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