USA meets Brazil

As many already know, last week for the first time my youngest brother, together with his wife and daughters came to visit us in Brazil. For months we were looking forward to this event, and we were planning all along what we could do to show them the best parts of Brazil. He was surprised when we came to pick him up in a “hippie Volkswagen van”, but everyone was quiet at first noticing the difference of the big city of Sao Paulo and small town USA. The traffic was crazy; it seemed that there were people everywhere starting with the airport. They said how hot it was, and it was hot especially after leaving the cold snowy climate that they were accustomed to. We saw Pedreira and Serra Negra, beautiful places to see, and we cooked at home a lot. They liked some Brazilian food with the exception of banana candy which my brother thought resembled hundred year old rotten brown moldy bananas! We took them to the project, and they fell in love with the kids. We went swimming; they got suntans, some mosquito bites, and lost a soccer game with the unfair advantage of not being used to the afternoon sun, and having fewer team members. The Brazilian team seemed like they could run forever and they could too. It was a very fun week, the only hard part saying goodbye.