Stories Inspired by Life in Rural Brazil
Commentary on political happenings and social conditions
Dear friends, for the next few weeks I’ll be off taking a class in our state capital of Belo Horizonte (if you want to sound like a local say: “Beh-Agha” — B.H.). Travel always gets my pen (cursor?) rolling, and I have no doubt that I’ll have lots of observations and crônicas to tell by …
I have stumbled across a Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy here at the farm. Case in point: I have cleared by hand over two acres of land, built a garden, pruned fruit trees, scraped the corral clean of manure, trimmed the shrubs by hand with a machete, repaired and laid water lines, cleaned the cistern …
See those thorns the size of effing knitting needles? That’s a wild lemon tree, which grow all over our property. Good for caipirinhas at the end of a long day, not so good for those doing the yardwork. It seems everything has thorns here. Last year started counting thorny and stinging plant varieties as a way to …
“O, coitado… (oh, poor bastard…)” I breathed as he wobbled out of the car. Hot and sweaty from this 90-degree cloudless day (why did no one warn me that almost every day from December to June is like this in Brazil?), and none too steady on his feet he clearly had tired of waiting in the car …
Talk about learning the hard way: I have learned there are different grades of artisanal cachaça. All are made from sugar cane, but it seems that it makes a huge difference what type of sugar cane is used and how young (thus juicier) the cane is. How did I learn this? What bumps and bruises …
Yesterday our cousin told us this story: It was a church event and we had bought some fireworks to celebrate. We set them up outside the church and everyone lined up outside to watch. Unfortunately the fireworks flopped over as they were going off and started shooting into the crowd! WHOOSH! WHOOSH! People scattered; the …
There is nothing in this world like fresh, ripe pineapple. Sweet, juicy, sunshine. Today’s deal was five pineapples for R$5.00 (less than USD$2.50). How did we get such an amazing price? They were sold to us off a truck traveling through town. In Brazil you often get deals like this. A trucks flips over, cargo …
Driving spring rains washed out a bridge this week. We drove this route just a few weeks ago on the way back from the airport. Mind you, this was the good road to take during the rainy season. The bridge is closed to all traffic, even foot traffic. It will be closed for a while …
It was a particularly nasty work-related accident. One of our best friends had cut himself on both his arm and his belly with a granite sander. We were all worried, and glad to hear that he was Ok. This was the text I sent to his wife: “That goodness he’s Ok. God bless. You two …
