Small Small Small World

Ilha Grande is in fact, a very large island. It's 193 square kilometers, with various settlements that have tourist accommodations.

I'm really good at remembering faces, but not names. I can pick a face out of a crowd and remember everything about that person, whether we were friends or even if we only met briefly. But just sometimes, I remember a name and a face, instantly.

Yesterday, we were sitting on the dock in the teeny tiny beach town in Ilha Grande, waiting for the slightly crazy captain to get his boat running so we could get back to the mainland. We were chatting with this pompous Argentine man and peering over the side of the dock at the swarms of fish, and I was congratulating myself for managing to have a conversation in Spanish without sounding like a mental patient.

We sat down. We stood up. The captain was completely MIA. So we waited, and waited some more. Then two women and a little girl arrived with their luggage, also waiting for the crazy captain.

I absently stared at the newcomers, and I squinted at one of the women. She looked SO familiar, but it didn't seem humanly possible that I could run into anyone I knew in such an isolated place. So I stared. She stared back. I noticed she was with a little girl. I did some calculations. And I noticed she was speaking Spanish to one of the other women.  And I stared some more.

After sufficient staring, the woman took the little girl back down to the beach. I stopped her and asked her in Spanish, "Are you V*?"

She said "Yes! I knew I recognized you!"

And lo and behold, it was V.

V. works at the exchange program office in Buenos Aires where I studied for six months, and we were friendly, since the staff at the office contained the few portenos I could actually stand, and in fact really liked. She was on vacation with her little girl, on the exact same beach we were and was leaving on the same day at the exact same time we were.

We chatted a little, and took the same rusty, leaky fishing boat back to the mainland, where we said goodbye, and I marveled at what an incredibly odd place the world is.

Comments

[Anne]

Hi there - I've been reading your blog for a while now, and just wanted to say thanks for giving such great information on Rio. My husband and I are moving to Rio in a few weeks, and although I read a lot of guide books, your site is the only thing I've found that I feel gives me a good picture of what my day-to-day life might be like. I'm glad to know that Rio is much more than what I'd previously heard about (beach and crime, mostly)!