Okay, okay….The Brazilian and his family made up for the sucky “we celebrate by doing nothing” Christmas with a surprise Birthday Party for me. Complete with home-made appetizers, desserts (created by Marcos & his Mom) and a Hello Kitty Cake! No bad, not bad at all. I only spent a little bit of time apologizing to Marcos for yelling at him earlier for not spending my birthday afternoon with me. Oops.
One of Marcos’ brother-in-laws, his name is “Vagnee”, is one of the happiest people I’ve ever met (even more than MY Brazilian). Marcos shared with me the reason: Vagnee was abandoned by his mother, spending his childhood struggling for shelter and food. Without any education (still unable to read & write) he clawed his way up to making some decent money as a manual laborer and met Marco’s sister, Bi. Vagnee started off the new year with a new job in construction, a new wife, Bi, a new baby and plans to take literacy classes and earn a construction certificate. For the first time ever in his life he started a year with a home, shelter, plenty of food, a family of his own and a motorcycle purchased by his wife, Bi – he never even dared to hope for his own transportation. He was almost ecstatic on New Years.
Marcos shares this story with me as we watch Vangee from across the room dancing and drinking in a state of almost complete ecstasy. Marcos, my own personal life-lessons teacher, is spoon feeding me this little tale of perspective no doubt hoping I will gather something important from Vangee’s story. And I do. I look up at Marcos, visibly moved, and tell him I can relate to Vangee. I understand the deep longing for something, hanging in there until my dreams come to fruition, pursuing against all odds. It’s almost exactly like me wanting an air conditioner so the next time he tells me one of these sob stories I don’t have to swab the sweat out of my eyes. For fuck’s sake. Everybody’got a story.
I am however, happy to report, New Years was a hit…and I really enjoyed personally meeting one of the bosses in this area’s drug cartel and his lovely wife. Now THAT was a treat.
Happy New Year all or Feliz Ano Novu!!