My first memory

by Joyce mayara da Silva Santos (Brazil)

Making a local connection Brazil

I was 6 years old, after 9 hours traveling from the State of São Paulo to the State of Paraná when I arrived at night at my grandparents farm , it was eleven at night I was very sleepy and I didn't understand that I was going so far, because my parents were divorcing. When I woke up I felt the new environment, sounds of fowls, winds stirring the tops of the trees was the typical sound, and besides all a cold with coffee smell. These are my earliest childhood memories, all reminiscent of the innocent happiness of exploring the unknown. When walking on the ground, a mother's concern about putting on shoes and my grandmother saying that my sister and I were children should be free to play without shoes. Everything was new, even the coffee plant in the orchard with its red balls, I made sure to remove almost everything, and my grandmother thought we were very curious girls. Everything was huge, the green of the grass the trees that surrounded the house, the cows and their young. And the most amazing bananas were born in bunches and milk was made by an animal. The weeks passed, my grandfather explained that in the place fruits and grains were planted to harvest grapes, mangoes, corn, beans in the future, everything was born, just plant and care that one day it was born, grew, bloomed and you reaped. In the urban center everything was bought in the market, I never imagined where it came from, at the age of six my line of reasoning started to gain understanding. At the age of seven, I entered a primary school in the city, a city so small that there was only one school, where after the fifth grade I wore the longed-for blue uniform. My sister Juliana and I took the school bus from Monday to Friday at noon and twenty, there were already other children inside the bus, sometimes a silence and sometimes shouting with joy. At school my dream was to learn to read to translate all the papers, when I couldn't understand the letters, my tears fell and a lot. At the age of eight, my mother was no longer present, she had returned to São Paulo alone, and Juliana and I left . We didn't care at the time, because all we wanted was to play in that giant place and explore nature. My grandfather was a great storyteller, our imaginations were vast with his experiences, On Sundays afternoon he took the music instrument (accordion) and played for us, his melodies echoed each room and his joy was clear by the yellow smile of coffee. At nine almost ten I went back to live with my mother in São Paulo, until I try to understand why I wanted to go back. My sister didn't come with us, she stayed with my grandparents. Eight years later, my grandmother decided to move with everyone in the family to the urban center, because she found it easier to live. My grandfather passed away the following year. The farm today is abandoned, even though my uncles are heirs to the property. A tree fell in the middle of the house leaving it without conditions for use. I thank my mother for leaving me there at the time, this experience made me understand later how precious childhood is in a child's life.