Where Do You Park Your Car?

Our street in Santarem ("Rua Silverio Sirotheau Correa") is not your typical street in Anytown, USA. First of all, it is a mixture of sand and clay. There is no storm sewer system (or sanitary sewer for that matter) in Santarem, and since there is a fairly good decline in the street, when it rains hard the street turns into a riverbed. The city has been promising to asphalt our street since before we moved here and, in fact, there is some asphalt on the street - here it is:



If you are fortunate enough to own a car (very few of our neighbors are), but don´t have a place to park it at night, you are left with few options. One of our neighbors parked his car here:



In his defense, there is no room on his lot to park a car. Further, there is a drainage ditch right in front of his house, and because of the ruts and rubbish in the street, cars pass close to his house. So he really doesn´t have many options.

Another problem we have is what do you do with trash or rubbish that is too large to put in the garbage? The answer is, put it in the street - eventually it will get burned or picked up by the city.



While we sometimes (OK, maybe frequently) complain about the heat, internet service, public services, etc., we want to say we are privileged to be living here in Santarem, Brazil. We live in comfort and safety, and it is a privilege to be serving where God is so much at work.