The Summer of the Monkeys...

My sleep was disrupted at around 3:00 in the morning by a light rapping on the bedroom door. At first, I opened my eyes thinking that William was calling my name. Moments later after my eyes had adjusted to the lighting, I could clearly see that William’s eyes were closed and he was still sound asleep. I figured that I had been dreaming and attempted to get back to sleep. Then I heard a loud hacking outside my door and someone say my name in a soft voice again. I looked at the clock on my phone and got out of bed. Aunt Lori, Uncle Mark and Caroline were all outside the bedroom door. Caroline had gotten extremely ill in the middle of the night with a severely upset stomach and killer headache. Since she had been sick several of the past few days they decided that a trip to the hospital was necessary.

After the three of them left I went back to bed, but had a very difficult time falling asleep. I could tell that it was getting close to 5:00 in the morning because the light of dawn was slowly crawling into my bedroom. I finally drifted off for about two hours before being woken by the sound of Luke and Bo Duke being shot at on the television. I decided that attempting to sleep was futile at this point and got out of bed. The three others had returned from the hospital by this point and were sound asleep. Each was trying to catch up on an entire night of missed rest. I had planned on going to the beach that morning, but truth be told, I didn’t have the energy to make the three quarter mile walk down the hill.

Around 9:00 I heard excitement in Inacia’s voice, an occurrence that had not been very common in the nearly six weeks I have been here. I came out of the room and saw her pointing at the window over the dining room. There in the place where panes of glass would be were three monkeys. They screeched a little bit in their high pitched “voices” signaling that they had come for food. William decided to oblige the one monkey that “waited out the drought” and put some Banana down for him to take. When the cost was clear, the little monkey made his way down the trees that grow in our indoor garden and took the banana. Rather than eating it all himself, he was generous enough to think of his family as well. After eating a few bites, he picked up the piece of banana and scurried up the tree and out the window.

I decided to do my morning work; including the blog and some other things I was trying to finish up for the office, before going out and reading in the sun. It was an absolutely beautiful morning, and it would have been a great day for the beach. It was relaxing to take the time to read. At about 10:00 Luciano came to the house wondering if Mark was OK, since he hadn’t showed up to work that morning. Seeing that Uncle Mark is a man of routine, Neto and Luciano had found it odd that he hadn’t been there waiting for them to arrive before 8:30. Such a strange phenomenon warranted a phone call from Neto first. When no one answered the phone, Luciano decided to make the 25 minute drive from the Planalto to Ponta Negra. Lori told him the situation with Caroline and Luciano nodded his head, then left to go back to work.

Luciano and Neto were not the only people worried about Mark. Inacia had some concerns of her own. Preta had told Incsia the day before that Uncle Mark had been hit in the head with a piece of falling concrete. Once again, the “Man of Routine Theory” was put into play when Uncle Mark had not been sitting there drinking his coffee when Inacia arrived at 7:30. When Mark woke up at about 10:15 he explained that the rock didn’t hit his head, but just missed it. Apparently word spreads through the Planalto like wildfire, and like an elementary school game of telephone, the message had been mixed up due to signals getting crossed.

Although the headache remained, a pain I can strongly sympathize with, Caroline was feeling a little better thanks to the antibiotics she had received by the doctor. However I could tell that her illness was going to put a wrench in the works for my original plan to go to the cancer hospital that afternoon. Mark and William left for the Planalto at around 10:30, and announced that they would not be returning for lunch. I did not hear this announcement or I would have gone with them rather than risk the chance of being stranded on Lobster Road the entire day. When lunch time rolled around I asked if they were coming home, and Aunt Lori told me no. She had a doctor’s appointment later in the afternoon, so the day looked like it was going to wind up being a wash for me.

After a quick lunch of chicken soup for the disease ridden’s soul, I shot over to the shopping center to pick up a few things. My four hours of sleep was starting to catch up to me by this point, so after I got home I decided to lay down for about an hour to take a rest. Caroline was getting some sleep of her own, and Aunt Lori left us two sleeping beauties for her appointment. I woke up at around 4:30 and decided to use the time to work on a project for someone that I told them I would try and finish before I came home from Brazil. I hadn’t started it up until this point and I had no intention on going back on my word.

I continued working on it for the next few hours. During this time period Uncle Mark and William had returned, bringing Neto and Paula with them. Lillia and Luis, along with Dona Nier and Pietro, were coming over that night despite four of us being severely sleep deprived. You would think that I would be used to not getting any sleep, seeing that has been a common theme in my life recently. The past few weeks I have been getting a longer, less interrupted sleep. I wanted to get to a point in my project that night, so I rudely continued working despite having seven other guests in the house. Inacia had also stayed. Aunt Lori had invited her as a guest, but she insisted on doing the majority of the work.

We all visited for a few hours, and since I had gotten more sleep than anyone else I drove Neto, Paula and Inacia home. I had forgotten how much fun it is to drive a stick shift. The VW Gol reminds me of my old 1988 Honda CRX, which had more standard features than this almost brand new car. The CRX had been equipped with a radio and a sunroof, while this four door hatchback had no radio, no airbags and no sunroof. It did have air-conditioning however, but this feature was an upgrade. even in a country that averages 87 degrees a day during the year. Heat or no heat, the car rental was more each month because of this luxury.

On the way home I drove faster than normal due to the fact that there was nobody on the road. I failed to see a speed bump on a back road that led to the Planalto, due to lack of lighting and yellow paint. Paula and Inacia screamed from the back seat. Then everyone started laughing. Inacia had hit her head on the ceiling while the rear portion of the car was climbing the crest of the large bump. She started calling me a crazy driver. I guess I fit in with all the other maniacs that are on the road down here. I dropped Inacia off, after first saying goodbye to a horse that was wandering the dirt road at 12:45 at night. After Paula and Neto were dropped off I had a second wind.

I had a lot on my mind that evening, so I decided to go walk the beach for a little while despite the fact that it was almost 1:00. I weaved down several cobblestone streets that ran along the shoreline until I found a nicely lit area of the beach. There were a few couples walking on the beach that night, so I walked into the surf up until half my lower leg was under the water. The water seemed warmer at night, and the warm breeze moving off the water felt good. A rather large bat went back and forth along the shoreline skimming some bugs off the surface of the sand that was still wet from an earlier crashing wave.

It started to rain lightly, and scenes from Jaws were starting to run through my head. Visions of the opening scene with the girl first swimming and then getting devoured by the great white shark flashed in my mind. Seeing that sharks can somehow in as little as two feet of water, and not wanting to end up losing my prized left leg, I left the warm surf and went back up the dune to the Gol. I got a little lost on my way home, and wound up driving through the night club sector of Ponta Negra. I didn’t even know this area existed, but it looked like downtown Boston on the Fourth of July. Vendors lined the streets at 2:00, and there was more traffic than rush hour in Chinatown.

I played the stop and go game with the traffic for a while, before finding a way out. Lobster road was right around the corner and I made it home safe and sound. I entered the house as quietly as possible. My second wind had died down around the time I was stuck in traffic, so I was ready for bed. Seeing that I hadn’t made it to the Planalto as I had original planned that day, I had twice as much to do there the next day. I had told Uncle Mark that I was going with him the next morning to the Planalto. He was leaving in less than 6 hours…

Who Let the Monkey's In...Oh Wait...There's No Glass

Three Monkeys Could Spell Trouble at Lobster Road