Regular Life in Sao Paulo

Excuse our lack of blog updates. The computer is in the bedroom of 3 toddlers and our life has gotten pretty regular (no stunning sites) so there's less time to write and less content on one level. Our life in Sampa is sorta like life in the States-- washing clothes and hanging them on the line (I (Dana) only drop 10% of the wet clothes on the ground!), going daily to the store for food, riding local buses, kids doing homework (for some reason, Maddie got a huge amount of work to do. One cool thing is that Maddie's supposed to write a paper on a famous African-American but since we're here,

(Helen and Edimilson Bizerra, with 2 of their 3 toddlers. They are the younger generation of Shedds who have graciously let us stay in their home)

her teacher said she could write about an African-Brasilian. We found out about a guy in the 17th century named Ganga Zumba, who started a settlement of escaped slaves. We're betting no one else in the class is writing about Zumba).



We've mostly seen Felipao's old stomping grounds-- his dad's publishing house, his old school, his church, his old houses, and various family friends. It's been great to hear Felipao's stories, and great to hear how much people hold the Felipao's family in high regard. Person after person tell stories about how Felipao's mom met with them or Felipao's dad helped them out. Very inspiring. We did run into an old Portuguese teacher who was talking about how smart Cunliffes are. She said, "I think that the bigger the forehead, the bigger the brains." Some of Felipao's reminiscing is pretty funny. We were looking at sites downtown (top of the BANESPA building, opera house, cathedral) when Felipao gets excited and points to a building, "Look, that's the largest post office in all of Brasil. My dad used to have a post office box there.
That's where I developed my love of opening mail!" Which goes to show that everyone gets their thrills in different ways.


(Sampa. Look any direction and the buildings go on and on and on and on. . . )



(Felipao's school from kindergarten thru high school and his P.E. teacher Mr. Fast)