Becoming a little fatigued as we walked along the beach in Santos, Brasil, about 1.5 hours from São Paulo, we decided to stop at a small, beachside Quiosque to buy some sucu (juice), Guarana (Brasil's loved soda), or my choice, Agua de Coco (coconut juice sipped straight from the freshly machete-ed coconut). Because the Brazilian half of our group went to go buy Picolé (fresh fruit popsicles), I had the privilege of translating our orders to the cashier. After ordering their Guaranas, and ordered from the coconut man, whose push-cart was right next to the Quiosque. He was really "reppin" his team that day. His Santos soccer pride was worn across his chest, probably a little too frequently. Although the jersey was nice, it did not scream the word "clean." It was covered in dirt stains and fuzz-bunnies, like the shirt we all favored as a child and refused to wash as much as we needed to, even when our mothers insisted.
We sat down to rest for a few minutes and drank our Brazilian beverages. We admired the beach, although the water looked a little obscure, probably dark from the nearby port and plethora of cargo ships seeping oil into the what was once clean waves. Then, Kit and I spotted, well, it wasn't exactly hard to miss, but either way, we saw a huge rock that was right off of the coast and both being adventurous in nature, were on a mission to climb it. We had made it part of the way up the ledge, when we hear, "TWEEEEEEEEEET!!!!! TWEEEEEEEET!!!!!! TWEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!!!!!"
We would try to climb the HUGE rock right in front of the lifeguards.
On our way back to meet the rest of the group, I saw the coconut man try to catch my eye on his bicycle. He came up to the benches where we had now returned. He said a few words and held out his jersey. Of course, I couldn't catch all that he said because it was all in Portuguese. Assuming he was trying to sell me that old jersey, I quickly declined with a "Não obrigada," or "No thanks," and he walked away beating his chest with his fist. Dito, pronounced Gee-toe, our host for the weekend, started to question the coconut man's offer as he walked away. He began to snicker and then tried to clarify the man's intentions. Apparently, the coconut man was trying to give me his jersey. He said from the bottom of his "coracaõ," also known as "heart," that he wanted me to have his jersey as a present. He was in love. Man, if I hadn't already known the Portuguese word for heart that day, I would have learned it REALLY FAST with all that repetition.
Of course, by this point, my friends were getting a real kick out of this. The joined in on the Luiz Carlos team and I accepted the Santos jersey. Stained with dirt, and immersed with cologne, the jersey smelled like a junior high kid with his first can of Axe Deodorant. They just don't know when to quit. The smell followed me all the way back to Brasilia in my backpack, along with my friends jokes about my "new engagement" to Luiz Carlos.
Really. The jokes just kept on coming.
Comments
Post a Comment