Natal, Brazil 2007: Frankly My Dear, I Don’t Give a TAM…

Uncle Mark and I drove with Salomão in one of his cars toward the airport. The ride was quiet for the most part. I was disappointed to be leaving, but I could tell that Uncle Mark was really upset. He didn’t want to go home, and he had been dreading this point all summer long. His feelings were just like the words of the Carrie Underwood song “they’ve been dreading this moment all summer long, the night before life moves on”. We arrived at the airport long before Luciano, which was odd seeing he had left before us. We bid farewell to Salomão and Cintia as we loaded he eleven suitcases on to carts and wheeled them into the baggage check area of the terminal.

Luis, Lillia, Dona Nier, Pietro, Neto, Paula, Liese, both Lucianos and their families were all there to see us off. We spent a great deal of time in the ticket line with Aunt Lori trying to talk the ticket agent into letting them check the bags all the way through to Boston. After a long time, and a lot of fast spoken Portuguese, she seemed to have made progress in getting ten of the bags checked through Boston (or so we thought). The remaining bag had to be a carry on, despite a feeble last ditch attempt to shrink wrap the smaller bag to another small bag to create one.

After the baggage check was completed, everyone rode up the escalator to the restaurant where we would all eat our “last supper” together. I had already went up a little bit before to stock up on a months supply of Synthroid, since my prescription had run out and I would not be able to get a doctors appointment before Friday. We ate a good meal together. It was the first I had eaten since I had first gotten sick almost 36 hours before. As we exited the restaurant I heard them calling our flight number for boarding.

We quickly said our goodbyes at the terminal gate, each of us getting to hug each other. Liese said how much her view on Americans had changed since she had met us, , Patty, Maria and Melissa. Everything she had seen of Americans on the Communist News Network (CNN) and other media outlets, as well as what she had experienced from visiting tourists in the area had showed her nothing but stupidity and selfishness. Now she understood that there were more out there than the Hollywoodites and the liberal media hordes. She had first expressed this to Lori on Friday, and then to Mark on Sunday night. When she had told Mark her opinion on American’s had changed since she met him he had turned around and said to her, “well my opinion of Germans has changed since I met you”.

Liese is from the southern part of Brazil, which is an area frequented by Italian and German immigrants. She had been raised speaking only German, and didn’t begin to learn Portuguese until the age of 14 years old. She was commended to missionary work and left the southern states to head to Rio Grande de la Norte, where she has been working in Natal for several years. She opens her house to women who need a place to board, and does a fabulous job being hospitable to anyone in need of a meal or anything that she can possibly do for them. Most of the men and women who have been working on the hall for the past few months would either be fed lunch by Liese or Lilia each day.

I said goodbye to Neto, who was probably the one person I had gotten the closest to during my six weeks in Brazil this summer. He was sad to see me go. He spoke better English than I spoke Portuguese, so we were able to communicate on a better level than I could with other people. I had given him my NLT Life Application Study Bible that I had purchased for myself. After he had looked through it I could see how impressed he was by it, and asked me where he could get one. I decided that I would give him mine and pick up a new copy for myself at CBD, since their sale was the same weekend I got home. I put a little inscription in the front page, with my E-mail address in hopes he would keep in touch.

The way I had given it to him probably wasn’t in the most gracious and time sensitive moment possible. During my bout with Dengue, in a moment of what could have come across as delusional, I held the Bible up in my hand like a children’s Sunday school sword drill. Poor Neto probably thought I was using the Book to call on God for help, but I finally had put it in his hand, and a big grin had spread across his face. I would miss him a lot. I hoped that he and Paula would manage to visit the states sometime, even if I did plan on visiting them again in Brazil.

After our goodbyes were complete, we hustled through the security check point. Lori was stopped for who knows what, as they searched her purse. Item after item was removed, and I was getting a mental picture of Mary Poppins when a lamp, birdcage and a sofa were pulled out of her small carpet bag. Finally the man just let her go after he had removed everything and still not found what he was looking for. They had made a final boring call announcement for the plane, and we quickly found our way to our seats. I had a window seat, with William in the middle. I actually managed to fall asleep rather quickly on the flight, partly in thanks to my medication.

After I woke up about halfway through the trip to São Paulo, I had a feeling that I should check my baggage stub. My bags should have been checked all the way through to Boston, but the airport code printed on the sticker read GRU. I needed to pick up two extremely heavy bags in São Paulo and recheck them. One thing is sure about that TAM airline, nothing is ever an easy process with them…