Books and Wine

Yesterday, we got up early and went downtown to the Poços de Caldas regional Superintendent's office.  A car and driver were waiting on us to take us far up into the mountains outside the city to see two schools that are also part of this district.

As we were waiting for everyone to be ready, Rita showed us around the office.  We met all the personnel and saw all the parts of the office.  One room was a large room full of the textbooks for the schools in the region.  The lady in charge saw us looking them over with interest, and she asked us if we would like to have a copy of one.  I immediately said yes.  I have been wanting to get my hands on a text here since I arrived. I am something of a book junkie, and even though my Portuguese reading skills are spotty since I'm running everything I see through a Spanish filter, I can follow a larger percentage of it than you might think.  I also loved having the chance to compare and contrast what a "senior" textbook looks like here and at home for the L1.  It was too good a chance to miss.

She took one out for me and gave Ali a copy of a primary school book, and we thanked her.  While we were waiting, one of the gentlemen from the front also gave us a little book about Poços de Caldas, its history and geography.  Two books in one day from one place, how grand!  

When all was ready, we, along with the supervisor for the schools here and our driver, all folded ourselves into the tiny compact car and headed out.  The paved road wound up the hills and got rougher.  It led to dirt roads, and I almost started laughing.  It looked, for all the world, like Mississippi red dirt roads.  Well, maybe theirs were in better shape.  That illusion would fade, however, if you looked to either side at the jaw-dropping scenery.  We were high up in coffee plantation and banana plantation country.  In fact, they were everywhere around us.  The area was rural, farm country.  We passed pastures of cows, houses that clearly contained working equipment for agriculture.  Again, I had a flash of Mississippi somehow superimposed over this place so far away.  How is it that there can be that feeling in a place so different?  Maybe it is true what my friend Takashi told me when I commented on a similarity about something in Japan: "It is all the Earth.  Of course it is the same."

Along the way, we made a side stop outside the city of Andradas at a vineyard called Casa Geraldo.  We took the tour and did a tasting.  It was a lovely place, and the wines were excellent.  We all bought some, and we each were given a bottle of the beautiful liqueur they make.  I cannot wait to have it at home. It will be a good memory of that trip.

After the wine, we loaded back up in the car for the rest of our journey to the school (which will be discussed in a later blog), and I reflected on how kind everyone is to us here.  In the space of a few short hours, we'd been given books, wine.  It was humbling, heart-warming.  While the wine will be drunk and the book may become tattered around the edges, I know my feeling of gratitude for the kindness I have received here will never fade.