Santos

 Tuesday April 7. Today after the usual start we met up with an older couple here in the garage and went over to the office in their car prior to switching to a church vehicle.

Then off for Santos. Santos is south and west of us, the largest port in Brazil. I visited here 50 years ago, and even saw one landmark I visited. The drive there was amazing. Probably the prettiest drive I have been on up to this point. You drive out of São Paulo and start climbing slightly. Soon you see a huge reservoir where São Paulo gets their drinking water. Forests or jungle I don’t know what to call them everywhere. You go. Through all these tunnels as you climb and descend your way there. You pass through small cities some are of poor people whose homes are built of unpainted bricks. These places unlike the favelas are owned taxed and the power and water is paid for.

We arrived and went to the first part of the project. The church had paid to remodel and paint a large upper level of a building giving housing to drug rehabilitation people whose mental state is at best impaired. It is located in an older rough part of town. Next the other part of the project a ways away a school or training facility teaching people to be barbers, beauticians, nail painters, manicurists. We helped remodel and provide the equipment for training. The other half off the project is to provide equipment for a bakery to train people as they actually work in the bakery and the food is sold through a store. Due to permits and building code problems the equipment sets unopened in a locked room. After leaving there we drove along the beach and we got a few pictures before going to lunch at a expensive restaurant. The Brazilian couple ordered platters of food for us different fish foods. The fish fillets were very good, not much of an oyster lover. Broccoli, rice, fish residue soup on top of the rice, and palm hearts.

Interesting. I have eaten palm hearts when I was here before, they are fairly common. Done in vinegar and soft not like other wood. It was expensive but I was glad to experience it and try new things. Even grandma ate most of it. We headed home and it was even prettier. You could see the switch backs above and below us. Amazing views. Hard to photograph.

Arriving back at the office we had some accounting work to process from this and previous trips. Then off for home. We ate chicken strips and fries. Better food, but nothing new there. JJ called and that was nice. All in all a great day. Love to all.

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