Botanical Gardens of São Paulo

Kerma and Richard Hill from Blackfoot Idaho, Area Medical Adviser for Brazil with Jerry. We took them to the Botanical Gardens for our first P-day in a month. We had been to this park before, but this was their first time. Dr Hill receives calls on his cell phone all day long from mission presidents and their wives requesting medical advise for sick and injured missionaries. Here he is taking a call from Sister Prieto (the mission president's wife) in the Goiânia Mission.

These huge leaves were clustered around the base of a palm tree and were about two feet wide and three feet across. They were not part of the palm tree but were growing on a separate staulk next to the palm tree.

Dr Hill still on the same call.

This bush of brilliant pink flowers caught our eye as we walked through the gardens. The gardens were full of school children on field trips from various schools in the São Paulo area. Here a group of children are rolling down a grassy slope and then running back to the top to try it again.

Children are pretty much the same all over the world. At first a little shy, but as we made an effort to talk with them they warmed up. Soon they we practicing all the English word they knew. When we began to speak to them in Portuguese their natural curiosity came to the surface and we had a delightful time talking with them. As you can see they were quite willing to let us take a few pictures.

These children were all from the same school and ranged from about nine to twelve years old.

There was such a profusion of beautiful flowers through out the gardens that was hard not to show more of them. For now this one will have to do.

Oh to have this much energy again!

They followed us for a while asking us if we didn't want to take just one more picture Upon seeing this large gatheing of children excitingly pointing and screaming for other to "come and see", we joined the crowd to see what was happening.
This was the reason. A small band of tiny monkeys had come out of the forest to beg for food. One of the students had a banana which he peeled and offered to one of the larger monkeys. He quickly grabbed it and in trying to scamper away, dropped the banana. You can see him in the middle of the picture about half way up the tree. He's looking regretfully down at the banana. Tchau for now. I will send more pictures soon.

Vernon and Jerry.