front row in the orange bottoms, who they adopted, was named after me.


This is Bea, me, Dwight and Paulinho. Paulinho is one of the many Brazilians I share my parents with. He came to the orphanage in Brazil when I was still a teenager at home. Paulinho and Bea have 2 daughters and are active members in their church. Interestingly, they recently hosted a Mozambican pastor in their home for 2 weeks.

Below is an interesting attraction I discovered in downtown Curitiba. I’m really not sure of the significance of this and it could take me a long time to come up with something!


I love horses and all, but...yeah. This is a bit odd.

We left Brazil on March 20th for Vancouver via Atlanta, GA. At least the routing made sense this time. We had an entire day in Atlanta so decided to get a hotel room so we could shower and catch up on sleep before catching our next flight that evening. Our hotel room overlooked the airport and with all the air traffic, it was rather like a super-large screen TV. I’m sure Atlanta’s airport isn’t the busiest in the world, but it was still staggering to see the steady stream of aircraft coming to land, one after another and sometimes simultaneously on parallel runways, hour after hour after hour. Once again we were aware that Mozambique must be on a totally different planet!

And the good news is that our luggage didn't get lost, not one single piece. Yay!

Well, I should run along for now since we have so little time here and some important people to spend it with. Then there's that exam to study for too. 

Next blog post will be from our final (sort of) destination: Edmonton. TTYL

1 comment:

Amanda said...

YAY! Edmonton!!
"I love horses and all, but...yeah. This is a bit odd."
That made me laugh. It is a weird fountain.