Leaving Peruibe

The good news is we are going to be back on the road to continue our trip. The bad – leaving our Peruibe “family”. After almost 5 months here, we are leaving. The kindness and friendship that has been shown to us is truly a testament to human beings. We befriended our neighbors Fred and Inga who kindly offered us use of their internet, washing machine and shared dinners. Tony and Ingrid and Franklina were steady companions throughout our stay. Luis, unfortunately, had to return to Egypt for business, but we hope to meet with him again. Ecilla, who owns the local TV station and had interviewed us, remained close to the end. We spent a couple of evenings with Patricia, including a memorable night of pizza and episodes of Fawlty Towers in deference to my (and hers) English upbringing. John Cleese still makes me have belly laughs at his antics. Adriana and her husband Nivaldo came to several of our get-togethers and Adriana – God bless her – managed to get my hair back into shape after some previous dreadful highlight work. Their 4 year old daughter, Carol reminded me that I am really looking forward to grand-children. Marcos helped us tremendously and in addition to several shared dinners, we were able to get to know his wife, Anna and daughters Fernanda, Marianna and Amanda. We spent a great evening in Santos with them and Franklina at the Coliseum listening to a symphonic Beatles Tribute night. Fernando came to our home, drove us to Sao Paulo for our trip to the US and introduced us and some of our friends to a great new restaurant. Maureen, we met through Adriana and Nivaldo. Up until our last day we were meeting new people who had heard of us and came to see us. Our final few days was spent packing the motor home for travel. We managed to get in dinners and the afore mentioned concert with friends. Winston sensed changes were in the air again and our sadness at leaving. Our last night, Ecilla cooked a traditional Bahia (east Brazilian) dinner. In addition to her brother Cleber, Franklina, Ingrid and Marcos were also there. After dinner, thanks to a handout from Franklina, they sang a song for us “Cancao da America” by Milton Nascimento which is about friends who leave and friends who return. We ended the evening with an enthusiastic – if slightly off key – rendition of James Taylor’s “You’ve got a friend”. After Marcos drove us back to our motor home for the night, I reminisced and shed some tears. Of sadness but also joy. Before the night was over, I had reminded Franklina, Ecilla and Ingrid – they are my Peruibe “sisters”. I don’t know when but one day I will visit again.