1)
Phillip Visuain
New York, August 10th, 1931
Dear Phillip
I write to you as a response to your letter, I’m glad you asked how my house and neighborhood is. There’s a lot going on around here, plenty of happy things; but I’m afraid that the bad things exceeded them. First of all, we had to dismount the garage to help paying the food, I’m sad about it because I have a lot of memorable moments in there. I hope you are enjoying your garage in France. Our house now is definitively smaller, or at least it feels like that. We had to sole most of the Brazilian furniture we had; and my room upstairs is now for rent, leaving me on the sofa. I hope we don’t sell it too. The grass we have in the garden is taller than ever, because dad had to fire the gardener; “It was too expensive” according to him. In terms of electricity, dad says we are okay. I think he’s lying, because sometimes it suddenly cuts out and then comes back; and mom told us to turn the lights off past 7:00 PM, so we use candles. With the water we are fine, because dad had the smart idea of placing a well in the backyard. I have to say that although we are passing by this, I and my family are the lucky ones on the street. Mr. Walter, a neighbor and friend of dad, was fired, and so as many other people around here; and will have to leave his house. I wish we could host him, but mom says we need the rent. The police are chasing another neighbor, because he was fired too and start working as a drug dealer. The children that used to play in the park in front of my house stopped coming, because robberies are higher than ever. Also, I have eye-shadows because of the woman next door, Mrs. Abrahams. She cries all night, but I don’t complain because she lost her husband in the war; so that’s why the scandals. The only good thing that cares to me is that mom bought a better pillow to my sofa. But, as I already said, we’re the lucky ones in this neighborhood. I hope you are living better than all of us, after all Paris is the city of beauty, right?
Greetings,
Vicente Jander
2)
Phillip Vusuain
New York, October 3rd, 1932
Dear Phillip
It’s been so long since our last communication. I apologize for that, I have been busy. You asked me how I relate with my family and what kind of activities we do, to help you with your homework. I will tell you happily. First I have to say that I don’t recognize dad anymore; I see my dog more than him on the week because of hi s job at the bank. “Being a manager isn’t easy, one day you will be the owner and understand”, he said to me. He says that otherwise, we would be living on the streets. I appreciate the effort that he’s doing for us, but honestly I would prefer living in the streets if that includes being with him. The only activity that involves both as a father-son is going to the church together. Mom says that in these hard times, we have to give thanks to God for being so gentle with us. I try to speak to dad while in the church, but he makes me shut up for “respect to the lord”. There is another aspect of dad that changed; he started giving us speeches about being polite and having good manners, and that with both of this attitudes we were making the difference between other families. After begging mom, I built a tree-house in the garden. Me and Britney, my sister; used it almost all day long. It was a quiet place to be, not so big and not so short. It was… comfortable, like a way to escape the familiar issues that were taking place, and wait until they solve. The only memorable day I have passed was last Friday; in which mom bought a goose and boiled it. Besides being the most delicious dinner I ever had, later that night I played chess several times with dad. It doesn’t matter that he won all the games; I had the opportunity to talk with him at last. He told me to be more polite at the table, because I ate in a “horribly mean way”; and after that he remembered his childhood and told me that he played chess with his father too, but with the difference that this time the son won all the games. After playing we went to bed, and I was so happy that couldn’t fell asleep until 2:00AM. I hope this information will be useful to you, send me your grade in the homework.
Greetings,
Vicente Jander
