Brazilian food

Wednesday was our day off, and I spent most of it at home working on my upcoming lessons. Dee was here in the morning but left for the dentist just after 2pm to check the screw that fell out of her dental implant. Apparently she did a very nice and careful job of putting it back; they were pleased and all seems well. Dee writes: Dr. Scrascia said now I can be HIS dentist :) From there she went straight to the Institute for our evening activities. I love walking across the Ponte Milvio bridge and looking at the Ponte Flaminio bridge next to it. You can google it if you'd like to see it, too. Or come visit us! I went to Lidl about 3:15pm to get a bunch of food, mostly for the Institute, then drove it straight downtown, which is much nicer than trying to carry it up into the apartment and later down to the Institute. Every so often we buy a six pack of 2-liter bottled water, which is inexpensive but a pain to carry. Fortunately, when I arrived about 4:30pm, there were two Ganziani and two GANS to help carry everything up in one trip.

At 5pm we had our campus council meeting, where we discussed upcoming activities, as well as how we can better publicize "rules" for conduct at the Institute. It's not so much that we have had any big problems, more that the kids don't always know what we expect of them. One thing that Dee and I need to do better is ask for help in setting up and cleaning up; the kids are almost always willing to help, but we don't ask enough. Ugo is a very good mentor and counselor for these kids, some of whom are still quite young. 

At 7pm we had another awesome Wednesday night activity: a class in Brazilian cooking by Anziano Conatti. He had done a very nice job preparing things, and he gave everyone an assignment to help make something. There were rice and beans (made by Ugo), a fried dough with chicken and veggies inside, and some chocolate balls. I don't remember the names of anything, but it was all delicious. A whole bunch of kids came, including six non-members.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dee writes: I went out to try to find a wooden match that Anziano Conatti needed for his cooking, so I asked at the shop downstairs. They sent me to a tabachaio, but they were closed. On the way back, I felt impressed to cross the street, which took me past the same downstairs shop. An employee was outside sweeping the street. I had never seen him before. He asked me if I had found the tabacchaio and we talked for a moment. Then he asked me where I was from. He was very excited to hear I'm American and told me how much he wants to learn English. So, I got to give him a card with the address where we have English classes. He was thrilled to hear about the free classes our Church offers. I believe I was led to him and I was so happy that I had listened to the prompting.

After two very successful culinary evenings, we want to do it some more. With three GANS from the Philippines, maybe next month we will have them teach us how to make Philippine dishes. 

We bid a fond farewell to Anziano Osmond, who is headed south to Lecce. He has been a great addition to our group. Here he is crying, not just because he was sad to leave us, but also he had just sliced a bunch of onions for the meal 😀😉

 We left at 8:30pm, a bit early because we needed to get up so early for a morning airport run, and the party was still going. We trust that they will have cleaned up well!