Schnecken on the run

Brazil is the last country on our journey through South America and we are very happy, that our first week there was already added to one of our „round the world“ highlights.

We started in Sao Paulo, where we stayed with Renata, a friend I have known for more than 10 years. She nicely welcomed us and took us out with her husband to a great Rodizio. A perfect first day!

The next morning we began our mission and flew to Curitiba in the south of Brazil. About 100 years ago, in 1914, my mothers uncle Karl (I think that makes him my great uncle) left Germany for Brazil. He found a job, a wife and started a new life and a family. After his daughter visited Germany in 1953, there was unfortunately no more contact to Germany until my mom decided to find our brazilian relatives in the early 90´s. I remember how my mom had told us one day, that she found this daughter through an brazilian organization that helps finding relatives. In that year my mom and her had written each other a couple of letters, before the contact once more broke up.
Now that it is my third time to Brazil I thought, it was about time to see, what my cousins over there look like (-;

My mom sent me all the possible information and pictures that she had. I knew, the relatives had a shop. I knew names and streets and started researching on the internet. Google didn´t help and I decided to write to all the people we found on Facebook, who had the name I searched for. But „Maria“ and „Oliviera“ are not uncommon names, so I got answers and good luck wishes from all spanish speaking countries in the world and finally due to „unnormal“ behaviour, Facebook blocked me and my account for a couple of days. I realized that all this research was not successfull and decided, that finally we would have to make our way to that village named Rio Negrinho and look for the relatives without a pre-warning. So I stopped further research and well in advance, we booked a flight from Sao Paulo to Curitiba, two hours away by bus from Rio Negrinho.

Suddenly the story rapidly took a turn for the best. The two Brazilians we met on our 4 day Santa Cruz Trek in Peru told us, that they live in Curitiba. What a suprise! We explained, that we would would be flying there and we arranged to meet up with them. We told them our „aim“ and Ariani, the girl from Curitiba, mentioned that she had a friend in Rio Negrinho who might be able to help. We wrote and forwarded emails with Ariani and her friends. Two days later and a couple of days before we would go to Rio Negrinho, we got an email from Helena…my new cousin in Brazil (-;  She and her sister Michelle are the grandchildren of the uncle who left Germany. They were excited to meet their counterparts from Germany.

The following week was full of excitement and fantastic events. We stayed for two nights in Curitiba with our new friends, who were great hosts and showed us around. They called our family in Rio Negrinho and told them which bus we would take, but Helena insisted on picking us up. We were standing in front of the apartment on a busy street anxiously awaiting Helena´s arrival, my new cousin-to-be, not knowing what car to look for as well as what face to pick out of the crowd. Finally a family SUV appeared and quickly the curious and nervous smiles from both sides met. We had our first warm embrace with the new family…Helena, her husband, Romario and their family friend, who spoke good german and was immediately our translator.

We headed out of Curitiba and after 2 hours on the highway, Romario claimed that it was time for some tasty chicken hearts, french fries and beer. It was quickly obvious to us that we would slip into the „famliy feeling“ very easily

We intended to stay two days, finally we spent a total of almost 5 days with Helena and her family in Rio Negrinho and with Michelle in Camboriu. Helena´s son moved out of his apartment for us and everybody managed in an incredibly short time to make us feel very welcome and at home.

The first day there was a big organized get together. Family and friends gathered, we ate great BBQ, looked through old family pictures and I drew a big family tree to understand how we are connected to each other. At night were having a family party with lots of drinks, laughs and dances in Helena´s house with her and her husband, her kids and her grandchild. Yes, my dear cousin (same age as me) has been a little faster than me and besides her three kids she managed already a cute 4 year old grandchild named Pedro.

We continued to spend a great quality of time with the family members.through out the weekend. They showed us their barn, we visited the parents at their farm, did an hour of unseccessful fishing and had lots of great talks in a fun mix of german, english, portugese and sign language.
Seeing the historical sights in town along with the old house that Karl (his name in brazil was Carlos) and his wife first lived in was a interesting step into the (german) past. A majority of the people here look (for our idea) more european than brazilian. They are blond, white and have light eyes. On top of that, the houses could be right from Europe and the names of streets, shops and families are mostly german.

We loved our time with my two new cousins and their fun families. I am very happy, that we finally met and that it worked out so well. We promised to stay in touch and to continue visiting each other and I am sure, that we will suceed in doing so.

My family has been growing recently and now includes not only Germany and Canada, but as well Brazil (-;