HIGH POINT, N.C. (WGHP) — When Flavia Nazareth speaks to her mother and the friends she left behind in Brazil, it is always a multi-lingual affair.

With her mother, most of the conversation is in Portuguese. But Flavia and her friends slide back and forth between her native tongue and the English she has mastered since moving to America more than a decade ago.

Flavia ran an art studio in High Point before the pandemic forced it to close. She still does lessons online, which is also the only way she can keep up with her family members who are still back in Brazil.

“Technology helps in being able to connect, see each other and show Olivia’s been growing,” Flavia says of her daughter, who will soon turn 11.

“Not knowing when we can be together, that’s something that really takes a toll, for sure,” she said.

They talk of the problems Brazil is having getting control of the coronavirus pandemic. Infections there are still rampant compared to most of the world.

“And I think we were having an average of 4,000 people dying, every day. So, we already got to the 400,000 people dead,” she said.

Things are better in America, of course, where Olivia is back in school, full-time, at Southwest Guilford Elementary.

“Now, going back to school, seeing all my friends – having that social interaction – is just great after not being able to see them for, yeah, almost a year now,” Olivia said.

She never thought we’d still be dealing with all of this, nearly 15 months after it began.

“I was just so excited (about schools closing in March 2020) because I was going to have two weeks off which is great. And then, COVID actually hit, like, bad,” says Olivia.

See what the Nazareth family thinks about whether things are really getting back to normal in this Project 2021 report.