School pictures
I spent the morning at my kids' school. While I waited for a talk with Luiz's coordinator, I kept myself busy examining the graduation portraits kept on the walls, which go back to the 60s. Here in Brazil, there are no things such as year book and proms. These are so American as apple pie, I guess. The only souvenir we keep from the school year is one single group picture of the whole class. Again, differently from the US, the class never changes from subject to subject. Everybody stays together in one single room while the teachers come and go. What struck my fancy today were the old group pictures.
They used to have a heck of a photographer then, I was thinking. The old pictures don't show simply a group of teens side by side, stiff and formal. They have different moods. Take the classes of 75, for instance. They chose to have their picture taken on square surrounded by old buildings, which is located near the school. Most kids are sitting with their legs folded, in lotus position. Some boys though chose to stand by a wall. And probably the real bad boys were the ones who appear way in the back, long hair, tight jeans and T-shirts and arms folded in an air of defiance. I guess all the nice boys then used to wear checkered shirts. But the special touch is that in the middle of the square, among the kids, an old painter works ignoring completely the general mayhem. They all look at ease and happy. The kids contemplating the photographer and the excitement of a new life ahead of them, and the old painter contemplating his art, his own world, perfectly content with it.
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