20/12/09

The masses at our church are bilingual with the readings and the sermons said in Portuguese and then translated into Xichopi, the local Bantu language, after. My director suggested I wait a month or two begin my Xichopi tutoring until after my Portuguese is really concrete, but I think masses will be a really great place to learn once I begin. It just drives me nuts on the chapas when all you hear is “foreigner blah blah blah” and they are all speaking in the local language so you can’t understand but you know they are talking about you.
Some of the sisters asked where in America I am from and when overseas I always say Chicago because people are really disappointed when you say a place they have never heard of. They immediately lit up and said “oh the Chicago Bulls! Michael Jordan’s team!” While we were washing the dishes one sister asked me if I knew Shania Twain, so we spent the remainder of the dishwashing singing “Still the One.”
Tonight at dinner whoever had set the table had put out on every single alcohol bottle they could find in the mission. There were bottles all over both tables and on top of some of the plates too. We have soup at every lunch and dinner and my not eating chicken feet has now become a running joke. So every single lunch and dinner I am told to either be careful the soup has chicken feet, or don’t worry there are no feet today!