festa junina at CCJ

last night there was this big storm so we woke up to lots of rain & wind.

my first thought was-I GET TO WEAR JEANS!

silly thing to get excited about right? 

after class this morning, we all took buses to Peixinhos to go to a Festa Junina party at our internship CCJ. We were all told to bring treats for the kids so our house brought cookies, and those kids loved them! We had so much fun playing and talking with them. They were all pretty shy and embarrassed to come talk to us so we really had to try to make friends with them. But once they were comfortable they were the cutest things. I had one girl ask me if I was from China and another ask me if I was from Japan. Do I look asian? Maybe my black hair and whiteish(compared to theirs) skin made me look asian. It was also cute being called "senhora"by all the little kiddos too.

They also did a cute little line dance for us. They were adorable.

A lot of these kids have a lot of problems in the home & they go to that place during the day since they have no one at home. One of the little girls I talked to told me she had 13 siblings..

After all the festivities died down, Berkley and Joe played some music for them on the guitar and we sang in portuguese & english. It was really fun!

playing a little handgame with them.

this boy was the cutest little 5 year old.

dancing quadrilha

2 four year old best girl friends dancing together.

little black girl with the prettiest green eyes. she was so cute.

this girl was a little doll as well. eating her corn:)

taking a picture with another cynthia! she took my camera and was so excited to take pictures of everything. I ended up with 120 pictures on my camera thanks to her! lol

that little boy with the hat was a serious little rascal.

so cute!

the kids happy with their cookies that jordan made them.

playing with sparklers. it was not the best idea. i thought for sure someones hair was going to get caught on fire. 

a video of that little rascal..he thinks he's a little playuhh

beach day & festa junina

Happy Sao Joao everyone! 

-this is a holiday celebrating st. john the baptist. People dress up in peasant like outfits, wear kinda "hick" like makeup like unibrows, sideburns, mustaches, beards, freckles, etc..and there is a whole lot of dancing forro and quadrilha which is line dancing. In the northeast, this holiday is huge! During this holiday they eat a lot of corn food- such as corn bread and other cakes made of corn. A food called cajinca which is like a rice pudding but with corn instead of rice, and also pamonha which are tamales. I think it has something to do with the corn harvest that begins in the beginning of winter here. 

Saturday was our day off from school & field trips! It was a nice day to relax & do whatever we wanted. We woke up about 8:30 and had homemade waffles & hashbrowns. It was delicious! Then Jordan and I went to the beach to spend the day!

I learned one thing from the beach-do not bring money. I can't say no to people & I ended up buying  random things I didn't need!

But jordan and I did buy 2 pippas (kites) that a boy was selling on the beach with his mom. He looked like he was about 10 & he was so proud of his little kites.  I remembered the story of the boy we met at CCJ and how he survived off of making kites & when I saw the boy I knew I had to buy some.

We bought some pineapple from a man on the beach who cut the pineapple right there in front of us. It was 5R for 2 pineapples and we only had a 10R so when he came to give us our change, he literally started untying his swimming trunks and basically showing us..everything..as he tried to find our change which was in his pants. Gross right? We knew what he was doing though..he wanted us to say "Oh no that's ok! Just keep the change" which I REALLY wanted to do but since I knew he was doing it on purpose I didn't. After he realized he wasn't going to get away with keeping the rest of our money, he said "excuse me" and turned around so he could reach far enough in his pants (wherever that money was) and he pulled out a little pouch that he kept the money in. 

I did not touch it.

Finally we had been there for 3 hours and Jordan had had enough of the beach for one day.

But I stayed another hour and just slept.

He came back to get me after an hour and woke me up & I was so burnt.

Jordan is way worse than me though..he looks like a lobster.

(which by the way they also sell lobster, crab and shrimp on the beach)

The water is so warm & clear & the tide was so low it was so perfect.

Jordan and I even threw the football around a while and they also played frisbee.

It was a perfect Saturday!

Later that night, we all got our plaid clothes on and went to a festa junina!

It was so fun seeing all the american boys loving to dance forro!

Even Jordan loved it, he kept wanting to dance with me.

We ate more cornbread and canjica, drank some guarana, danced forro and quadrilha, then the boys played some soccer outside with some kids in the ward.

It was a great day!

Here are some pictures from our festa junina!