WAITING
The full moons come and go, sunny, hot days follow others bleak with rain, and occasionally nature gifts us breath-taking sunsets. Outside our house a full crew of workers has broken one lane of the street to put down giant sewer pipes which will serve Rocinha up the hill. We hear their voices and the machinery, and over many weeks the commotion has traveled from the front of the house, accompanied by the whistles and the shouts from those directing the single file traffic, to around the corner and up along the long sidewall of the garden, with the noise growing less strident. We have to imagine most of this, because we can only see the undisturbed other side of the street from our second- floor windows. Sometimes several men let out alarmed shouts, “oh-oh-oh-OH!” and we fear a truck lost its brakes, a digging machine tipped over, or a heavy section of pipe fell from great height, but then they stop yelling, and we hear nothing more. Inside our walls, life continues...