The Second Day

Ola again!

The youngest pilgrim from the Holy Family pilgrims has returned to blog about Day 2!

We can't believe that we have been in Brazil for 2 full days already. It feels like we have been here for months. Our new families(don't worry we still have family in Michigan!) are sooooo awesome! It is so sad saying goodbyes :( For tomorrow we will take a busride to Rio de Janeiro(5 hours long unfortunetly...) But I am probably boring you with all that. I guess that it is time to share with all our friends and followers day 2 in Brazil!

  The day started out with a good 8 hours of sleep(for me, the others had abou 9 to 10 hours) which is always good to do after a long plane trip with 2 hours of sleep(max) from day 1.  For now I will be talking about my day since every pilgrim is in a different host family(don't worry the others come in before lunchtime). Then I had a very delicious breakfast but not entirely healthy. I had chocolate cake Brazil style, meat with baked bread, Brazilian cookies, and Guyava juice(very very good :D) Then Mama Papa Oksana and I went for a walk by the lake... wait a minute I didn't introduce my "sister" yet. One of the members of the Ukrainian group travelling with us has joined me in my family that's us up there and yes that's her on the pink shirt. Down by the lake we fed the geese, I found them to be very greedy.

 We were shown the many different local animals and there names in Portuguese. They also showed us the many diverse trees in Brazil, which is funny because the people of Brazil are also very diverse like America. The stereotype bronze skin perfectly athletic Brazilian is very misleading. There are people of all skin color, heritage, and many different dialects. The main thing they have in common is that they all speak Portuguese extremely well, unlike us Americanos. Anyway.... back to my totally awesome day in Brazil. After the walk in the park(hehe) we went to the Brazilian Farmers Market, they don't call it that, in fact they have a very hard time trying to say the word "Farmer".

Then we were introduced to Brazil's famous Guaranita which to me tasted like a cross between Cream Soda and Ginger Ale with a little bit of cherry thrown in(If you ever get a chance to try some I highly reccomend it). And not only did we drink Guaranita but we also got to try some handmade sugar cane juice(everything non alcoholic). Top right that is the machine that makes it. Even I found it to be exsessivly sweet, but it is much better with lime added because the lime tones the sweetness down just enough. And after our trip to the market we drove to this beautiful church were we prayed the Angelus(a very common prayer that is said at 12:00) And here is where the others come in, we also met eachother in the market huddled around the beverages. Here is a picture of the church, a picture is worth a thousand words right? The one on the right is Bethany in the adoration chapel. I liked it alot because the Eucharist was literally inches away from where we were allowed to kneel.

 The man you see talking to us in the picture on the left is a deacon at this small church. He explained to us about the Parasita and the appiritions of Mary in Brazil. Right after his speech he taught us an African song that if translated went kind of like this: Mama(Mary) embrace me Mama hold me... and I was not privaledged to get the full translation after that. And next was a very special Brazilian Barbeque that they prepared just for us American Pilgrims, they love us that much!

 On the left is Jacqueline and a member of her host family. I just want to say here how much I love Brazilian food :D But, what heppened next suprised me.  As soon as everyone was done eating they broke out into dancing! It suprised me because the room where we ate in was very cramped. That didn't stop our hosts though! They cleared a space and made everyone get up and DANCE. 

Now we played soccer, or as the natives called it: Football! Unfortunetly I do not have any shots on my camera of us playing sports, the other pilgrims do though. The main reason behind that is because I was very invloved myself. Patty got a video of me scoring a goal! But, I must say those Brazilians are very tough to play against.

 Moving on. We then went to our homes and took showers and slept for a bit. When we were fully prepared we went to the 7:00 mass.

And the church was soooo full that people had to stand up all along the sides and back of the church, and it was a very big church too. We got to be in the prossesion in! It sure feels different to be a celebrity. 

The Mass was so unique and spectacular. It was in a mixture of Portuguese and English, on and off.  And after the Mass our Brazilian hosts THANKED US for allowing them to host us! They gave us each a gift with a t-shirt, 3 c-ds from their incredible choir, a small Brazilian flag, and a candy native to Brazil! We then took pictures with EVRYONE. It was really amazing(if you can't tell, I am running out of good descriptive words to define how "out of this world" we were treated in the past two days)

And to top things off, it is only 8:40 in my story! I still have an hour and a half's worth of AWESOME to go! And once again after Mass had been said and pictures taken, we walked outside to join the festival. I was told by some of my new Brazilian friends that they only have this Festival 3 times a year. On Christmas, Easter, and when an important event transpires. Well we got to see the Festival for two days in a row! We must be special:D I don't have any pictures of the festival part 2 because I was too busy enjoying it ;) There was singing and LOTS of dancing, special foods were cooked and drinks sold, more of that delicious Guaranita! And then we went back to our host family homes.

I must now say good night for it is 1:39 in the morning here and I have to get up REALLY EARLY to go to Mass: "Boa Noite"(trust me it's harder to say than it looks.) and I will next be blogging from Rio de Janeiro! Chão!

- John Yokus WYD Pilgrim Rio de Janeiro 2013