The Waterwheelers: Christmas in November

We finally found a puzzle to put together. Some day we will get to Rio.

Rio de Janeiro

We work with very technical people, but it took several days to find the wall switch that turned on the power to the projector. The people that knew were gone for a few days.

This is way over my head!

Since we will be going for two more weeks we had our last English class on Thursday. It has been fun, but wearing after a hard day at the office.

Say that again

On Friday we started our trip through the Nordeste (northeast). We started in Natal, which means Christmas. We did´t leave until about 5 pm, so we spent the morning catching up on things in the office.

We were greeted at the airport by several members of the church in Natal. Actually they weren´t there to greet us, but another missionary that was returning.

Airport greeting party

Our host in Natal was Martins. He took us from the airport to the hotel. On the way we met his wife, Leticia, at a mall for dinner.

Leticia and Martins

Saturday was our tourist day in Natal. We started by visiting the market across the street from the hotel.

Market full of goodies

Shop keeper?

We then went to the beach. It was only a few blocks away from the hotel, but they were steep blocks.

Our hotel from the beach. The one with the yellow horizontal stripe.

Beach at Natal

Paul, sea-horsing around

The coconut cutter

The beach from our hotel room

Martins picked us up at the hotel then took us to Leticia´s school where she teaches. She has a young student named Sofie who is autistic. She told her that we were Santa´s friends and came to visit her. Sofie showed us her classroom. It was a lot of fun.

Sofie with Santa´s friends

Dance class

They took us to see a rocket museum. Brazil fired its first rocket (with the help of America) while I was on my mission fifty years ago.

Brazilian rocket museum

Rocket science

Astronaut recruit

Jet setters

From there we went to a fruit market to see and taste new kinds of fruits.

Have a taste of coconut water

Green beans Brazilian style

Caju (Cashew), The curled stem is where the nut is. Caju juice is popular here.

They then took us to see the world´s largest cajueira (caju tree) that stretches out like a forest. It is a genetic aboration that makes the tree branch out and go along the ground.

Biggest Caju tree in the world

It´s bigger than you see here. The green is all one tree.

Now that´s a big caju

Spreads like a forest

We went to lunch at Paçoca de Pilhão which means meat pounded with large mortal and pestle.

What a grind

We then went to Fortaleza dos Reis Magos (fort of the three wise men). It was an old Portuguese fort taken by the Dutch and returned to the Portuguese.

Bridge over the river

The fort

Powder storage

Martins and Leticia

Natal from the fort

The cannon couple

Nice fortress

We then walked along the beach to look at a large sand dune that went right into the ocean. There are a lot of sand dunes around Natal.

The beach

Boats on the beach

Morro do Careca sand dune

Traditional food from the interior is cooked in large wood-burning ovens.

Typical oven of the Sertão

We had a nice time at church. It was the primary program. There were just a few primary children, but they sang their hearts out. The ward that followed had a large group of primary children.

Going to church

One of the first STSs to contact us after after we started this calling was Shane Allred, an American from Ogden, Utah. He had been released and we wondered what had happened to him. We were able to meet him and his wife at church. She was the Gospel Doctrine teacher.

Shane Allred and his family

After church we passed the "Biggest Berimbau in the World". We stopped to take a picture and got more than we expected. It was a capoeira (Brazilian martial arts) school for boys in the neighborhood. It was also a museum for capoeira. Eber, A young boy, showed us around the museum. Mestre Arrepio came along and we were able to see a demonstration in capoeira.

Largest berimbau in the world

the gourd is a cement mixer

History of capoeira

Capoeira demonstration

The capoeira crew

Chair made of recycled automobile tires

We met Rayane at the church where we were having our training meeting. She recently returned from the São Paulo East mission and served under President Andrew. She was happy to find out he was my cousin.

Rayane with us at church

Our training meeting was scheduled for Sunday night. We were supposed to train a Council Technology Specialist (CTS), but Natal didn´t have one so we arranged for a meeting with the Stake Technology Specialists (STS). On Saturday we were notified that a CTS had been identified, but needed to be called and set apart. I was able to be present for the setting apart which took place in time for the training meeting.