March 5, Novo Horizonte, Casa

The Squawkers

I woke up to the birds so far twice. Not just chatter, but a squawk in the 6am hour. I sleep under the open air on the tile floor on a small bit of foam, under a single light sheet. Thankfully there are not many bugs and thankfully there are stars. The two cats, Brad and Angelina, are awake at night, but since they are cats, they don’t make much noise. Their feet are silent; their curiosity is also delicate enough to mostly go unnoticed. And, since they are cats, they do not go out of their way to get any attention from me.

Brad Pitt

Yesterday I got my watch fixed, the battery stopped at some point since I last noticed it working. Went to the relogio shop and got a new one put in for 10 reais in a matter of minutes. Bought some guitar strings for the old guitar I left here about 7 years ago, but the base of the string was outfitted with a piece of faux feather and wouldn’t stay put enough to tune. Then I tried the strings I brought with me for my guitar and one of them snapped while tuning. Also, on my Seagull guitar, one of the tuning knobs has cracked and so I cannot tune it. Got two guitars, a bunch of strings and just enough pieces of the puzzle missing to prevent me from playing. There is a shop in Catanduva, they tell me, where I can get what I need. Met an English speaker at the photo shop where I needed a passport-sized photo for an ID at the gym. The man goes by the name Zey and his English is good because he is engaged to a woman from New Zealand and they Skype everyday. He says he plays a ten string guitar, something traditional here, and has a number of other instruments in his house. His father is an aging doctor and their family has been in this town for a long time. He also talked about a man who lives next to him on a lake that makes his own Cachaça. He offered to find me the part in Campinhas when he goes for business, but I would rather have the mission as of now. Met up with the neighbors at their bakery, still the same good folks. I asked for a piece of pudding, they make a flan that is harder than most other flan one might encounter. The girl explained how they do this, but I didn’t understand enough. In any case, I wanted to take it back to the house, but they served it on a plate for me. Alas. Met some nice folks who said they would help show me around, went to Jacqueline’s big house where they served up some cake and coffee. Earlier in the day, Daniela came by, she is the owner of a school called CNA in Borborema. She dropped off some teaching materials and we had a chat about me going there to work. As it stands I will go there on Monday and Wednesday each week for maybe 8 hours and teach some small classes and help some of the teachers as well. I told her that I think these days will work and today I will be talking with Mario at the school here in Novo Horizonte about helping them out as well. Sonia’s two daughters, Jacqueline and Michele came by with their husbands and kids and we took Dad and Sonia to the bus station. They are off to Reno for a stretch and leaving the house to me. It’s hot. The end of summer here and it gets up to the high eighty’s and hovers there for a long time in the day. They say the rains this year were terrible strong, and I hope to catch one before the fast summer rains become the easy autumn showers. I seem to remember enough Portuguese to get by for now. People here go at that South American pace, saving all their impatience for when they drive. I promised Sonia that the birds and the cats will not die. It is time to honor that promise with a little food.