We have been here one week now. The students at the New Tribes training center here fed us for the first few days. That was really fun to get to know a lot of them (as well as you can know someone who doesn’t speak your language). This is a great place to learn the language because these people are studying to do the same thing we are. They know that it is hard to learn a language and they are very patient with us. We are so thankful that my brother got us Portuguese learning lessons to use before we got here and we are surprised with how much we are able to communicate. We have a ton to learn still but we have been able to get around town and find the things we need. Here is an example.
We bought a fridge on Friday. They said (I think), “We will deliver it on Monday.” Monday… no fridge. On Tuesday we went into town to get a mattress (we had been sleeping on an air mattress). As we passed the store we saw our fridge on the delivery truck. We thought, “hey, let’s buy the mattress really quick and they can deliver that at the same time.” But we needed money. So Stephen took off on our bicycle to the bank. I stayed at the store and said in Portuguese, “wait, fridge, husband, go, bank, buy, (then I had to act out a mattress because I didn’t know that word 🙂 So Stephen came back huffing and we bought the mattress (which we now know the word for). Then Stephen jumped in the truck to show him where our house is and I rode the bike home. We weren’t sure if we were supposed to tip him so we did and he said, “bom dia!” good day! He was happy. We were happy. We have a fridge, a bed, a stove, now for a table…
Yesterday we rigged up a clothes line… today it is raining. We really need to do laundry but it is rainy season.
Interesting fact: They don’t have street signs. The whole address is posted outside every house.
Excited to be here,
Stephen and Amber Clement