Speak Slower

My students are always interested in my personal life. I don’t know if they are interested in me, or if they are just extremely uninterested in what I am teaching! I was telling the story of how Aarão and I met to some of my students about three years ago. It was during the seminar hour, and they didn’t have homework. So, I wasn’t infringing on precious time for improving their acting and speaking skills! The part of the story that jumped out at these dear students was “speak slower.”

The first time I met Aarão was at the Comunidade de Cristo church in Natal, Brazil. He walked in one evening asking about the free English classes that he saw advertised at his English school. He was wearing a Cavalier’s jersey and jean shorts. Is that an unneeded detail? Yes, but it is a fun tidbit. Our friend, Sergio, also known as Bob, set Aarão up to have lessons with me.

I began the lesson by telling Aarão that he would need to buy a book, and then I asked him many questions about himself. Evidently my rate of speaking was much too fast, because one of the first things he ever said to me was, “speak slower, please.” Language has been a major factor in our relationship ever since.

Now, of course this is an obvious factor in our relationship seeing that he was raised in Brazil speaking Portuguese, and I was raised in the U.S. speaking English. It has been a factor and a challenge at times, but my genius husband has been amazing about adopting the English language. He has been hugely successful in adapting to any language barrier he has come across, and I am exceptionally impressed with this. I cannot imagine studying Computer Science in the English language let alone a foreign language!

I, on the other hand, have not been so successful with my Portuguese endeavors. I have tried computer programs, books, and audio lessons. My most unsuccessful attempts, however, have to do with my dear husband trying to teach me. He has little patience for my linguistic ignorance. The conversation usually goes a little something like this.

Anna: How about you replace English words with Portuguese words that you know that I know?

Aarão: (silence)

Anna: O que você está fazendo? (What are you doing?)

Aarão: (sigh) Você pode ver que eu estou dirigindo. ( You can see that I am driving.)

Anna: (silence - obviously trying to understand at least one word.) O que? (what)

Aarão: (sigh)

End of Conversation. Literally.

This is a typical conversation that occurs between the two of us, but there are many variations. Some even involve my sweet husband breaking out in hysterical laughter at my absurd, spoken Portuguese.

Regardless of my past failure. I WILL PREVAIL! I am not going to give up on this journey! I met with a Portuguese teacher yesterday. She is going to teach me Portuguese in exchange for English lessons.. I am excited and anxious to get started. The goal is to get me to a basic conversation level, so that Aarão and I can speak Portuguese together regularly.

The journey began for us with language as the focus, and it continues on in that direction. I am sure I will be the one saying “fala mais devagar, por favor (speak slower, please)” on a regular basis now, and I am ready to say it!

The students who were drawn to this particular aspect of our story promised to write a theatrical production about us called “Speak Slower.” An original orchestration was also supposed to be in the works! I am still waiting for the production, and while I wait I will continue to “speak slower.” However, now it will be in Portuguese!

Third Anniversary: A Time for Celebration or Babies

Aarão and I celebrated our third anniversary yesterday with a relaxing time at the beach with the cousins and a quiet dinner together of delicious Brazilian food. Many people offered their pleasantries and good wishes for more happy years as a married couple. The most humorous comments were about having children. “It’s been three years already! It’s time for babies.” “Now, when will the babies come?”

I am not surprised by these comments. Aarão’s paternal grandmother birthed around 26 children. She for sure started before the ripe old age of 25!

I really don’t mind questions and comments about our lack of starting a little family. I enjoy talking about the prospect! I have many moments in the presence of sweet little ones where I gaze lovingly at my sweet husband and say, “oh, don’t you want one of those.” I don’t deny it! However, I am enjoying spending our time together. We are having fun and enjoying the early years of marriage getting to know one another better, going on little adventures, and dreaming about the future we have together. What does that future hold? It may include children, but it definitely includes each other.

Fun in Flight

I previously mentioned the mood Aarão has when we fly. He hates to fly! Every year I take pictures of him to show this. We have a good laugh at his facial expressions after the fact. We definitely do not laugh while the pictures are being taken!

2011 - Back to Brazil

We arrived safely! This travel experience was more positive than previous years. We had few connections, and I have learned from past experience to travel better with Aarão. I take the traveling from the USA to Brazil as an adventure. However, Aarão does not look at traveling on an airplane as an adventure, and his mood depicts his attitude. I have learned to accept this and to let it be.
I am looking forward to a wonderful experience yet again. I am going to focus on learning Portuguese and connecting with this side of the family more. I will keep everyone updated through this blog. Enjoy!

Brasil, here we come.

Aarão and I have been concerned about how we were going to buy our plane tickets. We were expecting tickets to be around $2,000 each. We have been thinking and praying about this matter for months now. In order to save money, we thought that it would be a good idea to try to find someone to take our apartment lease. This would allow us to save money for the tickets. Well, we had two serious leads, and both of them fell through at the last minute. Aarão and I had some bad feelings about moving out, and we were both in prayer about it. After it became clear that we would not be moving of, we didn't know what we would do about the tickets. We would periodically check the prices online and they were always too much for us to afford. That is until this weekend.
Saturday night Aarão and I both had dreams about the airplane to Brasil. We thought that was very strange, because our dreams usually don't coincide! Something else bizare, wasthat we both woke up an hour before our alarm. This never happens! We are definitely not morning people. Because we couldn't sleep, I decided to search for plane tickets online. I couldn't get the dreams off of my mind. Aarão evintually took the search over, because of course I couldn't handle such a task! After a short search we found what we were looking for. About 10 minutes later, we purchased our tickets. We couldn't believe the total dollar amount after all of the fees...$1,600 FOR BOTH OF US! This is more than half of what we were expecting! When we arrived home from Church, we looked online to see if we had just experienced a miracle. We had done just that. The tickets had gone up from around $600 to $1,200 each.
God is good all of the time! He answers prayers, and I shouldn't be surprised when he does! Miracles can happen and do happen. Aarão and I believe this was a miracle, and we trust him to do his will with our lives always!

Margarita Noel... practice for parenting

One day before Christmas we got a little stir crazy in our little apartment, so we decided to go shopping. We were trying to figure out what to get one another for Christmas. We thought that a small aquarium and a few fish would be good. Well, we ended up with a dog instead! I thought it was an excellent idea at first, and then I got home. I began having major apprehension, and I began asking myself: What have we done? How long will she live? Are we crazy?
I finally did settle down though!
Naming this little creature was also a feat. At first I thought that we should name her Peixe (fish in Portuguese) because originally she was supposed to be a fish! My mother asked me if I would like to be called "fish" and she really liked the name "Noel". Aarao told me that Noel was also a Christmassy word in Portuguese. So she became Noel.
One day I was speaking in Mexican accent as Noel. Chihuahuas are from Mexico, so of course she has an accent! After the accent, Aarao began calling her Margarita. So, we have Margarita Noel.
Last night this little Margarita Noel went crazy! I thought Aarao was going to go crazy along with her. Noel decided she would run around and bark like she was crazy for about 30 minutes. We were outside of our apartment in the freezing cold trying to catch this incredibly fast dog. People were actually coming out to watch the madness. One woman stood with her young child for about 15 minutes just watching and laughing. Noel was quite the show for everyone, including the many people trying to go to the gym in peace. Finally she settled down when another dog came out to do her business. When we got inside with our very naughty puppy, Aarao looked at me and said, "Can we give her back?" He was not a happy pet owner.
As we sat there trying to wind down from the nights happenings, we began to apply this lesson to parenting. We began imagining ourselves twenty years down the road with a ruthless teenager. In our vision we are hopelessly trying to figure out how to settle our daughter down and get her to listen to us, and my very sweet husband looks at me and says, "Can she just go back to where she came from?" Can you picture this? I can, and it is scary!
So, our practice has begun. Will we survive? Will we succeed? The Lord only knows!

Enjoying being married

It has been over 6 months since we got married, and we have had so much fun over these past months. Aarão has adjusting so well to the United States. It is such a blessing how well he is doing. We are enjoying our little apartment together. Aarão is the master cleaner, and I do most of the cooking. We finished our first semester of school. He made all A's in his classes, and I am enjoying teaching 8th grade. My students have been so much fun. They are creative and totally over the top!
Aarão misses his family, soccer, volleyball, and Brazilian food very much! He wakes up sometimes and longs to play indoor soccer! He did find a place to play volley and soccer, so that is good. He went for the first time the other night, and I cried when he left. :) We don't spend much time apart. I will spend some time talking about the past few months we have spent together. God is good all the time, and he continues to take care of us.