Natal, Brazil 2007: Not So Early to Bed, and Way Too Early to Rise...

The alarm clock went off at 6:30 AM. While 6:30 in itself isn't an uncommon time to "rise and shine", it is too early for someone who hadn't managed to fall asleep until after 3:00 that morning. I had tried to muffle the bear-like sounds Chiquinho was making by covering my head with a pillow, but I have a difficult enough time sleeping with a single pillow, let alone having the one pillow I do possess on top of my face as my head lays flat on a mattress. Finally Chiquinho had shifted or something, cause the snoring ceased long enough for me to quickly drift off. Until that point it seemed that the Mack Truck convention was in town and the Daytona 500 had been moved to the Planalto.

I dressed, and packed my bag in the dark that morning amidst the not so melodious sounds of Chiquinho snoring in the background. Neto, Paula and I ate breakfast a little bit before 7:00, and by quarter past Neto and I were on our way back to Ponta Negra. Uncle Mark and William were waiting in the hammock when we pulled into the driveway on Lobster Road. The three boys headed to the Planalto while I went in to work on some logos that needed to get done that morning. It was only 8:00 at that point, and I spent the majority of the morning working on designing a logo for the "Planalto Gambas" the name I had given to the group of aspiring young baseball players. Although time consuming, the logo came out pretty good for a mornings work.

Lori had already left before I got home that morning to have another test done. Lillia had joined her, and the two of them returned home shortly after Uncle Mark and William did for lunch. Caroline was up and feeling better than she had the day before, and she had spent the morning peering over my shoulder at the progress I was making on the logo. After lunch Uncle Mark and William went back to the Planalto, while Aunt Lori, Lillia and I went to the shopping center to run a few crucial errands. Aunt Lori went to Gilgal first to put in an order for another 1,000 Bibles in hopes that they would arrive before Friday. I had drifted across the hall from Gilgal with my logos to see how much it would cost to get some tee-shirts made for the kids with the logo on it.

After Aunt Lori finished with the Bibles, she came into the shirt store in time to hear the woman give me a quote of $480 Raies for 20 shirts. I scoffed at this price and Lori asked if she would give a discount. She gracefully offered us $10 off, which I declined. My original vision had been to make shirts to have the kids get their pictures taken in, holding either a bat and a ball. I also wanted a big group photo of everyone in their makeshift uniform. The vision wasn't worth the hefty price of $480 Raies, but I figured that I could still achieve part of it. I decided to buy two shirts, one large and one small. At $25 Raies a piece they were more than I would pay for a shirt at The Gap. This way the regular kids could still get their picture taken, as well as some of the guys and women at the hall who have showed some interest in the sport.

After the shirts were made, Aunt Lori and Lillia went to check on the quality of a particular product that a woman near the Planalto made. They dropped me off about a half mile from the hall, and I headed there on foot. I stopped at the co-op first to see it in action. While I was there I put in a special order for myself. I also showed them the shirts, which they all thought were hilarious since they knew the story of the Lobster Road gamba. They joked and said that it should be the "Ponta Negra Gambas". I laughed along with the group of women for a while before continuing my walk toward the hall. Along the way I gained a few baseball followers who were anxious to play. Uncle Mark was finishing one of the two wall cabinets he was working on, and he asked me to take a walk to the convenient store to get some Coke for the guys working.

There was not a big crew working on the hall that day, and I felt bad leaving to play baseball with the kids. As bad as I felt, I had promised them on Thursday that I would play on Friday and Monday. I had already broken my promise once, after the Bible distribution became such a success and I just didn't have the heart to do it again, especially since they were all waiting for me. I took some pictures of the few kids that were there in their "uniforms" before taking the walk to the field. We gained a few extra followers on the way, and I decided to let the kids do some of the pitching that day. By the end of the day most of them were getting the concept of looking at the catcher’s glove and not the batter when throwing the ball.

At about 5:30 we headed back to the hall. Uncle Mark had finished the cabinet, but many of the roof tiles had not gotten painted. They had taken them down that day, and now they were putting them back up still dirty. Uncle Mark and I both wondered why they didn’t just put a tarp over the roof to protect against rain, but they seemed to think that the fragile tiles, which could easily be broken with a rock, were more of a deterrent than a tarp. Fact is, regardless of what material made up the roof, someone could still break into the hall within minutes.

We didn't wind up leaving the Planalto until almost 6:30. Lori had canceled her class because she felt ill. I was disappointed to not be teaching English, but I just went back to the house and worked on some other logo work. I also managed to finish my blog from the previous day. Uncle Mark and Caroline had gone to Luciano's birthday party. Mark had got Luciano some new boots as a gift, but he wrapped his own old ones and worn the new ones as a joke. To Luciano it seemed that Mark had given him the old boots and got some new ones for himself. He and Uncle Mark have a very similar personality, so he found it as funny as Uncle Mark originally had intended.

I worked on some projects until a little after 1:00 that morning. Caroline and Uncle Mark had gotten home at around 10:30 and went strait to bed. Aunt Lori had spent the night in bed herself with her mild illness. William had spent the evening with the two Dukes brothers before going to bed around 10:30. When I finished what I was currently working on I went to bed and completely collapsed. I had been going non stop doing various activities and I just wanted some sleep. The good news this night was that Chiquinho's snoring was nowhere to be heard...