After 1 month, chef who prepared meals for the homeless in RS returns home: I lost everything, a pain that I can’t explain

With the continuous decrease in river levels in the metropolitan region of Porto Alegre, chef Alex Ramalho Casali managed to return home this week, in São Leopoldo (RS).

After spending a month at a friend’s house, in an improvised manner, Alex says that nothing that was inside the house was left, not even the doors of the residence.

“We managed to return to our house in São Leopoldo on the 4th, but as it was submerged for many days, we were unable to save anything. We had to tear down the internal walls of the house and also the doors. We are living on donations with our house just the exterior walls.”

Alex is a chef graduated from Feevale University with a specialization in confectionery from Le Cordon Bleu and currently works in a pizzeria in Porto Alegre.

Even without being able to return home, Alex helped prepare more than 2,000 meals for those left homeless by the climate tragedy in Rio Grande do Sul.

Together with other colleagues, he is part of the “Pizzaiolo Solidário” project, an initiative that distributed “affectionate meals” to those affected through donations collected.

“We are surviving on donations, that’s the only way. When I returned to the house where I live with my grandfather, I saw all our furniture dirty and my cooking books destroyed. We have to try to get back to life one day at a time. In the midst of the destruction I found a mixer that I used to work, I washed it as a symbol of a new beginning so that I never stop believing in my dreams.”

Alex also says that he had to leave the house twice. On the days when he worked in Porto Alegre he used to rent a room to spend the weekend, a place where he was also evacuated. Therefore, he had to hurriedly leave where he was twice.

“Thank God my whole family is healthy. We are receiving help from friends and soon we will rebuild all of this and turn things around”, he concludes.