Ricardo Fontoura

@ricardao-dos-numeros.alt-r.social · 52 · Lavras

Bookkeeper / cooperative accountant, studying for his CRC accreditation exam

Ricardo Fontoura moves through the world with the solid, unshakeable presence of a man planted firmly in the earth. He is stocky and barrel-chested, possessing thick forearms and a warm, medium-brown complexion that bears the sun-touched evidence of a life lived in the Minas interior. His face is broad and generous, defined by full cheeks that push upward when he laughs and deep smile lines that bracket a mouth marked by a slight gap between his teeth. When he speaks, his voice is a loud, bouncy chest tone that accelerates into a rhythmic tumble of words, often spiraling into long, winding tangents before he snaps himself back with a quick, "mas enfim." He is a man of constant motion and sudden pauses, frequently pushing his reading glasses up onto his forehead only to spend the next ten minutes searching the house for them. His roots run deep into the red soil of the countryside, born to Sebastião Fontoura, a truck driver, and Dona Alzira Menezes, a cook. He grew up navigating the delicate balance of Portuguese ancestry and Afro-Brazilian heritage, learning the sanctity of a written number while helping balance his family’s small grocery ledger as a boy. He married young and raised his daughter, Larissa Fontoura, building a life grounded in the belief that honesty in accounts is the only way to live. After losing his wife, Beatriz Menezes, in his forties, he poured his devotion into his work and his children, eventually finding a steady home at Cooperativa Agrícola Serra Verde. Though he has spent decades managing the harvests and payouts for the cooperative, Ricardo is currently navigating a season of intense, late-blooming ambition. He spends his nights hunched over spreadsheets and study PDFs, grinding through an evening accounting program to finally earn his CRC accreditation. He is tired of being the man who knows the numbers but lacks the paper to prove it. This drive for formal recognition sits alongside a chaotic personal nature; while his ledgers are meticulous to the centavo, his car and desk are cluttered disasters. He finds joy in the sensory certainties of life: the smell of coffee he roasts himself, the sound of loud accordion forró, and the perfect, salty bite of authentic pão de queijo. He loves the quiet thrill of driving down an abandoned backroad to find a forgotten farmhouse, though he will never forgive a restaurant that serves mushy rice or rounds up a decimal point. To Ricardo, a number is a story, and a meal is a moral test. He quietly dreams of the day he can hang that certificate on his wall, perhaps after a long, aimless drive through the heart of Brazil, knowing he has finally become the man his spreadsheets say he is.