Paulo Marcelino Lima was sure he was going to be a fisherman, but life is full of surprises. Born in Penedo (SE), he arrived in Pirambú in 1994. Things weren’t going well. His father was a farm worker by the São Francisco River and one of his sisters lived by the sea. “I joined her and learned to fish in the sea, but we didn’t have work all the time. My brother started making craft art, went to Santos (SP) then came back. I was down, unemployed. So he asked me to make a few boats, like the ones we see around. I used to make them as a child, to play with. So I made one, and sold it on the beach, for R$ 30.00. I found myself with this work. I do something I love and it’s my own thing, I’m not working for anyone else. There’s nothing worse than being forced to do something. Today I still make boats, but I also like animals. The first one I made was a turtle, but the head was all wrong. Now I can make it right. I used to sell my things to a middleman, but they always want it very cheap. We have to work very hard just to be able to buy food. That’s wrong. Now I work at the Saint Raphael Organization. I look after the space and have a place to work in the backyard. The winter was bad; the São Francisco River flooded and brought a lot of wood down. The wood is primed by the seawater. All we have to do is let it dry and start working.”