I went to camp....

Since Peggy goes to Camp Tesomas for the week this time every year, I usually head over there on Wednesday for the family supper in their camp. Tesomas is a bit north of Rhinelander on Christal(sp) Lake. I went to camp there three times back when I was a lad, and it's always fun to see the place.



The water front looks pretty much the same, only the lake looks smaller these days. I suppose I remember it as a giant body of water when I was young?



I know we didn't have any boats like these! We had canoes and a few 12 or 14" Alumacraft boats. Times change, I guess.



This is what the trail looks like to the campsite. It's about 1/4 mile from the main area and buildings to the place the Phillips troop camps. Nice big trees...



Soon you come to this Scoutcraft area. It's where they.. well, do scoutcraft. You know, rope stuff, lashing, fire starting, and whatnot....



I remember working on a walkway like this for Soil & Water Conservation merit badge at Tesomas.






This is the Eagle Quest area. You'll have to ask Peggy what they do here, cause I don't know.


Following are some pics of the camp during the evening meal. Alot of the kids parents show up and bring things to eat and the scoutmaster always makes a huge pot of beef stew. Yum. I brought a pasta salad, and there were two more of them there. Oh, well.....















Peg's brother, Gary, and nephew Jordan.

Our Brazilian reporter is active once again!

First, a few more photos from Brazil, then a narative of Rosie's first day in the orphanage.

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This is at the hospital with two children that I spent Tuesday with. With all the things I had on hand to play with, the hit ended up being the camera and they took pictures of each other and me and had endless fits of laughter about it! Luckily it's easy enough to just keep erasing them so there was no harm in it.



Myself, Lu and her best friend, Ana Barbara



Me with Dr. Amarente (host father) and Dr. Alexandria prior to me witnessing from right next to the table, a 3 plus hour total laryngectomy operation!!!! Yikes! More about that when I get home......



A wild monkey in a park we went to on Friday and I got this close before it jumped in my direction and I was informed that they bite!!!!!





Ok. Started at the Orphanage today. I won't be able to come up with words to do justice to my feelings!!!!!! I can't decide if I want to never leave it, or if I can't handle it!!!!! It's a strange combination of clean and very run down. More on the side of conditions I wouldn't consider good... :-( I got there this morning and my angel, Lu, helped to translate enough to get started. The lady wanted to know if I wanted to work with young, middle aged or teenage children. I said young (shocking, I know) partly because I don't have to worry as much about being able to speak Portuguese! She showed us two rooms and said I could do one on one day and the other the next. The first was a couple of very little kids and two caretakers. Then the one I stayed in for the day was 2 year olds. 9 of them! I can't believe so many beautiful children do not have loving homes!!!!!!!! :-( Somehow today was way harder even than the hospital....... Within two minutes of Lu leaving and me being in the room 2 little girls and a boy each grabbed a finger and clung to me looking up at me with the most innocent eyes and little faces, I think I had to keep from crying about 10 different times! They are such fun though also and made me laugh at the same time! They each have their little personalities and outfits that don't match but were clean. I wanted to hold every single one of them at once! That was the part I could hardly stand was that I wasn't allowed to pick them up if they were crying. :-( I guess I understand to an extent for those who work there and can't possibly hold every one every time, but it makes you ache! I was very relieved when we put them down for their nap, we were able to snuggle with them and rub their back or whatever until they fell asleep. While they were sleeping one of the caretakers disappeared and came back with bundle of blankets holding the most precious 4 month old girl I have ever seen. She snuggled her in my arms and handed me a bottle and I think my heart stopped. The baby had the bluest eyes and a perfect heart shaped mouth and she just cuddled in and blinked her eyes at me. How on earth someone gave her up I will never understand. I want to take her with me and never put her down!!!! She ate and then slowly fell asleep without making even a peep........I could hardly leave! I have so much more to say, but I"ll have to leave it at this for now.........My heart is full and I wish I could transport all 185 children to a house and take care of them!!! I do have to say though, the people that work there are WONDERFUL! Love you all....Rosie the Nanny :-)

A few words from our Brazilian correspondant...

As you may or may not know, Rosie (eldest daughter) has gone to Brazil to do some volunteer work at a children's hospital and an orphanage. About a three and a half week trip. She has been able to send some emails and some photos, and I am taking the liberty to post the pics and some narrative from her. So, the rest of this post's text will be pasted from her emails. I tried to put the appropriate text near a photo that looks like it matched, good luck......

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Here are a couple of pictures, these are the two boys I have spent the most time with. I have to say, trying to communicate in Portuguese is already impossible and then to add Luis having Down Syndrome........it's been interesting!! He finally gave up getting me to answer properly and settled into drawing which we did diligently for the next 3 hours!! His mom seemed very happy that he was content while she ate and visited with some other mothers etc. He even laughed a few times! :-) The other one (the little one) I call my pequeno bonito (little pretty/beautiful) and I am going to miss him! It's going to be weird switching from the hospital to the orphanage, it's probably a good combo though because I've seen the good parents before I see the abandoned children.


Things were a lot better today with not feeling so lost!! Luciana (daughter of host family) made me a list last night of some Portuguese words (like you said, mom) which I used today at the hospital. It helped quite a bit except for the problem of not understanding what they said back!! And trust me, a 3 year old does not take well to you not responding properly to what he's saying!! :-) My little friend, Tiago, jabbered at me in Portuguese non-stop for over an hour instructing me where to put stickers and what color crayon to use to draw BIG planes and trucks which I learned how to say çuz he was yelling them at me until I would try to repeat and then he'd look very puzzled by my pronunciation!! LOL He is a sweetheart!
All the children there are very poor (the hospital is run on donations) and don't have insurance and they all have cancer of some type. :-( Tiago is 3 and has bone cancer. I don't know how to ask how bad it is, but he is very lively. Everyone was friendly today because I came armed with a dictionary and my few phrases and if nothing else they got a kick out of me. Hopefully I can take pictures tomorrow.......



Luciana's father is a Dr that volunteers at the hospital that I work at so I can get a ride with him most days which is really nice since otherwise it's about a 5 mile walk each way. Which I would still rather than try and take the bus, I would probably end up in another state or something!!!!!!


The other pictures are me and Luciana and then me with Luciana, Ricardo, (boyfriend) Caro and Boi. They are all so nice even if we can't really visit that well!
:-)

Dad, Luciana's boyfriend is a pilot of small planes and he wants to go to Oshkosh for the aviation thing!



Here are a couple of pictures from a traditional Brazilian party we went to Sat. night. I'll have to explain it more when I get home! Love you all....










Here's a Brazilian addition for your blog.... :-) It was at a restaurant where we ate lunch today. Love you!


((I used to post a photo of watermelon art at the end of each post.... Carlo))

Phase II of the July snowball.....

Ivan was on crutches after knee surgury, so he was having trouble with them and a can at the same time. He asked if I had a can holder for a crutch, so I stole a holder from Peg's car and in true Red Green fashion, I duct taped it to the crutch... not a very good photo, but you get the idea.



Following is an assortment of photos from Saturday. You'll just have to browse and guess what or who.... I hope all the attendees enjoyed the day as much as Peg and I did.

A July snowball......

We had talked about having a cookout/party for all the people that had helped us on the garage. Sounded innocent enough..... by the way, this photo is of a garage warming present made by BJ Steinbach.



Peggy mentioned that all the people at Marquip (our work place)that are from India, have all had her or us to their homes at one time or another. Maybe we should include them all in this??? Sounded O.K.....



Ivan had knee surgury the day before, so he was on crutches and ice packs.... Turns out that with all the extra invites, last minute additions, etc, there were 52 people here for Saturday afternoon and evening!! Hence the snowball......



Jerry and I had each gotten a turkey in the spring season, so we deciced to cook them both. We had made some stainless cans for roasting them, the bird is under the can, charcoal around the bottom of the can. They took about 2.5 - 3 hours to get done. MMMMMMMMM, good........



Virgil Lord came to the shindig with Jerry and BJ.



Here are a few of the India women. They all seemed to have a good time.




Lot's of cars and some rode their bicycles from Prentice to the Ottertail!




The kids enjoyed the lawn.



The grownups enjoyed the food and conversation.



The little canvas awning covered the charcoal grill, where Scotty was busy cooking burgers, brats and hot dogs. Also cooked some slice potatos and onions on the grill.
One of the India folks broughts some marinated chicken that Scotty grilled, as well.



Roop, one of our India friends, did some of the turkey carving.



There were kids of ALL ages there on Saturday.....



The India crew brought their cricket bats. Here Lokesh takes a cut at a tennis ball.



This one got by Peg. Hee, heee.......



But she nailed this one!!



Oh, yeah......














That's enough for one night, I'll finish this another day....
I gotta go, Carlo