i finally picked up the pieces

of a facebook account i had started ages ago and never checked. it's a national obsession for a reason, i suppose, and has proved to be a good way of remembering the faces and names of fun people i've met on this trip.

of course i've found people that i thought i would never see again-- girls i drank schnapps with in a german hotel room when i was fifteen, a friend from arizona who shared his dried fish snacks and studied parapsychology with me so we could catch the ghosts we imagined in our houses.

but i was surprised to be contacted by one fred cutty, a person whose last name i never even knew but who managed to find me after almost 6 years...

i was in brazil. the '03 world social forum was over and i wasn't sure where to go next. i sat in the park with my backpack, eating my third 20 cent ice cream cone of the day, and two boys parked themselves on the bench next to me. their names were freddy ("fredge") and raul, local kids who had attended the forum for a lark. we chatted about the forum; they spoke portuguese and i spoke spanish and it somehow didn't even register that they were different languages.

they asked me what i was doing next, blah blah... "oh, stay with us!" they said. i thought about it. go home with two brazilian guys that live alone? hmmm... oh jana, they're 17. it will be fine. i went.

raul was cute, dark hair flopping in his eyes; relatives in california meant that his english was pretty good. he wanted to practice. freddy was quiet, taller. he spoke little english, which meant that raul's larger personality and louder mouth got most of the airtime. i cooked food for them, happy to use a kitchen after months of traveling. they talked about girls, ate like teenage boys.

i could tell they were excited to have a strange blond woman in the house. i wondered how they lived alone so young. "oh, my mom owns this place but she doesn't live here," said fred. "she comes here like once a year." they put me up in a bedroom off the hall. it had a dresser in it, not much else. a real bed was delicious. i slept in for the first time in months.

the boys had summer jobs. i spent the days wandering around porto alegre, finding bookstores and bars and eating lots of 20 cent ice creams. in the evenings we'd smoke pot, cook, laugh. fred showed me family pictures; i wondered again how his mother could leave him alone like this. we talked about home. he taught me the word "saudade," the most beautiful word for a weary traveler. "it is, you know, when you think of the beauty of your family, when you are sad and happy at the same time?" the dictionary translates it as "nostalgia," but what freddy was talking about doesn't have the association with antiquity, with heirlooms and childhood. saudade is like homesickness, but in a good way-- the way that it's so damn nice to miss somebody you love, because it proves to you just how much you need them in your life.

i was used to waking up alone in their house. my eyes opened when the door creaked open. someone is here. a dark shadow came in, pulled open drawers, pulled things out haphazardly, looking for-- jewels? money?
oh shit oh shit oh shit. someone's broken in, i'm alone in a brazilian apartment. oh shit. the shape pulled clothes out of drawers, threw them on the floor. i stayed absolutely still. maybe he won't see me. the light flicked on as the shape turned around...
she screamed. i sat up, pulling the sheet around my almost-nakedness. she started to talk excitedly in portuguese. oh my god, it's fred's MOM.
i began to explain myself in spanish. her face was confused as she tried to put together the pieces-- a naked bald girl speaking spanish with an american accent is sleeping in her BED?
of course, i was just as confused, and the details became obvious in flashes: this is his mom's BEDROOM, oh my god, she probably comes here all the TIME, they just wanted me to think they were COOL and had their own apartment...

"are you freddy's girlfriend?" she asked. "are you sleeping with my son?"
"oh, no, no, no..." i stammered. trying to explain myself. i was mortified. freddy, you're dead, i thought.
she gathered her things and left, apparently deciding i was harmless and not worth the time to figure out.

freddy and raul laughed til they cried when they heard my story.

tenho saudade, y'all. i'm almost home.