Neighborhood

I previously blogged about how we moved so many times, so its a little difficult for me to talk about my neighborhood because there were so many!   However, in general, in Brazil when I was growing up in the 60s, we lived in mainly lower middle class neighborhoods.   The families were very traditional and my brothers and I always made friends quickly and easily and when we weren't at school, played out on the streets with our friends constantly.   We always felt safe and when we were about 10 and older, my mother didn't have a problem having us go down the street a couple blocks to pick up something at the store occasionally.

During one year, I think I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, we rented an apartment in a small building near a warehouse district.    Our building was surrounded by warehouses where farmers would bring their produce, so it was a very busy area during the week and alot of homeless families would be around on the sidewalks and would fight over food being put in the dumpsters as they tried to find something that might still be edible to feed their families.   I stood at the window of that apartment and watched that scene many times.
There were alot of Japanese that lived in that neighborhood, maybe because a large percentage of Brazilian farmers are Japanese.   Brazil has a huge population of Japanese because it was a neutral country during WWII and so alot of Japanese settled there during that time.   Anyway, we made friends even there and we loved our Japanese friends and still have alot of good memories of the time we lived there.

I loved and still love Brazil, even though I have not lived there for 40 years now.   Brazilian people are wonderful!   They are happy and kind and definitely always ready to party especially when their favorite soccer team wins!


Adding to my list of understanding about children and childhood development, I understand that children don't "see" different colors or different races when playing with other children.