how we spent our two year anniversary in brazil.

today Jordan and I celebrated two years of marriage!

today we went to our internship CCJ early in the morning to fix up their building (or you could call it a house maybe?) It has a couple rooms that act as offices, classroom type rooms, computer rooms etc..but it was probably a house before. 

Unfortunately, the whole place is in incredible need of repair.

there is so much to be done, but we are trying to do as much as we can with the materials that we have.

when we got there, we all said happy birthday to our teacher vanessa! and happy birthday to her daughter natalia whose birthday was yesterday! then everyone was so kind to keep congratulating Jordan and I on our anniversary and we just felt so special all day. so thank you! We have such a thoughtful teacher and classmates. When we arrived, Vanessa & Natalia gave us a little present from Caruaru that they picked out for us. It was so kind of them to think of us and we will keep it pra sempre!

a cute little couple swinging together! it's adorable. :)

anyways, the biggest thing the center needs is a complete paint job!

luckily, we have Jordan or else our group might be a little lost.

He oversaw the painting today to make sure it was all being done efficiently and effectively.

I was really proud of how great everyone was working together today and how much we were able to get done. The walls are in serious need of repairs..there are many holes so it required a lot of plastering, and there is also water damage and other problems. We were able to get done the main room and a hallway today but I think now that we understand what to do we might be able to get a lot done faster.

Here is a picture where you can see an example of how the walls are:

jordan painting!

There were about 5 of us who volunteered in the kitchen-cristina, berkley, michele, carla and I. 

So while everyone was painting we had the job of planning lunch and preparing and serving it to everyone there. A few of them went to the store to get ingredients while the rest of us began the cleaning process of the kitchen. Wow, surprisingly this was a difficult process! We had no running water in the kitchen (can you imagine how we cooked and cleaned without running water!?) so it required a lot of finding water, putting it in buckets, using pots to gather water, etc and most importantly making sure we were cooking and cleaning our vegetables with good water. It was complicated! There were also not many cleaning supplies so we had to make a lot of purchases! We started cleaning the kitchen brazilian style-pouring soapy water all over the ground and scrubbing really hard with a broom then finally using a pano (rag) to scrape all the water out. It took SEVERAL times and it still never got clean! But it was better so it's ok!

Here was where all the cooking took place:

we made noodles with two different types of sauces and chicken.

It was really difficult because of our large group to feed and lack of stove space but we fed them all and decided we will not be doing that again! next time sandwiches it is! that way we can spend more time actually painting and helping rather than cooking and cleaning.

after lunch we painted more, got rooms prepped for tomorrow, cleaned the floors some more and then we went home :)

after getting home, we showered & got ready for our date!

then we went to this place:

that was literally right next to a little marina, where all the fishing boats are. It was so beautiful and lovely, and the restaurant had most of its seating outside so we just sat by the water and watched all the people running along the beach. One of my favorite part about that restaurant was the music that played- a lot of romantic brazilian bossa nova type songs. :)

our entire meal cost about $30 and as you can see we got meat, onions, chicken, sausage and fried cheese along with rice, beans, farofa and vinagrette. It came out on a plate that literally had a flame under it. They were taking a little long on our food so they gave us free appetizers-caldinho. It's this little soup (more like a bisque) that they serve to you in a mini mug looking thing (like where you'd drink an espresso maybe? those coffee shots) It was made of shrimp-like a shrimp bisque and it was really good. Even Jordan ate it but I think it was because he was really hungry but he paid for it later. He seriously has an allergy to seafood.

Another wonderful part about our dinner date was this:

I swear the moon is prettier in Recife than anywhere else in the world!

Another fun thing about our date was that we made really good friends with the waiter. He literally talked to us for probably 30 minutes just standing there and telling us all about his life. It was so fun to hear from someone who was born and raised in recife.  We told him we were working in Olinda in the favelas and he got really concerned for us especially when we told him it was in the bairro of Peixinhos! Yikes :/ I mean he says we are fine because we are with people of the community but otherwise it would not be safe to do that. We laughed and talked for a long time and when it came time to leave, we didn't feel like taking our left overs so he told us to take it to some woman at the pharmacy so we agreed. We took the food to the pharmacy and had no clue who to give it to. Finally after we had almost given up I decided to ask the lady directing the parking outside if she had any idea who it was that I should give this food to and she said ME! So she got our left overs and was happy about it.. I guess she has asked that people from the restaurant give her their left overs so they tell their customers to give it to her haha

Anyways, it was a wonderful, fun filled day!