Wednesday & Thursday, March 22 & 23, 2006

Once when I was 19 my girlfriend and I wanted to watch the sunrise, just as something special before I went on my mission. For some reason I slept in that day and never saw it; since then, I still have never seen a sunrise… until today.

It was a little before 6 am – after less than an hour of sleep – when a faint glow began making its way over the ocean waves. Last night’s bonfire still roared at our feet – protecting us from the morning’s chill. The faint glow soon spread through the heavens; the cumulonimbus clouds in the distance made for an impressive silhouette against the colors of the morning sky. Purple, red, orange, pink, blue – like the man on Saturday mornings who painted “happy trees” and “fluffy clouds”, it was as if we were watching God paint the morning sky. Unlike a sunset that loses its color with time, this sunrise got more stunning.


My camera was safe in our hotel room, so I was unable to capture a high quality image, but I was armed with the ERS video camera that I was borrowing to take some memories home. This video camera also takes low-resolution pictures – good enough just for a memory – hence, the above picture.

Matadeiro is a beach on the southeast side of the island; the same beach we made our campfire a few weeks earlier. This time, about 40 institute-aged guys and girls sprinkled the coastline. Under the illumination of yellow park lights we played sand soccer, beach dodge ball, the group pretzel game in the ocean, and a variety of other activities. It wasn’t until a little after midnight that the all-nighters began sifting themselves from the early birds.

Those who stayed, moved away from the artificial lights and started a bonfire – well, tried to. Not to bash their techniques, but leaning big logs in a triangle shape, dousing them with alcohol and lighting a match is not the best way to get an effective fire going. Since I was in charge of the last fire, I figured tonight I would let them handle it; after the picturesque fire and roaring alcohol flames died, I quickly stepped in to give my support and some advice. After a few minutes of old fashioned huffing and puffing, and thanks to the help of those collecting kindling, the fire was a success. It was such a success, that 5 hours later, as the sun rose, we were still toasty.


As the blues in the sky began overtaking the reds and oranges, we too packed up camp. Daisy took a carload of us to the downtown bus terminal, while a few others got stuck taking a bus. By 8:30, Dave and I were crashed – sound asleep in our beds.

You’d think after a night like that we’d need a day to recover, but no. My alarm was set for 11 am – but I slept in. Ten minutes to noon Dave and I woke up panicked; we were supposed to meet Leandro at the downtown terminal at 12. When I called to explain, he was understanding and said he’d wait a few more minutes. We quickly got ready and got our bus downtown.

Thursday, March 23, was the 280th anniversary of Florianópolis, and thus, a holiday for the city. To celebrate, after our beach party, we had a churrasco (barbeque) at Débora’s. Her uncle was nice enough to be our personal chef, while the rest of us helped w/ the side dishes and what-nots. Since most everyone was dragging from the night before, card games seemed to be the popular activity, letting our bodies rest. But that doesn’t mean some of us didn’t play a game of sand soccer with the locals, or toss the Football around.

We had the barbeque area reserved until 5 pm, when we had to clean up and make room for the next people. Shortly after, Dave and I said our goodbyes and left with Dudu, Luana, and Natália, back to São José. Natália is our friend from Itajaí, and she came down to Floripa to hang out for the weekend and say goodbye to us. So tonight, after getting cleaned up, we made our way over to Luana’s house for ordered in pizza and movies. Our other friends, Deborah and John were also there. It was a fun night; though I had a hard time staying awake during the movie.

On a side note: we learned today that we would not be traveling to Joaçaba to teach, like we had planned. Honestly, I was disappointed, I really wanted to go; it would have been our last CASP course. But it turned out they were unable to confirm there would be at least 10 participants, so Humberto thought it was better to mark for another week.