Kyle Berg

For the first part of her time in Curitiba, Valeria lived with other girls in a nice apartment downtown, close to work. But they had some problems and she had difficulty not being with people from her culture. She eventually met an Argentine family that had moved to Curitiba 6 years ago and moved in with them in the suburbs. We visited them Sunday afternoon and ended up staying over and leaving early Monday morning.

Upon meeting the family, I immediately notice the two youngest boys. They were a mirror image of me as a child, had I been Latino. Both were husky and had huge smiles with round cheeks. The older boy was extremely smart and studious. We even went over part of his English homework and he had no problems at all with the grammar. His younger brother was nothing like him and was the troublemaker. He had a great laugh and seemed to always be smiling.

After introductions, we went out back to look at the house the oldest son and his fiancé were constructing. If you thought your in laws lived close, imagine having them live on the same lot! Obviously, I didn’t say anything, but I could not believe how small and how poorly constructed the house was going to be. I had been in such houses before, but it was different to see it being built.

We ate lunch and then took a walk around. Valeria and I headed up the hill while the two boys rode their bikes. I even had them ride their bikes by slowly a couple times and tried to take some sort of cool photo, but I had no idea what I was doing and was basically pushing the button hoping for something to happen. After being back at the house for a few minutes, the youngest one and I walked to the kiosk to buy some more freezies. My favorite moment of the day was when we saw a couple adolescent girls ahead and this 8 year old kid referred to one of them as an “hincha-pelotas.” He had no idea what it meant, but it was priceless.

While the family was at church, Valeria and I watched an excellent Brazilian movie about two musician brothers and the tough journey they had to the top. Fortunately, it had subtitles in English and was not hard to follow. The name escapes me, but I’ll have to get it from Valeria.

When the family returned, we hopped in the car and drove downhill 3 blocks to order pizza. I’m not sure why it was necessary to drive, because we didn’t even bring pizzas back. They were delivered. But I was from out of town and ignorant, so I didn’t ask. The pizzas had very different flavors, but I found them heartier than Argentine pizzas. The gamut ran from ham to stroganoff pizza. Yes it sounds repulsive, but it was pretty good.

That night I didn’t sleep too well. The window in the bedroom lacked a screen and wouldn’t shut, so I was being attacked by mosquitoes. I chose a poorer night’s sleep on the couch rather than waking up with bites from head to toe. In the morning, I thanked them for having me as a guest and we left around 10 to make sure I could check out of my hostel on time.