Sep 16 2008
My Brazillian Brother
When I was in first grade, my family hosted an exchange student from Cachoeiro de Itapemirim, a city in Brazil about 5 hours north of Rio de Janeiro. His name is Moacyr Duarte, but since that’s a bit exotic for rural Ohio I knew him as Cizinho, or Z. Here is a recent picture of Z, his mom, his two sisters and his brother.
(top) Luciana, Mom, Valéria (bottom) Moacyr and Oscar
I never knew Z that well so it was nice to see him again when he visited last month while he was in the country for a big Harley Davidson thing in Milwaukee. Francie and Jim picked him up from the airport and we did the usual hanging out with the group on Friday after he recovered from the long flight. His english was really good considering he wasn’t able to practice much in the past 20 years. He also fit in with the group really well despite being a bit older. 
 Jim took him to play volleyball with the group on Saturday and that evening we went to the M&M fish fry and watched Live Free or Die Hard. On Sunday I drove him back to Ottawa to visit the rest of the family and reminisce some more. And that’s pretty much it. It’s a bit late, but perhaps this will satisfy Luda for awhile.