Carlos at home

by Tana Silva

I watched children building a sand pyramid, then laughing, belly-flopping on top of it, and racing to splash in the waves. The little ones left with their parents, and the older boy, their construction chief, stayed. More children, same sequence, all afternoon. At sunset I shook out my beach towel and walked over to the boy to tell him I admired his fancy pyramids. We introduced ourselves and learned we lived on the same nearby block of Santa Clara Street. I soon understood that the boy meant he lived literally on Santa Clara, on the sidewalk at the corner of Copacabana Avenue.

(Click title to see and hear Carlos, Rio de Janeiro, 1988.)