Shortly before my first flight home from Brazil was supposed to take off, I was tucking my heavy black backpack under the seat in front of me. The two bottles of cacha’a (Brazilian brandy) that I had carefully packed among handmade tablecloths hit the airplane floor with a soft thud. To my left, a pale, Portuguese-speaking woman had plunked down with a baby on her lap and tucked a miniature figure of a nun in the seat pocket. When the plane began to taxi, she pulled it out and kissed it, clutching it tightly in the palm of her hand. I, too, wanted to get home safely. I was due back at work in 24 hours, the length of time it takes to fly from Fortaleza, on Brazil’s northeastern coast, to Los Angeles (including three flights and transfer time). And I knew the transition would not be easy. I’d just spent nine days sun-tanning on silky white-sand beaches, bathing in the warm Atlantic Ocean and sleeping in a hammock. Even though I was there during the summer season, I imagined that the climate was always pretty much the same in Fortaleza’warm and breezy’and was told that indeed the area has some of the best consistently nice weather. Fortaleza (which means ‘fortress’ in Portuguese) is one of the northeast’s major fishing ports and a developing city, with high-rise hotels and restaurants sprouting up along the coastline. My first night there, I feasted on delicious white fish saut’ed with oil, lime and spices at a small restaurant along the crowded boardwalk. While I ate, a group of Brazilian men and women across the street performed capoeira, a kind of acrobatic, martial-arts dance to the beat of hand clapping and the plucking of a stringed instrument called a berimbau. These distinct tastes, sounds and lively images of Brazilian nightlife were still vivid in my mind as my plane lifted off the ground and away from the Fortaleza coast, but I already knew what I would miss the most about Brazil: the Lopes family. The Lopeses had agreed to host me and my friend months before we had even met them. My friend, who speaks Portuguese and had vacationed in Brazil prior to our trip, had connected with them through another friend and former exchange student of theirs. We considered ourselves lucky to have the opportunity to stay with a family since home stays often give outsiders an inside look at a culture and its traditions. But, having had two previous and very different home stay experiences’in Ireland and Italy’I knew that it could be really good or really bad, so I tried to curb my expectations. We learned before the trip that the middle child was named Roosevelt, that he spoke English fluently and would be picking us up from the hotel on our second day there. He e-mailed us a short note to tell us a little about himself: ‘I still live with my parents, I teach English and German, but I also speak five foreign languages.’ He was 34 and had two brothers, both married. The oldest was Esdras, 36, a federal policeman, who had the tough look of a cop on duty but the friendly personality of a veterinarian, which he was actually studying to become. The youngest brother, Raudson (the R pronounced like an H), was 31 and he was the most serious of the three, an engineer working for a company that delivered oxygen tanks to hospitals. Roosevelt was named for FDR, thanks to an uncle who revered the U.S. president, and had a strong affinity for American culture, especially music. The first night he took us out on the town, he caught me in a moment as I gazed at the dark sky and distant city lights, and said, ‘All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray…’ Whether or not being safe and warm in L.A. was on my mind, as the Mamas and the Papas so longingly put it, I laughed with him, warmed by his gentle efforts to make a connection with me. Roosevelt turned out to be the person I felt most comfortable with and my link to the rest of the family. The Lopes’s house, like every other one on Rua Israel Bezzera, was hidden from the cobblestone street and other houses by a gate and tall cement walls. When we first pulled up outside, Roosevelt honked his horn several times and a thin, shirtless man with large glasses and buck teeth opened the gate, holding the heavy black doors as we drove in. This was David, ‘as in David and Goliath,’ Roosevelt told us. He was the family’s housekeeper and, we later learned, the butt of many jokes for his clumsiness and inability to clean and prepare things to the satisfaction of Roosevelt’s mother, Eliza. Part of the charm of the Lopes family was their warm sense of humor and the musical sound of their laughter, especially Eliza’s youthful and eye-watering giggles spilling all over the kitchen floor. One morning, at the breakfast table, Roosevelt translated her story about telling David that he couldn’t talk to me because I couldn’t understand Portuguese, and his confusion as to whether it was because I was deaf. Apparently, David had never met anyone who didn’t speak or understand his language. I communicated with Eliza and her quiet husband, Antonio, with the help of Roosevelt and my friend translating for me, although sometimes I had to use my own hand gestures, facial expressions, broken Spanish and the few Portuguese words I knew’mainly Obrigada, which means ‘Thank You.’ They spoke to me in Portuguese and though I didn’t understand the words, I often got the feeling that we were all saying the same thing, like the love scene in Brian Friel’s play ‘Translations,’ when a Gaelic-speaking Irish woman and an English-speaking colonist echo each other without knowing it. Eliza and Antonio told us to call them M’e and Pai (Mom and Dad), initially embracing us because of our connection to an adored exchange student and then taking care of us as if we were their own children. When I got bug bites that itched and swelled on my arms, Eliza rubbed a soothing cream on them; when my stomach was upset, she prepared a special tea and made me take medicine. They put us up in a bedroom with one small twin bed and a baby-blue cotton hammock they hung across the room, where I slept. We had our own bathroom and took cold showers since there was no hot water, which we didn’t miss considering the 80-degree weather. Outside the one large barred window was a cement cage that held Roosevelt’s guard dog, Hercules, a Rottweiler who added a sense of security for the family. Each morning, we woke up to a breakfast of fresh mango juice, strong espresso-like coffee, plates of papaya and melon, a basket of rolls and cheese. During the day, Roosevelt took us to nearby beaches, including a magnificently remote and quiet one called Prainha (‘Little Beach’), where we shared a pot of crab legs that we cracked open on wooden boards before sucking the sea-salty meat from the shells. All the way home, we bumped along the potholed cobblestone streets through tiny villages, listening to Simon and Garfunkel (Roosevelt’s favorite) and ‘feelin’ groovy.’ Each night, we feasted on beef or chicken dishes, generously spiced or prepared in special sauces, accompanied by rice, beans and a salad-type of dish. Eliza and Antonio shared the cooking duties’Antonio in charge of chicken stews and creamy smashed pumpkins while Eliza’s specialty was sweet puddings, mousses and flan-like desserts. On New Year’s Eve, all five of us piled into the car with desserts on our laps and drove about 30 minutes to their bright yellow country house, set on a large plot of land with a pool and barbecue area, all enclosed by a brick wall with spikes along the top. Fruit trees covered the land’ cashew, coconut, lemon and mango’and a family of bald-necked chickens ran wild along with a friendly cat called Gloves (which the Lopeses pronounced Glow-ves). Roosevelt’s brothers came with their wives and children, and on New Year’s Eve Eliza’s 75-year-old father joined in a celebration of food, drinks, music and conversation. We blew up dozens of green, red and white balloons (which stood for hope, love and peace), and Eliza hung them in the barbecue patio area with glittery white letters that spelled out ‘Feliz Ano Novo’ (‘Happy New Year’). Almost everybody changed into crisp white outfits that evening, a Brazilian tradition that signifies hope for peace in the new year. While the food was being prepared, the young adults karaoked to songs like Elton John’s ‘Your Song’ and the Beatles’ ‘Let it Be’ as well as tunes in Portuguese, and we discussed everything from religion and intermarriage to racism and crime. Close to midnight, we helped carry to the table dishes of baked and curried fish, creamy tuna, vegetables, rice and beans, followed by Eliza’s desserts. Fish instead of meat is traditionally served on New Year’s in Brazil. Instead of watching the ball drop in New York City or counting down with the clock, we watched a video of a Frank Sinatra performance and Esdras set off small fireworks before we all exchanged hugs, close to 1 a.m. In all of my 25 years, I don’t remember having such a tradition-filled, festive and yet relaxed New Year’s Eve with my own family, though we do celebrate other holidays with similar gusto. Something about being with the Lopeses and sharing in their customs made me appreciate even more than usual the importance of family gatherings and traditions’new and old. So when I was ‘Homeward Bound’ on January 4, as Roosevelt reminded me by playing the Simon and Garfunkel song in the car on the way to the airport, I also felt the familiar pangs of homesickness that come with leaving a tight-knit and loving family behind. I knew that back in L.A., the brandy at my feet would probably have the same citrusy-sweet taste it had at the seaside restaurant. And I would make my mother sniff the cream-colored lace tablecloth I bought her just so she could smell the musty straw scent of the Central Market. But the Lopeses were another story altogether, one that I couldn’t tuck under the seat in front of me but that I carried with me all the way home.
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