When I was 10 years old, the summer of my fourth grade year my mother sent me to Rio de Janiero to stay with family for two months. I had been once before when I was four, but this was my first time really experiencing the city and understanding where my mother was born. I remember a lot of things about that trip, but my first day there sticks in my mind more than anything else. I remember being so excited to see my family, I remember being picked up from the airport and for the first time realizing that I did not speak Portuguese that well and wondering how I was going to tell these people that I was hungry? I panicked for about 5 seconds as I went over some phrases and hand gestures that would keep me from starving. I remember my cousin climbing a tree in her neighbor’s yard to pick a guava berry. It was gross when I tasted it but by the time I left Brazil I was eating them regularly. I also remember saying a curse word in Portuguese that made that same cousin gasp (my mother loved teaching me those).
Being there was perfect at that age. I’ve been back twice since then and although I’ve had fun during those most recent visits, that time when I was ten was perfect. Everything was fun, everything was new, the smells the tastes the sounds. I wish I could live there for a year to just explore and inhale everything the way I did back then. Anyway, here is a little collage of a place that is very much apart of me.
