Today marks the 38th anniversary of the day I came out of my mother's womb. It was the early hours of a Sunday, 19 September 1976, and my parents were at a restaurant, where they had been dancing all night. When my mother's water broke, she was rushed to hospital by her cousin, because my father was in a state, and he didn't go see her - or me - until Sunday afternoon.
I had existed - first as a handful of cells, then as a foetus, then as a baby - since mid December 1975, which is about 40 weeks before I naturally came out of my mother's womb. During this time, my mother read The Continent, by Brazilian writer Érico Veríssimo, and, like many people who have also read it, fell in love with the manly and rugged-looking Captain Rodrigo Severo Cambará, a sort of Gaúcho Heathcliff. I was named after him.
