Week 7 in Brazil:
We may not be completely accustomed to Brazil, but we are getting close. This week was pretty chill. We know where to get groceries, where to find things in the mall, and where to find the best beaches. The whole family is getting used to the food, and we are even learning to make more of it on our own. Here are some highlights:
On Thursday, Vivian, a postdoc in the Lanna lab, and I went to collect sponge samples at the beach. It was so close I just walked there to meet her. I wish I had brought my GoPro! The water was calm and crystal clear. We saw a lot of cool fish, and I even saw a group of three beautiful squid swimming along. We were collecting samples for both DNA and RNA. RNA is unstable, so we processed the samples on the beach to put them in a protective solution. We then started walking back, and the rain came pouring down. I think I got back to my apartment wetter than when I left the ocean. We are still trying to get suitable DNA for the genome sequencing, but these samples look much better after extraction, so I hope we can get some good results this week.
On Friday, we went to the ward Festa Junina party. Festas Juninas is an old pagan holiday around the solstice (winter solstice here) adopted by the Catholics to celebrate Saint John. It also has taken on a "harvest festival" feel with cowboy outfits, baked goods and candy (which feature corn and peanuts in almost everything), and dances. They even have their own style of square dancing. We had a fun time chatting with others and trying the food, and Sarah and I even tried to do some of the traditional dancing (it felt like a country swing but had a more complicated triple step...we failed at it miserably). It was a good fun time.
On Saturday, we mostly cleaned the house and worked here, but then we decided to go to the beach a little before sunset. It was beautiful, and our fair skin appreciated the shade. The surfers were out catching the occasional 6 ft wave, and the kids enjoyed watching them and trying to "body surf" (They mostly just got knocked over by the waves). We then ate a "X-salada" (cheese burgers) on the way home.
Today we went to church as usual. I am feeling more and more integrated with the ward. Today, they even asked me to pray in Sacrament Meeting (i.e. in public, in Portuguese) and serve as a witness for a baptism held after church. Today is also NOT Father's Day in Brazil, so my whole family forgot until the American missionary mentioned it at church. They then scrambled this afternoon to make up for it by showering me with compliments and making chocolate cookies with doce de leite in the middle (yum!).
We have another "normal" week this week, and then Sarah's parents come to town, and we head to the Amazon for a week!
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