Sightseeing in Olinda

Sister Chambers and me in front of the first church
we visited in Olinda, you are seeing down the hill behind us,

I realized my laptop is safely locked up in a drawer I don`t have a key to, so I am using another PC with a Portuguese keyboard, please excuse any oddities that show up. We are still waiting for our CPF number so we can get internet at home.

Up the steps to what is left of the church, off to the left was originally a lot more.

On Saturday we took a surprisingly short taxi ride out to Olinda. It is one of the oldest areas and the view from up on the hill is amazing. The first place we went is a church that was built just 35 years after Portugal discovered Brasil. Pretty sure the native people already knew it was here, but there you go. There are plenty of artisan shops for tourists and some pretty determined salespeople, but we managed not to buy a tablecloth which may or may not have been made from coconut fibers or black banana candy. I figure we will have plenty of opportunies to buy things so I only will buy what I really love.

 A bit of the insides, it looks like there have been many attempts, with varying success, to restore and repair.

Me with my favorite touring partner. It was quite hot and muggy. We went further up to a Franciscan building with lots of blue tile murals and then on to the church at the top --which has been redesigned several times and we felt like all the character and beauty had pretty much been lost. I guess someone thought it had been old fashioned. The views are from out the back side of that building where you can see Recife stretching out in the distance. Olinda is part of Recife so the distance shows a taste of just how far along the coast the city goes. They were starting the prep for Carneval, many claim Carneval started in Olinda and it is a big center for the celebration. Carneval is much like Mardi Gras but maybe even bigger and wilder. The kids are off school the full week. There was an area at the top with dicey-looking food and souveniers and extremely loud music. We were happy to let a taxi take us back down the hills and home to AC.

The sun was so bright it was hard to get photos

a 180 degree view

I tried out my new pressure cooker, seems smoked paprika here has a lot more color - it was orange soup but tasty. The cooker has one dial for total time and that´s it, but it worked. We enjoy the crusty rolls from our little corner WalMart.

On Tuesday we got to go to Marco Zero with all the incoming missionaries after picking them up at the airport. It is the spot where everything in the state of Pernambuco is measured from. We weren´t able to take photos but it had some beautiful and colorful buildings so we will go back when we get a chance and do some photographing. I would love to be able to paint it! They were setting up stages and other things for Carneval. One was a vendor booth shaped like a giant six-pack, we can guess what they will be selling.

So I got to learn how to prep all the materials for the new missionaries, heard what my part of training will be -- repeated for each group, made new transfer cards for the transfer board where the mission president keeps track of where everyone is and who their companions are. So now we have experienced a zone conference week and a transfer week, the two things life revolves round in the office in six-week cycles.

On  a very rainy Wednesday the newbies met their trainers with singing of the mission song and lunch - shwarmas, which in this case are like a huge burrito with chicken pork and beef and french fries inside. We had to re-sort all the mail into their new areas and then Sister Houseman had a inspired thought and we have now changed all the mail cubbies into alphabetical  ones instead of by district. It will be a little harder to gather mail for areas when we send them materials, but much easier to sort and to find all the rest of the time. We gather it up everytime the president is going to do interviews or visits or to a stake conference so the missionaries can get mail at every opportunity. It is all sent here for several reasons, such as it can sit out in the rain, they can move before it comes, etc. We are hoping something with our name on it might come one day?

Thursday the office elders had worked hard to prepare a Valentines surpise for the office sisters - they practiced up a song and brought flowers. I think Sister Houseman ended up having to help buy the flowers but we all got a lift from the thoughtfulness. We thought we might go out to dinner but the place we were going to go to turned out to only do lunch and I was tired, so we pulled bean burgers out of our freezer and watched the first two episodes of Victoria (from a download on my Ipad) for a relaxing evening. I think there may have been popcorn and lemonade involved.

Produce after being sanitized with bleach

Big bananas were tough, solid, an organge tint.
 The small ones are short and yummy and even the ugly ones are good, they have  thick skins. The Liahona is for scale. Did you know the Liahona came in English? I`m looking forward to reading this one tomorrow.

Another Saturday! Sister Bell went with us to the big store Carrefour and we loaded up on groceries and some more containers. Most of the plastic containers here have lids that don´t really seal so the lock-n-lock kind are good. Those little ants can get into most anything. I miss being able to stop at more than one store, and tossing things in the trunk. We did really well to be on our way home only two hours after we started. And we were thankful there was a shopping cart near our building entrance that we can use to haul everything from the taxi up to our apt on the fourth floor. ineed to make note on what things I can find at which store. This was supposed to be the one that has brown sugar but apparently not today. Tht is also common. After dinner with all the senior couples last night we were introduced to the Fruteria store which is small, lovely, smells wonderful, and has very expensive produce. But I did find salad dressing and two more spices from my search list, and they have whole wheat flour.

I don`t know if I have mentioned our apartment complex having a meeting about the bad water, but apparently the water company is looking into putting a reverse osmosis filtration system in, which would be nice. We still wouldn´t drink it but maybe could brush teeth and feel better about bathing, etc. with the tap water. Sister Chambers bldg has had the worst problems, her water has been brown sometimes. 

And we are waiting for the landlord and AC folks to decide how to work out repairing our bedroom AC, we have to put a fan on a chair near one of the few outlets and send in air from the dining room. First the office housing elder thought he would send a repair person because it was bought by the church but it wasn`t. Then the landlord said they paid big bucks to have it serviced before we moved in so it was under warranty but now it seems the repair folks disagree. Stay tuned for the continuing saga of Life in Recife........