7:00 AM came very quickly, and I was more than happy to get myself out of the blazing rays of the sun and down to the shade of my patio office. I began my lengthy blog article, while also checking sports scores, financial information and weather forecasts. I happily scanned the forecast for Natal, and completely forgetting the incompetence of Weather.com's meteorologists put a lot of stock in the fact that today's forecast was mostly sunny with only a 10% chance of precipitation. This was great seeing that I was stuck waiting for the cable guy that morning. I might as well wait outside in the sun.
Uncle Mark, Patty, Stephanie and Amy headed to the Planalto before 8:00 where they immediately went to work. Uncle Mark continued making progress on his shelves and cabinets, while the three girls began cleaning and painting the tiles of the roof that Luciano had removed. As soon as they finished painting them, Luciano would take them back up to the roof and put them back in the correct place. Around mid-morning, a man came by pulling a cart with junk piled almost as high as the hall itself. Patty thought that it was Souzetes husband, and she put him to work immediately. Everyone else working around the hall was confused who this man was, and why he was there. No one was present who spoke enough of an English/Portuguese mix to find out exactly what he was doing there, so they just let him work and paid him for his services later on.
Paul and Aunt Lori had gone off to the co-op to do some more photography of the finished product for the catalog. They made some other stops as well to look into the idea of printing the large photos of the fruit for more co-op materials. Meanwhile, back in Ponta Negra, I finished my normal morning tasks by 10:30 and decided to take advantage of the sun that was shining and to catch few rays by the pool. No sooner had I changed into my swimsuit and spread my towel on the patio tile, then the heavens opened up and cold drizzle fell from above. The rain was one thing. I can deal with rain. What I couldn’t deal with was the bitter cold gusts of wind that would tear through the courtyard like a wind tunnel. After patiently waiting out the storm for 20 minutes, I called it quits and found myself editing pictures for the rest of the morning while waiting for the cable guy.
Everyone returned home for lunch as normal, and after a delicious meal of baked fish with rice, beans and freshly cut tomatoes we all headed off to the Planalto by 1:15. Eric, William, Uncle Mark and I went to the hall, while the other six went back to the co-op. There were six or seven boys waiting in the street to play baseball when I arrived, but I told them I wanted to work for a few hours first and we would play at 3:30. William and Eric joined them in the street where they made a jump for their bicycle out of some pieces of scrap plywood.
I took some photos around the hall for the blog before asking Luciano what I should do. He brought me over to pile of roof tiles and told me to paint them. Before I began I asked them if they wanted music, and they all began chanting "Musica Americana". I located my Ipod and speaker system and began cranking out some Tim McGraw and Josh Turner. Most would just tap their feet, and some would cheer when they heard a word they actually understood. I began painting the roof tiles that had just been washed. The task was slow and monotonous, and after about 40 or 50 tiles, there were no more clean ones to paint. The boys who had been scrubbing them with water had taken on a new job of filling the truck that had arrived with dirt, sand and garbage from the front area of the hall.
Within an hour the front part of the lot was level, and looked relatively clean. Neto and Souzete had spent the morning putting the stucco like final layer on the exterior wall of the hall, but they had barley finished one side before both had to leave. I tried to talk Luciano into letting me work on it, but he told me that it would have to wait. I hunted down and finally found a scrub brush to clean the tiles, and then went to work scrubbing year’s worth of mud and grime from the material. I finished about 50 of them before I noticed that it was 3:45. Across the street were 13 boys sitting on the grass, holding their gloves and looking at me.
I decided to call it a day at the hall and got my things together. I left the music with the workers and led the group of boys to the field once again. The slugger Alex who I had met my first day in the Planalto was with us this time, and he didn't waste any time impressing me again. He could hit the ball high, far, right, left, strait, slow pitch, fast pitch, medium pitch, up, down, inside and outside. This was pretty impressive for someone holding a bat for the second time in his life. We played for a while that afternoon, loosing track of time. Several people stopped to talk to me about what we were doing and where we were from. My Portuguese has become pretty fluid in subjects that I have been around for some time, such as baseball, church and construction work,. I was able to tell them that we play pretty much every weekday from 3:30 till 5:30, and that we were from the Christian Evangelical Church in the Planalto. One boy, named Olivar, spoke a little English and I let him know that there are English lessons going on for the next two Mondays.
Patty, Stephanie and Amy joined us at around 5:00 and had a great time playing with this group of kids. By this time there were 21 kids either playing or watching the activity. I let some other kids pitch, and both Alex (the natural athlete) and Herbson had quite the arms. Filipe also could throw the ball quite well, but his catching skills left a lot to be desired. At around 5:30 we called it a night and headed back to the church, where we caught up with Uncle Mark, Aunt Lori, Paul and Caroline.
Uncle Mark, Patty, Stephanie and Amy headed to the Planalto before 8:00 where they immediately went to work. Uncle Mark continued making progress on his shelves and cabinets, while the three girls began cleaning and painting the tiles of the roof that Luciano had removed. As soon as they finished painting them, Luciano would take them back up to the roof and put them back in the correct place. Around mid-morning, a man came by pulling a cart with junk piled almost as high as the hall itself. Patty thought that it was Souzetes husband, and she put him to work immediately. Everyone else working around the hall was confused who this man was, and why he was there. No one was present who spoke enough of an English/Portuguese mix to find out exactly what he was doing there, so they just let him work and paid him for his services later on.
Paul and Aunt Lori had gone off to the co-op to do some more photography of the finished product for the catalog. They made some other stops as well to look into the idea of printing the large photos of the fruit for more co-op materials. Meanwhile, back in Ponta Negra, I finished my normal morning tasks by 10:30 and decided to take advantage of the sun that was shining and to catch few rays by the pool. No sooner had I changed into my swimsuit and spread my towel on the patio tile, then the heavens opened up and cold drizzle fell from above. The rain was one thing. I can deal with rain. What I couldn’t deal with was the bitter cold gusts of wind that would tear through the courtyard like a wind tunnel. After patiently waiting out the storm for 20 minutes, I called it quits and found myself editing pictures for the rest of the morning while waiting for the cable guy.
Everyone returned home for lunch as normal, and after a delicious meal of baked fish with rice, beans and freshly cut tomatoes we all headed off to the Planalto by 1:15. Eric, William, Uncle Mark and I went to the hall, while the other six went back to the co-op. There were six or seven boys waiting in the street to play baseball when I arrived, but I told them I wanted to work for a few hours first and we would play at 3:30. William and Eric joined them in the street where they made a jump for their bicycle out of some pieces of scrap plywood.
I took some photos around the hall for the blog before asking Luciano what I should do. He brought me over to pile of roof tiles and told me to paint them. Before I began I asked them if they wanted music, and they all began chanting "Musica Americana". I located my Ipod and speaker system and began cranking out some Tim McGraw and Josh Turner. Most would just tap their feet, and some would cheer when they heard a word they actually understood. I began painting the roof tiles that had just been washed. The task was slow and monotonous, and after about 40 or 50 tiles, there were no more clean ones to paint. The boys who had been scrubbing them with water had taken on a new job of filling the truck that had arrived with dirt, sand and garbage from the front area of the hall.
Within an hour the front part of the lot was level, and looked relatively clean. Neto and Souzete had spent the morning putting the stucco like final layer on the exterior wall of the hall, but they had barley finished one side before both had to leave. I tried to talk Luciano into letting me work on it, but he told me that it would have to wait. I hunted down and finally found a scrub brush to clean the tiles, and then went to work scrubbing year’s worth of mud and grime from the material. I finished about 50 of them before I noticed that it was 3:45. Across the street were 13 boys sitting on the grass, holding their gloves and looking at me.
I decided to call it a day at the hall and got my things together. I left the music with the workers and led the group of boys to the field once again. The slugger Alex who I had met my first day in the Planalto was with us this time, and he didn't waste any time impressing me again. He could hit the ball high, far, right, left, strait, slow pitch, fast pitch, medium pitch, up, down, inside and outside. This was pretty impressive for someone holding a bat for the second time in his life. We played for a while that afternoon, loosing track of time. Several people stopped to talk to me about what we were doing and where we were from. My Portuguese has become pretty fluid in subjects that I have been around for some time, such as baseball, church and construction work,. I was able to tell them that we play pretty much every weekday from 3:30 till 5:30, and that we were from the Christian Evangelical Church in the Planalto. One boy, named Olivar, spoke a little English and I let him know that there are English lessons going on for the next two Mondays.
Patty, Stephanie and Amy joined us at around 5:00 and had a great time playing with this group of kids. By this time there were 21 kids either playing or watching the activity. I let some other kids pitch, and both Alex (the natural athlete) and Herbson had quite the arms. Filipe also could throw the ball quite well, but his catching skills left a lot to be desired. At around 5:30 we called it a night and headed back to the church, where we caught up with Uncle Mark, Aunt Lori, Paul and Caroline.
From there it was to Luis and Lillia's for supper, where Paul immediately got to work removing Trojan viruses from their computer, a task that would take much of the night. Sick of hearing only Portuguese, the kids were more than happy to slide Happy Feet into the DVD Player and watch a movie in their native language. I was exhausted and so was Uncle Mark. The night wore on. We had good conversation, but I just wanted to get home, shower, do what I needed to do and then head off to bed. We left shortly after 9:00, and got home by 9:30. Everyone else headed off to bed right away due to the fact that we had to be up by 7:00 the next morning to go on the buggy ride. I worked on some things online before retreating to bed myself before 11:00. I don't think I even made it through 3 songs on my Ipod before I was fast asleep. One thing is for sure, a trip to Brazil and hard work is just what the doctor ordered to cure my case of minor insomnia. By the way, that cable guy never did show up…
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Everyone Doing Their Designated Jobs
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Alison Uno Painting the Roof Tiles
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Luciano Putting the Painted Roof Tiles Back
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Uncle Mark Explains How It's Done.JPG)
A Craftsman at Work
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The Boys Anxiously Awaiting the Chance to Play
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On Our Way to the Field
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We Had 21 Kids Playing by the End of the Day
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At Luis and Lillia's for Supper
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The Kids Hypnotized by Happy Feet
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