Good Fences - 8/21/14: "GuGú's Truck"

GuGú in front of our house with his weekly
water delivery.
(photo by Brunie Chavez, used with permission.)

Scroll to bottom of page to view my photo for Good Fences Thursday but you might want to read on to understand why I took the photo.

Click on any image for larger views (albeit without captions.) 

When I lived in Brazil as a Peace Corps Volunteer (1967-1969) no one had running water in their homes in the small interior town where I lived.  Some residents of Glória had cisternas in their back yards to collect rain water from their roofs, but most had to haul water themselves or hire someone to carry it from ponds within the city or from a dam which was some distance from the town.  The dam was cleaner, so the other Volunteer and I hired a neighbor to bring us water from the dam which he carried to our house in four large cans on the back of his donkey.

GuGú across from our house with some typical
homes in the background.

GuGú was a handsome boy of about 14. His sister Teresa was one of my high school students, but GuGú was not interested in school. (In Brazil 4 years of elementary school were required at that time, but some children never attended. I'm not sure how many years of school GuGú completed, but it was no more than four.)

Because he spent his teen years hauling water, it's not surprising that GuGú ended up hauling all his life. As an adult he had his own truck to haul large loads between cities.

His sister Teresa completed high school and went on to become a teacher and had two sons after marrying another of my high school students José Augusto, a minister of agriculture.

At Teresa and José Augusto's home, 2011
 L to R: José Augusto, Teresa, Adebaldo and his wife
Maria Adgenil, Brunie, Nadja, me, Brunie's husband Eric.
(José Augusto, Teresa, Adebaldo, and  Nadja were my
students when I taught English as a foreign language
at the high school, more than 40 years earlier. Most
were in their teens, but José Augusto was in his 20s ---the
school had opened only a few years earlier and it was his
first opportunity to attend high school.)

GuGú in front of our house as a truck leaves town
carrying shoppers and vendors from the weekly
market back to their homes in the countryside. The
passengers sit on top of bags of black beans, rice, and
other purchases from the market.

GuGú is on the far right with his wife Damiela and 
daughter Leninha. At the back is his sister Lucinha, Brunie
(the other Volunteer who served with me) and
her husband Eric in 2011 at the home of Teresa &
José Augusto who hosted us for several days in Glória.
(Note the natural red hair on Leninha ---very rare in Brazil.)

GuGú ended up marrying several times, having a load of children, lots of child-support payments, and in poor health with heart disease and diabetes.

GuGú's truck behind a fence in front of his home in the small town of Glória,
in the interior of Brazil's northeast, 2011.