Brazil: Week 7 (8/1/05)

My Dear Friends of St. John’s & St. Peter’s and Bishop Michael,

            Another week gone and I find myself having very mixed emotions.  I know that I must return to the United States, I miss everyone and have one more year of seminary studies to finish.  While at the same time I feel a deep sadness that my time here in Brazil is almost over.  A week from the time that you read this letter, I will be home again.  My life has been touched and changed in ways that I can’t comprehend much less explain at this time and I pray that I will be a better person for having had this experience.  I have made life-long friends and the thought of leaving them is not easy.  On the other hand, I’m very excited about the thought of seeing all of my friends in Pennsylvania and New York again.

            This week also brought changes and growth.  I saw Loretta leave for the United States and I had my first real conversation in Portuguese.  While this might not seem like much, it was a very big event for me.  For the past weeks, I have had the luxury of having Sergio or William around and they have been very helpful in translating for me.  Because of their work, I have been able to participate in conversations.  This week I had a conversation with Juma, the owner of the pousada where I’m staying, that lasted for almost 30 minutes.  There were times when we had to find different ways around the language, but we understood each other.  This was a real watershed moment for me.

            The week began with Loretta and I in a hotel room in Sao Paulo.  We were originally going to stay in the diocesan center, but due to a communication snafu we needed to stay in a hotel.  Communication is such a basic thing that we all take for granted, but I really have a new and deep appreciation for the Biblical stories of the Tower of Babel and Pentecost.  I now understand at a very deep and basic level what it is like to be left out because you don’t understand the language.  I also have a very profound knowledge of the joy that comes from being able to hear and understand what is being said.  Language is a gift that I haven’t truly appreciated until now.

            Anyway, we woke up on Monday in Sao Paulo in a hotel room on the 15^th floor with a beautiful view of the city.  We were very fortunate; this hotel caters to foreign visitors and it had hot and cold running water.  There was also no hose in the bathroom.  After our experiences last week, it was quite a joy to not have to worry about how much toilet paper we were using and whether or not it would clog the toilet.

            I woke up first so that William and I could have Morning Prayer together while Loretta showered.  A little later, we all gathered together and went downstairs to breakfast.  Breakfast in this hotel was served at circular tables with the food in the middle and toasters and coffee pots on an upper level.  The main things that were available were breads, juices and coffee.  Breakfast in Brazil is not a big meal. 

            After breakfast, William had a meeting in the city.  This gave Loretta and I a few hours to explore on our own.  I have to admit to being forgetful at this point.  I brought two sweaters and two sweatshirts to Brazil in case the weather was cold, but I left those things in Pereira Barreto…not wise.  For the most part, I have not really needed these items in Pereira Barreto.  I have taken to wearing blue jeans and a sweatshirt some days, so that people won’t worry about me being cold, but I have been wearing them for others more than for myself.  The problem was that I forgot that Sao Paulo is colder than Pereira Barreto, and I didn’t pack these things.  So we ended up going to a local mall and I purchased a pullover sweatshirt.  It is thick and comfortable and I wore it every day we were in Sao Paulo.

            After our shopping excursion we returned to the hotel and joined up with William for lunch and sight seeing.  We had lunch in a nice restaurant in the center of the city.  The food was delicious and after eating, we were all ready for some sightseeing.  After we left the restaurant we found the church that does daily sung evening prayer in Gregorian chant.  After making sure that we knew what time the service began, we headed off into the city.  The sights of the day included picking up contact lenses for William, finding a replacement power strip/surge protector for me (I failed to look at and fully appreciate the signs in the hotel that told me about the voltage of the outlets in the room), going to the top of a tall building to get a view of the city and shopping for beads.

            Several friends had told me that Brazil is the place to shop for natural stone beads.  When people here in Pereira Barreto found out that I make rosaries as a way of relieving stress, they told me about some places in Sao Paulo that I should visit in order to find cheap beads.  They were right.  We picked up beads for a fraction of the price that I would pay in the United States.  I purchased enough beads to make plenty of rosaries after the upcoming difficult days of studying theology.

            We found a building that is 4 stories tall and it is filled with nothing but stores that sell beads and other things for those who do beading as a hobby.  We spent so much time in that building that we were late for the evening prayer service and had to stand in the back.

We stayed for the mass afterwards, because we thought that it would also be a sung event.  It wasn’t, but it was a good experience.  Something that I have grown accustomed to in the past several weeks is being the one who stands out in a crowd.  It is very hard for a person as pale as I am to blend in with a group of people who are much darker.  I also stand about 3 inches taller than the average Brazilian man and I don’t speak the language.  In short, it is very easy to pick me out in the middle of a crowd.  During the mass there were people behind us who were very warm and gracious.  They knew immediately that we were not Brazilians, and they went out of their way to come over and communicate with us.  It was a great experience to be a stranger and to be welcomed.  This wasn’t an effort of a committee, but rather it was the kindness and hospitality of the individuals who attended the service.  I hope that this is something that we as Anglicans can be just as good at.

After the mass, the three of us headed off to a mall in another part of the city.  Shortly after I arrived in Pereira Barreto, Rosana, Sergio’s wife, had begun asking me about waffles.  I’m not exactly sure how she heard about waffles -- maybe it was from one of Sergio’s trips, or maybe even from a movie -- but it doesn’t matter.  She was interested in making waffles and didn’t have a way of making them in Pereira Barreto.  We had gone looking in every store in this city and no one had ever heard of a waffle iron.  There are many appliances in Brazil, but the waffle iron is not one that anyone here had ever seen before.

I had promised to look for a waffle iron in Sao Paulo.  William knew of a mall fairly close to where he used to live in the city and he took us there.  We had dinner in one of the restaurants and then we went ‘waffle-iron hunting’.  It didn’t take too long until we had found two different stores that had waffle irons.  We went with the store that had the larger iron at the cheaper price (and a ‘good old-fashioned’ Black & Decker brand-name).

With waffle iron in hand, we took a taxi to the hotel and called it a day.

Tuesday morning began with Morning Prayer for William and I.  After that it was time for breakfast and then final packing.  After making sure that Loretta’s bags were stuffed as full as we could humanly pack them, we headed off to the diocesan office.  We were very fortunate that Bishop Ito had some free time in his schedule and he was willing to share it with us.

William and I had been discussing the possibility of starting a publishing company for the Anglican Church in Brazil.  They currently do not have a publisher for their church.  Getting books here in Brazil is very difficult enough, but getting books on Anglicanism and Anglican thinking in Portuguese is almost impossible.  Our thought was to begin by looking at some popular books from the United States, and using them as resource materials, to either translate them into Portuguese or to write new books based on the knowledge and thinking contained within the books.  We wanted to meet with Bishop Ito to get his understanding of the situation of Brazilian church.  Pereira Barreto is very isolated from the rest of the diocese and from the rest of the church and we wanted a more global view.

We also had an idea of taking the current hymnal and adding written music to it.  The Brazilian hymnal contains only the lyrics for the hymns.  The music itself can be found in the Hymnal 1940 (American).  In Pereira Barreto, the congregation is having a very difficult time singing the hymns.  We thought that by putting the lyrics and the written music together, in a format where the words and the music line up, we would be helping the congregation to sing better.

Bishop Ito liked our ideas and encouraged us to continue pursuing them.  He gave us the name of a person to contact who will be a wonderful resource.  He even gave us some additional hymnals to use as resource materials.  After our meeting, Bishop Ito treated us to lunch at a local restaurant.  We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing in the library of the diocesan center.

By the late afternoon, we decided to drive to the airport to avoid the rush hour traffic and congestion.  We had some down time at the airport before Loretta’s flight and then she got off safely.  After Loretta’s flight left, William and I started the 7-hour drive back to Pereira Barreto.

Wednesday was a day of rest.  We arrived in Pereira Barreto around 4:15 in the morning.  We had originally planned on leaving Sao Paulo on Wednesday morning and making a daylight drive, but with just the two of us we decided to make a night trip, so that William could have more time with his family.  William and his son Kenzo met me around 10am later that morning and we ran a few errands together.  We then had lunch with his family.  After that I stopped in at the rectory to give Rosana her waffle iron.  She was thrilled and as I was leaving to go back to the pousada, she was beginning to make her first batch of waffles from the recipe on the box.

I spent the rest of the day reading and resting.

I woke up on Thursday feeling much better.  It always amazes me how a good night's sleep makes you feel alive and refreshed.  Thursday started back into my normal routine of class with Camila in the morning.  After class, I went to Santo Andre and checked for email messages.

It was at this point that a fundamental learning happened for me.  I have been writing to you about the poverty here in Brazil for many weeks now, but up until Thursday, I hadn’t experienced it personally.  I think that I have explained about how the dollar is so much stronger than the real.  I have been able to treat myself to an occasional can or bottle of soda for about 1 real – about 40 cents.  I have also been able to afford to take individual Portuguese classes because of the currency exchange rate.

I’m sorry to say that sometime during her trip back to the United States, Loretta’s wallet was stolen.  She is fine, thank God.  It seems like someone just opened her purse and took her wallet without her knowing it.  She discovered the loss when she wanted to buy a cup of coffee in Atlanta.  She looked in her purse and discovered that her wallet was missing.  Not a pleasant experience, but she still had her passport and other documents, so she was able to complete her trip and safely return home.

After she got home on Wednesday, she began the uncomfortable process of calling all of the banks and canceling her credit cards and debit card.  Because we share a joint checking account, our bank suspended my debit card as well as Loretta’s.  After Loretta had completed her phone calls, she sent me an email message.  I didn’t check my messages on Wednesday, so I didn’t get the news until Thursday.  For the first time in Brazil, I found myself sharing the situation with the common person; I only had the reais in my wallet.  I couldn’t go to the bank and get more.

I immediately became worried: Loretta and I had just agreed to purchase 30 towels to sell at St. John’s as a way of raising money for Santo Andre.  I had two Portuguese teachers who needed to be paid. All of a sudden, I was living way beyond my means.  Not only was I living beyond my means, I was in debt with no way of paying off those debts.  My little soda treats were over.

It was amazing what a difference not having access to my bank account made to the way I viewed and felt about my trip.  I didn’t need any money right away; I had just paid one of my teachers and we hadn’t set a payment date for the towels, but I still felt those debts hanging over my head.  I had money in my wallet and I wasn’t going to starve, in fact my friends are always concerned if I don’t have seconds at every meal.  I basically found myself having to be careful about how I spent my money because I wasn’t sure if there was going to be any more available for the rest of my trip.

I have been living with a tight budget in New York for almost two years now and I know how to get along with very little, but this felt very different to me.  I’m not sure that I can fully explain the difference and I’m not sure that I fully understand it yet.  I have friends here in Pereira Barreto and in New York.  I know that I’m not going to starve in either location and I know that people would work with me concerning financial matters if I no longer had access to our checking account.  The basic situation would have been the same if I had been in New York, but here in Pereira Barreto I felt more isolated and less in control without access to money.  It will probably take some time for me to fully understand what this really says about me.

Thursday evening was also the night of my 30-minute conversation in Portuguese with Juma.  It is really a huge thrill to understand and to be understood.  Please don’t get me wrong, it was a lot of hard work and we used a variety of ways to get our ideas across, including some good old-fashioned sign language, but we stuck with it and understood each other.  By the end of the 30 minutes I was exhausted, but it was so good to be able to talk with someone in Portuguese.  This was truly a highlight of my week.

Friday, for the most part was a typical day.  During the day I got an email from Loretta stating that my debit card was still good.  My financial concerns were over and I began to reflect on that experience.  It amazes me how one little bit of news made such a difference to me.

I also was asked to preach at next week’s services.  In the afternoon Sergio approached me about preaching at both services next weekend.  Santo Andre has two services most weekends, one on Friday nights and the other on Sunday nights.  Once a month there is a third mass in Japanese, but I haven’t seen that service yet.

Friday night was the typical service, but with a twist.  Coming back from Sao Paulo, William and I stopped at a roadside service station.  At this time, I purchased some loaves of round bread.  When I brought the waffle iron to Rosana, I also gave Sergio the bread and asked him to think about using that instead of communion wafers.  I had been thinking that he might try this during the Sunday evening service, which is more informal and has fewer people in attendance.  Instead he decided to use the bread on Friday night.  He also did another thing that I did not expect.  When the people came to receive communion, he had them break off a piece of the bread.  It was fun to watch the excitement in people’s eyes over something new and different, but it was amazing to watch their expressions when they understood that they were breaking off a piece of Christ’s body.  Not everyone understood what Sergio had done, but those who did were truly touched by this innovation.

Saturday was a fairly quiet day until the evening.  I had been invited by Lucia, the owner of the paderia, to attend a Catholic mass here in Pereira Barreto.  Lucia is a warm and kind person who has been very good to me.  She is one of my friends here in Pereira Barreto who is not a member of Santo Andre.  I had invited her to last week’s Evening Prayer service because she speaks English.  She was so touched by my invitation, that she invited me to her church.  It was such a gracious invitation, that I immediately accepted.  I think that she was surprised when I said yes.

I met Lucia and we walked to her church.  I had asked to sit at the front of the congregation so that I could have a good view of the altar during the service.  I had forgotten two things; that I was ‘o americano’ (the American) and that almost everyone in this city knows who I am.  I was immediately welcomed by the congregation and assured that if I wanted to, I would be welcome to receive communion with everyone else.

This was only the second time in my trip that I was with the Brazilian culture without a Japanese influence.  I’m not sure that my words will describe in a fair and accurate way the differences between the cultures and I’m certainly sure that the few hours that I’ve spent with Brazilians makes me qualified to tell the difference, but Brazilians appear to be more open with their emotions.  This is not to say that the Japanese people do not have or show their emotions, rather that they are more subtle about expressing them.

As I met Brazilians in the church, they were very quick to give me huge hugs and they were very quick to reach out and touch me.  These touches weren’t meant to express anything other than warmth and welcoming, but for someone who is very used to having personal space, it was an adjustment.

This was the second time in one week that I had been touched by the hospitality of the Roman Catholic Church here in Brazil.  In neither case did I feel that people were trying to convert me.  In the church in Pereira Barreto especially, people knew that I was an Anglican seminarian.  The wonderful thing was that they didn’t care.  I was a fellow Christian and an honored guest.

The day before the mass, Lucia presented me with a copy of the hymnal from their church.  It is a spiral bound edition that does not have music printed with it, only the lyrics.  She was clearly excited about my visit and wanted to make sure that I would be comfortable.  Before the mass itself, members of the choir came over to make sure that I knew what songs we were going to be singing.  When they found out that I could read a little music, they immediately brought over an extra set of the organist’s music.  During the service, if I was juggling books (such an Episcopal tradition) a member of the choir came over, opened the right book for me and then pointed out exactly where we were so that I could join in.

I learned a great deal about hospitality from these warm, loving people and I will always be grateful for the experience and their ministry.

At the end of the mass, an interesting thing happened, and I’m not sure if it is a local weekly tradition or if it was something special related to the lectionary readings.  This past weekend, the Gospel was about the ‘Feeding of the Five-Thousand’.  This congregation blessed two large loaves of bread at the end of the mass (yes, each member of the congregation raised a hand in the direction of the bread and said the blessing along with the priest) and then the bread was distributed.  I was asked to help break off pieces of bread and give them to everyone.  It was quite an experience, a second communion if you will.  I don’t fully understand why the congregation did this, but it was clearly a comfortable routine and an important part of their liturgy.  I felt blessed to be in the midst of these people.  I felt honored to be included.

I had one more experience with hospitality from these people.  After mass, there was a social event at the other side of the city.  I was quite prepared to walk from the church to the event.  I’m used to walking many blocks in New York City and this walk would only have been about a mile or so.  As Lucia and I were walking back, she asked about my plans.  When she found out that I was planning on walking, she decided that this wouldn’t do.  Her son was also going to the same event and would be happy to give me a ride.  He not only gave me a ride, but he and his friends walked in with me and stayed with me until I found my friends from Santo Andre.

I continue to be amazed by the cultures here.  By the economic standards of the United States, these are not rich people.  The standard of living is a great deal lower than what we are used to, but yet the people here freely share what they have.  They share not only their possessions, but also their time and their hearts.  I can’t help but be profoundly changed by what they have shared with me and taught me at the same time.

Saturday was the day of the big Japanese party.  This is the social event that I was going to.  Here in Pereira Barreto there is a Japanese organization called ACEP.  They are a social/sports club that built the local sports fields.  They have built a baseball diamond, a track and some other fields.  Every year this group has a ‘Bon Adori’.  If I understood the culture and tradition correctly, it is an annual event that something equivalent to our Thanksgiving celebration.  It is a harvest festival.  This event is not celebrated by overeating, but rather by a large community meal and dancing.  The event is also a fundraiser for the organization; it attracts people from as far away as Sao Paulo.

The event was held in a large semi-permanent structure that looks like a small circular track with tents surrounding it.  There were colorful paper lanterns everywhere and many of the people were dressed in traditional Japanese clothes.  It was a very festive and beautiful event.  Because I was at the mass, I missed all of the speeches.  When I arrived, they were just beginning the dancing part of the evening.  The dancing was lovely to watch, it was slow and rhythmic and most of the people who were in attendance were participating.

Sunday was a day to take it easy.  I did not have any serious commitments until choir rehearsal in the evening.  I had every intention of sleeping in, but I woke up at 7:30.  I had closed the windows so that light wouldn’t come into my room, but it didn’t matter.  I think that my body is now in the rhythm of waking up at 7:30.  I used the opportunity to pull out my Bible and begin working on the sermons for next week.

William invited me to have lunch with his family and then it was back to reading and sermon preparation.  I have taken to using a table in the common room of the pousada as a desk.  The room is almost always empty, and because things are so open here, this room has wonderful cross-ventilation and a great view of the city.

That evening I went to choir rehearsal, only people didn’t show up.  Some of us had a wonderful conversation outside until the service at 6:45.  After the service Sandro, the parish organist/music director, asked everyone to join in a rehearsal for a new piece of music that he just arranged.  He took "Seek Ye First" and arranged it for a 4-part choir.  We all had a great time learning new music.  Sandro has agreed to make a copy of the music for me, so that I can bring it to St. John’s.  He has also agreed to send any other pieces that he composes and arranges.  My hope is that by sharing our music our two congregations can better share our faith and deepen our friendship.

I am looking forward to seeing everyone again soon.

Peace,

Patrick