Christmas Message from Will and Larry
24 december 2000
near Pelotas, Estado do Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil
Here we are in my friend Renato's unfinished house on the banks of a canal just outside the city of Pelotas in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil. We arrived here a couple of days ago and decided we wanted to stay put for Christmas rather than be on the road and end up having to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas day in a service station or worse, on the road in some crowded, dirty town.
Out behind the house, there is a tree with wonderful red blooms. In it's center is an orchid with myriads of small yellow blooms. Under the tree is a mass of Shasta daisies and if you look closely you can watch the hummingbirds. There are small wrens that have a wonderful song that come and go in the eves of the house.
Renato and his wife Cilesia and their son Giacomo live in Pelotas but Renato is building or rather rebuilding a house that was begun by another here a few kilometers from the city in a community surrounded by water. He is a boatman and has three sailboats in various stages of repair near here. That is why we are located on this canal that leads to the river which flows into a large lake called the Lagoa dos Patos which is separated from the sea by a narrow sand bar where we nearly got stuck a few days back. If you want to know more about this then stay tuned to our site on the net where in a few days we will have the blow by blow descriptions of our day(s) in the sand. So far in this trip, we have been pulled by oxen, a road grader and a tractor; all here in the same state.
We have taken over the half-constructed house during the day and then we retreat to our vans parked in the yard at night to sleep. We have decorated the back entrance with Christmas lights and we have a blow up Santa with a candy cane that we bought in Paraguay posted at the door. Jozey made a Merry Christmas banner this morning and we have borrowed the Kovach's Christmas tree. For our Christmas Eve lunch we are having Hungarian goulash courtesy of Vicki on an improvised table made of a door laid on two saw horses covered with a tablecloth of plastic and in its center we have a Christmas tree. No twelve days of Christmas for us! We have just finished Christmas Eve lunch and are now washing up the dishes.
Tonight we plan to go to Renato's house in the city where we will have a traditional Brasilian Christmas dinner complete with sweets made by her mom and brought down 150 miles from Porto Alegre to Pelotas this morning by a friend of Cilesia's.
Will wanted me to write a Christmas message and here it is. We wish we could be with you at Christmas but we can't. We feel very strange in this place 12,000 miles from our home, our loved ones and our dogs. I do not miss Christmas shopping and I do not miss Christmas cards. We do miss the cooler weather since three days ago it was in the 80s here. Today it is in the 70s and we are all in shorts and I am barefoot. But we very much miss our friends and family.
If you want to call us, here is a number where we will be until Wednesday morning at least: the city code here in Brasil for Pelotas is 53 so the number is (53) 278-0086. You will have to find out there how to dial out of the US and also the country code for Brasil. Tonight only we will be at my friend Renato's house and his number is (53) 225-3431.
Right now the time here is 7:14PM so you will know the time difference.
Love to all from Larry and Will
