And yet more from Brazil:

You have to wonder about the airline industry sometimes. My boss, who is excellent at beating the airlines at their own games, showed me one case about a year ago where it was actually cheaper to buy two round-trip tickets for a certain flight that he was taking, and simply throw away two half tickets, than it was to get a round-trip ticket for the days he actually wanted. This, of course, is why some flights may have a number of empty seats. The computer may very well show that the flight is full, but of course the actual people aren't there. This also allows the airline company to sell the seat twice, when the person doesn't show up to travel on their flight.

So, when I decided that I wanted to stay here, the first course of action that they tried was to change my existing American Airlines ticket. After several attempts with the local American airlines representative here, it became quite clear that wasn't going to work. However, Rod, Jan's husband, who didn't want to see his wife overworked as badly as she would be should I leave, decided to see how low he could get with a one-way ticket. The first price they came back with was about $1,200. This wasn't low enough for me to want to have to pay for it. This price kept getting lower and lower as other options were discovered. On Wednesday, he discovered that apparently Continental had a surplus of empty seats on a certain flight out of São Paulo. He was able to get a São Paulo to Portland ticket for $587 including airport departure taxes and all the other assorted fees, as long as I was willing to leave Brazil on December 18. As far as I was concerned, that was low enough for me to stay here, even if absolutely nothing could be done with the American Airlines ticket I had on hand. I then called the agent who had booked the original flight, and found that the American Airlines tickets are only good for 120 days, and there is absolutely no way to get any sort of financial recovery from them if part of the ticket has been used - at lest not officially (my guess is that there is probably some sort of black market for airline tickets like this, but that isn't something I really want to get involved with). Therefore, the only real option there would be to simply let the plane leave with me not on it, and that is what happened.

During this time, I also contacted my boss at work to see what he could find. When I found out about the rather low fare that Rod had found, I let him know. The response from him was short and simple: "That's the lowest you will find. Go for it." So, at the time I should have been finding a ride to the airport should I actually want to take the American Airlines flight, I was on the phone to a travel agent in the USA booking a new ticket for December.

The good news here is that I HAD to call after noon in order to get the ticket. The particular travel agent is three hours behind us at the current moment ( Brazil has switched to daylight savings time, so that by the time you are done with changing time in the USA, we will be 6 hours ahead of the west coast. ) The price to call after noon and before two is quite a bit less than to call between 8 am and noon. I'm not sure how much "quite a bit less" is going to be. My understanding is that the cost is cut in half for domestic calls.

Perhaps the biggest regret that I have in staying here longer is that I won't be able to send Christmas gifts to anyone here from Oregon. I had in mind to send a few of those wonderful food packages that Made in Oregon puts out, or something equivalent. The missionaries here really liked the Tillamook Cheese that you people from Valley View sent down with the group. The cheese here is different, and certainly doesn't taste as good as that. Therefore, I thought some of those packages with the Tillamook, some chocolate covered filberts, and a few other Oregon food products would go over really well here. Such a package would, of course, have to be sent airmail because of the food.

Then I suppose there is the presidential election. Even with the switch to an entirely mail-in election, there is no way to get the Oregon mail-in ballot from Portland to here and back again soon enough for me to vote. At least voting isn't compulsory like it is here in Brazil, so I won't get beheaded or anything for not voting.

As far as the whole ticket changing process goes, the biggest annoyance throughout the whole thing has been that I still haven't been able to coax money out of the bank machines here. I should be able to do this. However, I haven't yet. I'm still having to communicate with the bank to see what they can do about trying to solve the problem. They have offered to create a new ATM card with a new PIN number and mail it to my mom. However, mom is about 12,000 miles away from here, and I'm not so very certain I want to mail something like that internationally. I do have enough to live for two months at my current rate of expenditure (about US $250 per month), but it could be made a lot more comfortable with a bit more money available to me. For example, everyone who walks into the Webb office last week noticed how ridiculously warm it was. So, I finally decided that enough was enough, visited a used furniture and appliance store nearby, and bought a large floor fan, and a long enough extension cord to put it in a useful location. Its not a particularly great piece of equipment. It was made in Paraguay, and certainly doesn't run anywhere near as well as the Chinese and Tiawanese made fans we have in the USA. However, it moves air, and has made life slightly more comfortable for those of us who use the Webb office. These are the types of things that I would like to be able to spend a bit more money on, but can't with the limited cash in hand that I have. I'm sure I'll manage.

For those of you on the English camp team, please keep David Roof in your prayers. He is dealing with some conflicts over what his responsibilities should be while he is here. There are many things that everyone needs to have done that he is capable of doing, but unfortunately he only has time for a certain set of those. His primary responsibility is supposed to be to support the church in Jardim Veneza, but he is being asked to do a number of other things as well, only a few of which he has time to do.

The Wycliffe missionaries have started language school here today. The speed with which they arrived here has caused Jan some organizational problems, but I think we will be able to manage. The main reason they had to start he so fast, beyond the desire to start their ministry as soon as possible, is that they are here under a missionary visa. One requirement of this type of visa is that they had to register with the federal police in the city where they are residing within a certain number of days after arriving in the country. Therefore, they had to visit the program, see what was available for housing, decide to come or not, and get an address, all within a very short time. They still don't have an apartment of their own, but they are making due for now in the guest housing on the ISBL campus. It was, however, enough of an address to satisfy the federal police.

Jan had to meet with her Portuguese teachers today in the afternoon, and so I wound up taking over her Monday afternoon class today for an hour or so. It went pretty well, considering that I didn't have a whole lot of time to prepare.

I continue to adjust to the Brazilian housekeeping techniques. One adjustment that I have made, since I am going to be here for a while longer, is to borrow David's shop-vac from time to time. I attempted to sweep the floor once or twice, and was frustrated by the broom they have here, which appears to be made of some sort of dried grass, and leaves pieces of itself all over the place while it is being used. This problem was solved by a liberal application of the shop-vac. I don't think the apartment building has big enough wiring into it for us to be able to use the shop-vac and for someone to take a shower ( all the lights get dim as it is when the vac or an electric shower is running as it is ) but so long as we are careful in that regard, it makes life a lot easier, and David is willing to let me take it from time to time.

This past Sunday (yesterday) we went out to Acampamento Shalom for the baptism of about 25 new people into the Communidade Shalom church. It was also Silvia Flores 39th birthday, for those who remember her from the English Camp. It turned into a day-long picnic type of event. This was interesting, as the way Brazilians do a picnic is a little more like a potluck. Everyone brings enough food for themselves, and usually shares some with the table next to them. This should be of no surprise to those who were at the English camp, and may remember people offering to share bites of Popsicles and other food with them.

The two guys I am living with do some artwork for the Jesus Brazil T-Short store. I've seen some of the things that they are planning to do soon, and there is some neat stuff that looks like it will be available soon.

They were finishing the painting job on the seminary today. I think they are now completely done. If not, then they are nearly so. I will get some photos of the finished work. I think you who saw it during September will be pleasantly surprised by how it looks.

The new sidewalk is holding up well, even though it has started to get hot, and also even though some people have started driving on it. I haven't yet seen a moto-taxi use it as a traffic lane, but driving on the sidewalk is one way they get around one-way streets. ( Imagine a New York taxi cab with half as many wheels, five times the velocity, and nine times the attitude, and you have imagined a Brazilian motorcycle taxi. In North America, the approach to a stop sign is to pause briefly. In Brazil, the approach is to slow down and see if anything is coming, except for moto-taxi. For a Brazilian moto-taxi, they speed up and lean on the horn while going around anything that might have been coming. The natives feel that moto-taxi are the means of last resort for those who are truly desperate to get where they are going.

Jan has been featured on a web site about teaching English as a second language. The web site is at:
http://www.cetesol.org
and you have to select the item to see the "spotlight" report.

That's all I can think of for right now. I hope to be able to send another update soon. Thanks for your prayers and support.