Animal House...

NOTES: I heard from Aunt Lori last Friday morning. The following is an update of what is going on in Natal. I am using creative license here for entertainment value. The facts in the blog are true, but some embellishment may have occurred.


After I was dropped of at the airport, Uncle Mark, Aunt Lori, Caroline and William headed back to the Planalto for a day filled with cement. After the somewhat silent car ride home, due to the depression of my departure for the home land, they arrived at the hall and got right to work. William continued his normal routine of helping for a few minutes and then running off to play on a bicycle somewhere. Peddling Neto's bike down the rust colored dirt was going to be the highlight of the young boy's afternoon, until a shift in the sand put a wrench in the works, or a broom handle in the spokes if you prefer.

Lori saw him fall, get up, look down and run toward her. She knew something was wrong. William had a huge deep slice down his leg adjacent to his shin bone. They loaded up the Gol and headed to the hospital. He was in pain, but taking it very well. The doctor informed them that they could not stitch the cut due to the proximity to the shin, so using sterry-strips they basically taped the wound closed. They returned home tired and mentally drained from such a hodgepodge of a day.

They sat at the table to eat an actual dinner, a very rare occurance. Out of the corner of their eye they saw it enter the house. Above the dining room door, maybe 9 or 10 feet in the air walking on a little wooden platform, was a gamba (possum). No one knew what it was at the time, but after speaking with the resident animal expert Inacia, they learned of its name and its super power capabilities of cleaning out an area in a matter of moments. I know humans with similar capabilities, but their names will be withheld for risk embarrasment. The creature walked along the beam to the middle of the room and stopped. After briefly looked at the dining family below it continued on its way across the plank and out the other side. They were surprised and curious of what this thing was that had so impolitely spoiled their meal.

They went to bed for the night, but Lori awoke in the middle of the night fearing for the safety of her laptop computer in the rain. Going down the stairs she reached for her dry notebook and turned to head back to bed. On the couch looking at her with its gleaming eyes in the dark, much like Professor Minerva McGonagall in the first Harry Potter book, was a cat. This cat looked at Lori as if she didn't belong here and that it had been there long before her. Not wanting to get in a tussle with a wild cat at 2AM she crept upstairs and went to bed. The cat was gone by morning. And, unlike the Dr. Seuss book, it did not come back the very next day.

The pool brigade came by the next day to continue the installation of the filtration system. Caroline was likely wearing her swimsuit of faith as usual but as the day wore on it was evident that there would be no swimming. Dona Lucia, Adelmo and Gisele's housekeeper, knocked on the gate that adjoined the two properties. This was a daily custom, but what made this day unique was the machete that she was holding in her hand. Like a Jedi in Star Wars or Bruce Lee in one of his Kung Pao movies she went at the coconut tree with a furry that none of them had ever seen before. As coconuts fell from the tree, Inacia caught them underneath with the skill of Barry Bonds, Ken Griffy Jr, Bobby Abreu and any other major league outfielder you can think of.

Lori was impressed by the teamwork of these two women. She learned that the machete belonged to Adelmo, which caused a mental picture to appear of a mostly blind Adelmo attempting to complete the same task that Lucia had just done. Lucia promised to leave her personal machete, which made Adelmo's look like child’s play, in Lori's care. Aunt Lori then asked Lucia if it would be OK if William hung a hammock in his room. Lucia disappeared and returned minutes later with a man who immediately went to work installing the metal hooks for the hammock in Williams’s room. After he completed the task, Lori gave him a $10 Raies tip and a Portuguese Bible. He began to cry. He told her that she could keep the money, and that he had always wanted a Bible, but had never been able to afford to spend the little money he had on one. He told her it was the best gift he had ever received and then went his way. Lucia stared on in shock. Lori soon learned that Lucia's children were saved, but she hadn't yet believed. She instructed Inacia to stay close to the woman and to be a good friend to her.

Lucia then explained to Lori about how much she liked Inacia, which was something that was not common for her. Mark and William had been doing concrete duty at the Planalto all day. As Friday came around it was stated that they would only be working the first half of the day, due to a hall function that afternoon. As they went off to work, Pool Junior arrived. He looked at the finished filter system like he was a surgeon inspecting an incision scar after surgery. He was serious about his job. Very serious. His intensity was such that it made Donald Trump look like Goofy. He added some chemicals into the pool and announced that it would be ready to swim in by the next day.

That is when she called me. We talked a while about the events I just stated and she told me about how they were going to go south for the day to look at some things after Mark and William got back from the Planalto. I told them I missed them and I wished I was still there, and we promised to keep in touch. Then we entered radio silence...