Under Open Skies: Of Renovations, Sardines and Mexican Nights

Renovations
I think I have mentioned on the blog before about the renos we are doing in the space next to the Espaco. In case I haven't mentioned anything about this new building, here is a brief recap: A couple of months ago, I think somewhere in March, the Massama church bought the building next to it, which was an old butcher shop, so that it could be renovated and used for various ministries. This has now become one of our primary projects for the next remaining weeks of our time here in Portugal. We have spent hours scrubbing old, dried blood off of tiles and walls (gross doesn't even begin to describe it), washing and disinfecting the floor and sanding down the walls and tiles until we were covered in white dust. It's not exactly the most glamorous work, but the company is great and it will be so neat to see the finished product (or at least most of it) before we leave. New ministries and opportunities to grow current ministries are already being dreamed up. It is our prayer that this new building is a place in which the people in Massama can encounter Jesus and grow in their faith.

The pictures below were taken after 2 washings of the floors, after scrubbing the walls and tiles and also sanding of the walls and tiles. There is already a huge difference that is noticed from the very first day we walked in there. Our next task is to get rid of the old meat and funky sewer smell :)

Sardines

Every year in May, PBI (the Portuguese Bible Institute) holds their open house for prospective students. Part of this annual tradition is the barbequeing of sardines. The Portuguese are fond of their sardines. Now, the sardines the Portuguese bbq, are nothing like what we, North Americans would call sardines. We assume that sardines are small, stinky, slimy fish found in a tin can at the grocery store. Those were NOT the sardines that I encountered on Saturday. The sardines I enjoyed were significantly larger than I assumed, grilled to perfection and were incredibly tasty. Although, their downfall is the copious amount of bones they contain, so it requires a significant amount of patience to pick away the white meat. Although, I have been told, a true Portuguese will sandwich the sardine - head and all - between 2 slices of bread and eat the fish in its entirety. I did not witness this first hand, but that is far too intense for me.

Yup, that's right - the head is kept on and everything!

And of course, no gathering is complete without a game of some sort. This time it was futebol.

Mexican Nights

This past week, our ESL classes in Loures came to an end and we celebrated Mexican style. There was a lot of interest to try Mexican food (Mexican food ingredients such as tortillas, salsa, taco seasoning, hard shells, tortilla chips, etc are either hard to find or very expensive. This is not a type of food that is commonly or even rarely eaten by the Portuguese). We promised that we would cook Mexican food for them before we left for Canada, so last week Tuesday, we had our fiesta. Much to our surprise, our class thought the salsa and the meat were too spicy and that the guacamole was strange.