Portuguese is spoken in Portugal & Brazil, of course, but some other countries like Mozambique & Cape Verde also speak it. I don’t have the bandwidth to research it in depth right now, but one site I glanced at said that it is the 6th most common language in the world, and another said 8th place.

Portuguese is considered one of the romantic languages, and it really is beautiful to listen to. Vocabulary-wise, it has many similarities to Spanish. For example, Iglesia means church in Spanish, and the Portuguese word is Igreja. (<<I think those are spelled correctly, but I'm going by memory). One of the gals on the trip speaks fluent Spanish, and she can understand just about everything she hears in Portuguese, though she doesn't speak it.

Certain sounds in Portuguese resemble French or Italian to my untrained ears, just judging by the way one's voice inflects and the rhythm of sentences. Some sounds, such as the way X is pronounced like a soft Ch, even remind me of Chinese.

I am going to miss this place. Brazil is a beautiful country with so much potential, yet so much need. Gorgeous beaches are bordered by inexpensive cement homes, practically one on top of the other, with no aparent zoning or property lines. (I was told that code enforcement has gotten more stringent in recent years, and the code officer stopped by the church a couple of times while we were building.)

I hope we can come back again!