Senhor Luíz

Luíz, as I would like to be able to call a man I consider almost my only friend in this country, just lost his father, a century old. Sr. Luíz will build you a house or fix a drip. He worked a day in my house at the end of December and left it full of the material we bought together. Last week he came back with his hammer and chisel. I work as his apprentice. A minor job was regrouting the tiles in the bathroom along the floorline. I had just finished breaking the old leaky finish when he received the call on his mobile. He cried and changed his clothes and then showed me the correct consistency to mix the grout before heading off to the interior, many hours away. In Brazil, as in the Arabian desert, burial waits for no man.

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