Crossing the River Read Online Free PDF Page B

greens—which chugged, like strings of sorbet-colored train cars, up fingerlike ridges that stretched away from the river.
    Crossing another praça , a plaza, at the top of the hill, we rang a buzzer outside tall metal doors and waited to be admitted to the imposing block of building that was Colegio Imaculada Conceiçao. Once in, we peered into the front office through a bank-teller-like barred window. Elizia, the school’s bookkeeper and general manager, peered back.
    â€œ Vocês vem de onde?! ” she asked. “You come from where?!”
    Tall and black, with 1950s glasses, she wore a form-fitting T-shirt emblazoned with the Virgin Mary—in sequins. We suspected the school might not be what we’d anticipated. Then her stern face unexpectedly exploded into laughter.
    â€œ Vêm por aqui! ”—Come here!—she commanded, and she led us into the cavernous office of the school’s director, Irma , or Sister, Francisca. Tiny and white, with a broad smile, twinkling eyes, and gray hair poking out from under her habit, Irma Francisca sat behind a broad, immaculately shining desk backed by Christ bleeding on the cross. Peter and I sat down across from her. Peter was beginning to sweat through his shirt, apprehensive about the sure-to-be cryptic conversation ahead. We bore in, trying desperately to understand what she was saying and to make sure she understood us. That she understood that we had two kids who wanted to come to her school; two non-Portuguese-speaking kids who would come sit in class and understand nothing.
    I realize one could wonder why we thought this would be a goodidea; one might think that from an educational standpoint, the request sounded absurd. But Peter and I hadn’t thought twice about it, nor had our kids. After all, my parents had done this to me, and I had been the same age as Skyler. I had attended Franciscan de Marie, a small French school in Cairo. It catered to the kids of diplomats. In those first few months, as I sat blankly listening to the sounds of this foreign language washing over me, one might think I would have been bored, or distressed. But I don’t remember being either. I suppose it’s like being a toddler, or a dog, trying to figure out what sound or word goes with what, whether the teacher or your fellow students are happy or upset, and whether they’re upset with you. I remember walking up, one by one, to stand next to our teacher, Soeur Marguerite, to recite a memorized poem or paragraph out of our science text. I’d deciphered the content from a dictionary and the pictures—this must be about the measurement of liquids; this about solids and gases. The fact is, you begin to ferret out meaning almost immediately with any tools you have, interpreting body language and actions—everyone is getting up and leaving; it must be recess. Peter and I knew our kids would miss some content areas like seventh-grade social studies. But we weren’t worried. Whatever they might be missing was likely to be covered again in high school. The one high school course Molly had to take that year in order to graduate was U.S. History. She could take it online. Nothing felt irreplaceable. In our family-value system, the advantages of learning to be fluent in another language, of learning that one could start from scratch and successfully navigate another culture, would far outweigh the disadvantages. But no one said it would be fun or easy. I’m not sure Molly and Skyler quite understood that.
    Elizia and Irma Francisca were quite the odd couple. But they seemed curious about us, kind, and, by the end of our conference, open to taking us in.
    Penedo seemed to fit the bill: not too big, not too small; not on the ocean, but close to the ocean and on a big river; a charming hill town with colonial architecture, a lively market, friendly people, a possible school. In the end, we chose Penedo largely for its aesthetics.
    Well, not