A Trip to Walmart

When I lived in US, Wal-Mart, which I affectionately called Wally World, was one of my favorite stores. I could and would spend hours just walking around looking at and buying stuff. As a poor college student and later as a young adult just starting out, Wal-Mart’s prices were more convenient to my pocket. When I realized the chain of store was also here I was more that a little curious and excited to see how the stores here differed from those in the US. In the eight months I had been here, I had driven past several Wal-Mart stores in different cities but I never had the opportunity to venture into one to see how it was.

Finally, on second day in Brasilia I had the opportunity. I went with Gilza to buy groceries. From the outside I could have easily thought that I was entering an American Wal-Mart. The sign was the same and the store even has the same mascot, the yellow smiley face. The store I visited was a super Wal-Mart so it has groceries, cloth, electronic, books, cosmetics, a pharmacy, a hair stylist and many other things. I actually felt like I was in an American Wal-Mart. I was even surprised to see that the stores also have the local Wal-Mart brand, Equate.

There was one disappointment though. The store did not have as much of a variety as I had expected. I was hoping to find some more variety with food. Ok, I will admit that I was really looking for more American products. More specifically, I really wanted was salsa and chips. I was dying to have some Mexican food. They did not have any. Even though Wal-Mart is American, it really had a lot of local products. I think that is definitely a positive thing.

I'm back in Brasilia

So a recent turn of events brought me back to the nation’s capital. I was expected to be here in two months time but as usual things tend to change at the last minute in Brazil. Yet again I had different living arrangements. I ended up living with a family, the President of the Federal District (Brasilia and surrounding areas) Conference and his wife who is in charge of Women Ministry at the conference. I was a little apprehensive about living in a family because I didn't know how it would be. Also I was used to having my own space and freedom.

My apprehension was allayed in the first few hours of arriving at the house. I really loved living with the family and also living in an actual house. The family consisted of parents and two sons. The one of the sons was away at college and the other has just come back from the US. He was there as a volunteer just I am in Brazil. Most of the times, it was just me and the parents at home. I hung out most of the time with the mother, Gilza. She was a cute lady always smiling and laughing. I think she really liked having another female in the house and she liked having me there because she missed your sons. The family had a huge house so I had my own space. The house was also centrally located. I could walk to many places. I didn’t realize how much I missed having a home. I loved having a kitchen, where I could cook. It had been over six months since I had been able to prepare my own food. Over the past six months, it was good not having to worry about preparing my meals but sometimes I just want to eat something different eat. I have been enjoying the Brazilian food but I missed eating some Jamaican food or just food I was used to eating.

One thing I was looking forward to having was popcorn. I had two packages of microwave popcorn that I really wanted to pop. As you probably remembered from my last blog entry, I tried popping them in Goiania, but the hotel I was staying in did not have a microwave. To my dismay, this house did not have a microwave oven either. I was beginning to think that microwave ovens are probably not as common in Brazil as they are in the US or even Jamaica. I guess that was probably a good think but I really missed the ease having one brings. Anyways, so I had to do popcorn old school until I was introduced to the popcorn pot. It was a pretty cool invention. I had never seen a popcorn pot before. I don’t know if they have them in the US or in Jamaica. So, this popcorn pot was an air tight pot with a lever on the top. I used the lever to circulate the popcorn so they wouldn’t burn. Apparently, this type of pot is very common in Brazil because another volunteer said she had one at her apartment. She also did not have a microwave oven. The popcorn made in the pot was actually very good and on the positive side I didn’t have to worry about radiation.

Another thing this house had that instantly became dear to me was a piano. I took piano lessons nearly twenty years ago but I never really got the hang of the instrument. I think I only remembered how to find middle C and that the notes on the piano went from A to F. Anyways, one day out of boredom, I decided to see what I had remembered. I tried reading the notes and it was very difficult to say the least. Gilza tried to teach me a little more about the notes. That was helpful to a point because she learnt the notes in the Doe-Ray-Me system so we had different name for each note. I consulted the next best teacher, the internet. YouTube had some awesome tutorials to get me started. Since then I have been ping-ponging on the piano and have actually developed a love for the instrument. I think when I leave Brazil I might take lessons.

Crashing a Wedding and a Bike Ride

So I have yet again met another crazy brazilian SDA pastor. This particular pastor was one of my students. With him, it is more about improving his conversation skills, we spent most of the time just talking in English. Most times, I am hanging out with him and his family. His wife is a phenomenal cook so I loved going to their house because I knew I would be well fed.

This pastor was determined to take advantage of every opportunity to speak in English so whenever I was available he wanted to practice his English. In an effort to get some conversation practice, he invited me to a wedding he was officiating. I did know the people having the wedding but I decided to go anyways. I probably would never see these people again, anyway. The ceremony was scheduled to, start pretty late, at 7pm and there would be a reception after.

As with most weddings, this one did not start on time, but to this day I still don't understand why this wedding started late because everyone, including the bride and the groom, was there just standing around. When the wedding ceremony finally started it lasted probably 30 minutes. This wedding was very different for many reasons. To start off, the bride did not seen as happy as brides usually are. She was not sulking but she was not smiling either. It just looked like the wedding was a common day affair nothing spectacular or special. I also found the appearance of the bride somewhat different too. It looked like the bride just threw on whatever she could find. I am not trying to look down on the bride and her dress but I really feel that most women on their wedding day would wear something special. There was also no music. Nobody sang, there wasn't even a hymn from the hymnal. Pretty stranger if you ask me. At the reception it seemed obvious to me that more effort and planning was put into this part of the evening. They had pretty good food and they even had rented tables and chairs. They didn't have a cake though, another oddity for me.

At the end of the night, I had a better understanding of why the bride and other people at the church were so cavalier about the whole service and why the service and reception was atypical. The bride and groom had actually been living together for probably about 10 years, they even have 2 children. They however, had recently gotten baptized into the SDA church. So, the wedding ceremony was actually a ceremony to recognize their union in the church.

Several days later, the same pastor who officiated the ceremony wanted to show me one of the project the church co-partnerships with the Mayor's Office in a close-by city. The catch was I had to go with him by motor cycle because his car was having not working. At first, I was not too sure because I saw how motorcyclists rode in the city and I saw how reckless some of the drivers were. I was worried about getting hurt and possibly losing my life. But then I remembered that the driver was a pastor, he had to have some value for life since he is a pastor. Plus, I really did not want to miss the opportunity to say I had a motorcycle ride in Brazil, so I decided to go.

The morning of the ride, I was not sure what to wear. My biggest question was, should I wear long sleeves because of the breeze? I decided to wear short sleeves because it would soon be hot anyway and opted against wearing my glasses. When the pastor showed up, he was dressed like a biker. He had a leather jacket and his helmet matched his outfit. I immediately felt unprepared for the ride, but I nothing else to wear and the pastor was in a rush to get back to Goiania before lunch. I had to wear what I was wearing and hope for the best.


The ride through the city was fine but a little scary at times, because we were going sometimes a little faster than I would have liked and we were sometimes a little too close to other cars for my liking. Several times I actually felt was was going to hit my knees on the cars we passed by, but thank God I was injury free. One thing about many of the places, I have been in Brazil is the presence of sleeping policemen on the main road. I know these help to decrease the speed of the drivers but once while we were riding the pastor forgot that there was a sleeping policeman and he had to brake suddenly. That was not too nice of an experience to say the least.


When we got on the highway, I was cold because we were climbing a little and there was a lot of breeze. Another thing was the helmet I was wearing did not have the usually glass/plastic which protects your eyes from the breeze and I didn't have my glasses so the breeze was just blowing in my eyes. Fortunately it was only a 40 minute drive so it was not too long.

The visit to near-by city Senador de Canador was a nice one. We visited the Projeto Amar which the SDA church runs with the Mayor's Office of the city. This is a school for at-risk children. I met some of the children and the staff. They were so happy to have visitors. The visit reminded me of the work I had done in Mimoso. After we visited a project run by the Mayor's wife. It is a program for women who are getting married or are recently married. The women are taught basically how to run and take care of a home. They are taught how: to cook several typical Brazilian dishes, to clean, to iron clothes and other basic household skills. The program is housed in a very cool building which has several rooms set up like a house, with the different furniture and appliances. These rooms serve as models for the students.

All in all, I had a good time exploring several parts of Goiania and Senador de Canador on a Motorcycle. I was not as dangerous and scary as I thought it would be. I especially enjoyed getting a better view of the mountains and scenery. I felt really close to nature and the outdoors. I would definitely go for a bike ride again for an even longer distance provided that I have a jacket and a better helmet.