Bio and Buceo

Ok those two things don't have much to do with each other, except that we went to Cemetery Buceo with Bio. Bio Gomes, in between Luke and Jonathan in the picture, is a Brazilian minister who is here for two weeks teaching the Latin American Missions class. We are really enjoying having him here. The students in his class are really enjoying it, which is saying a lot since they are meeting for 20 hours a week. The rest of us just like talking to him and hanging out with him. Bio obviously has a heart for people. I think he had everybody's names down in the first 2 hours of meeting everyone. (I'm still not sure what all the kids names are and I've been living with them for 2 months... I'm kidding... mostly.)

Yesterday was the Day of the Dead here. Bio and 8 others of us went to visit Cemetery Buceo which is by the beach. Like the Recoletta in Buenos Aires, it is full of beautiful monuments. Its not quite as much of a city as most of the family crypts were more underground and not actually little buildings. Many of the crypts had beautiful statues on them though.


We did find a couple that were open again. In one you could see some of the caskets, then the smaller white boxes that the family members are condensed, for lack of a better term, into after they are only bones. After I took the picture, one of the girls noticed that a casket had fallen and that you could see bones. Then we discovered that the skull had ended up on a shelf... eeewww...

As I mentioned, many of the crypts also had statues on them. Some looked very European, while others had the distinct South American look of the over exaggerated bodies. I'm not sure how to describe it, I'm sure someone who knows more about art is reading this shaking their head... but hey at least I know enough to know it is a South American style. Some of the statues were very triumphant, many involved angels (ok being a math-science person, and certainly not a speller, I had angles there until I proof-read... and I had to look at it for awhile to figure out which it was supposed to be), while others were incredibly mournful. I guess it reflects the families attitude toward the death of the original family member buried in the crypt.

After we left Cemetery Buceo we went to the British cemetery across the street. It was weird to see a cemetery filled with British names. After two months in Uruguay, its just weird to see Smith as a last name. The tombstones were much less elaborate which I guess reflects the fact that these were mostly protestants... at least that was Bio's theory, and I agreed.... although the gravestones were much fancier than ones you'd find in most places in the U.S. I didn't take any pictures in the British cemetery because Bio and I got in trouble for taking pictures right before we left Buceo... whoops... always good when its the teachers that get in trouble.

OK enough cemetery talk...

The other half of the title was Bio... as I said we are really having a great time with him. We are very grateful to his wife and kids for sharing him with us for a couple of weeks. Last night there were several us gathered around the island in the kitchen eating leftovers, when we decided that Bio should teach us some Portuguese before we go to Brazil later this month. So we learned the important phrases, like "Yes", "No", "Thank you", "I don't speak Portuguese", AND "Where is the bathroom???" Ok I don't really remember any of them... except maybe where is the bathroom... But we have them written in Chelsea's notebook... of course she says she's going to charge to let us see them. Hmmmm... What could I hold over her to get her to share it with me???