The problem with sleeping outside is that you can not hide from the sun. When it is time for it to shine, it does. This can be bad enough when daylight begins at 6:30, but in Natal the sunrise is around ten past five. Everyone else was still sleeping, so I waited till Uncle Mark got up around 6:30 before I got out of bed. I didn’t realize how uncomfortable my sleep was until my feet hit the ceramic tile at that moment. My already crooked back had an even more defined “S” shape, and my neck felt as if there was something protruding from the side of it. I stretched and rubbed my neck for a few minutes before heading downstairs to eat breakfast.
Uncle Mark and Paul headed out to the Planalto a few minutes later. Paul’s mission for the morning was to get some pictures of the hall, neighborhood and children in the good light of the early hours. Aunt Lori and Patty went out to an orphanage a little while later, while I stayed behind with the five children to work on my blog. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed writing it, and one of the kids would look over at me and ask my why I was smiling as I typed.
My other mission was given to me by Paul. I needed to try and hook up some device to make the wireless signal stronger. This was Plan A. If this failed we did have Plans B, C and D at our disposal, but time was of the essence seeing the technological guru was leaving in five days. I knocked on the gate for the second day in a row, and was escorted by Dona Lucia to the house, where I plugged in the “signal stabilizer” device, which looked to be nothing more than a glorified power strip. Going back to the computer I discovered that the signal was no stronger than it had been before. This brought us to Plan B, which was a new router equip with a third antenna.
The problem with immediately implementing this plan was that Dona Lucia had left for the day for an appointment, and Saint Adelmo and the Gazelle were home. I decided to give it a try and knocked on the door to the home. We had all finished lunch by this point, and I was planning on heading to the Planalto with 80 pounds of baseball equipment in a few minutes. However, Adelmo was having trouble with his cable modem. He had unplugged the router, and had directly connected the modem to the back of his PC, but the internet still wasn’t working.
I checked the connection to assure that it was plugged into the right slot, one can never be too sure when dealing with a partially blind man, and discovered that despite his handicap the wire was going exactly where it should. I told him in the best Portuguese I could that the problem was with his cable company. He got on the phone immediately with the company for a service call. I left the new modem behind and went back to our house.
Uncle Mark and Paul headed out to the Planalto a few minutes later. Paul’s mission for the morning was to get some pictures of the hall, neighborhood and children in the good light of the early hours. Aunt Lori and Patty went out to an orphanage a little while later, while I stayed behind with the five children to work on my blog. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed writing it, and one of the kids would look over at me and ask my why I was smiling as I typed.
My other mission was given to me by Paul. I needed to try and hook up some device to make the wireless signal stronger. This was Plan A. If this failed we did have Plans B, C and D at our disposal, but time was of the essence seeing the technological guru was leaving in five days. I knocked on the gate for the second day in a row, and was escorted by Dona Lucia to the house, where I plugged in the “signal stabilizer” device, which looked to be nothing more than a glorified power strip. Going back to the computer I discovered that the signal was no stronger than it had been before. This brought us to Plan B, which was a new router equip with a third antenna.
The problem with immediately implementing this plan was that Dona Lucia had left for the day for an appointment, and Saint Adelmo and the Gazelle were home. I decided to give it a try and knocked on the door to the home. We had all finished lunch by this point, and I was planning on heading to the Planalto with 80 pounds of baseball equipment in a few minutes. However, Adelmo was having trouble with his cable modem. He had unplugged the router, and had directly connected the modem to the back of his PC, but the internet still wasn’t working.
I checked the connection to assure that it was plugged into the right slot, one can never be too sure when dealing with a partially blind man, and discovered that despite his handicap the wire was going exactly where it should. I told him in the best Portuguese I could that the problem was with his cable company. He got on the phone immediately with the company for a service call. I left the new modem behind and went back to our house.
Uncle Mark had already left to go work on the hall, and Paul, Patty and Aunt Lori were going back to the orphanage to take some pictures. I was torn because I did want to go to the orphanage, but I had already told Eric and William that I would go to the Planalto to play baseball. I decided to live up to my original promise and we were left behind at Lobster Road while Aunt Lori ran some errands and dropped the other 5 off at the nearby orphanage. The woman who cared for the 35 children was a Christian, and was more than happy to let each of them into the house. They had brought milk and cookies with them for the kids who varied in age from extremely young to teenagers. Paul set up his backdrop and began taking pictures of all the children right away. Patty and Stephanie also used their cameras, and even let the children play with the light capturing devices.
Aunt Lori returned to the house to pick up us three boys, and also give Inacia a ride home. As soon as I arrived at the Planalto I dragged the bag out of the trunk. Looking up at the hall, I was amazed how different it looked. The color was almost a mustard yellow, the door was in the center, the walls were higher and more stylish, and the windows looked beautiful. Outside a young man was painting the metal grates protecting the windows a reddish orange color. I walked inside to take a tour. The auditorium had another 12 feet of length added to it. Couple this extension with the change of door location and now the hall could accommodate an additional 8-10 rows of seats. This meant that up to 70 more people could comfortably sit in the pews.
Uncle Mark had been working on building the kitchen cabinets by hand, and Luciano had been tiling the bathrooms. The single dingy washroom and filthy kitchenette had been removed to accommodate the main auditorium extension. Now, in the room where they had stored the finished cooperative products were two bathrooms, tiled with a beautiful yellowish colored ceramic tile on the floors and halfway up the walls. The area that had housed the raw materials for the co-op was now the kitchen. Work still had to be done, but it was coming along quite nicely. The woodwork still needed to be stained, roof cleaned, outside and inside painted, bathrooms finished and kitchen completed but it was a far cry from what had been there previously.
William and Eric got together some boys from the neighborhood and the seven of us headed down to the dusty soccer field to play some baseball. It was almost 4:30 by the time we got there, which meant we only had another 45 minutes of daylight. I gave the boys some batting practice. Two of them were named Alison, and they introduced themselves as Alison Uno and Alison Dos, reminding me of The Cat in the Hat’s Thing One and Thing Two introducing themselves before the began cleaning up the mess. Each boy took their turn batting, and then it was my turn.
Herbson got excited and ran deep in the outfield. One of the Alisons pitched to me and the others ran after any fly ball I managed to hit. A train had gone by, and the other Alison had been so excited to see it for some reason he wouldn’t let us continue playing until we took a picture of the locomotive. By 5:20 we were on our way back to the church, where we said goodbye to Alison Uno and Herbson. Alison Dos stayed with us, seeing he had arrived with Luciano. They were cleaning up for the night in the hall, and a few minutes later we were heading back to Ponta Negra.
Everyone else was already home when we arrived. Paul gave me an introduction to Adobe LightRoom, and I had a chance to see some of the pictures he had taken of the orphanage. Some of them were so natural that they seemed unnatural. They were children without parents that loved them, without much clothing, without much food and without the everyday things that you and I are used to. While their situation was not much different than something you would see in any country if you look hard enough, it is still amazing to look at or hear about each of them and hear their individual stories.
I grilled some pineapple on the panini press, which came out surprisingly good. Then Aunt Lori and I made a light supper of Chicken Soup flavored pastina and panini sandwiches. We ate while watching a few episodes of Seinfeld, and then Uncle Mark and I did the dishes. Bedroom arrangements had changed. Amy had moved from her brother and sister’s room to her parents’, William and Caroline moved downstairs with their cousins and I remained on the porch. I had been very cold the night before due to the air flowing underneath the thin fabric of the hammock. I was not going to fall asleep cold and wake up sore a second morning in a row, so I moved the hammock out of the terrace and dragged in an inflatable mattress.
Outside the roar of a crowed at the nearby soccer stadium cut through the night air. The noise of the crowed was immediately followed by fireworks that were used to celebrate the victory. About 30 minutes after the small explosions ceased a new noise was heard that would give me the giggles for quite a while…
Aunt Lori returned to the house to pick up us three boys, and also give Inacia a ride home. As soon as I arrived at the Planalto I dragged the bag out of the trunk. Looking up at the hall, I was amazed how different it looked. The color was almost a mustard yellow, the door was in the center, the walls were higher and more stylish, and the windows looked beautiful. Outside a young man was painting the metal grates protecting the windows a reddish orange color. I walked inside to take a tour. The auditorium had another 12 feet of length added to it. Couple this extension with the change of door location and now the hall could accommodate an additional 8-10 rows of seats. This meant that up to 70 more people could comfortably sit in the pews.
Uncle Mark had been working on building the kitchen cabinets by hand, and Luciano had been tiling the bathrooms. The single dingy washroom and filthy kitchenette had been removed to accommodate the main auditorium extension. Now, in the room where they had stored the finished cooperative products were two bathrooms, tiled with a beautiful yellowish colored ceramic tile on the floors and halfway up the walls. The area that had housed the raw materials for the co-op was now the kitchen. Work still had to be done, but it was coming along quite nicely. The woodwork still needed to be stained, roof cleaned, outside and inside painted, bathrooms finished and kitchen completed but it was a far cry from what had been there previously.
William and Eric got together some boys from the neighborhood and the seven of us headed down to the dusty soccer field to play some baseball. It was almost 4:30 by the time we got there, which meant we only had another 45 minutes of daylight. I gave the boys some batting practice. Two of them were named Alison, and they introduced themselves as Alison Uno and Alison Dos, reminding me of The Cat in the Hat’s Thing One and Thing Two introducing themselves before the began cleaning up the mess. Each boy took their turn batting, and then it was my turn.
Herbson got excited and ran deep in the outfield. One of the Alisons pitched to me and the others ran after any fly ball I managed to hit. A train had gone by, and the other Alison had been so excited to see it for some reason he wouldn’t let us continue playing until we took a picture of the locomotive. By 5:20 we were on our way back to the church, where we said goodbye to Alison Uno and Herbson. Alison Dos stayed with us, seeing he had arrived with Luciano. They were cleaning up for the night in the hall, and a few minutes later we were heading back to Ponta Negra.
Everyone else was already home when we arrived. Paul gave me an introduction to Adobe LightRoom, and I had a chance to see some of the pictures he had taken of the orphanage. Some of them were so natural that they seemed unnatural. They were children without parents that loved them, without much clothing, without much food and without the everyday things that you and I are used to. While their situation was not much different than something you would see in any country if you look hard enough, it is still amazing to look at or hear about each of them and hear their individual stories.
I grilled some pineapple on the panini press, which came out surprisingly good. Then Aunt Lori and I made a light supper of Chicken Soup flavored pastina and panini sandwiches. We ate while watching a few episodes of Seinfeld, and then Uncle Mark and I did the dishes. Bedroom arrangements had changed. Amy had moved from her brother and sister’s room to her parents’, William and Caroline moved downstairs with their cousins and I remained on the porch. I had been very cold the night before due to the air flowing underneath the thin fabric of the hammock. I was not going to fall asleep cold and wake up sore a second morning in a row, so I moved the hammock out of the terrace and dragged in an inflatable mattress.
Outside the roar of a crowed at the nearby soccer stadium cut through the night air. The noise of the crowed was immediately followed by fireworks that were used to celebrate the victory. About 30 minutes after the small explosions ceased a new noise was heard that would give me the giggles for quite a while…
Herbson And I Carry the Bag of Baseball Equipment
Herbson has the Brilliant Idea of Putting the Bag on William's Bike
Getting the Correct Balance
William is Unhappy that He is Not On the Bike
The Train that Alison Uno Said I Must Take "Photo" Of
1 comment:
Alex,
Glad your back on line. I read all of your latest entry's and I must say I liked the descriptions of the flight back (what with the amazing bat baby and all). It just made me wonder what was REALLY in that red jello.....
Aaron
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