Joe and Kandi Depue
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Culture

February 22, 2013 by Joe and Kandi Depue

Well we made it… Kandi and I were dreading customs here in Brazil and… they did not even open a single bag. Not one. We had 17 pieces of luggage because we did not understand the weight limit for our carry-ons only 5 KG.  God was very gracious.

But what I really want to tell you about is my first culture blunder but day 2 was worse.  So form the get go, day one I have to eat humble pie. We went over to a Brazilian missionary’s house for supper. We had a version of spaghetti that I had never had before but it was Delicious epically after a long day.  My blunder came when I was served dessert. I decided to give my bowl of homemade coconut Ice-cream to Samuel. I was the guest of honor there for served first.  It took some convincing on my part, to let our host know that I did not give away the ice-cream because I did not like it but that I wanted to make sure he got some.  It was not appropriate to give away what I was served unles I did not like it.  so for the first day it was not too bad.

Day 2 I was talking with one of our missionary coworkers and tried to say in Portuguese speaking of a soccer ball that the boys wanted to play with “Did’t you bring it in here already?”  Instead I said “Didn’t you have an affair in here already.”  He was very gracious and said that is not a very nice word and then we talked about what I was trying to say.

I am not sure that I won’t make that mistake again because the Spanish word for “bring” is the same word for “have an affair” in Portuguese. Sometimes knowing Spanish will make it more difficult.  Here is another one for ya, the Portuguese word (Lunche) pronounced (lun’chy) means supper.  Just a little confusing.

Filed Under: Ministry

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Joe and Kandi Depue

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