A correction first: Our Kombi is a 2012, not a 2014. The registration papers don’t lie.

Hello everyone, it turns out that a South American respiratory virus is just as miserable to catch as a North American respiratory virus. We are thankful so far that it’s only a respiratory virus. Or it might just be that we got into a moldy house today. We don’t know.

The location I worked this last week was primarily on the Rua Eldorado, in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Novo Hamburgo. The road runs along an open sewer by the river dike. This combination of low-lying land by a river dike by an open sewer means that floods over the dike run through the sewer and deposit deposits across the neighborhood. They do not make for the most ideal sanitary conditions. This is the reason, I suppose, for the bleach and disinfectant mixture.

I’ve been thinking about a couple different things. The first is how these unfortunate people cling on. In the location I’ve been all week, they’ve been flooded twice in the last year. The first time it was only a meter deep, but this time it was basically up to the roof. Yet, instead of packing up, they head back in and clean up, to carry on with their life. Perhaps it is because this is all they know, and they don’t feel like they can leave it behind. One of the Brazilians on the crew explained that they might have gotten the house from their parents, and their only real choice would be to walk away from the property and all that they have.

Another thing I find admirable about these people is that they do what they can to build a dwelling and live in it. Unlike California, I have not yet seen a tent city here. I’ve seen the poorest part of town, but yet no tent city. Everyone I’ve seen is able to talk coherently, unlike some unfortunate souls I’ve seen in California. These people are friendly and respectable. I wish that they could better their situation and find new places to live outside of the danger zone.

Base camp is in the county of Lomba Grande (Big Hill). Accommodations are quite spartan by Brazilian standards, but I find them to be comfortable, even though I can hear every snore in this entire building, along with snores in all buildings within a kilometer radius. Well, no, I can’t actually hear the snores in a kilometer radius, but the neighborhood dogs do occasionally like to party.

Three of the Brazilian brethren are leaving early in the morning Saturday to head back to Florianópolis and then Goias. As I write this, no doubt, four young men from North America are hurtling southward in one or more winged metal tubes to take their place. They will land in Florianópolis and then take the bus to Novo Hamburgo. They should be here by Sunday morning.

That’s all for now, it’s after midnight and I’m not fighting sleep. Maybe it’s the three drinks of yerba mate I had tonight.