3rd Letter to Sponsors

Coroa da Lagoa


One day at the fazenda Fr. Philipe asked me if I would like to spend a week with the Heart's Home community in Coroa da Lagoa. Coroa is a neighborhood in the nearby town of Simões Filho. Heart's Home has been prsent in Coroa for fourteen years now. I agreed without having understood every word that he said since he was speaking Portuguese. It turned out that I would be leaving that was very same weekend. Much sooner than I expected.
There are four missionaries in the Heart's Home of Coroa. Pedro from France, Fernanda from Argentina, Daiane from Brazil, and Auda from France. The real names of Pedro and Auda are Pierre and Aude, but foreign names that are difficult are changed in order to be easier for the people here. Hence I go by the name Miguel, which is pronounced mee-geh-u. Technically Michael isn't hard for the people here as they all know Michael Jackson. Additionally to a name change, all the missionaries are given the title "Tio" or "Tia," which mean uncle and aunt. It's a common term of endearment and has nothing to do with family. Therefore, I'm known as Tio Miguel by the people here in Coroa.
The lifestyle in Coroa follows the model of Heart's Home's original mission. We pass our days with the missionary community life, prayer, the children, and our friends in the neighborhood. From early morning until around 10 at night we are busy, busy, busy. It's a demanding lifestlye, but it's well worthwhile.
My favorite aspect of the mission is spending time with the children. Right from the very beginning the children literally ran up to me with outstretched arms shouting "Tio! Tio!" So much for never talking to strangers. They run up to me and I pick them up, twirl them around, give them piggy back rides, make funny faces at them, hug them, whatever. I'm a slave to their eyes and a prisoner to their smiles. Loving the children is automatic.
However, sometimes the children get a little wild. The other day I did my first permanença alone. The permanença is when one missionary stays at the house to welcome all the children who come to play while the other missionaries go out to visit people in the neighborhood. Everything started out well when there was just Davi alone. We played a game of checkers. He broke the rules and I let him win, but whatever. Five other boys arrived together. They drew pictures while Davi and I played board games. Then we went outside to play. That went well for a good while, but then more and more kids began showing up. First was Luciemare and then Emillie, Natalia, and Evellin who goes by the nickname Ro (Ho). Well these children are all fairly close to me, but they didn't mix with the group of boys. That's when the children stopped playing nice. Insults, shoving, and fighting. It just got worse and worse until ultimately Davi punched one of the other boys in the eye. I had to send away three out of five of the boys. Davi refused to go and only caused more problems. So as punishment he isn't allowed to enter the house for another two days. By the end of all this, I was dead tired. But I still like the children.
The visitations here are far more difficult than in the U.S. Like in the U.S. we visit the elderly, the lonely, and the ill, but the circumstances are far different. In the U.S. I can understand what the people are saying. This is important because it gives me a point of reference. If I can understand, what is being said, then I can understand the feelings of those I visit and react accordingly. It's in a sense a suffereing for me that I can't always share in the sufferings of the people I meet. Sometimes I simply don't understand what they're saying. I can understand many people, but often the elderly and ill are just plain and simple hard to understand. For example when I first visited Senhor Antonio, I understood maybe 5 words in an hour and half of conversation. From what I understood he was talking about various things that were ailing him. I noticed he had a big mark on his leg from being burned. Afterwards Pedro explained to me that he spoke of many things including his physical pains, but most of what he talked about was a mask to his true pain of his family having moved away. Well, Senhor Antonio is exceptionally hard to understand. A more positive visit was my first visit with Dona Marta. The first time I visited her she was visibly physically ill. I spent about three quarters of an hour talking with her, and then Daiane and I prayed a decade of the rosary with her. Now Dona Marta and I are fairly good friends.
Also the visits are harder because the poverty is greater. There's one visit that I went on that has really stuck in my mind. We visited a house where a man and a woman lived. This house was very small and very unclean. I think there were two small beds, but at least one of them was covered by a pile of clothes. Outside in the backyard there was a large amount of garbage and even small piles of raw meat on the ground. There were three or four dogs and a number of cats roaming around the territory as well. We spent somewhere between an hour and an hour and a half at this house talking with the woman. I didn't fully understand what she was saying, but I believe she was talking about how lonely she is. It's hard enough to pay attention to people that I don't understand as it is, but I was further distracted by the bugs, bad smell, and the fact that the woman only has one normal eye. I was amazed that people could live in such condititions. It is easily the worst poverty that I've encountered thus far in my life.
Of course many of the visits are very pleasant. A woman named Juciara was quite enthusiastic when I visited. She is an interesting and funny person. She also gave me and Pedro various treats lke ice cream, chocolate yogurt, and some other thing. They were all home made and all delicious. Not every visit is a trying experience, yet every visit is worthwhile. All in all I like going on the visits.
Well as always I have very little time to write here. I apologize for again being very late in writing. As I said the life here is busy, but generally good. There's just a little bit of time until Christmas. I don't know whether I can finish another letter before Christmas or not. Therefore, I take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas. I'd like to thank you all again for your sponsorship. Without your help I couldn't be here. There's just a little more than a month remaining of my time here. So I'll be home sooner than you know it. God bless you and take care.

New Mission with Heart's Home

I'm a bit delayed in writing my sponsors (again). Life is much busier here in Coroa da Lagoa than at the fazenda. I really like it here however. I'm able to meet many different people and I have some good friends here. I was finally able to meet Fr. Arnaud, who is a priest that can speak English and he is in charge of the Heart's Home here in Coroa. He has granted me permission to stay here, and so I shall remain here in Coroa for the rest of my time here in Brazil.
I've been here for 43 days and I have 46 more to go. The second half of my mission is going to be harder than the first half. So wish me luck.

Two pictures

http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa68/MiguelRD/DSC03639.jpg
This is a picture of some of the children here in Brazil. The girl in the front is Juliane. The boy to the right is Enrique. I don't know the other girl. Enrique and Juliane are just two of the children that I like to spend time with here. There are many others.

http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa68/MiguelRD/DSC03567.jpg
This is a picture of the Heart's Home missionaries of Coroa. I'm standing on the far left. Naelson is next to me. He's not a missionary. He lives here in Coroa, but has been a long time friend of Heart's Home and Daiane especially. Daiane is the girl above him. She's Brazilian and has a home in Salvador, but she has been here in Coroa for 9 months as a HH missionary. The woman beneath her is Aude, who is a missionary from France. She's holding onto Ligia. Ligia is another friend from the neighborhood. The woman beneath Ligia is Fernanda, who is a missionary from Argentina. To her left is Pedro (Pierre) who is a missionary from France of course.

Current Situation in Brazil

Hey everyone. I haven't been posting because I'm almost never able to use a computer. My camera also ran out of batteries. I'm submitting my second letter to the sponsors about my life in Brazil. I wrote it but the computer here inserted a lot of Portuguese characters. I'm going to ask friends as my church to fix the text for me. Afterwards I hope to post it here. But for all pratical purposes I think my blog will be dead for a while unfortunately. All of my sponsors should be receiving my letter soon though.

My First Week in Brazil

Here I am in the Fazenda do Natal writing on my blog. Well the fazenda isn't near the city of Natal at all. It basically means "The Village of the Nativity" and just happens to have the same name as the city Natal. I'm more or less in the middle of nowhere near the town of Simoes Filhos.

Life here is pretty tranquil. In the morning I do some manual labor work, which is pretty tough. After that the afternoons are mostly free. Sometimes I wash clothes by hand. Washing clothes by hand is really hard by the way. We have Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours at 6:30 pm during the weekdays. Saturday is the day of rest and when I'll be able to write on my blog a bit.

After a week of being here I can already speak a decent amount of Portuguese. It's really hard to understand the children though. They often make fun of my American accent. The living conditions aren't too bad. The fazenda has received a lot of great updates since the times that my friends were here. We no longer have to carry water from a well since there is now running water. There is also electricity and a computer with a 56k modem that I can use on Saturday. I haven't taken any pictures yet because I wouldn't be able to upload them on this computer anyways. There are internet cafes in this cities. I'm now sure how I will get to them, but when I can I will begin posting pictures.

The fazenda is a beautiful place. The flora and fauna here are quite different from where I live in Tennessee. Bananas, lemons, tomatos, mangos, coconuts, cashews, and some massively large fruit called Jaca all grow here. We drink a lot of fruit juice here although I generally prefer cold water which is quite strange to the people here. The creatures here are very weird. The mosquitos are really bad. They're big and they're smart and they're numerous. The bug spray that I have holds them off a little bit, but they are determined little devils. I hate insects. There are many types here. Ones that I've never seen before. Most of the creatures are unique here. There are ducks, but they don't look like American ducks. There are weird lizards here too. Yesterday I saw a lizard that was three different colors. The top of its body was gray like the other lizards, its abdomen was green, and its tail was blue. What in the world was that thing? My friend Edson told me, but it was some long Portuguese name. Every now and then I see something that completely freaks me out. If I'm near the entrance of my house here, sometimes I go inside and shut the door. Not that I'm scared, I'm just being cautious right?

The people here are all nice. I live with Rute pronounced Hoo-chi, her son Marcelo, Raphaela pronounced Haphaela, and Bento (Benoit) who is a French missonary. Raphaela is hard to understand and hyperactive, Marcelo is cool, but he makes fun of the way I speak too much, Bento is cool and he is essentially the rock of the family, and Rute is nice but sometimes cultural differences come between us. I think I offended her with my reaction to finding out that the meat in the feijon was donkey meat. I thought something was odd about it. Also one of my conversations with her was essentially:
Rute: You know that chicken that you saw the other day?
Me: Yeah.
Rute: That was yesterday's lunch.
Me: I think that it's probably better that I not know such things.

All things considered the food here isn't that bad. Two days ago I had dinner at the house of Lucas and Stephanie, who are two French missionaries that live here permanently.

My friend Edson just told me that the Liturgy of the Hours is going in the church right now. I have to go. Ciao as they say here.

My Last Day in New York

I'm leaving for JFK airport in three hours. My plane leaves for Brazil at 9:25 am. I should arrive in Salvador on Friday around 1 in the morning. It's going to be a long day tomorrow. I'm mostly going to sleep on the plane. Or so I figure.
Anyhow, today was my last day here in Brooklyn, New York. Instead of going on an apostolate in the neighborhood today, I stayed in the home to write my first letter to my sponsors. The letter is four pages long. All of my sponsors should receive it soon.
My French missionary friends made a special dinner for me today. Hamburgers and french fries! Now that's what I'm talking about! I often spoke about my anxiety of having to live without American food and candy while in Brazil. They took pity on me and decided to provide me with a good last supper. Two of my friends, Ben and Mathilde, will have already returned to France by the time I get back. Thus, I had to say goodbye to them tonight. I got to talk to most them one last time before they had to go to bed. I'm still up even though it's 3 am. There's not much point in going to bed at this point. So I'll just write on my blog for a while and finish packing (no I'm not done).

Flushing Meadows Park

On Monday the missionaries have a free day. I decided to spend my free day at Flushing Meadows Park in Queens. It took a bit of time to arrive there, but it was worth it. I'm very impressed by New York's beautiful parks. This particular park is where the New York Mets play baseball, where the 1964 World Fair was held, and where there is a cool globe thing called the Unisphere. I took a few pictures that I can share with you.