Não fallo Portugés.

That's a phrase I became good at saying. WYD is over, and I am sitting in the Rio airport waiting to board my first flight. But I am going to continue blogging in order. So here are some great stories from my week in Campinas:

 I was lied to by Juan Diego about how to spell patata palia. It's Batata Palha.

 Juan and Tom are smoking buddies. They found a nice cozy place out of sight of the kids to go smoke. it just so happens to be on our front porch. One day, Tom was nowhere to be found. Juan and I were sitting on the bench, and Juan asks me, "where is mr. Flaherty?" 
I reply, "no idea".
-silence-
J: do you smoke?
C: oh no.
J: well.....today is a good day to start!

I did not smoke with Juan that day. Or any day.

One of the parish youths from SantaMonica in Campinas, Jordy, resembles Nate Reuss. Google Nate Reuss, and then imagine him as a 14 year old, and you have Jordy.

Jordy looks 14, but he's 17.

Ok time to board!

A few lessons learned.

This past week, I lived at a children's center in a very poor, gang infested, drug-selling neighborhood of Campinas. Centro Vedruna, it is called. The center was begun and is run by five wonderful Carmelite nuns, and this past week has been an experience I hope to never forget. I have just arrived in Rio today, and so my regular posts will (hopefully) resume. But I am on my way to meet with my Vedruna group, and so for right now I will just share a few lessons I learned this week:
 1. Brazil has the greatest thing in the world; a dish called patata palia. Basically, it's miniature French fries.
2. You don't eat patata palia one at a time.
3. Brazilians use their fingers when eating WAY less than I do. Like, not at all.
4. I found a language I like less than Spanish. It's called Portuguese.
5. Jucelio's name is Jucelio, not Josef.

Jucelio is also a party animal.

6. No matter how handsome he is, never try to go drink for drink with a large Slovakian man. You will lose.

Pictured: large Slovakian male (right) with Big Tom.

7. Rice and beans go with everything.
8. There is more sugar in Brazil than anywhere in a child's imagination of heaven.
9. But still, the food is fantastic.


 Time for dinner, which probably consists of sugar built to resemble food, and some rice and beans.

I don't know what to post today.

We had mass with the Father General of the Jesuits! We walked to the park! We went to the bar and had a Coke! I met with my small group for the next week. We played that game where you have to say your name and country and then say everyone's names and countries who went before you, and naturally I was last, so I had to know everybody's names, and when I got them all right, they applauded me. Had reflection time with the Gonzaga group! Danced salsa with Susan! It's 10:30, and my small group leaves at 6 am! Goodnight!

Time to be a Tourist

Today, we went on a great tour of Salvador! After lunch, we were loaded onto buses and were guided around the city. We learned tons of great history about buildings and churches, met the mayor, started a flash mob, made the national news, and there was even a parade in our honor! The sucky part is that none of that is true. Well, the parade bit is sort of true. With 2,000 people walking through the streets of Salvador, the police had to shut down a couple of lanes for us, and so cars waited and people watches us walk by, so it was kind of like a parade. What really happened is after lunch we walked through the slums of Salvador to get to the historical center and then to the Catedral Basilica and Terreiro de Jesus. We weren't guided by people that knew the history of the city, so we just looked around. Once at Terreiro de Jesus, we waited for 45 minutes, and then performed a flash mob to the MAGIS theme song and to another song in Portuguese that I don't know. It was a lot of fun, but we practiced for it in the square where we performed it, so that was weird. Also, my whole group was tired after walking and rehearsing, so when it came time to actually do the dance, only Kyle joined me. Bt we did make it on the national news, and we had a five minute segment, which I guess is good because it means that the news stations had no other important things to report, like riots. After our flash mob, we walked for another 2 1/2 hours, and got back after dinner was supposed to start. So we got no free time, but it was ok. After dinner was the Nations' Festival, which was a cultural show from a bunch of the countries at MAGIS. My favorites were Mauritius and South Korea. That just ended, so I'm going to bed. Check out our flash mobbing on the MAGIS website! http://magisbrasil.tumblr.com/ TTFN; ta ta for now!

How many pilgrims does it take to use up a bottle of DEET in one day?

It's 1:15 am in Salvador. I have yet to sleep since my last post three hours ago, and here's why: It all began with playing some card games out in the lunge. We made some new friends, Larissa and Fabio, both Brazilians. It was getting late, and so Caroline and I decided we needed to go to bed. As we washed our feet and tucked into our sleeping bags, Caroline let out a hushed yell of frustration. Her toiletries bag had seemingly melted all over her backpack, and was sticky, smelly, and everywhere. That's where I get involved. I got up to he her empty the contents to find that the bag hadn't melted in the sun as we had thought, but her spray bottle of 100% DEET had leaked into her bag, eroded the bag at the seams, and begun eating away at Caroline's other belongings. OH NO! I instinctively grabbed the whole toiletries bag and ran outside to dump the contents, bringing with me my wet wipes to clean it up. 5 wet wipes later, Caroline came out in her socks with a bag to put her stuff in, but it was too weak. The DEET began eroding away at the stolen airline barf bag (clean), and so she ran inside to find another suitable container. Meanwhile, it began to rain. No, not rain. Pour. Within 30 seconds I was soaked through, in my only pajamas, smelling like DEET and holding Caroline's toiletries. She found a MAGIS official, who gave her a plastic trash bag, and for now that seems to be holding up. I threw away her old toiletries bag and the cracked bottle of DEET. We thought the worst was over, but boy were we wrong. Upon examination of my hands, I came to discover that the DEET had shriveled up my fingers and palms, causing old scars to resurface and dry out everything. I washed my hand and they are better now though. Now I'm in my sleeping bag, exhausted, wet, still smelly, no longer sticky, but thankfully we caught the mess before it ate everything. The lesson for the kiddos at home: 100% DEET bad. Very bad. Day one still isn't over, and I've got more crazy stories. Stay tuned.

Houston, we have a problem.

Well, we had a problem. It's all been fixed now. But in Thursday morning, as I prepared for my epic trip, I received a call from United saying that my flight was MASSIVELY delayed. Great. So we rush to SeatTac and meet up with Todd, one of the leaders of my group. He and I were the only ones flying from Seattle, and therefore the only ones affected by this nonsense. But Todd sweet talked us into a couple of tickets on American Airlines (in the exit row) through Dallas which brought us to Rio an hour before the others. Nice. However, this means that we did not meet the others in Houston as planned, but we had out own epic adventure. (I apologize for my lack of creativity; I haven't slept yet.) We arrived in Dallas just as our next flit was boarding, so we went for a little jog. Thankfully, our flight went full, so we each got a row to ourselves. That didn't help me, though, and so I spent 8 hours of the 10 hour flight awake, wishing I was asleep. Todd slept great, in case you were wondering. We got to rio, met up with everyone else, and made it to Salvador. We just got to the high school where we are staying, and we have wifi here, so I'll try to post every day I'm in Salvador. That's all for now!