Bom Dia, tudo bem amigos !!!!

Highlight of day - hot shower. (Actually it was a rainbow, but the shower came a close 2nd!!)

Having been left alone on our first night, with no working mobile, and no English speaker within miles we realised we did not know how to use the shower in our bathroom which was very dimly lit. With the added horror that one of the 'killer' brown spiders may be lurking in the shadows of the shower curtain we decided against a shower. The next morning necessitated the urgent fumigation of our somewhat niffy bodies, so we ventured into the bathroom. There seemed to be various hoses, electric cables, and some dodgy looking wires protruding from the shower head, but no obvious on/off button. There was a tap but when turned no water appeared. We scratched our heads for some time, (which resulted in John getting splinters ha! ha! .... I'm sorry about that....it's the heat, I'm getting hysterical ) and decided to turn the light on. When we tried the shower again the water came out - yippee !! But it was a bit cold to say the least, and as it was very over cast and fairly cool outside we had hoped for a bit of warmth. As we fiddled with tap to change the speed of the flow of water we noticed the light dimmed to almost nothing, and lo and behold - hot water came out of the shower !!!! Cracked it at last. Showers in the dark it is to be then.

Over the next few days our daily readings directed us to the story of Noah and his Ark. We had never really looked closely at the story, but when we read more about Noah we learnt that he was a very patient chap, who was so obediant to God that he built an Ark at a time in history where rain had never occurred. He was ridiculed for his faith in God by his friends and family, who had lost their faith in God at that time, and who had all begun to live immorally. Noah didn't question God and continued to build a seemingly, quite pointless Ark for many, many years. Then came the rain, and everyone perished except Noah and his family, and all the animals. God kept His promise and saved Noah because of his faith. It was a fresh start. God's promise was that He would never again flood the earth, and He gave a sign- a rainbow. We decided that this would be a wonderful message for the children and to teach them ARK, acts of random kindness.

One of the trips that Andre had planned for the children was a surprise trip to a zoo in Curitba, the nearest city, about one and a half hours drive away. This was to be a treat for those children that came regularly to the classes. We had also bought many flash cards of animals to teach the children, so a theme was evolving. The children's activity books, kindly lent to us by our friend Lin Howard, also seemed to be full of the Ark story, and had various ideas of how to make animal masks. Between us we hatched a plan to split the children into three groups and give them a project of creating a production of the story of Noah, and to use as much English in it as possible. Well the children loved the idea, after initially arguing over who was in each team. We nominated co-ordinators for each team to encourage team building, and leadership skills. We had no idea if they would bother to do anything, as after we left each day we knew they returned to chaotic households and parents who had little or no parenting skills or patience. But we felt excited about the possibility, and approached the local community building which had a large room to see if they would let us use it - for free of course!!! As soon as we told the staff we wanted to put on a presentation with the children they immediately offered the premises free of charge, and offered to lay out tables for us!

That day followed the usual pattern of English lesson ( I, you, he, she, sorry, thank you, please etc ) and craft. Today we gave them tons of coloured paper, glue, pens, scissors etc and let them do free art, which they set about with the usual vigour. Most of the pictures had our names on them with the childs name and the words 'I love you' in Portuguese - bless them!! We stuck these on the wall and began our art gallery of their work.

Again later that day we had another massive storm. By now the local roads were flooding, and the red earth looked like rivers of blood flowing across the roads. We knew that the families in the flavellas would be in a state with water running through their homes, and it made us feel so helpless. Terrible stories reached us of roads and homes collapsing near Rio, many people were swept away in their cars and homes, many deaths because their foundations are just not good enough. Even in the midst of this seemingly desperate situation we heard stories of hope, with outpourings of incredible kindness and generous offerings of help. It had rained heavily for the past few days, and we were becoming decidedly soggy. The kids were covered in mud as they slipped about the street, but still they came each day with big, expectant smiles on their faces!!

That evening when we finally got home we flung open all the windows and looked out at the incredible lightning storm and heard the deafening roar of the rain. We then saw the most wonderful sight, a double rainbow. It was so close we could almost touch it!! It was so bright it lit up the sky.