Salsa is Exciting, (not much else is new).

 A breezy day at the temple with the Recife Central Zone

It pays to keep your eye out, totally unexpected find this week was real actual salsa made in Mexico for the US that has - you'll never guess - salsa flavor to it! It popped up in the bulk "health goods" store we went to for red lentils and turmeric. I suppose since it turned out to be good they won't have it again. I'd better make some Mexican dinners while we've got it. Black beans are plentiful enough, and green peppers and the small corner Walmart has frozen sweet corn even though the big ones don't carry it. And now we can get whole wheat tortillas. hmmm, someone sounds hungry....

Not much new this week, the other surprise was going to dinner (lunch really) at a place that not only had very flavorful food but was very accommodating and even offered to get us things not on the menu and make it the way we wanted. We wondered if we had wandered outside of Brasil. Well, it was one of the owners helping us and he is German.... So next time you are in Recife, head to "Shopping Recife" to the Black Angus. ("Shopping" is basically the word for mall). Sister Chambers got her third treat of cake and happy birthday singing.

Sister Chambers at the mission home with 30+ missionaries singing Parabens. She has been without water in the kitchen of her apartment for a full month now! apparently the guy who would fix it hurt his leg, you see. The whole building has no water in anyone's kitchen. Her spare bath hasn't been usable for four months. 

Misc. notes: We saw our first rat running along outside the apartment building. please stay outside.
Allergies have hit pretty strongly and I've gotten a lot of sneezing in. Somehow what seemed like a great pile of pharmaceuticals in our suitcase didn't include sinus stuff.
Lots of construction noise on Sunday afternoon from across the street, we thought at first it might be fireworks for the holiday but they just do a lot of work on weekends, banging and power saws and such. The walls across the way have been graffiti'd rather attractively but one area has become a garbage dump.
I'm glad I don't rely on Campbells soup, a can is R$17 and you never know which flavor might be available.
Making cookies and having review games doesn't help bring in regulars to English class. We did have a few people come, its always interesting. We had four at the level two class but none were the same as came the first month. Gabriel is a sharp young man who would make a superb YSL leader for the others but he doesn't seem to know much at all about the church - I'm not sure how long he has been a member. I think all four guys there had lovely earrings, but they are good people working to learn.
People are already using long sticks to knock down mangoes but they aren't full grown, much less ripe. I don't know if there is a way to enjoy them at this stage or if people are really desperate.

Jose next door brought us another Brazilian food to experimentar.

It is called pamonha and is made by using a rasp or file on corn (on the cob) then it is mixed with milk and cooked inside husks, basically a big tamale either sweet or savory. It tastes like, well, corn. He said the ends are best as they are more moist. Its a lot of work so most people buy it already made. What he brought was slightly sweet, but maybe the unsweetened with the salsa on it would be the way to go.

It's pretty cool to be able to be in touch with family online, who'd have thought thirty years ago that live video chatting would be possible?

Daughter Jenny's family on their cruise, too bad they are always so solemn.