So much to write! BRAZIL!

I'm back from Brazil, and to write everything down is gonna take probly around 2 hours, ugh. I'm glad I have the self-discipline to do this, I hope.
May 29-I got to the church at 1pm and all of us (Nick, Jenna, Jenna's parents, Ivan, me, Taryn, Ms Julie, Ms Mary, Elaine, Christen, Sean) got in a van and rode 5 hours to the Miami airport. Felipe had his wife drive him and Barbara (their daughter) to the airport behind the van I was in. Felipe's wife didn't come though. At the Miamie airport we met up with the 7 Canadians who were part of our team. Cheryll, Nicci, Matt, Louise, and Andrew all went to the same Bible college together this past year. With them, they had one of their pastors, Rob. After the direct flight to Manaus, which was about 6 hours maybe, we had to go through costoms, which took forever. By then It's about 2 I think, I forget, but I'm pretty sure we rode the bus to a hotel in Manaus and we checked in at around 4am. I was in a room with Ms Julie and Taryn's mom. We got our luggage and went up the elevator, omword, the elevators are so small! SO we got to our floor, and the lights weren't on, it totally dark, we had to get a flashlight out to find our room.
May 30-Wake up, can't drink the water, so I experiment with what's the best way to brush your teeth with bottled water, hehe. My 1st taste of "Brazillian" food was a breakfast at the hotel, it was....interesting. Christen, Taryn, and I got stuck in an elevator for abotu a minute, the doors stuck where they were about 1/4 open, it was scary, we tried pulling and hitting them, and the button things, that didn't work. Finally, Christen kicked the doors, they opened, yay! Felipe took us shopping that day, I got some earrings for a few of my friends, I couldn't find any presents for boys, maybe I'll get them a picture of me all icky looking and covered in paint or something at the end of the day;P. After shopping we went to eat at a buffet, it was ok, just a teensy bit different from what I'm used to. Then we went back to the hotel on a charter bus (amazonibus). [Did I mention that there are stray dogs everywhere in Brazil?] We found out Matt and Cheryll were/are dating, talked to a few of the Canadians. Matt wasn't feeling well, so he didn't talk much. I forget where/if we had dinner that night, but I do know that around 6:30 we left to go to a church in Manaus, it was fun, even if I didn't understand any of it. After the church service went walking to the bus. Some dog, as we were walking a long a 6' high fence along the sidewalk, rammed into the gate suddenly and barked non-stop, Christen, Ivan, Barbara, Taryn, and I screamed so loud 'cus we were right next to it, ppl everywhere stopped what they were doing to see why we were screaming. That was funny/embarassing.
After that, some translators for the trip and us North Americans got on the Amozonibus and had what seemed like about an hour trip down to the dock where the boat that we would live on for 8 days was waiting for us. The guys brought all our luggage down the steps and onto the boat. As Christen, Taryn, Barbara, and I ("the girls") were exploring, Christen ran her leg into this huge iron mushroom looking thing on the boat, it was in the middle of the walk way thing! But there's not much place for anything but the middle if the walk way is only 1.5 feet wide at the most. Taryn, Ms Julie, me, and Jenna were in a cabin thing together, I'm guessing the room was a bout 6'x8', just big enough to have 2 bunnk beds in it and a person standing in the middle of the bunk beds. I was a lil upset 'bout sharing a room with Jenna, she's nice and all, but she's 2 yrs older than me and Taryn and she's so smart, she's nice though, and she knows porteguese enough to have a conversation with a small child, which I thought was impressive. There weren't enough beds for everyone though, so some of the guys and crew members (all men) slept in the dining room/family room, they slept in hammocks, so comfortable! After taking a shower and setting up me bed, I went to sleep, yay for sleep.
May 31-Woke up at 8, or was it 7? I think it was 8. Had breakfast on the boat, drank water and hat bacon and scrambled eggs, there were rolls, I didn't try any. We got together donations/supplies to paint houses with and toys to play with the kids with. I played soccer for 2 minutes, Christin did too, but we got run over pretty much, so decided not to. I watched Nicci play with some lil kids, she blew bubbles for them and the caught them. I also played volleyball with some kids, they were so un-competitive, it was really nice that they didn't mind me missing the ball about, oh, 4 times in a row, haha. We made balloon animals, threw a ball in the water and the kids would go get it, umm, then it started to rain. A truck took the Canadians and "the girls" up to a small church, we hung out and played games like tag, catch, soccer, whatever came to mind. There was one kid who didn't want to put down the balloon pump, he was having fun blowing air into ppl's ears with it, hehe. Then we went inside and did kid worship songs with motions, very fun, even if I couldn't tell what the lyrics were. We went back to the boat then, hung out, ate dinner, then went back to the church for church service, which was in Porteguese. It was interesting, when ppl pray, others will say "amen", "yes Lord", etc, in agreeing with what, whoever is praying, is saying; it's cool. We went back to the boat, hung out in the family room, then went to bed. Did I mention the periodically the generator would turn off and there would be no lights? And that sometimes there would be no water coming through the pipes? Yeah, thought I might want to add that.
After that, it all sorta blurrs together, bad memory, so many villages. But I can recall some "major" events:). Thiago was sick for a couple of days during the trip:(, and Matt got better and then felt blah again for a bit. Nick, Cheryll, Matt, Andrew, Taryn, and I talked on the top deck of the boat a couple times, funny stories, heh. Taryn and I found it was Andrew's 19th birthday exactly a week earlier and decided to throw him a surprise birthday party, haha. He had a poptart as a cake, teehee, it was a strawbery one, I donated the poptart. Taryn gave a Mtn Dew, which is VERY generous of her, considering how much she loves mtn dew and that she had a limited amount of it on the boat. I took naps in hammocks, yay. Once, when it was raining, we watched City of Angels, it was cool. There were 2 baby toucans at one village, they liked my shoelaces, but they scared me, they hop SO fast! At the same village there was a dead monkey, we think the ppl were going to eat the monkey, heh. One village we visited, has mini emu-like things, they were like a foot and a half tall, one kept following Christin, we called it Christin's boyfriend:P.
Elaine, a nurse who went with us, took these pictures, she's the blonde+tall one.
At the end of the trip, we stayed at Jungle Palace, it was a hotel, on a barge, in the middle of the river, it was cool. They had a pool and HOT/WARM showers:). Taryn, Barbara, Christin, and I stayed in the same room, well, Barbara was going to, but decided not to, so all 3 of us got our own beds. Mostly 'cus earlier we didnt think there would be enough beds for 4 ppl (a double and a twin), so we asked for another twin, they made it right in the room, like built it right in our room! It was sorta weird.
That night, the 3 of us stayed up talking about how we changed spiritually the past week or so, we all agreed that the major thing was when we were painting a house with Andrew in a village and he was talking about how we need to encourage each other to have a quiet time, and just talking to him about growing spiritually really helped us.http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=7ytakkjl.24ilf9qp&x=1&y=-jnjyvr ^if you want to see pictures from Brazil