I had met Silvio at an English as-a-foreign-language teachers' training-course in Santo Amaro in early 1981. Silvio had lived in Denmark for a year during 1977-1978 school year, as part of a student-exchange programme sponsored by Rotary International, having learned Danish as well as English over there.
After arriving back in Brazil he taught English AFL at CCAA in 1979-1980. I don't recall every bit of his teaching career but in early 1981, Silvio was trying to get to work for a different school just as Myself, who had left Fisk Schools and was adrift in a world of my own.
We met in Santo Amaro every morning to attend this training course of a newly-franchised US method given by Paraná, who I already knew, having worked for Gloria, a Japanese-Brazilian lady who was the owner of a school on Avenida Rebouças, opposite Escola Fisk. By the end of 2 weeks, Silvio and I realised we had a lot more in common besides the English language. We both took the same bus back to Pinheiros where he had been living with Elaine, a piano playing lady who had rented a flat on rua Theodoro Sampaio. Actually, they had parted ways and were on the verge of moving out. When Silvio took me there I noticed the flat was nearly empty except for an upright piano next to one of the walls.
To cut a long story short; neither Silvio nor I ended up working for Gloria's CCI school too long. Silvio left after a few weeks and I left a little after that. By May 1981, we were back at square one. To tell you the truth, since I had returned from the USA, in 1977, my real goal was to make my way back there.
Since now I had a new friend who also wanted to live abroad, I proposed Silvio we could travel together. It so happened that while I worked at Gloria & Paraná's school in 1980, I had met a Brazilian fellow called Edson Rosa, who taught there. Edson & his wife Mirian had lived in Sydney, Australia since 1974. They had traveled the world, and now lived in São Paulo temporarily for they had to go back to Oz in order not to lose their permanent residency. When back in Oz, Edson wrote me a letter suggesting I should try Australia.
When I showed Edson's letter to Silvio, he immediately took to the idea of flying away half the planet to get to Shangri-la. By June 1981, I had already talked to Licia Espalato Wielenska, the travel agent who helped me get to the USA in 1971 and 1975. Licia worked on our papers to fly to New Zealand on the next available plane. Aerolineas Argentinas flew to NZ only once a month.
July 1981 turned out to be too late, for Lícia would have to send our passports to Brasilia, to get tourist visas from both the New Zealand and Australia's embassies. We thought we'd fly on the August flight but unfortunately we had to wait another month. Our flight would leave on 5 September 1981, a Saturday morning, from Ezeiza Airport in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
As neither Myself nor Silvio had much money, we decided not to fly to Buenos Aires, but to take an international bus leaving Rodoviária on Tuesday, 1st September 1981, at 8:30 pm. I figured it out we would arrive in Buenos Aires early on Friday, so we would stay in a hotel for only one day until early Saturday, when we'd get into the Trans-Polar 747 jet to the other side of the Globe.
So instead of saying goodbye to our relatives & friends at an airport we did it at the Bus Terminal... and these are the photos we took that night. The last time I saw my Father alive.
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