GRANDPA

GRANDPA
C 2008 JoJo

My grandfather was a remarkable man. He first went to Brazil in the late 1800’s to work for the St. John Del Rey Mining Corporation in Morro Velho. Coincidentally, many years later, my parents, sister and I also lived there for a period of 4 years.

The St. John Del Rey Mining Corporation was British owned, and all their pit bosses were English miners, while the miners who did all the donkey work were Brazilian unskilled labourers.

There was no public transportation in Morro Velho so the Company provided Grandpa with a mule to get to and from work. One day as Grandpa was trotting along on his mule, a snake slithered across the road, which spooked the mule. It reared up on its hind legs, and tossed Grandpa onto the ground and bolted. Unfortunately, one of his feet got caught in a stirrup, and he was dragged along behind the mule. Grandpa prayed.

“Dear God ….ouch …. If ….You ….ooh that hurt …will ….make …this …mule …..stop….darn it …I….will become a missionary …and serve You…oooh heck …for the rest ….(thump) ….of my life.”

Well the mule stopped dead, Grandpa disengaged his foot from the stirrup and rode to work. When he got there, he went straight to the office of the Mine Superintendent, and quit his job.

He returned to England, and joined S.A.M.S. (South American Missionary Society), where he received training on missionary work.

Unmarried missionaries were prone to getting into trouble with the local senhoritas, so SAMS liked their male missionaries to be married before going out into the field. To that end, tea parties were set up where unmarried missionaries met up with suitable women who were keen on getting married and becoming fellow missionaries.

Grandpa met many charming and delightful young women. He couldn’t make up his mind which one would be most suitable to be a) his wife and b) a fellow missionary. In the end, time was running out and he decided to leave the matter up to God.

“Dear God,” he prayed, “I can’t make up my mind which young woman is the one You intend for me, so let this be a sign. I often ask a young woman for half a cup of tea, and they always bring me a full cup. So the next young woman who actually brings me half a cup of tea, will be my intended and I will propose to her.”

Eventually, the woman who became my grandmother, was the one who brought him his half a cup of tea, he proposed, she accepted and they got married.

It was only some considerable time later, that she admitted the only reason she’d brought him half a cup of tea was because that’s all that was left in the pot!

Sadly, she only lived 10years after they were married, during which time she had six children – one daughter (my Mum) and six sons. Then she contracted tuberculosis and died.

Grandpa gathered up his children and returned to England. Several years later, he met his second wife, a widow, my Granny Fanny. After their marriage, they returned to Brazil.

Granny Fanny’s first husband had been a wealthy man, and had left her well off. She’d been a farmer’s daughter, so she was keen owning her own farm. They purchased a large acreage of land, in Garanhuns (up in the mountains in the State of Pernambuco) and built a lovely farm house on it. Granny’s holding was modest – she had chickens, cows, and a couple of ornery goats.

At that time, we lived in Recife, capital of the State of Pernambuco and about an 8 hour car drive from my grandparents. Recife is only a few degrees south of the equator, so summers were extremely hot and unhealthy for little children. So every summer, my sister Doreen and I were shipped off to spend the 3 months of summer up in the mountains with our grandparents.

I had a very special bond with Grandpa. Every morning, after we’d eaten a boiled egg for breakfast, (fresh from one of Granny’s chickens) he had a little trick he liked to play on me. He’d put a little piece of bread and butter inside the empty egg shell, turn it upside down and place it into his egg cup. “Here Joanna is a nice boiled egg for you.” Heck, I knew he’d eaten it, I knew all I’d find was a little piece of bread and butter, but I loved Grandpa, so I would humour him. I’d take my tea spoon, and crack open the empty egg shell and exclaim with delight over that little piece of bread and butter!

Life on the farm was wonderful, but there was one thing I absolutely hated. Granny Fanny would have milk drawn from one of her cows, and brought directly in to us, and insist we drink it right then and there, while it was still warm from the udder! I can’t tell you how revolting that is!

My favourite time of the day was the evening when Grandpa would settle back in his comfy chair and I would climb up onto his lap to hear one of his wonderful stories of his life as a missionary.

Grandpa decided his mission in life was to convert the Brazilian native Indians. This was dangerous work, because Indians were very adept with blow pipes loaded with a dart, covered in curare, and if they felt threatened, they’d blow first and ask questions later!

He’d get into a boat along with an Indian interpreter, and would putt putt up the Amazon. As soon as he saw any Indians on the shore, he’d stand up and shout a greeting, holding an aluminum pot in one hand and a knife in the other. This was a blatant bribe, because the Indians highly valued these items and had no way of ever owning one.

Grandpa would live among the Indians, preaching the gospel to them through his Indian interpreter, and then baptize the entire tribe by dunking them in the Amazon River. That accomplished, he’d get back into his boat, wave goodbye and go on down the river until be saw another lot of Indians bathing in the river. I have a hunch that, once his boat disappeared around the bend in the river, his newly baptized tribe would go right back to their heathenish ways. But maybe not …

“Were you ever scared Grandpa?” I asked one evening.

“Not really,” he replied. “I knew God looked after me.”

He told me about a time when he was wandering around the Amazon forest. “The trees form a canopy overhead,” he told me “So it’s dark and gloomy in there even in broad sunlight. One day I was tired and decided to sit on a gray rock nearby. I sat on it and it started to wriggle!”

“How can a rock wriggle Grandpa?”

“Because it wasn’t a rock at all – it was massive boa constrictor, that had curled up and was peacefully taking an afternoon nap.”

“Oooh Grandpa, what did you do?” I asked breathlessly.

“I ran,” he said simply.

He told me of a time when he was living with an Indian tribe and contracted some dreadful form of Jungle Fever.

“I was desperately ill, child, and I truly thought I was going to die. I was burning up with fever and I hadn’t been able to hold down water for a couple of days. In the hot Amazon Jungle, a couple of days without water is very serious and life threatening.”

“Oh Grandpa, what did you do?”

“Well, an old Indian woman came in bearing a coconut shell filled with some liquid. She told me to drink it, and I have never tasted anything so vile in all my life. She’d concocted it from plants in the Jungle and I’ll never know what they were, but she saved my life. The next day my fever was gone, and after regaining my strength, I was right as rain.”

He told me of another time when he was sailing up the Rio Sao Francisco (Sao Francisco River.). He was in a boat with several men, and they’d run out of provisions, with yet another two days’ journey before they could buy food.

“I had a good idea,” he said “I knew the river was full of piranhas. There was a man sitting opposite me with a bright red shirt on. ‘Manuel, give me your shirt,’ I said. He didn’t want to do it because it was the only shirt he had. But I insisted, so in the end, he peeled it off and handed it to me. He got really upset when I proceeded to tear his shirt into strips. I handed a strip to each of the men, and we dipped it into the river. The piranhas thinking it was meat, grabbed at the strips and we hauled them into the boat. After catching a boat load of fish, we motored ashore, lit a fire and cooked them.” His face took on a dreamy look. “Best meal I’ve ever had.”

“Later, I took one of the dead piranhas, and stuck my finger in its mouth to feel its teeth. I felt its teeth alright – it wasn’t dead and it bit me. See, I still have the scar?”

I looked at the scar then burst into peals of laughter. “It wasn’t funny,” Grandpa grumped. “It hurt!”

I have one more fond memory of Grandpa. One day after lunch, he was lying back in his comfy chair, fast asleep, his mouth wide open and snoring to beat the band. I crept into the bathroom, grabbed a wet face cloth and carefully placed it over his mouth.

Grandpa woke up in a rage. I’d never seen him that angry and I was scared. “What did you do that for?” he roared.

“Grandpa,” I said, shaking in my boots, “Your mouth was hanging open and there are flies flying around – I was afraid one of them was going to fly into your mouth.”

Grandpa threw his head back and roared with laughter. I was so relieved, and happy! I climbed onto his lap and put my arms around his neck.

“Grandpa I love you,” I said.

“Yes, darling, I know.”