Brazil was the next chapter in our love story. We arrived in São Paulo in November 2022 after prolonged separation and months of planning routes out of Korea. The great pleasure was being together. The children had their father in reach; I could see Sher without waiting for a brief message window. A new country opened around us, with Portuguese to learn, new people to meet and the enormous natural and agricultural life of Brazil waiting to be explored.

The immediate arrangements were imperfect. We spent time at Missão Paz and communicated with UNHCR about family accommodation. We learned how a shelter programme can be caring and useful while still governed by eligibility rules that prevent a particular family from receiving a particular place. In December 2022, our request to stay at Aldeias Infantis SOS was declined because the programme served people entering through a defined relocation channel. The messages show both the professionalism of people trying to help and the limits of the channels available to them.

We used the time. We learned Portuguese, explored enterprise registration, kept our online work alive and observed how Brazil’s public spaces functioned for families. We noticed trees, pavements, bus systems, food markets, rivers and the habits of people greeting children. Sher was collecting evidence of what a district could become if the ingredients of life were coordinated intelligently.

Brazil eventually brought us to Prado, Bahia. We began planting, building and examining sandy soils along the public edge of our neighbourhood. The delight of seeing a fruit tree take hold in land that others had neglected was every bit as real as an engineering award. Here was another form of technology: biological capacity expanding with patient observation. Our children could put hands in the soil and watch the answer emerge.

We arrived with ideas from all over the world. Brazil gave them a living ground.