Saturday, January 15, 2011

Tiny little old lady meets Isaac & Aaron


I'm finding that we just can't get enough of wandering aimlessly through the maze of tight streets here. On one of these outings we came across a building a block long that was completely covered in tile. Usually we only see a section of building that is covered in tile so we were oohing and aahing over it as we walked down the street. At the street's end we noticed a door open and inside was a tiny little old lady waving her arms like she wanted us to go away or did she want us to come nearer? All the while she was streaming what was unintelligible Portuguese to us. We didn't want to offend her with our American tourist ways and we kept walking. But she kept getting louder and now it definitely looked like she wanted us to come over. So we timidly crossed the street not knowing for sure if we were guessing her intentions correctly and approached the tiny little old lady dressed in a fuzzy, baby blue robe sporting cartoon poultry on its breast, standing in her gigantic doorway. She was delighted that we had come over to talk to her. We politely said "Desculpe, no Portuguese. English?" She was not discouraged. She continued to talk and talk and talk, all in Portuguese. We sat and listened and laughed and nodded, with an occasional, sim (yes) or muite bom (very good). Through her gesturing we could make out some of what she was saying. She loved the boys. She loved their hair, it was so white. They have my eyes, we are a beautiful family. She giggled as she took Aaron's hand and used it to wipe chocolate from his face. All the while she petted the boys and laughed and smiled and kissed the tops of their heads. After about ten minutes, we left, happy that we had not ignored the little old lady's guestures and filled with a fresh sense of the joy that kids can bring to people's hearts. We find when we travel, that though the places that we see are amazing and beautiful, it is the people that we meet that are the most memorable.











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