Chapter 2: 1984 all over again

Wednesday, March 7^th 1984 - Uberlândia, Brazil

As I set my birthday presents on my desk, I thought about recent events. When I had last gone to bed, I was an out of shape fifty-five year old. When I woke up this morning, everything pointed out to me having somehow made a trip forty years into my past. Alternatively, this could be a dream from which I will soon wake up. A third option occurred to me as I was putting on my watch, which I found laying on the desk. What I remembered as the past forty years of my life might have been a bad dream.

A quick look at the date on my watch - and the wall calendar next to my desk - confirmed that today was Ash Wednesday, March 7^th, 1984. I chuckled as I remembered some of my high school friends calling it "Brazil's National Hangover Day." That name was only half in jest since Carnival weekend (the Brazilian version of Mardi-Gras) ends the night of Terça Gorda (Fat Tuesday.) I have since forgotten who first suggested that name; but, later observations proved that idea to be somewhat correct. Unlike what our satiric name implied, only a small portion of Brazilians actually wake up on Ash Wednesday feeling hung over. That number is several times more than usual though.

Nearly ninety percent of the people living in Brazil at this time are, at least nominally, Catholic. Even though officially there is separation of church and state, because of the number of adherents, several legal holidays, including Ash Wednesday, exist because of the influence of the Catholic church. While I was growing up, Ash Wednesday was a half holiday, with most official institutions, many banks, and other private businesses being closed until noon.

As I was reminiscing, I moved towards the open window at the foot of my bed. Looking outside, I saw something that still stuck me as slightly ironic. From that window, I could see over the roof of the house behind the one I lived, and spot part of the roof of my high school located across the street from it. The irony was, I would have to walk nearly two blocks to get to school. This was because, in spite of my room being just over half a block from school propriety, the walls surrounding the yards of the houses between my home and the school gates, prevented me from taking a short cut.

Even so, while I studied at "Escola Estadual Messias Pedreiro" (EEMP, literally School State Messiah Mason or Mason Messiah State School), I had a slight advantage over most of my classmates in terms of how long it took me to get to school. In fact, quite often I would only leave my house after the five-minute warning siren announced to the neighborhood that a new day of classes was about to begin.

Deciding not to do that today, I picked up my book bag, put it on my back, and started walking out of the bedroom. As I got to the top of the stairs, a thought occurred to me. I set the backpack down, opened it and pulled one of my notebooks out.

Opening the notebook, I checked this year's class schedule, which I had written down inside the front cover. I was glad I did, since it would have been a little embarrassing to show up for class with the textbooks for Friday's classes still in the bag. Hurrying, I went back to my room to replace those with the correct ones.

With the correct books, I made my way downstairs, passing Marilyn as she went up to her room. "Going back to bed?" I teased, remembering that she went to school in the afternoon.

"Since I am up, I am going to do something you don't."

"What is that?" I asked, wondering what she was talking about.

"I am going to study," she smirked.

Ouch, that hurt, especially since it was true my first time around. I have learned my lesson, even though it took many years, and that is going to change, I promised myself as I heard her close her door. Downstairs, I saw Mom sitting on the couch reading the paper and I told as I was walking though the door, "I'm taking off now. See you after school Mom."

"Have a good day son, We'll be seeing you then."

Closing the door behind me, I saw that Dad's car was not in the carport. Lisa probably missed the bus again and Dad had to take her to school since he normally leaves for work after I do, I thought as I started down the street towards school. As I was walking, a minor concern came to my mind as I thought about the fact I had not used Portuguese in a couple of decades.

I made it to school without incident, not that there was reason to expect any. Once I got there though, I realized I had a bit of a problem, although not the one I was expecting. Many of my fellow students greeted me by name. While I had no problems in understanding them, my difficulty came in remembering the names of some of my friends and acquaintances. I always had been bad with names, and, not having any contact with them in over thirty-five years, just made that worse. It did not help that I remembered that many people knew me by name without me having met them since I was one of the few foreigners studying here.

The first person whose name I remembered was my best friend from our last year of grade school to the end of our second year in high school together, Washington Martins. I started to recognize him as he was talking to another friend of ours and I could only see him in profile. I knew for sure once who he was once I saw the birthmark located next to his right eye. Washington was one of the class clowns, which, was somewhat ironic considering that his birthmark was about the size, shape, and location a sad clown might have a tear painted on his face.

We chatted a bit, actually he talked, and I answered his questions for a couple of minutes before he walked over to the water fountain line to get a drink before classes started. While I was talking to Washington, I decided that I should do my best to avoid situations or conversations where people were mentioned by name until I could remember more of them. I would correct this problem using two ways. First, I would try to make note of a person's name when someone else mentioned it. Secondly, I would try to reconnect the faces with the names of my classmates as I heard them replying for roll call and go from there.

Actually, for the most part, I just was asked easy questions to answer such as, "How do you do?" While I was doing this, I kept hoping not to miss any of my friends and unintentionally snub one or more of them.

"What did you do over Carnival, Keith?" Came a question from behind me.

Turning around I saw that it was someone else in my close circle of friends during both grade and high school, Alessandra Ribeiro. "Not much, just the usual, trying to stay out of trouble." I replied with a smile on my face. Actually, it had been over twenty-five years since I had even considered doing something for Carnival. While Alessandra and I had been good friends growing up, I lost contact with her after I had gone off to College. That was primarily my fault since I took awhile to get around to writing her with my address. When I finally wrote her a letter, I realized that at some point I had lost her address. I don't know why she did not try to get my address from my parents, but, since she never met them, she might have decided to avoid a potentially awkward situation. I also don't remember why I did not just send that letter in an envelope to my folks for them to send it on to her.

No sooner had the words left my mouth than a bell rang indicating the start of another day of classes. Alessa and I quickly made my way to our classroom and sat down in our usual spots towards the back of the room.

A few minutes after class had started, it was interrupted. Standing at the door was EEMP's Principal Renata Fonseca, and the first girl I had a crush on, Kristina Mardel. "Keith Anderson, please come up front."

As I made my way to the front, Principal Renata continued, "Class, this is Kristina Mardel, and she is an exchange student from the United States. She is being placed in this class so that Keith can help her until she understands at least a little bit of Portuguese. Keith, translate what I just said to Kristina."

After I had translated her words, Principal Renata turned to me and said, "Keith, you can now return to your seat and have Kristina take the empty desk next to you."

As we made our way towards the back, she then apologized to our teacher for interrupting her class, and walked out the door.

A thought occurred to me as Kristina sat down beside me. I could try to make different choices than I had made the first time around. While my previous life was nothing to write home about, it could have been worse. After all, I have to admit it stopped just short of being the real life basis of a catastrophe movie. I also figured that in the worst case scenario, I would wake up as a fifty-five year old man in Kansas City and find out that nothing have changed.

The rest of my first period class passed quickly without any further interruptions. When our teacher restarted her lecture, I made a point of taking good notes and paying attention to her. This was in sharp contrast to my previous habit of daydreaming about interstellar combat. That habit would continue in college, the only difference being that the subject of my daydreams changed to "dream computer setups." Years later, I realized that part of the reason I did so poorly in college was that I spent a great deal of time daydreaming or doodling in class, instead of paying attention and writing things down.

Between our first and second period classes, I shook Kristina's hand and said, "As Principal Renata mentioned, my name is Keith Anderson. I was born in the United States, in the city of Fort Worth, Texas to be more precise. I've actually lived here in Uberlândia for most of my life, with my family moving here when I was two. Since we first moved here, my family has lived in the States on three different occasions for about one year each for a total of nearly three years. The reason I can understand and speak English is a result of my parents deciding that we should speak English most of the time at home."

It felt somewhat odd talking to someone in English here at school, but I could tell that Kris was relieved to be able to talk to at least one person. I also introduced her to Alessandra as my best female friend here at school, but I made it clear that Alessandra was not my girlfriend.

During the second period class, I noticed several times when I looked up that Kris seemed to concentrate on me more than the book she had been reading during first period. I did catch her, out of the corner of my eye, watching me take a lot more notes than most of the other students. Granted, some of the other students in our classroom were as attentive on what the teacher was saying as I was. On the other hand, several students were like I had been my first time around, barely paying attention to her.

In the short break between the second and third periods, Kristina commented, "Keith, do you always pay this much attention in class, or was it just a subject that you like?"

"No to both questions. I am actually fairly indifferent to history. My favorite subject is math which is the next class. This weekend I made a resolution to try to pay more attention in class. Last week I was like those two," pointing to the couple just in front of us, who had spent the entire class passing notes to each other.

Glancing at my notes she replied, "I see that you managed to copy everything that was written on the blackboard. Was there any particular reason you wrote some additional comments in English?"

"Well, those are my personal notes. Some of them will be in English, others in Portuguese and, more likely than not, some will be a mixture of the two languages. Since they are personal notes, I'm not worried about others having to read them. In fact, you are probably the only other person in this class that can read the notes I take in English." Just then, our third period teacher entered the classroom. As she started class a quick thought ran through my mind. While what I told Kristina was true, I had not realized what I had done until she pointed that out to me.

As I started taking notes, I noticed that Kristina had put the novel she was reading during the first two periods back into her book bag. Instead of reading, she had started writing something in a notebook. My first thought was that she was writing a letter home, something that I remembered her doing many times from my first go around. She caught me looking at her, and smiling, discretely pointed towards the front of the class, reminding me of what I had told her just moments before.

One disturbing revelation, during those first three classes, was how much of the material we were covering that I had forgotten over the past forty years. An even more disturbing thought came to me during third period. Part of what I was considering to be something I had forgotten might actually be a concept that, due to my daydreaming, I never learned. Not learning some basic concepts in high school would certainly affect my college career, especially with my study and class habits.

Because of those conclusions, I decided that I would also have to fix those problems as soon as possible. As a result, instead of not paying much attention in class - as was the case many times in my former life - I found myself furiously copying what the teacher would write on the blackboard, and also jotting down some personal notes on the edge of my notebooks.

During the twenty-minute recess between the third and fourth period classes, I guided Kristina to some steps that were used as bleachers and sat down next to her. I then started asking Kristina some about her background. Before Kristina started her answer, I felt a tap on my shoulder.

"You sure work fast," Alessandra said in Portuguese as she sat down on the step above and between to us. "So, are you going to help me talk to your new friend?"

"Alessandra, I am just trying to be friends with her," I replied in the same language. Seeing her start to pout I continued, "I will be happy to translate for you though."

As Alessandra sat down step above us, I was struck by a sense of déjà vu. I vaguely remembered having this same conversation the first time around.

"So Kristina, How long will you be staying here in Brazil?"

After I had translated, came the reply, "I will be staying here until about the fifteenth of December. Where are you from Alessandra?

As I started to translate, I noticed that Alessandra had slightly opened her mouth then closed it as if she had understood the question.

"I am an Uberlandense, having been born and grown up here in Uberlândia. Where are you from in the States?"