Survived Carnaval (sorry I've been misspelling it)

 A few catch-up photos: after the long morning with the hike getting our CPF#'s, below is inside the Correos (post office) with the screen where they tell you who's turn it is. Don't get there right when they open or you have a long wait -unless you know which door to stand by and that you should run up the stairs immediately for your little receipt-type paper they print with which service you need and your number.

 The BBQ place with plastic gloves for eating neatly. In the background is the counter for ordering, cooking, paying. We did have a roof overhead in case of rain.

Here's Durk by the "main" Gallo, they have an artist do one each year,
this one is not a favorite of many as it doesn't look much like a rooster.

Durk's morning walk for exercise has become a duo with our neighbor Jose, who has walked him quite far some days but shown him many interesting sites and bought him a macaxeira and chicken (frango) breakfast.

Ponte de Gallo is the big Carnaval gathering place, this is one Gallo for this year's celebration.






Well, I forgot I needed my Ipad to see my notes for the week, you get what comes to mind. Being between zone/mission conference week and transfer week, it is a relatively quiet time at the office. I learned more about preparing to order vaccines (missionaries from South America often have to start from scratch at the MTC and we make sure they finish) and other filing/prep work. Durk did some hiking to find out how to pay our internet bill only to discover we don't have one until next month. You pretty much show up and volunteer to pay it, they don't send out anything. Some companies send an email and you print a boleto and take it in to pay. 

It was the Bell's last dinner with the senior missionaries so Sister Bell chose a great nearby place called Spettus Steak House, you can google map it in Recife and see :)
I think it was the first time I have tasted lamb, I ate a couple of bites and would say I can tell it tastes different than beef or pork but I felt like it was no better or worse than either. They did have quite an extensive buffet of salad/veg dishes, though I have learned to expect many to be marinated. I think I took a taste of a large number of them and about half I really liked and half not so much. If I had had any room to go back I could have had a really good plateful of the best. We did try a fancy dessert - I had heard of profiteroles but they looked a bit old so we tried voul-a-vent (?) which wasn't much like the picture in presentation, but tasty. Oh, and Durk told me to try graviola, which is a fruit used often in their juice drinks, and indeed it was yummy. It was a creamy white drink and tasted a lot like a really good pineapple.

We will miss the Bells! When we first heard the timing we thought it would be a long overlap but it has flown by and we are feeling a bit of trepidation at not having them here to help us know what to do and how. They will be at the office a few days next week and then pack up and fly out on Friday.

The worst part of the evening was the ride there! Its really not far from us but there was some sort of protest going in an a nearby park and the traffic was a mess, very slow. We were quite amazed to get home in about three minutes (slightly scary minutes, not the careful sort of driver) - that's supposed to be the longer drive since the streets are wrong way around. Its crazy sometimes seeing the difference in routes. 

I had some fun with googlemaps this week, Sister Bell and I showed each other street views of our house in the states, or the trees and bushes in front, in our case, and I used it to get a better handle on just where things are in this city.

Saturday we had an excursion way off to Sam's to get peanut butter and tortillas (flour ones, but pretty good, corn ones do not exist here, though taco shells do) and to spend some time searching out what else they have. Thanks to Sister Chambers we could take an Uber there which saved about half the cab fare. If we get my smart phone working when it gets here we can do the same but only while on wifi, hence one directional. We bought a new kind of melon to try because it was the cheapest, and tried to stock up on some non-perishables because it gets tiring to be shopping all the time. They did have samples of some Belgian dark chocolate drops that consequently fell into the cart somehow. They are like slightly large flat chocolate chips but will not be wasted in cookies.

The other excitement Saturday was getting up to find no running water. We haven't been thrilled that our complex has such bad water there have been tenant meetings (uprisings, practically, it sounds like), and we were really getting to the bottom of our bottled water by the time deliveries started back up after Carnaval, but we realized that no matter what the quality we are thankful for running water!

Other good news, We got instructors manuals for English Connect! And we think it may turn out economical enough to print the student manuals from the pdf at a copy shop down the street. That and finding whiteboard markers and hopefully whiteboard cleaner will be our next prep project.

You may think that sounds easy but I am quite sure it won't be. The office ladies have two major words used to describe doing things around here, complicated, and mystery. Why does it have to be done that way? why does it only work this way? It's a mystery, sometimes there's no point worrying about it, other times you get to be a sleuth. Turning in an order for new nametags sounds simple and quick, fill out the excel form, scan a copy with President's signature, send both.BUT.....Figure out how to get my computer to find the right file and get it into the working version of excel, fill it out on, convince the printer to print it, get it signed when the President happens to be available, take it to the finance office and interrupt their work and have them scan it on their copier, try to get the scan sent or find a thumb drive and figure out a way to get it on the other computer so it can be linked to the excel file of the original and sent off. Yes, it sounds like a two-minute job, yes it really did take a full hour or more (not counting getting it signed). That's how most things work.
It keeps life interesting :) and we keep smiling.