Abby Furr- Day of the Holy Spirit

At my internship today, Caritias, the high school as well as the preschool and staff were having a celebration. We began at the preschool and processed to the chapel for a special mass to celebrate the day of the Holy Spirit. Apparently this was a pretty normal mass, except it was all in Portuguese, so I just did my best to stand, sit, and kneel at the appropriate times. At the end there was a coronation, which makes this service special compared to others. Then we all processed back and had a huge, traditional meal including lots of bread, this really good cabbage soup with some type of bread in it, a large dish of various boiled meats and veggies (tastes better than it sounds, promise), alcatra (yummy slow cooked meat), and sweet rice. It was such a great experience to eat this giant lunch with the kids and staff from school and communicate with them using any words we knew in common in either language. We talked about their lives, the coming festival on the island, and the historical importance of the celebration. Over all, Friday was a pretty successful, and fun day.