The sound of water being emptied from a bucket snapped my out of my dazed and confused state early this morning. I got out of bed and made my way to the kitchen, where I saw the water valve under our sink spewing water all over the floor. Uncle Mark and I spent a good hour looking for a solution to our problem. The emergency shut off valve was nowhere in sight, so I did my best ER impression and asked for a turn-a-kit for the broken hose. The leak slowed and Uncle Mark got on the phone with Salomão. We could now add this problem to the ever growing list of things wrong with the house on Lobster Road.
Finally our "phantom" landlord made an appearance at the back door and he and Aunt Lori began a rapid fire Portuguese dialogue that made me wonder whether or not they were fighting. He told her that he would fix all the problems, and much to my surprise a repair man named Paulo, you have a 70% chance of any mans name being Paulo in Brazil, appeared almost immediately to repair the broken valve. The landlord personally cleaned our pool, because his imaginary pool man had yet to make an appearance in the 8 days we had been here. He shock chlorinated the pool, which meant that we couldn't use it for 24 hours. This created a problem due to the fact that it was 85 degrees and sunny outside.
After cleaning the kitchen, Aunt Lori answered her long list of unanswered E-mails from people looking for an update and I took the opportunity to get some sun. The weather was beautiful, and I developed a contraption with the hose to make sure I kept cool. After lunch the other repair men arrived at the house, one to fix the leaks in the roof and another to fix the fan in my room. I couldn't believe that they came so fast seeing it was last minute on a Saturday. Apparently, Saturday service means you need to clean up after yourself though, because when I returned later that evening glass, plaster and wire had my bedroom floor booby trapped like a Saigon minefield.
We split up for the day. Uncle Mark, Caroline, William and I went to go to the sports camp activity that the hall sponsors, while Aunt Lori decided to take the path previously braved by myself and William to the nearby village. Seeing it was a Saturday, there were hundreds of people milling about in the streets all afternoon. She distributed 400 tracks and was able to converse much better than Will and I ever had.
Meanwhile, we were headed back to the Planalto. Soon after leaving the house I realized that there was nobody in our car that spoke Portuguese and English. Lori was back in our neighborhood, and Lillia was home with a sick Pietro. We ran into Luis who led us to the school where this camp was taking place. I talked with Luis a little about it the best I could, and learned that the program was called "Project: Soccer School" and it had been meeting weekly for the past year. The kids are split into two separate age groups 8-12 and 13-14. We watched the 8-12 year old game for a little while, and I have to say that those kids are very talented. Even at their young age they were better than any of the kids who I had seen play soccer in High School and College. They don't have very much to do around the Planalto, and soccer is a very inexpensive sport to play. All you need are a group of kids, which there are plenty, and a soccer ball.
I could see that Caroline and William were bored, and the expression on Uncle Mark's face looked rather disappointed. I have to admit that I thought that it would be different than it was. I thought that this camp was a group of kids that just got together, picked teams and played soccer for an afternoon. This was a school...drills, sprints, suicides, dribbles and a scrimmage. Uncle Mark and William got some baseball equipment out of the car and went into the dirt field behind the soccer area and began just playing catch. Caroline soon joined them. Sitting in the stands at the soccer stadium I saw the attention of the older group of kids waiting to play soccer turn from the soccer game to the three Procopio's playing catch.
A girl on a bike soon joined the trio, and it seemed that every time I turned around another kid would show up. Soon a bat was brought out, and Paulo, from the hall not the plumber, joined the group and pitched to some of the kids. I made my way over to the ever growing crowed. Mark batted first, and the minute he handed the bat over to one of the spectating kids a giant group of teenagers appeared. They just kept coming. I guess James Earl Jones says it best in Field of Dreams "if you build it they will come". We spent the next hour or so playing catch and having batting practice with this group of 23 individuals. As the sun began to set, Caroline handed each of them a tract which they thanked us for. Each of them was very grateful that we allowed them to play baseball with us.
Using the best Portuguese I possibly could I told them that we would be back next Saturday if the weather was good. None of the kids had ever put on a baseball glove, held a bat or caught a fly ball before. It was a new experience for them as much as teaching was for us. We went back home and made a make shift meal of whatever we could find in the refrigerator. It is a beautiful night right now and there are onslaughts of fireworks going off as I write this. Seeing as tomorrow is Sunday and the schedule begins early and lasts long I thought it would be best to actually inform about my today...TODAY...
Finally our "phantom" landlord made an appearance at the back door and he and Aunt Lori began a rapid fire Portuguese dialogue that made me wonder whether or not they were fighting. He told her that he would fix all the problems, and much to my surprise a repair man named Paulo, you have a 70% chance of any mans name being Paulo in Brazil, appeared almost immediately to repair the broken valve. The landlord personally cleaned our pool, because his imaginary pool man had yet to make an appearance in the 8 days we had been here. He shock chlorinated the pool, which meant that we couldn't use it for 24 hours. This created a problem due to the fact that it was 85 degrees and sunny outside.
After cleaning the kitchen, Aunt Lori answered her long list of unanswered E-mails from people looking for an update and I took the opportunity to get some sun. The weather was beautiful, and I developed a contraption with the hose to make sure I kept cool. After lunch the other repair men arrived at the house, one to fix the leaks in the roof and another to fix the fan in my room. I couldn't believe that they came so fast seeing it was last minute on a Saturday. Apparently, Saturday service means you need to clean up after yourself though, because when I returned later that evening glass, plaster and wire had my bedroom floor booby trapped like a Saigon minefield.
We split up for the day. Uncle Mark, Caroline, William and I went to go to the sports camp activity that the hall sponsors, while Aunt Lori decided to take the path previously braved by myself and William to the nearby village. Seeing it was a Saturday, there were hundreds of people milling about in the streets all afternoon. She distributed 400 tracks and was able to converse much better than Will and I ever had.
Meanwhile, we were headed back to the Planalto. Soon after leaving the house I realized that there was nobody in our car that spoke Portuguese and English. Lori was back in our neighborhood, and Lillia was home with a sick Pietro. We ran into Luis who led us to the school where this camp was taking place. I talked with Luis a little about it the best I could, and learned that the program was called "Project: Soccer School" and it had been meeting weekly for the past year. The kids are split into two separate age groups 8-12 and 13-14. We watched the 8-12 year old game for a little while, and I have to say that those kids are very talented. Even at their young age they were better than any of the kids who I had seen play soccer in High School and College. They don't have very much to do around the Planalto, and soccer is a very inexpensive sport to play. All you need are a group of kids, which there are plenty, and a soccer ball.
I could see that Caroline and William were bored, and the expression on Uncle Mark's face looked rather disappointed. I have to admit that I thought that it would be different than it was. I thought that this camp was a group of kids that just got together, picked teams and played soccer for an afternoon. This was a school...drills, sprints, suicides, dribbles and a scrimmage. Uncle Mark and William got some baseball equipment out of the car and went into the dirt field behind the soccer area and began just playing catch. Caroline soon joined them. Sitting in the stands at the soccer stadium I saw the attention of the older group of kids waiting to play soccer turn from the soccer game to the three Procopio's playing catch.
A girl on a bike soon joined the trio, and it seemed that every time I turned around another kid would show up. Soon a bat was brought out, and Paulo, from the hall not the plumber, joined the group and pitched to some of the kids. I made my way over to the ever growing crowed. Mark batted first, and the minute he handed the bat over to one of the spectating kids a giant group of teenagers appeared. They just kept coming. I guess James Earl Jones says it best in Field of Dreams "if you build it they will come". We spent the next hour or so playing catch and having batting practice with this group of 23 individuals. As the sun began to set, Caroline handed each of them a tract which they thanked us for. Each of them was very grateful that we allowed them to play baseball with us.
Using the best Portuguese I possibly could I told them that we would be back next Saturday if the weather was good. None of the kids had ever put on a baseball glove, held a bat or caught a fly ball before. It was a new experience for them as much as teaching was for us. We went back home and made a make shift meal of whatever we could find in the refrigerator. It is a beautiful night right now and there are onslaughts of fireworks going off as I write this. Seeing as tomorrow is Sunday and the schedule begins early and lasts long I thought it would be best to actually inform about my today...TODAY...
Some of the Kids in Project: Soccer School Playing a Game
The Group of Kids Continues to Grow
The Closest Thing to an Actual Line to Bat that We Got
A Pitch to Paulo
1 comment:
Alex - great reading. In Boston for the weekend and got the blog address from Steve McIntosh. Thinking about you all there and in our prayers. Hello to Mark & Lori - Love - Allen & Paulete
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