Day one of my time here in Brazil was mostly occupied with going through security and traveling. Today, I was able to do and see more than that. My day started as I ate breakfast late in the morning, unpacked, met lots of people, and generally got settled. I was also able to help dad and his computer friend with setting up the network. They had gotten the server configured last night, but they needed a wire run from one floor to the other in order to be able to have phone and networking capabilities at the same time.
So that’s how I found myself crawling around in the mission house attic this morning, accessible only by ladder, with nothing but a two-by-four keeping me from falling through the ceiling below. Where’s my sense of adventure, you may ask. Well, I realized something very important as I was unraveling Ethernet cable. Heat rises. And when the average temperature this time of year is a hundred degrees, there’s a lot of heat in an attic space. Especially if one is balancing very carefully on a beam, pulling, pushing, breathing hard, and wearing a dark shirt. The cable also got stuck in the pipe I was pushing it through, so that complicated things a bit as well.
We finally worked that issue out, but fifteen minutes in an improvised sauna had taken its toll on my shirt. So, if any of you reading this have never been to Brazil, and you want to know what to expect, it’s really hot, it’s really wet, and drink a lot, because you’ll sweat. That about sums it up. Maybe a description like, “Wrap yourself in insulation and go sit by a woodstove in the summer” would work as well.
Dad and his friend worked with computers for a lot of the afternoon. While they did that, I mostly watched, rested, and tried to cool off in the server room. I also spent some time looking at the plants that grow around the house. They have palm trees, ferns, and cool bushes. The grass is also really green here in Brazil. And even though we are in the middle of a city with around 2 million inhabitants, it sometimes feels like we are off in the jungle somewhere.
The house that we are staying at was one a few of the places that needs the new phones. Another site that will be getting them is a school downriver. In order to figure out what we needed to do with the phones, we needed to visit the site where they would be used. So, without further ado, dad and I packed a small bag of clothes, and we headed back on the road, er, river. Señor Philipe took us first in a car, and then in a boat, and then we were at the boarding school. Once we got there, he introduced us to his wife and six children. I mostly hung out with the three eldest kids: Jessica, Karina, and Logan.
There aren’t that many people in the village, but most of the kids are around my age. Unlike many of the times that I’ve met people, they were really friendly, and they opened up to include me very quickly. They also invited me to play soccer with them that night after supper (which was delicious, by the way), something I couldn’t possibly refuse. We played on a basketball court, which was really cool, because there was more passing and shooting than there was running. I hadn’t played soccer in over a year, but my love for the game was reborn, and I enjoyed the friendly yet competitive games more than anything I’ve experienced here in Brazil so far.
The generator supplied power is turned off every night at 10:00, so we stopped playing right before then and put up everything we’d used. Later that night, while getting ready for bed, I experienced the wonderful feeling of a shower with no hot water. Fortunately, the spider sharing the shower with me kept me from dillydallying too much. Yeah, lovely. However, on looking back at my first day here at the school, I would have to say that it was a wonderful day, in a wonderful place. Meeting new people, eating new food, taking a boat ride down the Amazon, and playing soccer; who could ask for more?
