Still, No.

The women's conference this weekend was held at a resort called Agua Vida. If I were being honest..it seemed more like camping to those of us from the states. No hot water, power outages, "beds" that were maybe as soft as the floor, bed bugs, spiders, mosquitoes, beans and rice and more beans and rice, at times no toilet paper or sheets...you get the picture. I loved hearing Jen, the missionary with us, speak of her want to get over herself as she remembered how nice a place like this was for many Brazilians whose living conditions are always far less than comfortable.

I gained a lot of respect for these Brazilian women this weekend for many reasons. One was for their appreciation of their surroundings. The second, their patience. As Jen says, the entire country as a whole really has grasped the virtue of patience. It's true. Brazilian lines are never fast and never short. This held true on our trip this weekend. Any meal took about 2 hours and then some by the time every woman stood in line and got her food. Anytime they gathered together to listen to speakers (yes plural) the gathering lasted close to 3 hours..maybe more. And don't get me started on announcements. But all the women just sit and smile and cheer and laugh and listen. So patient. I don't think it's because I don't speak the language that I didn't hear complaining this weekend.

The third reason is their friendliness toward strangers. In fact, I don't know if I should word it that way because I'm not sure a Brazilian knows a stranger. Multiple women would come and hug Jen and just rant and rave with big smiles and greet the three of us interns...after they would leave we'd ask Jen if she knew them. "No," she'd answer. Of course not. They don't have to know each other. We also had many many women ask to take pictures with us and kiss our cheeks and the whole bit..one woman even gave us a huge bag of Ruffles chips.

Here's probably my favorite example of the weekend..
So..being that we, the interns, don't speak Portuguese and all, you can imagine the kind of walls we ran into with 300 people we would only be around for 3 days. Most conversations were short and ended with "Nao se" (I don't know); "Nao entende" (I didn't understand); "Nao falo portugues" (I don't speak Portuguese); or a simple thumbs up. But fortunately, we were still able to find moments to connect with these Brazilian women who saw us as fellow sisters.
One afternoon, I decided to go for a run. There was a short road right by our room, and I mean short. Fortunately it was a steep road which made the run worth it. As I was running back and forth, one of the women was walking the road as well. I thought she was just looking at the grounds of the resort because she kept pointing to things and speaking sentences that I obviously didn't understand. One time she called me over to look at a puppy. I went over and we both oo-ed and aw-ed over the puppy and then she told me to keep running. Next time around she started speaking again and then gestured to see if she could join me in my run. We ran and she decided we should run the length twice and then walk it twice, and so forth. We were able to have simple conversation. I told her my age, where I was from, why I was here and who I was staying with, etc., and she told me about the same. The we continued on in comfortable silence because even though we'd reached the end of possible conversation, it was okay because we were still running together. She didn't need to know anything else about me because to a Brazilian, strangers already know each other. I was grateful for the low pressure and easy acceptance. Those women love the Lord and love each other.


Also another thing I enjoyed about the weekend: Simply the drive there and back. The landscape was beyond beautiful. Huge rolling hills of thick tropical green for miles and miles, plenty of palm trees to sprinkle the scene. Oh! And these are the animals that were wandering around this weekend on (yes, on) the property of the resort: dogs, horses, mules, roosters, geese, crabs, monkeys, HUGE toads (one we named Hubert), and a peacock. When you leave the city in Brazil, you LEAVE the city. We were definitely in the country.