The City of Curtibia

Here is a recap of our last days in the city.

MONDAY:
Monday it still continued to rain all day, but we visited a preschool within AMAS (Association of Methodist Social Action) where ages of 0-6 years are taught, and cared for from 7:15 AM until 5:15 PM.  They have 4 meals in a day, with nurses, teachers, English classes, nap time, craft time, recess, and everything U.S. preschools would have.  We spent time touring the facility and then in the morning we sang songs with the children, told bible stories, played games, and got to see them in classroom instruction.
The afternoon, we revisited the same class and helped teach English class.  We learned animals that afternoon.  Dog, Cat, Fish, Snake, Bee, Bird.  We helped the kids write these names in English, and then color their worksheet.  They were so excited.
Monday night we gathered with the Young adults and saw the Movie Captain America at a local mall, and then had fellowship after and dinner/snacks.
TUESDAY:

One of many City Squares

Tuesday morning the sun was shining! It was cold...but sunny, and highs were in the low to mid 40's °F, Finally after 4 days of rain and dark clouds.  With a late start to the day, we met at Central UM Church with our intelligent and devoted tour guides and visited the city.  We started by eating at another mall within walking distance of the church and then toured old downtown and the original city center square and architecture and unique buildings before boarding the open top tour bus.  We then saw parts of the city as we rode first to the Botanical gardens, where we walked around for an hour and were in beautiful gardens with a city backdrop all around.  (Very similar to Central Park in New York City, but bigger)!

Botanical Gardens

We loaded back onto the bus and then went to the Opera Wire House and saw this unique structure and had coffee and snacks in the cafe downstairs.
We wanted to go to 2 other locations, but time was extremely short for the young adults meeting at church.  We boarded the bus, and a few rode up top in the cold air for a while, before retreating to the warm downstairs of the bus.  We returned to the starting point and walked back to the church.
The young adults met to share ideas and discuss what we are accomplishing as a whole, and as individual conferences.  We don't know what is going to happen next, but VA would LOVE To return again very soon, and many of our new friends are interested to visit the Virginia Conference so they can see what we have here, which is completely understanding.  It’s difficult to share ideas with a group when half of the group can see the whole picture.  Many of our Brazil friends have never experienced life outside of Brazil, so it may be hard to understand what we have in the United States.

Waterfall near Wire Opera House around sunset

We will be working together in the next year to see what we can do...
Tuesday night, we then went to play Soccer with the several friends from church.  That was embarrassing!  Charlie, Matt, and Carl played for an hour just for fun and we do need to practice for our return.  The sad part is that we are going to rock their socks off at American tackle Football when they visit!  It was great fun to have a cheering section, and to see the skills of these young adults playing Soccer/Football.  IT was great fun all around, minus the bruises.
We wrapped up the night with dinner, and since everything was closed at 12:30, we found a diner similar to Denny's, but with our breakfast.  (I don't think they like our pancakes and great breakfast items.)
Another late night lead us to...
 WEDNESDAY:
We sadly and slowly packed up and had final moments with most of our host families.  We loaded our luggage into cars and met at the church and stored everything in a room for final moments together in the city.
We started the day riding the great bus transportation system to the post office for some final postcard mailings.  We then visited several gift shops for those nice to us back home.  If you’re reading this, you better be nice to the team members for your gifts!  (For many of you, it’s too late...)  We had a final feast together at lunch at an Italian Restaurant that was huge!  The food was incredible, and it had no end...We had a prayer circle outside and said goodbye or see you soon to some that had to return to work.
We visited the chocolate shop, and coffee shop before returning to the church to pack our gifts carefully (because luggage is handled with care at the airports) packed into 3 cars and headed to the airport.