#brasil2019

From the time I left the airport to the time i got picked up by my host i encountered zero English speaking humans. This definitely tested the little bit of Portuguese I taught myself. I took one bus, two trains, and another bus to get to where my hosts were picking me up. The trains where filled with people selling all kinds of things to make a bit of cash, candy, chips, sausage, CDs, headphones, sock, WD40, there were even some clowns doing a performance. Took about 7 hours to finally get to the humans with whom I'm staying. They picked me up in a 1960s VW beetle, they call it a fusca here, which we drive everywhere, all terrains, it does surprisingly well. We have David from California, Nico from Chile, and Ivan and his mom, Lia. There is no common language between all of us. Lia speaks only Portuguese, Ivan Spanish and Portuguese, David English and Spanish, Nico all three, and then there's me. Very interesting group. I love Lia very much, the first thing she said to me in very broken English was, "I have small house, big heart." She can see right through me, and me her. We don't need a common language to understand one another. We have been sanding and preparing windows for the house as well as laying the stones of the foundation when it's not raining. All is well.