Sunday funday

Growing up Catholic, my expression of my beliefs are reserved. I have a personal one to one time with the big guy. However today's experience was not how I do worship. This morning I woke up at 6:45 to go to a 7:30 Pentecostal service. I went with my Home stay brother. It was his church. Its a big church...it even gets broadcasting to NYC! How neat, right? I spent 2 and a half hours at the service. It wasn't until my home stay brother got hungry, that we left. The service was continuing passionately after.

The family of mother and two boys in the pew in front of us were interesting to observe. The boys were throwing pencils at each other and just doing what kids do at church. I would have a piece of paper and doodle or something as a kid to pass the time at mass. The choir had many songs to sing, and the congregation sang along with their hands in the air, swaying themselves back and forth to the music. At one song, before the pastor spoke, there was a change in the people in the pews. The woman was reaffirming her faith through the song so strongly she was crying. Now I didn't see her tears, but her youngest boy seeing his mom rubbed his hand on her back as I'm sure she would to him when he would cry. It was a moving scene for me. 

Oh to note, the church goers wear their Sunday best. Formal attire, as in going to a wedding attire. The youngest son of that family I mentioned wore a silk vest with a white collared shirt and slacks. Women wore matching dress suits and white hats. I wore a long skirt and pink top. I'll work on finding a hat. 

After church we went to get a pattie. A pattie is a pretty much like an empanada. If you don't speak Spanish then the Aussies call it a meat pie. If you don't speak Australian its a hot pocket. :-D

Back to the pattie. We went to Tastees. Tastees is one of three major pattie fast food restaurants. The other two are Mothers and Juicy's. There's also a debate on the difference on tastes of each. Kinda like the battle of which is better...Coca Cola or Pepsi. It's a matter of preference. I had a Tastee pattie yesterday, beef and cheese. I didn't know it was a Tastee pattie however. See, the local mini mart resells them for their own. Its a way to create income for people. At Tastees a beef and cheese patty costs 90 JD (Jamaican Dollars...little more than an american dollar) the patties are resold for 110JD. It's info like this that I'm excited to learn from my home stay family!

Here's a picture of  the beach and some of my new friends! We went to the beach after the church services.

Here's a little fun fact. To help speak Patwa you must drop the h and put it somewhere else. So thing is ting. And hair sounds like ear. So don't be alarmed when I get an ear cut.