First Overnight Visit to The Assentamentos
& 5 Communities {1 of 8 Pages}
Day 1: Visit to first Community
Novo Canaã {1 of 2}
On another visit to the Assentamentos we were to stay overnight. In the two days we would be visiting five different communities. This time only Padre Derek and I set out. The Parish Sisters were not available. One was on holidays, one was teaching and the other was running the Parish Office in the absence of the secretary who was also on her holidays.
We packed our boxes of things to deliver to the communities, the Mass kit, overnight bags, post, and gallons of the necessary water.
We bring our own drinking water with us as the water in the communities would not be safe for us to drink. The locals might be well used to it, but it would be dangerous to us.
Often when we go out to the communities we have people thumbing a life to visit family and friends. Today, strangely enough, we had no one but plenty of supplies for the different churches, especially since Christmas was around the corner.
Derek and I setting out. {Notice no beard}
The first port of call was "Novo Canaã". The yellow paint from the wooden church was nearly washed off the church. Someone "tricked" the community into buying this paint, and assured them it would last for years. It turned out to be paint for inside not outside in the weather and after only a few months the church looked like it had been painted in years. Now they have to raise the money again to buy new paint. Simple people they might be, they won't be tricked a second time!
After Mass was over this family invited us back to their house for some lunch. Despite the condition of the paint, the locals were a bit sensitive about the pant work and so were glad to see me praising them for their choice of colours, blue and yellow. "Azul e amarelo são as cores da minha cidade!" "Blue and yellow are the colours of my home city". Carnew has now been elevated to the status of "City". They call towns here cities as they often have their own local government.
A young local in front of a not-so-sturdy parish hall!
More of Novo Canaã on next blog ........
