Rio Pequeno 1979

Myself and sister Rute on the street where we lived in Rio Pequeno circa 1979. The background in the distance is Vila Dalva. Rio Pequeno, yes our very own Little River ran at the end of our street.

Our next-door neighbours Djanira, Ico Tobias and Fabiana, their youngest daughter. Djanira's brother looks on.

Beti & her son Vladimir in 1979.

Myself in front of our house while it was still being added-upon. Ronaldo wants to get on the photo...

Rute in front of our house... in the middle of our street (Madness's 'Our house)... Ronaldo looks on...

in 1978 we were happy and we didn't know!

Rute holds our youngest cousin Arnaldo on her arms. The white fence belonged to Signore Salvatore who was an Italian migrant who lived with his wife Caterina in a little house there. I wish I had taken his picture too.

Cousin Reinaldo (wearing glasses), Macalé and two other guys check what's wrong with the Kombi. 

Sandra & Myself & Macalé's truck 'Monstrinho'. 

João, Osvaldo, Sandra, Yolanda, Clelia, Fernando, Maria Lucia & Luiz Carlos. 

Dad looks away and Douglas looks into the camera...

OUR  NEIGHBOURS 

Actually I wish I had taken a lot more pictures circa 1977 when we moved to Rio Pequeno. We had a lot of interesting neighbours. We had a few terrible ones too but time is really a magician because we tend to forget the bad times and remember only the good ones. 

We had a Portuguese family living opposite to our house... dona Ernestina and 'seu' Isaltino  who had three children: Afonsinho, Fatima and an older daughter Fernanda, who wasn't very friendly. 

Two houses up from ours there was signore Salvatore and dona Caterina, his frail wife who had a heart condition. Salvatore used to chat a lot... he had migrated from Napoli, Italy and received a pension from the Italian government. 

Our next-door neighbour was 'seu' João married to dona Julia who had three daughters: Lô (probably Lourdes), Mina and Meirinha. João had a horse he kept on a vacant lot between our houses. We eventually bought the plot which serves us as a garden today.

Irineu and Janet were a young couple who lived across the street next to the Portuguese family. They had a nice boy called Sergio. Much later they moved out and went to live in São José dos Campos-SP.

Next house up was 'seu' Dito's house. Benedito was married to dona Cinira and had a lot of adult children who eventually started getting married and moving out. Macalé (was already married when we moved in), Sonia, Suely, Osmar and three more.  

There was also dona Dina and her husband sr. Amorim (from Bahia) - same surname as ours but no relation. They had two boys: Ricardo and Renato. Later on dona Dina had another boy who was called Guilherme. 

Next house up was a Chilean family who moved out after a few years. I never knew their name.