There have been wonderful surprises in my five trips to Brazil, but this trip brought a surprise that had nothing to do with Seth and Dani’s wedding.

A little background—for a decade, Seth has had a video channel in Portuguese called Amigo Gringo.  It always amuses me when people recognize and call out to him as I walk with him on the streets of São Paulo.  Once, when I and some relatives were standing on a corner with him in Medellin, Colombia on our way to a cousin’s wedding, a young couple passing by recognized him.  My relatives were quite impressed.

On the morning after Seth and Dani’s wedding, three white-haired wedding guests (including me) were walking down the Avenue Paulista, a São Paulo street that is closed on Sundays for music, dancing, cyclists, street vendors, etc.  An older woman shouted from the sidewalk as we walked down the middle of the street, “Are you Amigo Gringo’s mother?’

It’s true that I have participated (starred?) in several of Seth’s videos and it is true that most older women in Brazil don’t have white hair.  But I was astonished.  When I said “yes,” she came up to us and in not-too-bad English told us how much she enjoyed his videos and how excited she was to see me.

I couldn’t get over it.