A little bit of the language is a dangerous thing....! On Thursday (8th July) P came back from the office at lunch-time and announced that the house next door to The Salvation Army hall was up for sale. I was so excited - every time I walk past that house I pray that we will be able to buy it one day (I also pray for the land behind the hall as well). I went round to the house in the afternoon and got a telephone number. One of our soldiers phoned the owner on Friday and sent a disappointing e-mail to us. Apparently, we had completely misunderstood the sign - they are selling a mobile home and not their house. This isn't the first time we have got things wrong.
On 26th June we were invited to a wedding. It was a lovely way to spend our own 11th wedding anniversary. After the service we spoke to the father of the groom. I said to P wouldn't it be good if we could say something like, 'You must be so proud of your son'. We try to keep conversation simple as we are not at all fluent in portuguese yet. P was confident he knew the word for 'proud' so he spoke to the father of the groom who gave him a strange look and said, 'No' in a kind of embarrassed manner. Fortunately, P realised that he had got his words muddled up and correcting his portuguese spoke again to the father of the groom who then looked very pleased and agreed wholeheartedly. I am so relieved P was able to correct his mistake because he had originally said, 'You must be very ashamed of your son' - which would explain the rather gracious but embarrassed response.
This week we have applied to start a portuguese language course in Sao Paulo.
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