Bairro Novo

On top of a hill that overlooks Araçuaí, Geraldo, my host father, climbs onto a mound of dirt and asks me to join him. “Look,” he says, pointing to a section of the city where dirt roads are organized in grids. Most of the houses are unfinished. There are piles of bricks in front of every house and a string of street lights trailing off along a deserted, muddy road, waiting for more houses to fill empty lots. But people are living in this unfinished neighborhood. We hear laughter, music, and televisions. “I started to sell my father’s land in 1994.” He says. “This is the New Neighborhood.”