Friday and Saturday!

Hey There Everyone,

We have been a bit backed up with items of running around and finding more meetings to get to. For Friday, we drove back to Itaporanga to visit a few factories. The Leve factory (toilet paper) and the Mabel Factory (a cookie factory) both were extremely interesting especially since we saw both processes from start to finish. We also scored some napkins and cookies to bring home with us which should be interesting on the flight, that is for sure. From there we headed to another vocational meeting with a Rotarian that shared about his business in consulting for hospitals and other administrative businesses. It was short but definitely sweet. Off we went back to our host families and spent our time sleeping.

Sleeping? Yes, you heard me, sleeping to get ready for a wedding reception at 10:30pm. Here in Brazil, they begin most parties after 10pm and this was no different. With 600 people attending the reception and a long night ahead, we went home, slept, got ready and hit a night on the town. We would like to extend a HUGE "Thank you" to Dr. Santana and his family for inviting us to his son's wedding reception.....It was, least to say, INCREDIBLE. We left the party at 3:30am and it was still going strong. Apparently, it made it all the way until 6am, we just couldn't hang.

It was nice that our next day was to be spent at the Governor 4390 of Itaporanga's farm and we didn't have to be there until 9am. We did get some sleep! There was a catamaran ride to the island, a tour of his familys' farm, and then a short car ride to his farm. We started with appetizers of fresh crab and shrimp with the heads still on and yes, Jacque did eat it. She loved it....especially banging the fish with a mallet and granite block. From there, Jacque and I decided to horseback ride about the island.

We rode through the blazing sun and found ourselves riding into a poor village. It was beautiful but definitely a poor area. We came back to a HUGE lunch, like we hadn't eaten enough! We walked around the farm for a little while longer and finally had to come home.....back to our catamaran and you should have seen the mud. We had to walk 50 feet through the mud in our bare feet and that was hilarious. Jacque and I screaming, Joe laughing, and Veronica kicking mud the whole way, it was great. We must send our "Thank You" out to the Captian of our ship, Governor Elder of district 4390 for treating us to such an excellent day, and all of the other people who made it quite special. For now, I am signing off with the thought of that day! Pictures of this to come soon......

Ciao and Obrigada!

Clarissa

The days are passing and we are leaving Aracaju soon

Hello All,

We are trying to keep this blog as updated as possible but at the moment, I am the only one that has constant internet access but hopefully you will from the others soon. We have had some very interesting trips and definitely some fantastic working visits. After our day trip to Xingo on Wednesday, we picked up right back where we left of with meetings and visits.

We first saw Ciras, Centro de Integracao, which is a school for the mental handicapped and disabled children. It is in a part of Aracaju that is extremely impoverished that Carolina Freier de Carvalho has opened her school to these children and young adults. It is one of the most beautifl things I have seen in a poor community. She has everything for these children and adults from arts and crafts, cooking, and cosmetology, to physical therapy and just giving them a safe place to play everyday. It is a nice school but constantly needs help for new items to improve the school for these people and Carolina, who is an American that moved to Brazil more than 20 years ago, has been the amazing woman behind the project. We had the pleasure of seeing the entire school and all that she works hard for and we would like to "Thank" her for allowing us to see the amazing facility and for her time translating. With that, we followed on to another facility that takes care of the poor people of Aracaju called Projecto do Hospital Sao Lucas. They are another facility that feeds, gives day care and health care, dentistry and even counceling to the needy of the area. Jacque, Adrienne, and I (Joe was at a vocational visit) were fortunate enough to see that this facility is helping the need of the area that has had major floods and almost come down.

These were both sme of the BEST facilities in the area and it is good to know that these people are getting the help they need for themselves and for their children. We soon were off to another Rotary club meeting. We would like to thank the Rotary Siqueira Leste for a great lunch and our gifts!

We soon carried off to see Sao Cristavovao and met Paulo Roberto de Almeida Menezes. He showed us the entire city that used to be the capitol of Sergipe (where we are staying). It was filled with stone buildings dating back to the 1800's and beautiful artwork. Thank you Paulo for the tour of your city! Then we were trailblazing to another Rotary Meeting Siqueira Campos where we met the GSE Team that will be traveling to California soon. They are great people and extremely excited to see Pasadena, Apple Valley, and Upland......get ready California, here come the Brazilians!

We finally got home and were looking forward to the factories of Friday. I will try to get the others perspective for you on that at another time but for now, CIAO and Obrigada!

Clarissa

FINALLY! Something New to Report...

Hello All,

I am writing, FINALLY, from Aracajua, Brazil. It has been a whirlwind since we have arrived but definitely fun! When we got here, Jacque's luggage was lost but we were all fortunate to get it a day later, especially since I'm most positive, it was my fault. That behind us, we started staying with our separate families right away, going to Rotary Club meetings twice a day, along with vocational visits, a visit to the Governor of Itaporanga's house for a late night meal, and a visit to the University (UNIT as the locals call it) and their brand new medical school buildings. It has been incredible, I must say and the FOOD! Oh the FOOD is amazing and consistent. We are definitely not going hungry in this country. We finally had a free day today and we were taken to Xingo. I would try to give you some help with that one but I just learned to pronounce it myself. It was a gorgeous fresh water river that we were allowed to swim in though, and the much needed day, was fantastic. HOT but none the less fantastic. We are all hoping to blog more now that we have the evenings off so please, keep in touch and thanks for being so patient. We would like to send out Many Thanks out to the Rotary Aracaju Norte, Rotary Club de Itaporanga, Rotary 13 de Julho, and Aracaju-Nova Geracao for allowing us to present to their clubs and all of the wonderful trips and vocational jobs they have taken us on.

Obrigada to all,

Clarissa Cassara