Portrait of a family

I spent the first three weeks of January living with Rene and his awesome family in a small town called Ubatuba, Sao Paulo State. The experience has been one of the highlights of my trip, and as a result, I´m currently staying with some of his cousins in Belo Horizonte that I met in Ubatuba.

Family life was quite simple, but a few things stuck out.

Firstly, they thought our eating habits were crazy, and we definitely thought theirs were! Since going to Rio, I discovered that many of those eating habits are 100% typical Brazilian.

Secondly, the family unit is really close - I got the distinct feeling that it´s common for family members to move into one another´s houses - not sure if this is for convenience, economic necessity or a desire to experience life in a different city - or a combination of all three. Also, much like the Mediterranean folks - kids stay at home for a looong time - and their parents are happy about it!

The entire family was (and still is!) super welcoming, which is of course wonderful - but even more so because for the first few days communication was quite a challenge - I wonder how many of us would welcome a stranger (that we couldn´t talk to) into our houses.

If you'd like a closer look at family life, take a look at this short movie.