A Walk to Remember...

I learned something new about myself on Monday night. Apparently, I sit up in my sleep. The night before, I had moved my bed closer to the wall, to restrain me from falling off in the middle of the night. I woke up several times before dawn by whacking my head off of the concrete ledge when I sat up. Waking up the next morning with several small lumps and a headache would be enough to keep my air mattress away from the wall during the future. That wouldn’t be necessary since Paul and Patty’s family was leaving that day and I could move back downstairs with my little brother William for the remaining two weeks of our stay here.

I knew Tuesday was going to be an emotional day for me and I was mentally prepared for the worst. From the moment I got out of bed and took a warm shower, I immediately just wanted to get out of my present location and just go somewhere else where there wasn’t anybody. Paul and Patty’s departure made this difficult to do, seeing as I did not want to be rude and disappear on their last morning there.

Uncle Mark had gone off to the Planalto, where he spent the morning working on making some cabinets for the kitchen at the hall. Paul and Patty spent the morning packing their belongings. They left us a printer to print any photo’s we deemed necessary, and Aunt Lori and I brainstormed how we could use photos to benefit the English Class. We thought about the idea Paul had given us of taking pictures of a room, or a group of items, and labeling the item with the English word. This would give them 4X6 flashcards that showed the object and the word, and they were small enough to on hand.

Paul asked me to give him a brief Facebook tutorial, which I did right before he left. The cars were loaded, and they said their goodbye’s to Inacia. I thought that this would be a good point to leave myself, so I strapped on the backpack that I had stocked with what I may need for my day alone, said my goodbye’s to the family and started off walking down Lobster Road. With my trusty Ipod I just kept walking and spent the remainder of the morning and the early part of the afternoon just walking and thinking.

I treated myself to a 45 minute massage, which cost less than fifteen American dollars here, and then stopped by a supermarket to get a popsicle. It was at that point that I realized how far I had walked. I was about 3 and a half miles from home and still had to go back. I decided to take the bus, since the ligaments on the back of my knees were starting to hurt. I would ask the driver of every bus that came by if this bus was heading to Lobster Road and they kept saying no. Finally one driver said yes, so I climbed on and took the bumpy ride back to Ponta Negra.

The bus made one final stop, and everyone got off. I decided to follow rather than stay on the bus by myself. I then realized where I was. I was at the end of the village in Ponta Negra about two miles from our house. I looked upward to see if I could make out the silhouettes of the two huge condoplexes next to the house. I could see the brightly colored design of the top of one in the distance. This put the bearings in my mental compass into action. I passed out tracts to anyone I saw on the way home, but I was tired, grumpy and hot. I cooled myself off a bit with another popsicle stop before continuing the rest of the way home.

I collapsed on the couch just in time to see Aunt Lori, Caroline and William pull up. They had dropped everyone off at the airport earlier, and while they were there they ran into several Brazilian national athletes. At the airport they also saw Eriberto, the young man at the hall who is good at everything he does athletically. Some conversation had been made with him before the rest of them headed to lunch. Uncle Mark had returned to his cabinets in the Planalto, and after making a few stops to get some necessities for the cooperative and for our home, Lori had returned with the kids.

It was 4:00 by this time, so we went out for an hour or so before returning home. Aunt Lori told me she wanted to take me to dinner so I agreed, and quickly changed. Uncle Mark and the kids relaxed at home for the evening before retiring to bed. Meanwhile, we had a great seafood diner and just spent a few hours talking about some things that were on our minds, some ideas for distribution, Va Livre website topics and other miscellaneous items. We returned home and went to bed. It felt good to sleep on an actual mattress, in an actual room with NO actual sunlight. I had to be up relatively early to greet the cable guy that had told us he would be there before 8:00. It was time to see if these cable guys were more punctual than the ones we have in the United States…