Arrival (June 8th-9th)

I took a 1:15 AM flight from São Paulo — at the southern end of the country — to Recife, in the northeast. I had been at the airport all day, struggling to stay awake. When we finally were called to board the plane, at around 12:45, I shuffled down the aisle, shoved my backpack into the overhead bin, and slumped down into my window seat — thank goodness for being able to lean against the wall! — and fell completely asleep.

I woke up as we were starting our descent, around 4:00. My ears hurt. At first I couldn’t tell whether or not we had landed. The clouds seemed to stretch out like the tarmac just below the plane’s wing. Then the flight attendant’s voice came over the intercom, telling us to stow our tray tables and put up our seatbacks.

Inside the terminal, I got my big backpack and my sleeping bag from the carousel and went out to the lobby to read for an hour. At 5:10, I went outside to get a taxi to the bus station. We drove through the nearly deserted streets in half-light. The driver seemed to consider red lights to be more of a suggestion than a mandate to stop, but I didn’t really care. The storefronts gliding by in the blue glow seemed serene. The other cars slipped past us with little sound. I love the early morning, and scenes like this are why.

By the time I found myself on the 6:00 bus to Caruaru, it had become full daylight outside. We shrugged off the last buildings of Recife a few hundred meters onto the highway, and soon we were rumbling through fields of sugar cane and low scrub. The phrase ‘rolling hills’ is probably overused, but really, it is the only way to describe the terrain through which we passed. I remember one place in particular, where a rough wooden picket fence followed an elegantly undulating line leading away from the road, trailing off behind a final perfect dome of vibrantly green grass. Really, this place is gorgeous.

As buildings began to cluster in along the roadsides again, I leaned forward to watch for the Igreja do Rosário: my stop. As we sped into the center of the city, I spied Cinevídeo, the movie store which occupies the first floor of our building. I pushed my way out of the bus, nearly held back by my sleeping bag dragging across the seatbacks, and took a deep breath. Turning back the way I’d come, I walked two blocks down the road, and through a low metal gate, a light wrought-iron door, up a flight of concrete steps onto a narrow second-story patio, to a second metal door which marked the entrance to our apartment. The rest of the staff was there to welcome me in. I took a nap.

We spent the next few days on training: doing paperwork, re-learning AMIGOS’ rules and regulations, practicing our Portuguese, and being simultaneously nervous and ecstatic about our upcoming town survey, when we would go out on our own to visit the communities where we’d have volunteers for the summer, spending a night in each one collecting information about potential host families and food schedules and setting up emergency procedures. We also had some time to poke around Caruaru, do some errands, and send some brief e-mails. Mostly, however, we talked and ate, wondering what we would find when we got to our towns.