Today’s Throwback Thursday is from December 04, 2006.  This conversation is still so vivid to me and often I’ll think of it and giggle.  These two sisters were my saviors in Brasil.  Kind, loving, and strong - Bel is fighting cancer, and Betiane is a widow raising 3 children.  But they worked so hard to help me get through those most difficult months in my life.  I just cry thinking of them.  Neither can speak English, but they didn’t seem to notice and chatted on constantly to help me feel welcome and loved.   I can’t begin to describe the numberless sacrifices and kindnesses they gave to me… someday I might chronicle them all to you, they are absolutely amazing.  But their unconditional full-blast friendship was the greatest thing they gave to me.  Despite all their struggles, these women LOVE to laugh, and tell it like it is.

A conversation in my kitchen (all in Portuguese by the way – I even understood it all!) with two sisters, one large, one not:

Bel: “My sister is soooo fat!”

Betiane: “It’s true! I’m fat!”

Me: …. “You can’t call her fat!”

Bel: “Why not? She’s fat!”

Betiane: “It’s true!”

Me: “But in America, you can’t call people fat, it’s verrry offensive.”

Betiane: “Aren’t the people in America the fattest in the world?”

Me”……………… yes…..”

Sisters: “You guys are crazy!”

It’s true….