As many of you know from previous entries, life is different here in Brazil. It could be the language, the culture, the use of spandex in almost all of a woman outfit but so much of life is very different. However, I never thought that that which crosses the path of my vehicle might be different.
So, just the other day, as I was going to the kids school to pick them up I notice an animal of some sort in the road.This caught my eye because, it seem here in the city we have very little road-kill. Yes, we have trash littering the streets and people selling all sorts of food, drink, and other Dollar General type products but no dead animals. Okay, so as I notice the animal, I slowed down to look at it. Why? I do not have an answer for that... but there it lay, in the path of my car, a dead and flat as a pancake big, ugly, rat.
I can truly say that I have never, in all my days, seen a rat as road-kill. I even worked for the Ohio Department of Transportation for a summer, seeing all sorts of dead beast, however, this takes the cake.
Another day, I was driving to go to a language lesson and I swerved to miss something in the street (not wanting to make road-kill of a pet). Only after passing, did it register with me that what a missed was a very large, black, ugly spider. Yes people, I could tell from my car passing at 40 mph that it was a spider... for you see it was the size of a big cat. Oh, how I wish I had made it road-kill.
So, next time you drive and notice an animal unfortunate enough to be road-kill, think of us and say a prayer for us as we continue to learn to live in a culture so different from our own.