Blog da Arara

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2010-04-28T14:14:00.001-04:00

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Once in a Blue Moon...

2009-12-31T09:36:00.005-05:00

I'm taking advantage of a rare blue moon over Miami this December 31 (which provided me with a title...) to make an equally infrequent appearance here. I just thought that it might be nice to end the year by sharing a funny story that happened to me in Sampa. At the same time, I'll introduce you to the best taxi driver in the world; should you find yourself in that metropolis one day, you'll know who to call for transportation. I was there in November for a week and, naturally, paid a visit to all my favorite shopping destinations: Ciao Mao and Havaianas for shoes, Santa Luzia for groceries. (I'm sure you're familiar with the queen of flip-flops; in case the other two names don't ring a bell, the first is synonymous with gorgeous footwear and the last one is, well, let's say it puts to shame the finest food markets around the world.)

On the way home, my sister-in-law and I were loaded with packages and in need of a taxi. She hailed one in the street and said: "oh, goodie, the driver is a woman." She was not only a woman, but a young, beautiful one, who also happened to be a much better driver than any of the guys we've used there over the years. AND a fan of classical music, which was playing, softly, in the car. We chatted with her all the way home and told her that we were really impressed by our ride and would like to take her picture. She agreed, so when we stopped in front of our building, we took some photos, said thank you very much, what a marvelous driver she was, nice to meet you, got her business cards, promised to spread the word, and got off. Then she calls us back: "you forgot to pay!" That had us roaring with laughter, I went back, gave her the fare and added a nice tip. Her parting words were something to the effect that we had such good, positive energy, and it was such a pleasure to meet such fun women.

Isn't this a lovely story to end the year with?

This is Sueli and she's at the Ponto de Táxi Avenida Dr. Arnaldo, 3864-8884. The tattoos on her arm are of her two little girls.

The last time we had a blue moon illuminating the skies on New Year's Eve was in 1990; the next will be in 2028, so I'm rooting for a cloudless night.

La playa, la playa...

2009-10-30T17:02:00.003-04:00

Well, if you read me, you know that sooner or later something irresistible is going to happen to me on a Miami bus. And it always does. I was in South Beach this afternoon and this gorgeous girl got on the local shuttle wearing nothing but a bikini. To be truthful, she was boarding the bus and trying to cover up at the same time. Inevitably, she caught the attention of a flock of old birds of the "entonce" clan. One of them started to exclaim "la playa, la playa" while the others proceeded to tsk, tsk, and otherwise manifest their disapproval. Something similar happened to me many moons ago on the island of St. Croix. We had just arrived from Boston on a very hot July day (whilst up North we had been sleeping under a blanket until a few days prior to the trip...) and I didn't know that it wasn't kosher to go food shopping in beach attire. So, off I went after some groceries clad in my lovely Java Wraps shorts. All of a sudden, I noticed this big, black lady following me around the aisle mumbling "beach at Pueblo, beach at Pueblo," this being the name of a major supermarket chain based in Puerto Rico. I learned a lesson that day: no matter in how many countries you have lived, the cultural faux pas may take place in your own backyard, so to speak.

The beach here is NOT at Pueblo, but right behind my building. At six-thirty in the morning I was pretty much alone with this bird. Java Wraps was a great clothing store in Christiansted. I hope it's still there.

It's All Peachy...and Fui...

2009-10-23T15:41:00.005-04:00

I've been terribly quiet for several weeks and for a good reason: after publishing a Brazilian journal based on this blog, I've lost my voice. Not in the literal sense, but figuratively. I've received a couple of e-mails, though, that made me decide to write one last (maybe penultimate?) time. One came from a former Peace Corps volunteer who had written many months ago asking for a recipe. Sally wanted to make sugary sun-dried peaches in the traditional manner of Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul. I had found a recipe for her and responded with a caveat: this is going to be a complicated process...I never thought she'd actually go for it, but guess what? I'll let you read about it in her own words:

Guess what....I DID make the passas de pessego--but I only used 12 peaches. It wasn't easy to remove the seed and still keep the peach intact. It took a little practice and a lot of patience. But, I did it. The sugar water baths proved interesting. I did some guessing here. But, this, too, worked. Then came the sunshine part. The first three days I did have sun and then the clouds rolled in. I had the peaches on a glass top table with a glass storm window over them--propped up on fruit baskets. Little containers of water were at the base of the table legs to keep the ants away. I had been through this procedure when making sunshine strawberry preserves--so I knew the routine. Anyway, it was great fun watching the peaches change over time. I would bring them in at night (we have raccoons in the neighborhood) and turn them over. The process worked and the peaches turned out extremely well. I did put them in a dehydrator for a few hours towards the end to make sure they were dry enough. That was really because some days were not so sunny. And, so, I have 12 (whoops) 11 peaches (I ate one). They are really good. So, thanks for sending me the recipe. Bet you thought I wouldn't do it!!!

The other e-mail was from a friend in Brazil who was rushing out the door to go to the airport, but wanted to tell me something before she left. To say goodbye, she used a word, a verb, that I'd seen used before in this context: fui. The past tense of ir, Portuguese for "to go." I guess it's the more economical equivalent of "I'm outta here." So, fui...

Here are Sally's sugary peaches. And my "Blog da Arara" book is available for purchase at www.blurb.com.

PS - I'm in love with Portuguese fados and want to go to Lisbon now. Wish I could write fui here, too!

Life in a Tropical Depression

2009-08-18T16:37:00.002-04:00

I'm suffering from a phenomenon that I had completely forgotten about: cabin fever. But this isn't winter in Massachusetts or central Ohio; rather, it's summer in Miami. But, but, you migh ask, didn't you USE to live there? Well, yeah, but in those days I had a regular job. I spent my days in a freezing museum, complaining about the cold, wrapped in the only sweater I kept when I moved to South Florida. I wasn't cooped up alone in an apartment, turning into a chair potato in front of my laptop. This city is not exactly the cultural capital of the world from November through May, but in the summer I guess they assume that your brain is too fried for anything above beach reading or elementary-school-level blockbusters. This means I can't even go to the movies (the films I'm interested in seem to play exclusively at the University of Miami and I don't have a car). The cherry on the cake of the dumbing down of the neighborhood: they're closing our Surfside library. Or what's left of it, since they're operating right now out of what looks like a container and most of the books are in storage. Good job, guys!

Naturally, my thoughts turn to Rio and its cultural centers and world-class free museum exhibitions, the art cinema houses cum bookstore and café in the lobby, the fabulous concerts and shows. Year-round brainy stuff to do, mind you, and especially in the summer, which is not as long as ours, but equally scorching. But, that comes with a price, as anyone knows who's lived there or reads O Globo Online with a breakfast cup of espresso: the shady or better, dark, side of my favorite city. I'll give you one scary statistic: in the past two and a half years there have been more than 18,000 violent deaths in the State of Rio, 530 occurred as a result of an armed robbery. I suspect that a very high percentage of those happened in the capital. I remember a woman who was killed one night as she stopped her car at a busy intersection in the fashionable neighborhood of Leblon. She was taking off her watch to give to the young man when he shot her. When people ask me if it's safe to travel to Rio, I always tell them to take the usual precautions. What else am I supposed to say? I'm unscathed, even though stuff like this was going on all around me. Am I just exceptionally lucky? Anyway, my friend Ellen in Pennsylvania and I were discussing this subject the other day. Is there a cultured city in this world with a decent climate (meaning temperate, no snow and ice, please, and no sweaters in August either, before someone mentions Vancouver, Canada) and a safe environment? Perhaps Melbourne, Australia?

In order to keep my kind of tropical depression at bay, I'm volunteering at the Wolfsonian Museum as of tomorrow. I'm helping with the new exhibition opening in October, "Styled for the Road: The Art of Automobile Design, 1908-1948." Can't wait to see if they are featuring my dad's Plymouth...And, before I forget, I'm taking a coat and my beautiful wool scarf from Rio Grande do Sul (pictured here) with me. You can read about it in "Around Brazil in Four and a Half Hours."

Of Julia Child and Cod Fish Balls

2009-08-02T16:24:00.007-04:00

I think I can honestly say that I haven't cooked in over a decade. You see, I don't call tossing a salad or scrambling eggs or making vegetable soup or even occasionally roasting potatoes with rosemary in the oven for myself 'cooking.' Not really. I do, on the other hand, have wonderful memories of cooking for my family, friends, and students all those years ago in Boston. Not that I was ever a great cook, but I loved having people over and feeding them, so I worked very hard at perfecting a few recipes and can proudly write that I made a mean feijoada and pudim de leite and passion fruit mousse and...well, cod fish balls. And this is where Julia Child comes in. But how, you may ask? Well, I went to the movies last night and saw the preview for "Julie & Julia." So, I remembered...When I first met Julia Child I didn't know who she was; this was in the early seventies and I had just arrived in Cambridge, Mass. from Costa Rica. She gave a cooking class at MIT in the lobby of 77 Massachusetts Avenue; she said she was going to teach us to make a proper omelette, since it was something easy to prepare and you could throw almost anything into it and make a meal out of it. She didn't see why students couldn't eat decent food...She proceeded to chop some tomatoes and ask us if we knew why men were better cooks than women. She had been talking all the while and at this point we were in stitches (That day I found out firsthand that Julia was a total ham). She told us it was because men were not afraid, they grabbed the knife and dice, dice, dice, chop, chop, chop. You get the picture. Years later, I added a little step she recommended in a recipe called "Aunt Priscilla's Codfish Balls" to my Brazilian one and have never since tasted a better bolinho de bacalhau.

I saw Julia a second and last time before I left Boston almost exactly 20 years later. I went to a button shop downtown near Filene's and in she walked with a friend. She seemed a bit frail and not as tall, but that unmistakable voice was as strong as ever. At that point, my daughter was moving to Europe, my marriage was on the rocks, and the cooking was, pardon the pun, on the back burner. The recipes survived, though, and were collected (during the years I lived in Ohio) on the website I created to keep in touch with my birth country.

This is more or less the story I told my daughter and her friend when we left the theater. So, now you know what Julia has to do with cod fish balls, which, technically, are Portuguese, but have become a Brazilian food par excellence. If you ever find yourself in Rio de Janeiro, there are a few bars that serve cod fish balls that rival, but not equal, my own: Jobi in Leblon and Bacalhau do Rei in Gávea are two that come to mind.

Coincidentally, a few minutes ago I clicked on the link to a blog from Rio I like very much and saw pictures of some of my favorite foods...ah, I DO envy you, Constance!

Perhaps I Should've Chosen 'Happy?'

2009-07-23T17:02:00.008-04:00

Two quite ordinary events this week produced a tsunami of saudade in me. You know, the kind where you're in danger of drowning in your own tears. The first was a message from my oldest friend in Rio. She ran into the woman who had been her first roommate; they hadn't seen each other in decades; Lu now lives close-by in the very same neighborhood of Leblon. They spent hours catching up; first in a restaurant with the very auspicious name of Santa Satisfação, then in one of the best cafés in Rio. I too have been trying to reconnect with people that I care for, but no one has leisure time to waste on face to face exchanges; my daughter suggested I try Facebook instead. Besides, they wouldn't let us just sit there, would they, American wait staff? Except perhaps, maybe, at Starbucks? (I need to try an experiment at my local French bistro: how long can I last with one cup of espresso?) I'm almost forgetting the second reason why I've got the mopes: a CD came in the mail. My beautiful friend Marcos Sacramento smiles at me from the cover photograph, clearly asking, "What the hell are you doing so far away, woman?"

Did you ever go to www.happyplanetindex.com to see how different countries rate? Brazil is number nine, near the top; the U.S. ranks down there at 114th place. It's not what I originally thought, though, they're not measuring smiles or human warmth. Of course, if those were to be two of the criteria, Brazil would definitely be among the 'happiest' nations. It's been a source of amazement to me that people who seem to be eternally swimming against the current are capable of so much joy in their daily lives. Eye-contact, a smile, a greeting, the friendliness of strangers. I miss that very much. I'm still scratching my head, in any case, and my Brazilian friends are equally baffled. Considering the general state of affairs in Brazil, how could it place so high in this index? Well, read the report and see if it makes sense to you. I can see why we're not doing too well up here; that's obvious even to me.

Meanwhile, I try for what I can get and enjoy it fully. I found organic blackberries and cherries at the supermarket. And the other morning, I went to the beach at 6:30 to photograph the sunrise. This is what I brought back (plus about 40 mosquito bites on my legs, but hey...).

PS - I'm still picking up trash on the beach twice a day and (especially after a storm) have found some pretty disgusting items. Alas, no more dollar bills!

Red, White, Blue, Yellow, Green...

2009-07-04T19:13:00.006-04:00

Having missed Independence Day celebrations for the past four years, I was looking forward to this day with anticipation. Actually, I was anticipating a hot dog and a hamburger, you know. Food that you wouldn't catch me eating on any other day of the year! What I got (at a friend's picnic) was rice and curry, boniatos, sushi, and hummus and pita chips. So, I feel like I went to the amusement park and had to pass on cotton candy. Anyway, I got home wishing I had peanut butter and white bread in my cupboards. Too proud to go scrounge from my neighbors, as my friend Ellen just wrote, I made myself a tuna fish sandwich. With French bread, of course. For dessert? All I could find was a chocolate croissant.

Well, at least the weather is holding up and if it keeps like this I'll be able to watch the fireworks. I have my fingers really crossed!

Happy 4th of July, everyone!

The photograph here is of jilós, a veggie I've only seen in Brazil (so far!).

On Becoming Real

2009-06-30T16:36:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow this little guy in the photograph and I are turning 65. I've decided to begin this post with a quote from "The Velveteen Rabbit," which I confess I've never read (the book). Even if my bunny is made of terrycloth and reminds me of an old bathrobe. It's the answer to the rabbit's question "When do you become REAL?" and I think it applies to people too.

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

As you can imagine, we've been through a lot the two of us, but, miraculously, we've both managed to keep our eyes. Through severe myopia and strabismus and early-onset cataracts surgery (me) and ten years spent hidden away inside an old armchair in my parents' home (him). Yes, I lost my rabbit when I was about five and found it again at fifteen. Have been carrying him around with me ever since. At this point, we go together like "The Blue Danube" and that PanAm flight to the space station in "2001." Perfectly suited for each other. His cotton loops and my head covering are still hanging in there, thank goodness. At this point in life, thinning hair scares me more than death. And I take care that we don't get shabby either, except where it can't be helped (I'm afraid we've become a tad deaf, somewhat faded, and so on). We strive for stylish still, as best as we can. So, when will WE become REAL?

The miniature Ritz Carlton beach chair I expropriated from my friend's desk at The Wolfsonian museum in South Beach years ago. The white beach bag came from a lingerie boutique at the Shopping Leblon in Rio de Janeiro. They tied that with a ribbon onto a little shopping bag. Brazilians are simply fantastic with attractive packaging...The picture was taken on a table at the back of my building when I moved in and we had perfect blue skies.

Jetsam and Flotsam

2009-06-23T13:44:00.004-04:00

This little post is subtitled "Where Do All the Plastic Caps Come From?" There, I've asked the question. If you know the answer, at least regarding Miami-Dade County, please leave a comment!

In all the years I spent in Brazil I almost never went to the beach. The one exception was Fernando de Noronha. The reason being that I got completely spoiled by numerous diving and beach-bumming vacations on the British Virgin Islands. I hated the beaches in Rio; way too crowded and littered for my taste and, lately, much too chaotic and noisy. Thanks to the utter lack of city management over the past several years, a number of industrious and enterprising cariocas were able to helter-skelter take over the sands. They rent beach chairs and umbrellas and let you run a tab for cold beer, coconut water, and even food, if I remember right (you just wave your hand and they'll bring it to you). That wouldn't be so bad if they hadn't started offering free (and very refreshing, I grant you) showers, illegally pumping water from artesian wells, using deafening and polluting gasoline motors! I'll let you imagine what happens to the groundwater below.

Anyway, I'm pretty pleased with the quiet and quite deserted beach here, with the exception of the ubiquitous trash. You can't get away from this sad evidence of what humankind has been doing to the planet. I try to pick up what I can every day in the small stretch of beach I call my own. So far, I've found a disposable diaper, a long piece of fabric with large staples still attached to it (I assume it was once a boat curtain?), dangerous pieces of glass, an assortment of plastic bottles, and a ton of plastic bottle caps. Usually, feeling virtuous (yeah, yeah, I'm taking liberties with Ovid here!) is its own reward, but today I actually got paid one dollar for my efforts. I even took a picture of my bounty!

The title was inspired by something I read in "The Riddle of the Sands." One of the main characters was very fond of throwing overboard everything he didn't want or need. I know the book was written in 1903, but I still can't forgive him!

Singing the Praises of a Singer

2009-06-16T14:06:00.005-04:00

I don't think I can even make my way through the first two verses of "Happy Birthday to You" without going out of tune. And I can't remember anything more excruciatingly painful (besides the visits to our dentist) than my piano lessons as a little girl. But, that never kept me from developing a deep love and appreciation of music, especially Brazilian sounds. And I have a dear friend in Rio who, pardonnez-moi le cliché, sings like a bird. I've heard that birds actually don't "sing," but be that as it may, Marcos is a beautiful, privileged, sensitive, funny, enchanting, (I'm running on with my adjectives here, but you get the picture) interpreter. He also has a knack for repertoire like no other singer of his generation. I've sung his praises many times before, but now that he has a new CD fresh off the presses, I thought it might be a good opportunity for another show of my undying love and support.

Meanwhile, I've been walking around my new town of Surfside, trying to look conspicuously like a recently-arrived foreigner. For that, besides appearing (genuinely) lost most of the time and enquiring of passing strangers the location of the Post Office and the closest café (mercifully, there's a French one, no less!), I've enlisted my small collection of Brazilian souvenirs, like these marvelous capim dourado bracelets. They're incredible conversation pieces, as you can imagine, and I hope they'll help me make some new friends! If you've watched an American reality show featuring the Brazilian state of Tocantins, take it from me: it's all b.....Been there, done that, camping by a splendid, pristine river, climbing up mesas to take in breathtaking views, etc. All that, at 61 years old! Anyway, that's where all these gorgeous pieces of costume jewelry come from.

Marcos' new CD, "Na Cabeça", is available through Biscoito Fino in Rio. He's currently on a European tour. Check his website for cities and dates.

Marcos Sacramento Photo Credit: Edu Monteiro

Miami Beach Bum Says "Bom Dia!"

2009-06-11T18:36:00.004-04:00

After going AWOL for several weeks, the prima donna in the post below has been spotted atop a coconut palm on a beach a few miles north of Miami. And no, there are no immediate plans to return to the forested hills of Rio. Que pena!

Well, there are good things and bad things about being transplanted to the U.S. One upsetting detail: no one looks you in the eye and smiles (or very few people do). One very positive aspect: things still seem to work with a certain degree of efficiency here. I could even be daring and affirm that, in certain ways, they have improved considerably in four years. Take my broadband provider, for instance. If you remember a post called "Killing Me Softly" from two years ago, you'll recall that my Brazilian ISP/cable company, NET, almost had me sitting on the floor crying like a helpless child...I'm pleased to note that it took one phone call on Wednesday for two very capable technicians to show up here on Thursday and have me up and running at hyperspeed in no time at all! Not being accustomed to such rapidity and competency, I confess that I was floored and could have kissed the two of them! But they were in and out in minutes...to their next appointment.

This photograph was taken out of my window. I'm lucky with views! And I have had help moving and settling in. A young man from Ohio with the most beautiful (hazel? My fault, I haven't had leisure to stare at his face...) eyes and three other dear friends have pitched in.

I do miss everyone in Brazil terribly. And the markets. The produce section of my supermarket is minimal. The remainder of the fabulously-stocked store is taken over by bagged, canned, boxed, or otherwise packaged foods with a long list of unedible ingredients. Yikes! But I've decided to take advantage of the spectacular beach for a few months, at least. Yesterday, there were tarpon feeding at some schools of fish that were swimming all around me. Looking straight ahead, somewhere beyond the horizon, it's the islands of the Bahamas. I sat on the beach mesmerized for about an hour envying the fish their freedom and watery world, wishing that it would be possible for me to just start swimming and go see what I'd find out there...

MIA...Our Correspondent in Brazil

2009-06-03T14:42:00.004-04:00

Our Brazilian correspondent went missing, after pecking at her laptop keyboard for a couple of years from the general vicinity of Corcovado Mountain in Rio. Last seen flying in a general northwesterly direction.

We'll keep you posted if the bird ever turns up again!

Trying to Live a Good Story

2009-05-12T16:56:00.004-04:00

I flew up to Miami a week ago. Brazil already seems like a place I left in a galaxy far, far away. At least, I feel like someone who fell to Earth; I get baffled reading labels at the supermarket, I get dizzy walking through the aisles at Bed, Bath and Beyond. Trying to figure out what to do with your life is difficult at any age, I guess, but I was hoping that by the time I got to be 65 I would know exactly what and where I wanted to be. Who, me? I'm a few weeks away from becoming a card-carrying member of Medicare and the puzzle is getting increasingly more difficult to figure out. So, once again, I've appropriated a line from a movie I liked very much to describe what's going on with me (the first phrase was Status Quo Vadis; once more, you're invited to try and guess which film...I'll give you a hint: it's by the same director). All I know for sure is that there is a story out there that I started to live a long, long time ago in a remote corner of Brazil and that I've been trying to make it a good one. And that, at the present moment, doesn't include worrying about microwave ovens and plasma TVs. And that is the only certainty I have. Everything else is a question mark.

This is the last photograph I took in Rio, out of the second bedroom window. Just saying goodbye for a while.

Carpamus Diem

2009-04-28T12:11:00.005-04:00

My beloved Latin professor would be very proud of his student, if he could see me conjugating verbs like I just walked out of the classroom (and not 40+ years later). For those of you who never sat through hours of "amo, amas, amat" and Ovid translations, this title means something like "let's enjoy life here and now." As a matter of fact, my first choice was "My Time Is Now" (as in the documentary about the sambista Paulinho da Viola), which is pretty close, but this way it becomes an invitation to all to enjoy the present time; in other words, the only time we've got.

I'm saying goodbye to all my friends and favorite foods (more or less simultaneously) and I think that both facts account for a spell of tummy ache: too many emotions and an overabundance of calories and caipirinhas...

If you want to take the collective pulse in Brazil, there's no better place than a bar, and, as you may have figured out from the previous paragraph, I've been to quite a few recently. The other night I couldn't help overhearing (no one could, this woman was shouting!) the following outburst against politicians: they're all liars, they're all involved in scandals or implicated in crimes. And she proceeded to name but a few of said public figures whose devious doings have graced print and broadcast news in the past couple of weeks (years?). We all looked in the direction of her table and one of my dinner companions had this comment: I apologize for saying this when we're all eating, but there's only one word to describe Brasília and that is "cesspool." Anyway, you get a general idea of the state of play; according to the newsweekly Veja and some TV commentators I've been listening to, the only (and obvious) democratic way out is through the vote; no one wants to see the Senate and Congress shut the doors, much less a return to military rule, God forbid! I see all this as a sign that the country is improving, becoming "more like the U.S." (if you read the previous post); if only Brazilians take advantage of technology (Twitter comes to mind!) to force transparency and decency down their representatives' collective throats, until they can be removed by ballot in 2010!

Any good news, you may ask? Oh, yeah! My favorite singer is releasing a new CD in May. I'm not supposed to say anything yet, but by all accounts it's a masterpiece! And, a dear friend from California has offered me his gorgeous apartment on the beach in Surfside, FL at a discounted rate...in the same general neighborhood where my daughter lives.

Now, if I can fit all my stuff in my suitcases this weekend, I'll be as happy as a puppy!

Brazil vs. USA

2009-04-18T09:39:00.002-04:00

Apart from the latest scandal du jour (someone just blew the whistle on congressmen who receive and distribute free airline tickets to family, friends, lovers, and television personalities for trips within Brazil and vacations abroad, paid for by the Brazilian taxpayers, I kid you not!), what is there to write about when moving anxiety threatens to overwhelm you? Well, I've been reading about the Summit of the Americas and President Obama...aaahhh, at last a breath of fresh air, especially when you compare him with the pathetic representatives of very old-news, very stale, leftist governments in South America. Impossible not to draw comparisons between the U.S. and Brazil, the two giants on these longitudes. And that reminds me of a few prophetic words my brother uttered, only half in jest, about three decades ago: "Brazil," he said, "is the country of the future not because it's going to become like the United States, but because the United States will become like Brazil." You know, I think I'm coming to the realization that he was right. Have you tried customer service in the U.S. lately? Getting pretty close to the way things are in Brazil. Traffic? Well, if you live in Miami, I don't even need to explain! Energy-efficient cars? Biofuels? Sounds awfully like Brazil to me! Bad roads? Well, we're getting there. Is this enough? On the other hand, as my sister-in-law said the other day: life in Brazil is so much better than when she first came here in the 1970s. And, in spite of all kinds of tiptoeing and dancing around by Lula's administration in dealings with Argentina, Bolivia (see the natural gas crisis), and Venezuela, I don't think you have to be a political analyst to feel, I'd say, almost hear, the resentment towards this nation. The thing is, Brazil has everything going for it, and if it doesn't really become "like the U.S.," it's because its leaders are wasting or have wasted, rather, a tremendous chance.

Changing subjects entirely, if you'd like a tip on a good book, I just finished reading "The Riddle of the Sands," by Erskine Childers. I bought it for ten reais!, a Penguin Popular Classics edition, at Livraria da Travessa in Ipanema. It's my favorite bookstore in the entire world, now that I haven't lived in Boston for years and years (and, in any case, I bet my old haunts are all gone, now that we all shop at Amazon.com). I don't know what I'm going to do when bookstores as we knew them disappear from the face of the Earth. Oh, but then I should be gone, too...not to worry, I guess! Back to this small volume: it's got spies and yachting up and down the foggy coasts of northern Germany and Holland one October about a hundred years ago. If you enjoy sailing, you'll love it!

Cheap & Chic Tip: I just visited the Havaianas flagship store in São Paulo. Every style is available and you can create your own, too. I wish they had paid me for this sort-of-advertisement with about ten pairs at least, but they didn't.

(En)Chanted Word

2009-04-04T16:12:00.012-04:00

This week it was my intention to write about the soap opera I have going on with the HSBC branch near me here in Rio. I had even picked a good title for the post; I was going to call it "Bank Robbers." But I'll leave this for the end, because fortunately I went to see a documentary about poetry in Brazilian song called "Palavra (En)Cantada," so my mind and emotions are much more happily engaged than in the past few days. This country has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to its lyricists, so much so that it's extremely difficult for anyone to pick out her/his favorite verses. Raise the question and you have food for long, animated discussions around any bar table; go to any show, be it Caetano Veloso or Cordão do Fogo Encantado, a hip-hop contest in Lapa or a popular fair in northeastern Brazil, and you'll hear pure poetry. And, of course, everywhere you go, people KNOW the words to dozens, if not hundreds, of songs.

I'm not sure if I really liked Helena Solberg's documentary (I loved her "Carmen Miranda: Bananas Is My Business" years ago), because I think it left out too much and at times it seems to lose its way. But there are some great moments (I particularly enjoyed the interviews with José Miguel Wisnik, BNegão, and Luiz Tatit) and it would be nice if it played in schools here, I think. And I hope it makes it to the U.S. The best thing for me was actually what someone wrote inspired by the film, and I'm going to make an attempt at translating/quoting him: "If Lula is indeed 'my man' as Obama says...I have my doubts. My vote goes to the songwriters of Brazil." Amen!

As far as the bank is concerned, this is what happened: Back in December I tried to get cash out of an ATM there. I got back a receipt saying something to the effect that the machine wasn't able to dispense the cash...but they took the money out of my account anyway. And don't want to give it back to me! This being a bank, and unfortunately a bank in Brazil, the telenovela is likely to go on for another three to four months. I hope it has a happy-ending, for my sake.

Bird of Passage

2009-03-22T20:58:00.003-04:00

I'm back in Rio for a last fling and I've been spending hours every morning sitting at a café with a few espressos and a pile of newspapers, just catching up. If I told you about the latest spectacular scandal in the Brazilian Senate or the gun battles between rival drug gangs in Copacabana today (it was a war zone down there; I know because one of my best friends had to run and throw herself on the floor and listen to machine gun fire for about twenty minutes) you wouldn't believe me anyway. So, instead, I'm writing about a sentence I read in today's edition of O Globo: nothing changes like the past. Isn't it perfect?

I've been thinking a lot about the years when I was growing up in Brazil and these memories and stories are coming back to me that must have been stored in some do-not-open-until-later-in-life compartment of my brain. I'm not sure at times if what I'm doing is really remembering or if I'm recalling what was later related to me, but there's this image of a little girl walking down the street around the corner of her house, because "she was leaving with the gypsies." I'm sure, though, that I remember sitting inside a large tent with Oriental carpets covering the grass on the field where they camped. My father was a country doctor, you see, and they were his patients (well, when they came by, every six months or so) and I would often go with him when he did his rounds. Clearly, my nomadic, migratory lifestyle has been on my mind lately!

This photograph was taken on the momentous occasion of my first carnaval party. And I'm dressed as a...gypsy, what else?

While in Miami, I got acquainted with my daughter's Blackberry Bold and realized that we humans are finally doing what our thumbs were designed for: texting messages. Have a wonderful week!

PS on Monday evening - Well, the war zone spread today to include my once peaceful neighborhood: heavy gun fire, stray bullet through a roof nearby, police helicopters circling above, schools closed, the works. It was like watching a movie except that it was for real. Next time you smoke a "harmless" joint or snort a harmful line of cocaine please take a moment to think about the millions of innocent people affected by your disgusting habits. What's really appalling, though, is that everywhere else life goes on as if nothing is happening...what is wrong with these people?

The Golden Girl

2009-02-28T14:40:00.002-05:00

I'm flying back to Miami on Tuesday. Tomorrow is Sunday, March 1st, my daughter's birthday, as well as Rio's 444th. Here's my present to all: an unforgettable summer sunset. Remember when I said I was making lists to help me decide whether to go or to stay? I mentioned the mind-boggling offerings of fruit at the market and the Atlantic forest up on the mountainside as very strong enticements to remain under the Christ's armpit. So far, the balance was tilting in favor of this marvelous city, but after last weekend's display of generalized bad behavior on the part of cariocas (who seem to have lost the capacity for civilized conduct: if you'd seen all the women with their panties down peeing behind every car parked on my street, you'd understand!), I'm afraid I'm rather glad to be throwing in the towel. So, off I go into the wild blue yonder with MIA as a final destination.

I read something very funny the other day: that women in Brazil don't get old, they become blondes. Since I'll not surrender to either old age or hair dyeing, I've found a compromise in a few bleached strands on the right side of my very short bangs. I find them a nice statement: this lady here is going down fighting a good fight! They also remind me of Dave Robicheaux, nickname Streak, one of my favorite characters in the mystery novel realm.

I must tell you that there were a few winners this carnaval: Rola Preguiçosa in Ipanema and Sovaco do Cristo near me, for instance. Tonight I'm going to watch the winning samba schools parade down the Sambadrome: last weekend I simply fell asleep in front of the TV; the regular parade is too long, too overblown these days. By the way, isn't Sambadrome an atrocious word? For a very ugly place, too, as far as I'm concerned...

Ah, what's golden about the girl besides the little band of vanilla-colored hair? Well, to begin with, I haven't lost a handbag or watch or cell phone or any piece of jewelry in all these months and I've only encountered one armed youth in a bus. Since I was seated right in front, as I was told to do as soon as I arrived here, he never did me any harm. The poor passengers in the back weren't as lucky! Plus, of course, I had the infinite pleasure of enjoying the company of countless lovely Brazilians and of visiting the four corners of this privileged country.

White Flag, My Love...It's Carnaval...

2009-02-22T08:37:00.010-05:00

So begin the lyrics to my all-time favorite carnaval song: a poignant, slow-motion marcha called "Bandeira Branca." I remember the first time I ever heard it: I was packing my suitcase in the early evening to fly back to the U.S. Strains of a rather melancholy, seemingly pleading song, came through the window in the voices of the crowd down in the streets below. I started to hum the melody along and then tried to make out the words: Bandeira branca, amor..."White flag, my love, I can't go on like this anymore, because of this longing for you that's taking over me, I ask for peace." I hope these lovers made up in the end, how could one resist such a melodious entreaty?

My carnaval has been a little busier than usual, because I have a guest this year, a young, lively Canadian woman come to see what's it all about. I took her out for a small taste of street revelry Thursday night. On Friday, we walked around the lagoon all the way to the meeting point for Rola Preguiçosa in Ipanema. I don't know if you recall the post I wrote about this last November, but they're the bloco that picked as their theme song a samba honoring President Obama. They called it "Get It Off Your Chest," in Portuguese a pun with the outgoing President's name: "Desem...BUSHe!" So, I got to belt it out along with the small crowd. And, yes, I got it off my chest once again, this time to the drumming of a bateria on a breezy, clear Rio night!

For those of you who would like to learn to sing Bandeira Branca for next year's carnaval parties, perhaps, here are the lyrics. It's included in "Sassaricando," a two-CD set with the best carnaval songs ever. You can pick it up next time you're in Brazil!

Bandeira branca, amor
Não posso mais
Pela saudade que me invade
Eu peço paz (BIS)

Saudade mal de amor, de amor
Saudade dor que dói demais
Vem meu amor
Bandeira branca, eu peço paz

This is a time for stolen kisses on the street, for falling in and out of love, but some carnaval romances seem to endure. O Globo today has a story about couples who met during carnaval...and stayed together. And Neguinho da Beija-Flor, the official singer for the superchamp samba school from Nilópolis, has received permission to get married at the Sambadrome tonight with President Lula and his wife Marisa as witnesses.

Last, but not least, the Ministry of Health is distributing tens of thousands of free condoms and there's a safe sex campaign directed at women over fifty...remember, better safe than sorry! Happy Carnaval!

The photos here are of the musicians come to grace my neighborhood street party with their incredible sounds this afternoon. The ladies belong to a fantastic all-woman orchestra called Orquestra Lunar.

I had to add two more pictures: you tell me if this isn't the best bloco..."Umbilical Cord," now dancing at the corner of my street: babies, pregnant women, current and future members and their proud dads!!

They Said I Came Back Americanized...

2009-02-13T10:50:00.007-05:00

No, not me! Carmen Miranda!! And that is the title of a song written for her by a couple of her buddies, when she came back to Brazil for the first time in 1940, a big Hollywood star and all. She wasn't treated so well by her compatriots, as you can imagine by this line. The lyrics are very humorous and full of barbs directed at her detractors. My friend Marcos Sacramento, who sings this samba like no one else but Carmen herself, is the main attraction at a series of celebrations in her honor tomorrow. Carmen is 100 years old this year, you see, or could have been, if the American star way of life hadn't killed her in 1955. I don't know how many people have any notion of who she really was or even a smidgen of an idea of how incredibly talented. Forget the bananas and assorted fruit on her head. This lady could sing! She was a hugely popular artist, a dazzling performer on radio and stage in Brazil, when Mr. Shubert whisked her away to fame and fortune abroad. She was also a fragile and generous woman: being The Brazilian Bombshell proved to be too much for her (not to mention what was going on in her love life). But she did become a music and fashion icon and remains one to this day, an inspiration to singers, bloggers (try Spinning in Air, best music blog ever), and shoe designers like Christian Louboutin.

The Carmen Miranda Museum in Rio is housed in the ugliest possible building on Avenida Rui Barbosa. But don't be discouraged, I think you'll enjoy your visit. It was one of the places my gringo husband had to see, when he first arrived here in 1978...Maybe someday someone will realize that she is worthy of so much more and they'll build a deservedly spectacular home for her platform shoes and utterly over-the-top hats. Meanwhile, you may get a taste online at Museu Carmen Miranda.

This biography by Ruy Castro is the best book I've read about Carmen Miranda so far. I don't think there's an English translation yet. If you understand Portuguese, the texts on the website, written by friends and people who remember her, make for a fascinating read too.

PS - Even that accent in the movies was fabricated in La La Land...She COULD speak English!

Gone Shopping in the Saara

2009-02-08T11:15:00.003-05:00

That's not a misspelling. I haven't been to the desert in Africa, but to a Mecca for shoppers in downtown Rio. The rather tongue-in-cheek acronym stands for Sociedade dos Amigos das Adjacências da Rua da Alfândega, an association of wholesalers, retailers, and restaurant owners, between Avenida Presidente Vargas and Praça Tiradentes. Originally, shop owners were Middle Eastern immigrants (in fact, people still go there to eat what Brazilians call "Arab" food): Lebanese, Palestinians, Syrians, Iraqis, and Jews. In fact, it's one of the few places on Earth, if not the only spot, where Christians, Muslims, and Jews are perfectly happy to work and live, do business and observe religious feasts side by side, in great harmony. These days, there's been an influx of newcomers from the Far East and the addition of one holiday; the Chinese New Year is now celebrated, along with Yom Kippur and Ramadan, and St. George, who's probably more popular here than in England!

Anyway, the Saara should be your destination for party articles and inexpensive carnaval costumes and masks; spices, perfumes, essences, and aromatic oils; dried flowers; dates and nuts; costume jewelry and fashionable (but throw away and disposable!) accessories; jeans at a fraction of what they cost in the shopping malls, and gorgeous fabrics. When Rio sizzles (like right now), it's best to go early in the morning on a weekday, but avoid Fridays like the plague.

Downtown Rio, or as it's affectionately known, "the city," is also the place to go to feed your soul. If it's a bit run-down and rough around the edges, due to years of neglect by the previous administration, it's still a treasure trove of museums, art galleries, and cultural spaces, and a great favorite of mine. Yesterday afternoon, I saw a fantastic exhibition called "Brasil Brasileiro" at the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil. I thought it was very clever to divide the paintings into themes or modules: Our Land, Our People, Our Dreams, Our Struggles, and give each one a soundtrack, since the title of the show is borrowed from "Aquarela do Brasil" by Ary Barroso. And, as "there'll be music" is a given in this most musical of cities, why not end the day in company with two of its most charming and talented performers? Pictured here are the duo Nilze Carvalho and Marcos Sacramento, who brought the house down at the CCBB last night and, as usual, made me wish I didn't have to leave.

The traditional Brazilian fabrics called chitão were photographed at Casa Turunas in the Saara. They are being made into pillow covers for my new home in the U.S.

Here's a link to the Saturday evening performance on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuE-viltvHs&feature=related

"No Tempo do Nice" photo credit: Maria Braga

Walls of Selfishness

2009-02-02T16:22:00.007-05:00

I had heard of the Wailing Wall of Jerusalem and the Great Wall of China, who hasn't? But, according to Roberto Burle Marx (who was quoting a friend of his), there's also something called "la muraille des égoïstes," the wall of the selfish of Rio. That's what people were building on the Copacabana beachfront crescent at the time they were having this conversation. As you can see from this photograph, the French guy was right. If you live on the back streets, that lovely view might as well not be there. Unless you arrive one day and climb up the side of one of the many hills and build your makeshift home there (but this was much afterwards). These days though, how ironic, you may also be looking at prostitutes and crime from your floor-to-ceiling windows on Avenida Atlântica. Am I exaggerating? No, I just read the local papers (with a heart that gets heavier every month).

Brazilians have built these walls of egoism everywhere: a good, or I should say, bad example is Boa Viagem beach in Recife. I remember when I used to send my daughter off back into the sunshine after 3 p.m. Now you probably won't need a beach umbrella in the afternoon; the buildings provide the shade. You can google it for pictures and see what I mean.

Fortunately, there's still enough of unspoilt, undeveloped coast to last me to the end of my days. I don't mind sharing one of my favorite secret places in the Northeast: the tiny colonial gem called Penedo, near the mouth of the São Francisco River. There you can visit one of the most gorgeous (if not THE most beautiful) church in Brazil, Nossa Senhora da Corrente. Rent a boat with a square sail (you'll only see these here) and lose yourself in one of the deserted beaches where the mighty "Velho Chico" meets the ocean.

According to the papers that I insist on reading, in spite of what they do to my blood pressure, the number of favelas in Rio is nearing the astonishing one thousand mark! And, if you have the millions it takes, Urca, Leblon, Ipanema, and Lagoa are the places to look for that pied-à-terre in this tropical madhouse. As for me, and I keep repeating myself, I'll be picking the next as-remote-as-possible spot to visit.

Status Quo...Vadis?

2009-01-24T10:57:00.007-05:00

So to speak...My sister-in-law is coming from Sampa on Tuesday to see the Burle Marx retrospective (didn't I say it was worth a trip to Rio?). Jenny, who hails from Tasmania, also wants to go see "Australia" with me. Two decades ago she moved to the outskirts of Campinas and built herself a house, reminiscent of an Australian outback bungalow, with a row of eucalyptus trees in front. The rest of the garden was downright Brazilian: wide blade grass, pitangas, amoras, mangoes, and so on. The other day we were out taking pictures (she's a superb photographer) and I asked her if she didn't want to have a house again, a piece of land for her herbs and flowers (she's a green thumb). She gave me an emphatic "no!" And the main reason, she said, were the saúvas. For those of you unfamiliar with the delights of maintaining a garden in these latitudes, these insects are some of the largest and most voracious ants in the world. And, apparently, they simply refuse to go away, no matter what you try, short of a scorched earth policy (which kind of defeats the purpose). But where was I that I got here? Oh, I know. When I first came to Brazil my dream was to have a little house somewhere and be able to dig my fingers into soil once more and have my own tropical haven, steps away from the Atlantic forest. Pretty much what Burle Marx did at home and for countless moneyed people around here. Well, it didn't exactly turn out that way. Who knows where I'll end up next, but it's quite likely to be a condo again...oy, vey!

Speaking of going to the movies, I found the best candy in Brazil! Hurray! A little marvel called Bala Juquinha: it's chewy like a salt water taffy, but doesn't stick to your teeth; it's neither sweet nor sour and hits your tastebuds like yumm...Considering it's been majorly popular since the fifties, it beats me why I'd never heard of it until the other day. Better late than never; I intend to make up for lost time. So, to "Australia" I'll go, armed with a handful of tutti-frutti Juquinhas, and I'll throw a few bagfuls into my suitcase next time. The company site claims that they export their candies and lollipops to 49 countries, including the U.S., so they must be available somewhere near us, but just in case...

And, if you can guess where I found the title for this post, I promise to mail you a bag of Juquinhas! It's a play on a very famous book title, but most importantly, it's a fitting description for this bird of passage's existence.

Photo Copyright: Balas Juquinha

Beam Me Back to Brigadoon, Scotty!

2009-01-18T10:36:00.008-05:00

No, not the one in the misty Highlands of Scotland, but an enchanted place of my own choosing. Can it be done, you think? I started mulling over this idea yesterday after I went downtown to see the "Roberto Burle Marx 100 Years" exhibition. I walked through spaces filled with paintings, paintings on fabric, glass sculptures, jewelry, gigantic tapestries, tile panels in myriad colors, drawings, models, until I found what I was looking for: his magnificent landscape designs. Then I sat quietly for a very long time, eyes riveted on large flat TV screens. It was closing time when I left the museum in a rather dreamy state. Oh, how I wish I could live surrounded by any one of those dozens of gardens he created for wealthy homeowners in Brazil and abroad.

Still on the subject of magical places, I've been taking an inventory of my visits to remote corners of Brazil. I've always said that what I like most about this country is the interior; I'm not particularly fond of cities here (apart from Rio and São Paulo). And I've decided that my favorite spot is the awe-inspiring wilderness called Jalapão, in the central-northern state of Tocantins. I remember the camp by a pristine river, the long treks through scrubland to see 30-meter high dunes or a waterfall that looked like a miniature Iguaçu, the 800-meter climb to the top of a mesa to take in the breathtaking view; and how cold the rain was, surprisingly. And the best part: less than one human being per square kilometer! Anyway, as we were walking out of the museum, my friend asked me: So, have you picked your garden yet? I told her I was just going home to get my checkbook... Seriously, though, if I can't have my private Burle Marx oasis, then perhaps take me back to this particular locale?

My photo credit: I was blissfully unaware that a young man from Brasília was taking photographs as I stood there. I wish I could credit him, but I didn't keep his e-mail and I don't remember his name. To see more of my own pics, go to Jalapão.

The Burle Marx show at the Paço Imperial runs through March 22 and it's worth a trip to Rio, I promise!

(Un)Dressing Your Age

2009-01-11T14:00:00.009-05:00

Summer has finally arrived in Rio and you know what that means (besides dodging dengue fever mosquitoes, that is): time to go hunting for the latest styles in bathing suits. (Before you ask, the hottest thing is a strapless top, sold on the beach in Ipanema, that you can mix and match with your favorite bottoms.) The task is relatively easy for the young sirens that inhabit the sands from Arpoador to Barra; it becomes increasingly more of a challenge if you are a woman of a certain age. This is true of all types of garments down here, by the way. I thought I was the only one with this problem, but the other day a friend of mine told me that she had instructed her sons and daughter not to shop for presents for her at such and such stores. These, I'll let you know, used to be our favorite haunts for years; we have now passed them on to the younger generation. And are at a loss as to where we go from here. I have the advantage of dividing my time between Brazil and the U.S., so I hit the stores there. But, where bikinis and such are concerned, we all know that there is only one place in the world to shop and that is right here. Fortunately, there are stores and designers that have women like us in mind when they create their masterpieces: we're older, yes, but small, thin, young-looking and, may I add, not lacking in flair or spunk. So, they make it possible for us to (un)dress our age. Before I forget, my daughter has express orders to chain me to the dining-room table if I ever commit the unpardonable sin of looking ridiculous, on or off the beach.

This adorable three-piece (two bottoms, one top, bought separately from a collection called MixXX Salinas) in the photograph is called a "sunkini" and was purchased at Salinas, where we have faithfully shopped for thirteen years now. And no, we don't get discounts for so generously advertising their creations.

We firmly believe we were the first to write about the Brazilian bikini on the Internet (in 1995). The rather tongue-in-cheek essay is still available on our site.

On further sartorial matters: Aren't you dying to know what Michelle will wear on January 20th? I can't wait for her to surprise and delight us!

You Can Blame the Blueberry Muffin

2009-01-04T13:57:00.005-05:00

Remember when I wrote bitching about Starbucks, comparing the chain stores to Brazilian cafés? Well, I visited Rio's very one and only this afternoon. And I plan to go back often. Blame it on the blueberry muffin, if you wish; it was light and loaded with purple fruit. But I have to tell you that they also make a near perfect espresso macchiato. And the coffee wasn't bitter like the ones I've tasted in Miami Beach. Otherwise, it's set up like any other Starbucks in the U.S., so if you find yourself here and homesick, the address is Shopping Leblon, first floor. By the way, of course there are blueberries in Brazil in the summer; they're called mirtilo in Portuguese and grown in the colder regions of the South. As far as I know, the only fruit Brazil doesn't boast are durian and cranberries.

The title for this post is a wink at a favorite film of mine, "My Blueberry Nights," directed by Wong Kar-Wai. If you missed it at the theaters, please rent the DVD. It's visually stunning and Natalie Portman plays a poker player that you wouldn't want to bet against. It also features blueberry pies, the only ones left over at the end of the day in Jude Law's diner. But, as he says to Norah Jones, "don't blame the blueberry pie." Meaning, "the guy who left you is a complete idiot." And you tell me if their kiss isn't the best you've ever seen in a movie!

Dropping back to Earth, Rio has a new mayor as of January 1. He promised a choque de ordem, something akin to Rudy Giuliani's zero tolerance policy, to clean up and reform the metropolis. I only uncrossed my fingers to type this text! His task is herculean, to say the least. His predecessor, who most people suspect of having an overpopulation of bats in the belfry, left a spectacular mess after twelve years in office (I wouldn't be able to tell you how or why he was reelected twice, but then, I could never figure out why Americans elected George W. Bush either). Anyway, I'll be reading the papers and watching for signs of improvement wherever I go in the next few weeks and will report back. The only thing I don't understand is why they replaced the director of the only public company that works in this city, the Comlurb. Public cleaning and waste disposal has been a tremendous success story. If cariocas weren't such pigs, Rio could easily be one of the cleanest and best maintained places on this planet! Kudos to the men and women in orange uniforms on the streets, parks and beaches. Everytime I see one of them, I feel like giving her/him a big hug and a warm "thank you!" Good job!

If you find this image disturbing, I'll remind you that these are two of dozens of street people who camp in the square in front of my building in a middle-class neighborhood, a few streets away from some of the fanciest mansions in Rio.

Out With the Old, in With the New...Is It, Really?

2008-12-30T12:54:00.006-05:00

I'm not being very original, am I? Neither is the rest of the world, it seems. Israel is bombing Gaza and hundreds are dying. Hotels in Rio are at 100% occupancy; two million people are expected in Copacabana Beach tonight. I went to Ipanema yesterday morning and to the Botanical Garden in the afternoon, and can vouch for the presence of hordes of happy tourists in town. If you want to know what else I saw, you must read my post of December 2007, so I don't have to repeat myself (didn't I say "same old, same old?"). On this last day of 2008, I'd like to tell you about one perceptible change that took place about three blocks from where I live; a very tiny one in Rio terms, but quite a significant one nonetheless. There's a small favela (10,000 people) in my neighborhood called Dona Marta; according to recent editions of the local papers it's been finally "liberated" from drug dealers in a new model of occupation by the State: 125 recent graduates of police academies have moved in as a permanent "community unit." This means that working people will no longer be hostages to criminals; that they should be getting regular utilities soon (as opposed to illegal hookups), and other basic services, such as a daycare and a health clinic. Also, no more fireworks at all hours of day or night, announcing the arrival of a new shipment of drugs and, apparently, no more blaring music all night long (to the general delight and relief of residents and neighbors alike). Real estate agents in this area report increased interest in apartment buildings in the vicinity; also, that values have jumped up suddenly (as you can imagine, living practically next door to violence and drugs won't bring you top price for your property). A couple of reporters from O Globo even ventured to spend the night up there. Considering that journalists who make incursions into such areas rarely come out unscathed (or alive, for that matter), this IS news, indeed! If this experiment is successful, there's hope for other favelas and the city yet.

Last night I walked to the edge of the lagoon to meet a couple of friends (we've had a break from the rains, as you may have guessed!). We just stood there in the breeze admiring the floating Christmas Tree. We talked about the numerous birds that are now, we hope, a permanent fixture there. It means there are fish, one friend said. And that means the water is getting cleaner, I added.

As to New Year's Eve, well, it's shaping up nicely, too. I thought I was going to be alone, but I now have two invitations. I ran into my next door neighbor downstairs; she told me she's going to be home and if I wanted to knock on her door around nine or so...Then a friend who lives two buildings away from me called. Her mom is coming over and her cousin and would I be interested in joining them for a glass of champagne? Isn't life so much better when you don't make any plans?

Happy New Year! I wish I could go to sleep and wake up on January 20th, don't you?

These Sandals Are Made for...

2008-12-25T09:51:00.003-05:00

Well, for Christmas presents they'll do just fine! The evening pair I found on sale at a store owned by a young woman with whom I share an old-fashioned name (my middle, her first). Aren't they lovely? I wore them to dinner last night. When I got home, I exchanged them for the second pair, which was a gift from one of my best carioca friends. They're woven with the fibers from the trunk of banana trees; one of hundreds of projects around the country that generate employment and income for women in rural areas (see my post dated December 1). I've been schlepping around the apartment with them this morning; they feel so good! I suppose we all can't wait to try on our Christmas presents, can we?

And, yes, I got a glimpse of Rio's iconic Christmas Tree as my taxi drove around the lagoon; the skies are still heavy with grey clouds that promise yet more rain in the coming days. I wonder if this weather is going to spoil the city's spectacular New Year's Eve party? I'm planning on walking down the street to find a spot near the water among the thousands of revelers in this neighborhood; I don't have the stamina to face the millions on Copacabana Beach anymore. All I can do now is keep my fingers crossed!

And the Dog Ate the Turkey Dinner

2008-12-24T14:05:00.005-05:00

I have been reading the papers since I got back to Rio last week, trying to see what columnists have to say this Holiday Season. I agree with one of them: it's hard to be original about Christmas at this point in life. And I'm not the nostalgic type, really, so I'm not interested in remembering past Christmases...I'm already making plans for what I want to do in 2009! As for tonight, I'm going to have dinner at a friend's apartment very near the Lagoa and I hope to get a glimpse of the famous floating Christmas Tree at last. I haven't had the energy to walk there yet, since I got back from my exhausting trip to southern Brazil; besides, it's been raining almost every night. My small family is scattered around the world, in Europe, Canada, the U.S., and Australia. I hope they all have a nice, quiet time. What of presents? Obama will soon be our President and my daughter has a new job she enjoys very much. What else could I wish for? Well, I think you should read this on the New York Times online: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/24/opinion/24friedman.html. My sentiments exactly!!

Before I forget, I need to tell you about the dog in the title: Many years ago, in Boston, our German shepherd grabbed the champagne-marinated turkey I had cooked and finished it off on the kitchen floor.

Merry Christmas to All!

Photo Credit: Guto Costa at http://www.arvorenatalbradescoseguros.com.br

Mission Accomplished or You've Come a Long Way, Baby!

2008-12-15T16:42:00.007-05:00

It wasn't Mission Impossible, not even a particularly difficult mission, just a very tiring one. I had got it into my head that I must revisit my old school and my favorite playground as a child. They are located in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, not too far from the Argentinian border, about sixty kilometers apart. It took a two-hour flight south from Rio, followed by a six-and-a-half-hour bus trip and a forty-five-minute taxi ride to arrive at my first destination, the ruins of São Miguel das Missões. Now a beautifully-maintained UNESCO World Heritage site, this was a pretty deserted place fifty-some years ago when I was a tomboy with a predilection for climbing on buildings and trees. This time around, I had a blast walking in and out of the ruins, stepping over stonewalls, or just plain sitting there in the dark with the full Moon behind the trees and a chilly wind blowing on my back. This is still a remote area of rolling yellow and green hills with immense skies above; earlier that evening I was treated to a rare sight: a huge Moon was rising in the East as the fiery red Sun was still high in the West. The next day, I took a bus early in the morning to the town where I was born. I didn't recognize my school until I was inside the new building looking towards the old. I can't tell you how happy I was to climb the wide wooden steps again; I almost felt like I was thirteen in a homemade swing-skirt dress. I think I must have been very happy there; in any case, it was in that building with the gable windows that I learned everything that made a difference in my life: self-discipline, Geography, and languages.

I took this picture of my foot stepping on a patch of native soil. It is as red as I remembered it. And, as you can see, this middle-aged prodigal daughter was wearing a very 2008ish pair of Capri jeans! I'm back in Rio for a couple more months; I know I can leave now...It's mission accomplished!

Around Brazil in Four and a Half Hours

2008-12-01T15:38:00.004-05:00

That's how long it took me to walk through (and see a fraction of it!) the Contemporary Rural Brazil Expo this past Saturday before my feet said "enough." I wish I could have spent double the time; I still wouldn't have seen it all. Hundreds of exhibitors from Acre to Rio Grande do Sul came to Rio de Janeiro to showcase their products and crafts; these are all families or cooperatives that make anything from organic coffee and cachaça to bright yellow farinha de mandioca to bacuri bonbons; goat cheese and yogurt; cookies and biscuits; salted cashew and cumbarú nuts; pepper jelly and sauces; every salami and sausage known to man; baskets and placemats from buriti palm; juice and jewelry from açaí, gorgeous capim dourado handbags, baskets and bracelets; necklaces made from tiririca seeds and coquinho; handbags decorated with babaçu nuts sliced and polished; handwoven hammocks and fuxico pillowcovers; and handknit scarves that Barney's buyers would kill for (I'm the proud owner of one of them now). I could go on for at least three more paragraphs filled with exotic names, but you get the idea: the biological and cultural diversity of this country is astonishing. The place was crowded with Brazilians eager to shop and try the different foods. I didn't hear too many languages besides Portuguese, which is too bad. I wish the hotels had filled vans and minibuses with foreign tourists. It's not often that one has the chance to tour this immense country in a few hours and under one roof!

The young lady in this photograph came from the state of Tocantins, representing the artisans from the Jalapão. I went there in 2005 and it's still one of my favorite places in Brazil. I had just bought a bunch of these bracelets when she dropped them on the floor. Notice that even her sandals are made of capim dourado...

Happy Thanksgiving in Both Hemispheres!

2008-11-27T15:53:00.005-05:00

This post was going to be called "The Lamest of Ducks," but I found out yesterday that someone had used this title on Time.com in an article about President Bush. Except that I was going to talk about a couple of ducks: ours, of course, and Rio's outgoing Mayor César Maia. If our Commander in Chief has at least been spotted in Peru and other places closer to home, no one down here has seen Mr. Maia for as long as I can remember (as the city almost literally crumbles around us). I sometimes wonder if the man is no longer alive or if it's just that he doesn't have the courage to show his face anymore. In any case, the expression used to describe Mr. Bush, "of stupefying ineptitude," fits the carioca chief executive official like a glove. I couldn't have said it better. Absolutely no one will be sorry to see him go, except perhaps the people his incompetence and arrogance have benefitted. My only concern is that his successor doesn't seem like someone endowed with the kind of moral fortitude and political boldness needed to tackle this disaster area. We shall see!

Anyway, besides the fact that we'll be seeing the back of these two men before too long, I today gave thanks for my health and my Brazilian friends. Two of them were kind enough to join me for a good, hearty meal and a glass of Argentinian Malbec, this being an appropriately cold and rainy day. I remember wearing my snow boots almost every year in Boston when we lived there, so I suppose I should also rejoice that I now have lived in the tropics for a good many years.

A non-sequitur: I've been spending a lot of time researching the nineteenth-century; it all started with a DVD of "Jane Eyre" and the book about Brazilian and American history I mentioned a few days ago. I've been weaving my way through stories about fashion in the Victorian Age, the history of indoor plumbing, underground trains, social movements, scientific discoveries, industrialization in general, and immigration to the U.S. Somehow, I've ended in Sicily and the Italian Risorgimento and Garibaldi and a DVD of Visconti's "Il Gattopardo." So, I guess, I should also give thanks for the Internet and all this wonderful technology!

Well, this is what the Corcovado looks like right after a storm.

Get It Off Your Chest or a Samba for Obama

2008-11-20T08:22:00.007-05:00

Carnaval is a few months off, but a bloco in Ipanema has already released their samba...and it's in honor of President-elect Obama. Of course, who else could it be? I suspect that 2009 is going to be a very interesting year for street carnaval in Rio; I'm anticipating many more songs, costumes, and Obama masks (those should sell like hotcakes!)...and Bush jokes, naturally! The samba starts with these words: Desem...Bush! É coqueluche, essa febre de Obama se alastrou no mundo inteiro, which translate more or less as "get it off your chest, it's all the rage, this Obama fever has caught around the world." I have to explain that the final syllable of the verb desembuche is pronounced, more or less, like bush. Get the pun?

I might have helped spread the infection; I've been wearing my Obama t-shirt since the primaries and now sport an Obama '08 button on my straw basket. My photos have been on MSNBC (this one taken on election night by an AP photographer) and UOL, the Brazilian news site from São Paulo.

Now all I have to think about is my costume for next February's celebrations, which will be post inauguration! I'll have a lot to sing about...we all will!!

Photo credit: Maria Ester Rabello. Thank you so much for this!

The Best Perfumes

2008-11-19T09:23:00.007-05:00

Have you ever heard the expression "the best perfumes come in the smallest bottles?" I've come to the conclusion that it can be justly applied to mangoes, after eating a few mangas carlotinhas this week. They're the smallest mangoes I've ever seen and coming into season now. They're a yellow-green color (deep orange inside) and not much bigger than a large egg; very fibrous, strong-flavored and the sweetest of the bunch (I mean, of all varieties I've ever tasted). I took a picture of a couple on my kitchen table; if anyone has ever tried these anywhere else in the world, please let me know! I've just consumed these two and need to rush back to the market for more.

Spring downpours are here and my daily walks have suffered, so I've been catching up on my reading. I bought a small book called "Brasil e Estados Unidos: o que fez a diferença," written by a journalist called Ricardo Lessa. Mr. Lessa digs up the economic, social, and political roots of Brazil's chronic ills and compares that with U.S. history. I don't need to tell you which country comes out as the winner, but the message is that the South American slumbering giant can (or rather should) learn from past mistakes and awake to fulfill its spectacular potential.

I photographed this patriotic yellow, blue, and green bike at the Botanical Garden in Rio about a week ago.

PS - I'm planning a trip to the south of Brazil in early December to visit the ruins of the Jesuit Mission of Saint Michael the Archangel (now a UNESCO World Heritage Site), where I used to play as a kid. I'm also going to stop by my old school; I owe it the debt of an extraordinary education and wish to see it again (but judging by their website there's little I'll recognize!). More later...I need to go floss my teeth now!!

A Mutt Like Me

2008-11-08T11:54:00.015-05:00

My President-elect will have to forgive me, but the copyright to this phrase belongs to this grey-haired lady here. To tell you the truth, my exact words were "a mutt like us." I was giving my own family as an example of people with roots in several continents, bloods so mixed at this point that the only box to fill out on official U.S. forms under ethnicity is "Prefers Not to Disclose." One of us, a product of a racial and multi-cultural hodgepodge, a true representative of the people of these United States of America, is now headed for the White House and Godspeed!

In a similar way (but with marked differences), Brazil is also a land of mutts or vira-latas, the funny, descriptive, self-explanatory Portuguese word (it literally means "overturner of trash cans"); down here miscegenation started almost on day one, with Portuguese officials taking Indian women (sometimes several at a time) as wives to guarantee powerful alliances with tribal chiefs. Not to mention, of course, what went on unrecorded by historians...Brazil has a President, now on his second term, who certainly qualifies as a bona fide specimen of this Southern hemisphere melting pot (in his case, a mixture of indigenous and white), and one who grew up in extreme poverty and came to power on a tremendous wave of hope and goodwill. I keep being reminded by my friends down here that his Workers Party cohorts, seduced by the irresistible combination of power and money, have been involved in numerous corruption and influence-peddling scandals. Whether Lula himself had any knowledge of what went on remains a mystery, but educated, middle-class voters are, shall we say, totally disenchanted. I keep telling myself that Obama is not Lula, even though I realize that, in order to run the country, he's going to have to make compromises. But it's not going to be politics as usual, for sure!

This is not the best photo I have of the most adorable mutt in the world, but I hope the mass of natural bouncy curls covering her face will help protect her identity.

It's a Rainy Night in Rio...

2008-11-04T23:09:00.003-05:00

It's two o'clock in the morning and it's raining in Rio and I'm crying in here by myself!! We've made history!!! CONGRATULATIONS BARACK OBAMA!! You did it!!! And we did it!! I'm so happy and proud to be part of this historic moment for the United States and the entire world!!!

CELEBRATE! And then, let's get to work!!!

I'm looking at the sea of faces in Chicago on CNN: blacks, whites, young people, white-haired women, a blonde little girl!!!

YES WE CAN! AND HE WILL BE THE PRESIDENT OF ALL AMERICANS!!!!

Election Eve and Chicken Soup for the Soul

2008-11-03T16:21:00.002-05:00

Well, here we are: it's November 3rd, a rainy night in Rio. Tomorrow evening (or rather, late at night, since we're three hours ahead down here), I should either be jumping for joy or stunned, heartbroken, and scared as hell. A few months ago, I registered as a Democrat and joined an organization called Democrats Abroad to be able to vote for Obama in the primaries. I bought my t-shirt and sent in my small contribution to his campaign. I mailed in my absentee ballot three weeks ago and e-mailed all my friends more than once, reminding them to vote early (they did!). I wish (and then maybe I don't, when I think of November 2000 and 2004...) I could be in Florida to scream out the window: At last! It's over! And believe again that everything is possible, that not everything is lost, after eight years of this disastrous administration.

I don't think I've ever been this anxious before an election: there's too much at stake, I guess. If only I could go to sleep tonight...To help me relax, I've enlisted the help of two Janes: Austen and Eyre, who are the equivalent of Brazilian canja de galinha for my heart and soul. I'm going to dream of love and immerse myself in romance and mischief and gallantry; cry a little, laugh a little, and maybe snooze through the night.

Photo taken a few minutes ago in my living-room: One of my freshly-painted red nails (for what I hope will be an Obama victory party tomorrow night!), my wonderful BBC DVDs, and my Obama paper doll (purchased at The Wolfsonian Museum in Miami Beach).

Fingers crossed now!!

Heaven on Earth

2008-10-15T15:51:00.009-04:00

At least as far as my stomach goes. Before you ask, yes, I'm back in Brazil. How many times have I written about Brazilian food, including all those pages on my website? I lost count. But anyway, I landed in Rio this morning and had to go food shopping. After three weeks in the U.S., as you can imagine, my tastebuds were in serious withdrawal. So, I dragged myself to the market (I never sleep on those all-night flights...) to pick up a couple of papayas, one fruta-do-conde, and one mango. Then I went to the bakery for a couple of freshly-baked baby baguettes; then on to the supermarket for some goat cheese and some all-natural chicken. I walked right past the coconut water stand, but didn't stop. You have to understand, it's not only the availability of all this stuff across the street. It's what this food tastes like. To begin with, it tastes like nothing we're accustomed to: it actually tastes like it should. I apologize, I really can't explain myself better than this right now; I've been running on empty for a couple of hours and I'm falling asleep as I type.

I leave you with one simple question: why can't we have a café in Miami like the one half a block from me? Like the countless cafés in Rio, serving espressos in tiny china cups with dainty, scrumptious miniature cookies on the saucer? Why must there be a Starbucks on every block, selling the same lattes in paper cups, and boring doghnuts, muffins, cake slices, and do-good water? Argh! I need to go to bed.

I took the picture of frutas-do-conde at said market across the street from where I live. I had this cafezinho at the Parque das Ruínas in the Santa Teresa district of Rio. The little cinnamon stick is the stirrer! Now, what do you say?

I almost forgot: I mailed in my absentee ballot. Nothing secret about it: GO, OBAMA, GO!!!

Updated October 31: And all my friends have voted early for Obama, too!!! Happy Halloween! Remember: there's nothing scarier in the world than another Republican administration!!

Close Encounters With Scary Blondes

2008-09-26T14:57:00.005-04:00

I promise I'll explain the scary part in a minute. It's not frightening a la Sarah Palin, though. That woman makes me want to cry and hide under my mother's skirts, wherever in the Universe that beautiful creature may be at this point. I hope American voters have sense enough to send her packing back to Alaska where she can sit at the window and watch for any island-hopping Russians. But first I must tell you that I've been riding the buses in Miami again; if you're following this blog you already are aware of what happens to me when I take public transportation in this slice of Paradise. Like this afternoon: I sit down and immediately am assaulted by a tiny old lady in drugstore-style shoes waving a Jehovah's Witness Atalaya in my face: Habla Spanish? Habla Spanish? Yikes!!

I met the first blonde on the flight from Rio. I swear I listened to every word she said, while my eyes were riveted by artificial nails with a French manicure and a mouth exactly like the Marilyn lips sofa. She was a nice, friendly, well-meaning lady, but when she got to the part where she attended the Landmark Institute, I shuddered. You see, I'm allergic to self-help-whatever. It's usually really, really good for the person telling you what to do with your life, I don't doubt that. They're not the ones wasting precious dollars on books and seminars.

I ran across the second blonde on the bus to South Beach. The exact opposite: overweight, barely able to walk, I held her hand and helped her sit down. She then launched into a long tale of woes that included stomach surgery to lose a couple of hundred pounds, diabetes, and some awful degenerative disease; she was on her way to a public clinic. Oh, to be reminded of obesity and other ills endemic to this country as we crossed bridges over such blue water under azure Miami skies!

Maybe at this point I don't need to explain why two such dissimilar women put the fear of God into me? And perhaps it might have been a good idea to accept the brochure offered me? Or is it just time to fly back to the country where assistance for self-defeating beliefs still may come in the shape of a figa or throwing white flowers into the sea? And tell everyone to keep eating the fruit and walk right past Burger King?

Tapere...what?

2008-09-17T17:54:00.007-04:00

I'm flying up to Miami next Tuesday. One of the people I'm going to see during this visit is my doctor. Not that there aren't excellent physicians in Rio, mind you. It's just that he's been taking care of me for ten years now and he knows me. Not only that, he puts up with this recalcitrant patient with patience and good humor. He knows I'm headstrong and rebellious and that I like to decide what to do: taking this med doesn't seem like a good idea, I say, could I try yoga instead? With the one exception of my bones, for which at this point there's only one treatment alternative. Anyway, I've been thinking about him and what would happen if we had to discuss my diet and nutrition. He might get a bit frustrated. Because, you see, I've been living in the country of abundance. So, besides words that would be familiar to him, like, say, organic arugula, or maybe even papaya, I'd have to recite an interminable list of rather poetic-sounding names: bacuri, caqui, fruta-do-conde (sweetsop), pitanga, cupuaçu, mangaba, jabuticaba, jaca (jackfruit), graviola (soursop), buriti, goiaba (guava), caju, and taperebá, to name just a few of the fruits that I consume. I'd have to explain that I drink coconut water for potassium, passion fruit juice to calm down, caju juice for vitamin C; that caquis are great for calcium and iron, fruta-do-conde for potassium and vitamin C, and on and on. See what I mean?

I've mentioned before that I was supposed to make a list of all the things that I love in Brazil. Well, I've just written a short one...Pictured here are some goiabas at a street market in São Paulo; they're loaded with antioxidants. If you'd like to see more photos of Brazilian fruits and veggies, pay a visit to the pages dedicated to food shopping on my website.

Talk to you sometime in October!

Bossa Not So Nova...or Maybe Not?

2008-09-09T14:41:00.006-04:00

Here's a picture of a mousepad I got from my sister-in-law in São Paulo. She went to see the exhibition on the fiftieth anniversary of bossa nova. There's another one in Rio at the moment, and a new feature film called "Desafinados," and reissues of classic records, and shows everywhere. The celebrations have reached an Olympic (I mean the mountain, not the games) kind of height with three shows by an elderly, grumpy João Gilberto. I wasn't about to go fight for tickets to see an artist that should have (and did, sort of) retired a long time ago. So, what I'm telling you here is second- or third-hand information gleaned from newspaper columnists and disgruntled concertgoers. He was systematically late (not ten minutes kind of late, but hours) and not exactly in the best of moods to play and sing for fans who paid a not-insignificant percentage of their monthly income for the experience. I heard that in New York City he wasn't even a wee bit late and that tickets cost much less, which means exactly what? When in the U.S. do as Americans do or that Brazilian don't deserve anything better? I honestly think that he should have stayed home playing for himself and his little daughter and fans should have spent the money to buy some of his classic recordings. You get the artist in top form without having to put up with the man, who, by all accounts, wasn't the easiest human being even in his twenties and thirties. These days, if I want to go out of my apartment to hear the smooth sounds and delicate swing of bossa nova (with or without a pinch of electronica), I choose Celso Fonseca, Chris Delano, Leo Gandelman, or BossaCucaNova (their new CD will be out this month). These artists, plus Lisa Ono in Japan, have kept the flame alive and their sounds are as fresh as the French bread I get twice a day from the bakery across the street. Even if it's 50 years later.

I was talking to Carlos Alberto, owner of Toca do Vinícius in Ipanema on Sunday and he promised me a list of his all-time favorite bossa nova records. While we wait, I decided to post a few of mine:

1 - "Chega de Saudade," João Gilberto
2 - "Getz/Gilberto," Stan Getz, João Gilberto, Tom Jobim
3 - "The Legendary João Gilberto"
4 - "Isso É Bossa Nova," Leila Pinheiro
5 - "Garota de Ipanema," Nara Leão and Roberto Menescal, recorded in Japan

You can also look for CDs by Tamba Trio, and the recent releases with the music of Moacir Santos. Leave comments with your own favorites, please!

Carnaval in September

2008-09-07T16:23:00.006-04:00

Say what? Well, today is Sete de Setembro, Brazil's national holiday. The day started with military parades all over the country, but some people really know how to celebrate. I'm talking about our neighborhood bloco de carnaval, which was founded on this day twenty-one years ago. It's almost five-thirty in the afternoon and the samba is in full swing a block away from me. All I need to do is open my windows and start dancing. No need even to go join the small crowd, if I don't want to. I took this picture earlier today as I got off the bus coming back from the market in Ipanema. This lovely lady is their proud standard bearer.

I've mentioned Brazil's national music here twice this week, so I feel sort of obligated to reveal some of my preferences. Starting with sambas de enredo: I think my all-time favorites are "O Amanhã" and "É Hoje." Paulinho da Viola's "Foi um rio que passou em minha vida" (technically not in this category, but composed in honor of Portela) has got to be one of the most gorgeous songs ever to come out of Brazil. As far as songwriters, names that come immediately to mind and must, therefore, be at the top of my list: Cartola and, I must write his name again, Paulinho da Viola. You can try looking for these songs and samba composers on YouTube...I'm sure there's plenty out there. But here are the beginning lines for the first song I mentioned: A cigana leu o meu destino, eu sonhei...The gypsy read my palm and I dreamed...Easy to like it, isn't it?

Perhaps It's the Pitangas...

2008-09-03T10:36:00.006-04:00

For several weeks now I've been debating whether I really want to go back to the U.S. There's no doubt in my mind that eventually I will, for reasons both of the heart and practicality. But when I think about it, I'm immediately swamped by premature feelings of longing for all the things I love about Brazil. I was told to make lists: a list of the things that I enjoy down here, a list of the things that make me crazy; a list of all that I miss from the U.S., my beautiful daughter being number one. Lists are supposed to help me make this painful decision: at my age, I can't afford (financially and emotionally) to make another move such as this one. If (or rather when) I go back, Brazil will become once again a place to visit a couple of times a year, visits carefully timed to coincide with the season for jaboticaba and pitanga, to see blooming quaresmeiras or abricó-de-macaco, to pick up the newest style in bikinis at a favorite store in Ipanema. I have yet to take pencil and paper (I refuse to do this on my MacBook Pro!) to start on one of them, but in my mind images and words have been floating around for days on end: all the fruit I don't think I can live without, the forests of the Brazilian tropics, the friendliness of perfect strangers everywhere. But I think that, without realizing it, I've started to say goodbye in a very subtle way: I linger over my breakfast papaya, I savor every drop of my coconut water or my passionfruit juice, and I pay daily visits to the pitangueiras at the Botanical Garden. My favorite tree is loaded with tiny, orangy-red fruit and the pathways are dotted with squashed, half-pecked pitangas. Birds love them as well as we do! I picked these three up and arranged them atop a nice mossy rock.

Whatever happens, these have been unforgettable months! Before I forget, included in my list (but fortunately easily smuggled into the country) are these inexpensive, adorable, miniscule dried flowers that people dye in a rainbow of colors. I've always been extremely fond of them; is there a better way to add a splash of red and fuchsia to brighten up a room?

Without Sadness There's no Samba *

2008-09-01T18:45:00.009-04:00

I didn't make this line up, I pinched it from a documentary I saw this afternoon called "O Mistério do Samba" (The Mystery of Samba). I didn't really know what to expect from this film besides great music. And indeed, there was plenty of that: I even caught myself singing along a couple of times (oops, sorry, but great sambas are irresistible!). But what I enjoyed the most were the stories, sad and funny, told by the great sambistas and singers of Portela, the revered Old Guard of the samba school based in the suburb of Oswaldo Cruz. And the little excursions to the tiny suburban houses and backyards and bars where they have been living their modest lives and composing their incomparable songs. The men are great storytellers, but I found the women especially moving and hilarious: in one scene at a hairdresser's, one of them is talking about her philanderer of a husband; she still remembers the day when she went after him, picking up stones from the street and throwing them at him. Another unforgettable scene: a group of sambistas is sitting around a table, drinking beer, playing, singing. An older woman walks by with her shopping bag, stops, dances a few samba steps, bows to them, and keeps on walking. According to the director, this little scene was completely spontaneous and unexpected. I'm glad that they could film it; it's precious and revealing of the soul of this most musical of cities.

At the end, we're all applauding and, mirroring what had just happened on screen, an older man dances a few samba steps, too. And I'm thinking: what a good reason to stick around a while longer! If you come to Rio, don't forget to check the papers for rodas de samba, including the ones at Portela! The women of Portela's Old Guard are also renowned cooks and the subject of a gem of a book called "Batuque na Cozinha."

* In Portuguese: Sem tristeza não tem samba. And this reminds me: yes, there is that contagious rhythm and percussion, but samba is also sweet melodies and melancholy, passionate stories.

Photo (featuring singers Marisa Monte and Zeca Pagodinho with members of the Velha Guarda da Portela) credit: Bruno Veiga

Lazy Days of...Winter?

2008-08-15T18:28:00.006-04:00

Winter in Rio has been anything but. Blue skies and comfortable temperatures for weeks on end. Makes you wish for a couple of drizzly days, at least I think plants around here would welcome the change. But this unusual weather makes my daily walks in the Botanical Garden much more pleasant: no mud on my shoes and very little sweat on my face. This morning I wanted to photograph another old jaqueira I had come across a few days ago and a very strange-looking "paper tree" from Australia. I think I've said something in the past about the arboretum being home to a variety of animals as well as plants? I've seen monkeys eating jackfruit almost every single day and birdwatchers galore tiptoeing around with binoculars around their necks (I hear different songs and calls, but have never actually seen the little creatures they're looking at). Anyway, along the way from one tree to the next, I saw this little fellow coming very slowly across the grass, as it should be for a sloth. So I had plenty of time to stand there snapping away (or clicking or whatever you do with a digital camera) while thinking that this is an amazing place, indeed! A large metropolitan area where people can still be in such close proximity with the natural world.

I think this is the most gorgeous jaqueira I've seen in all these years of visiting down here. It stands next to the administration building near the Bromeliarium, in case you want to pay it a visit someday.

By the way, about ten minutes later a guard came and took the sloth back to the forest. For as long as I walk the trails up there now, I'll be looking for him (or her)!

Let Me Out!

2008-08-01T16:21:00.011-04:00

Or perhaps I should call it Surreal Rio Part 2? I was hoping I wouldn't find anything else that bothered me in this beautiful place (besides rampant crime, widespread corruption, bad manners, etc.) and here's to this being the last post on the subject! But I went out with the camera (well hidden in my purse) and took these two photographs the other day to illustrate a sad situation that boggles the mind of visitors. I'm from the days when none of this existed, so there must have been a time when this city was relatively peaceful (or crime was contained).

You'll notice that the metal grille in front of this building is not part of the original design nor are all those bars in the bus. They are there to make life more difficult for assorted robbers, usually very young and heavily armed. So, one wonders about what happened here in the last thirty-somewhat years that it became necessary for people to put themselves behind bars, in order to feel relatively safe. And, in the case of the buses, to make it increasingly more difficult for passengers to board and pay (try going through one of these with a child or holding shopping bags!). I've been reading the papers and magazines and I've asked this question of many of my friends. Everyone comes back with the same answer: the collapse of government, law, and order. This shouldn't surprise anyone, they tell me, considering that crime and the authorities have a long tradition of promiscuity in this state and city. At present, a large percentage of elected officials are in trouble with the law, including two former governors, and indictments and scandals are daily newspaper and TV fare.

I'm also posting a picture of delectable jabuticabas that I found at the market the other day. Maybe this will serve as a reminder that there are good reasons for me to be here at the moment, along with the splendid music and the heartwarming interactions with my Brazilian buddies!

The Bluest Sky

2008-07-20T15:05:00.009-04:00

I read somewhere that Rio is supposed to have the bluest sky in the world. Whether that is true or not, we've been blessed with a string of perfect days this July and if you look up this is what you see. I took this picture Friday morning at the Botanical Garden, during my daily walk.

I went in search of blooming pitangueiras (more on this later). On the way back, I took a detour to an area I hadn't explored yet (there are plenty of those since the arboretum is quite large) and discovered this gorgeous old jaqueira. Here's a good piece of advice: first thing you do when you come across one of these beauties is look up; jackfruit as big as the ones pictured here are also to be found hanging from branches and there's no telling when one of these watermelon-sized babies will come down and make a big, messy splash on the ground (and hopefully NOT on your head).

I hope our luck as to the weather holds on a bit longer. Nights have been rather cool, a little cold even, but it's such a welcome change from Rio's sweltering summer and such a great excuse for some good red wine!

PS - There's a great song that includes a jaqueira in its lyrics. It's called "Meu Romance" and it's indeed memorable like the CD's title ("Memorável Samba"), especially when sung by Marcos Sacramento! The words sort of go like this: Under that majestic jaqueira that grows up on the hill, from where one can see the sambistas from Mangueira, it was there, who'd have guessed, that our love was born, the afternoon of that memorable samba, etc. etc. As I've said numerous times, I wouldn't have found love under that tree. I'd have found a jackfruit, or rather a jackfruit would have found me (by falling on my head!).

Obstacle Courses 2

2008-07-20T13:12:00.004-04:00

Once again, I seem to have my finger on the city's pulse or, at least, some pretty good ESP for what's going to be on the Sunday edition of O Globo. I was having my coffee and pão canoa na chapa (which translates to a French roll reduced to its crust, buttered, and toasted...scrumptious stuff!) and reading the paper this morning when I came across an article about urban chaos in Rio. And one of the subjects was, you guessed, parking on the sidewalks. It turns out that the iron posts I mentioned below are routinely sawed off or broken (?) at the base and the concrete pillars are somehow demolished (maybe someone comes with a sledgehammer in the middle of the night?).

These two pictures I took yesterday in my neighborhood show perfectly good examples of how far people go in their efforts to keep cars where they belong, that is, on the street or inside parking lots. Apparently (at least according to the newspaper) it's a losing battle, due to a widespread urban pathological condition called "so what if it's illegal."

Obstacle Courses

2008-07-14T13:14:00.009-04:00

No, I'm not going to tell you that I'm training for the Olympic Games in China, even though I DO have something in common with athletes, mainly a tendency to hurt myself. Having recovered from the latest injury (to my right hip), I'm proud of the fact that I have resumed my long walks in the Botanical Garden. But that's not where I face a daily obstacle course and have plenty of opportunities to acquire new bruises. No, I'm talking about the sidewalks of Rio. And I'm not referring to the small black and white stones in different patterns that make it impossible for a woman to wear high heels; one of those gets loose and you're bound to slip and fall. And I don't even mean the street peddlers who spread their wares wherever they can. I mean the iron posts, cement blocks, planters, and assorted other impediments to the free flow of pedestrians. Do you want to know why they're there? In typical Rio-style, it's to prevent cars from parking on the sidewalks. Wouldn't it be simpler to slap the owners with a hefty fine and tow their beloved Fiats and Peugeots? Not in this city where everything seems to function according to a perverse logic. And yes, I've managed to walk right into one of these hurdles one evening a few years ago and still have a collection of small scars on my left shin as a souvenir.

So, here's another thing I marvel at when I go to Miami: I can actually walk around town without having to weave my way through a hodgepodge of obstructions to circulation.

I took these pictures one very lovely afternoon in Urca: the first one perfectly illustrates this little story. The other...well, don't we all have moments when we wish this crazy metropolis was this serene and bucolic? Ah! Notice the good, old, plain sidewalk by the bay!

Will You Still Need Me, Will You Still Feed Me...

2008-07-01T14:19:00.006-04:00

When I'm Sixty-Four? And that happens to be today. I've been thinking about how an amazing life it's been so far (and hoping it'll continue to be so until one day, luck be my lady today, I just drop dead). And in the process of playing this film backwards in my mind, I've come up with quite a few scary, breathtaking, and downright funny memories. For example:

1 - My first earthquake in Central America in the seventies. I remember waking up thinking that I must have the flu and realizing that the tumbling toys and cracking walls meant that something totally unusual (for me) was taking place outside my body. Next thing I know, we were scrambling to get my daughter out of her crib and looking for a safe spot (the banana plantation across the way looked pretty good at that point). That same year, a couple of visiting friends and I drove down into the Irazu volcano crater (no sign in sight to tell us to stop) only to find out that volcanic ash is worse than sand when it comes to getting your car stuck. If it weren't for a pair of very strong German tourists, I'd probably still be there arguing with an angry policeman.

2 - Cut to Iguazu Falls at the border of Brazil and Argentina a few years later. It was mid-November and the weather was very hot and muggy. The clouds were dark and low and it definitely looked like it would pour very soon. We were taking a walk in the woods behind the hotel and got to a spot where the river was quite wide and not moving very fast (at least it SEEMED so). There was a man sitting in a small canoe and he invited us to get in: "I'll take you somewhere to see the falls," he said. I remember asking where exactly and the answer was "Devil's Throat." That didn't sound like a place I'd like to be, but he came back with something like "this is the last trip I'm making, because of the storm coming." So we had to make a split second decision to hop in. I still don't know what possessed us to do it, but a few minutes later we were in the middle of the river and I could see a little bit of mist ahead. We found out then that he was only taking us half way; from that point on another rower took over who knew the currents ahead. If you've seen the movie "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" you'll remember the sweeping, spectacular shots of the falls. If you looked carefully (and you can bet I did!), you saw an outcrop of rock, roughly a yard and a half from end to end, surrounded by zillions of gallon of rushing, falling water. Well, that's where we got off the second canoe and that's where this woman who suffers from vertigo and used to be really, really afraid of water, did the victory sign. I still have the photograph to prove it! This brings us to the last little story and the reason why I wrote "used to be."

3 - Cut once again to the British Virgin Islands in the mid-nineties. What do you do when you reach fifty and would like to celebrate in style? I decided that I needed to go see the wreck of the Rhone and NOT from the surface! So I spent a few weeks with a lovely young female instructor at a pool in Ohio who taught me the front and back crawl strokes; for someone who was terrified to put her face in the water, that was no mean accomplishment already. Now came the hard part: actually breathing underwater, through a regulator. Another woman (a fabulous divemaster at Peter Island) and another pool later and I was actually feeling pretty confident that I could manage that too. If you're thinking that I got this far to tell you that I failed miserably...well, you're wrong! As a matter of fact, I didn't want to come back up and haven't stopped talking since about how exhilarating (but peaceful) it felt to be down there with the fishes. I bought a book about the Rhone and the DVD of "The Deep" with Nick Nolte and Jacqueline Bisset and everytime I feel like revisiting that afternoon I pull them out of my shelf.

And there were countless flights across the U.S. in a Mooney 201 and crisscrossing Ohio on a Harley-Davidson and numerous hurricanes in Miami and starry nights in the Arizona desert and hikes and camping in the backlands of Brazil and walking in the Amazon with a (literal) spider monkey on my back. I'm really enjoying this ride!

That's my hand holding my precious book.

Perfume de Gardenia

2008-06-27T13:37:00.008-04:00

Last Sunday I went to a birthday party for my friend Alicia's oldest son, Andre. They're part of a large Cuban-American family who all live in the general vicinity of Calle Ocho in Miami, so such get-togethers occur with amazing frequency (and I'm not even counting weddings, christenings, quinces, and other assorted celebrations). I was enjoying a plateful of arroz, frijoles, and yuca con mojo while practicing my Spanish with her dad when I happened to glance out the back window. I just meant to check on the rain (which was coming down in sheets), but my eyes didn't turn back to my food for a long time. There in the backyard, in full view of anyone sitting around the dining-room table, was the most magnificent gardenia bush. Aha! That explained the freshly cut flowers I had been getting drunk on a few minutes earlier...I'm nuts about their scent; Perfume de gardenia, perfume del amor, as the song by Rafael Hernandez goes. So, yesterday during the long flight south to Brazil, I would close my eyes and revisit that garden. The white blooms scattered among the deep green leaves, a perfect trio of reddish mangoes hanging from the tree, and a typical Miami summer downpour.

But what my daughter asked me to write about are my daily trips from her island down to the heart of South Beach in the comfortable, smooth-riding, air-conditioned Miami-Dade buses. In a nutshell, using public transportation in Miami is a colorful, rather exciting, experience; after a few rides, you sort of learn to expect the unexpected and the bizarre. Apart from the youngish, clearly not-quite-there woman who asked me, in earnest, if I was going to sue her for falling into my lap when the bus turned the corner, there was this big guy screaming profanities and racial slurs from the back of the bus (I was afraid he would become violent at any moment and kept wondering why the young female driver didn't use her radio to call the police). My favorite, though, has to be the old lady in a loose print shirt, large hoop earrings with dangling blue beads, and a baseball cap in the style favored by Iowa farmers while riding their combines. Having been yelled at the day before by a tall bird who informed me on no uncertain terms that he had a right to sit down (whereas I, I assumed, being merely a 64-year-old woman who was about to faint from the 87-degree heat, could ride standing up in the overcrowded bus), I got up and moved back as soon as I saw her boarding the bus. Lucky guess, Sheila: even though there were about six or more empty seats in the front of the bus at that point, she proceeded to say out loud in Spanish (to no one in particular, but waving a finger in the air) that this was HER favorite seat.

I confess that I've come back to a transportation system that's best described as disastrous. Buses in Rio are generally dirty, rattling, hip-dislocating, hot-as-hell in the summer, non-handicapped accessible, and driven by maniacs to boot. On the other hand, your fellow passengers, from school kids to professionals to beautiful girls on their way to the beach, aren't likely to provide you with stories at the end of the day. Unless, of course, your bus happens to be the unlucky one where armed robbery takes place or urban tragedy unfolds (as in route 174).

The gardenia pictured here is not from a Miami garden.

A Foot in Two Countries

2008-06-15T16:09:00.009-04:00

I haven't written anything here in a whole month, but have been mulling over something for days on end. I could also call this post A Tale of Two Cities or A Word That Defines my Life. When you divide your time and existence between two countries, two languages, two cultures, something happens to you. Mainly, to use a great and fitting French word, you become dépaysée, that is, you uproot yourself, but don't quite put on new roots, or rather, you do, but sort of like those little bromeliads I love called tillandseas. They're air plants and will grow on trees, rocks, shrubs, and are quite content to be blown here and there by the winds.

I can explain A Tale of Two Cities: I shuttle between Miami and Rio. I call them respectively my blue and green city. Miami has that amazing turquoise water; Rio boasts the largest urban forest in the world. And if you're curious as to the Word That Defines my Life, that's easy: it's saudade, Portuguese for longing and missing. It's the story of my life!

I'm flying back to the U.S. again tomorrow morning. By a strange and fortuitous coincidence, every single time I go to Miami there's a show by Marcos Sacramento a day or two before. So, I get to say goodbye to my friends and Rio listening to this absolutely spectacular singer. It's almost as if someone is trying to remind me of the reason I came down here in the first place. And if this should be THE last farewell, I can't think of a better or happier finale!

Photo number one is from last night's performance at Teatro Rival in downtown Rio. For more on Marcos, you can access his site. Photo number two here on the left was taken at the Botanical Garden and features an assortment of bromeliads hanging in there, quite literally.

Marcos Sacramento photo courtesy of Alexandre Moreira, via Beto Feitosa. Thank you, guys!

Esgrefendo Popagen

2008-05-15T16:58:00.006-04:00

Say what? Even if you can read Portuguese you'll not have understood my title. The reason being that it's Portuguese spoken with a very heavy accent. Not anybody's accent, mind you, but aunt Lucila's. I wish I'd met this lovely Brazilian of German descent, but she's been gone for a few years now. Aunt Lucila has been immortalized by her journalist nephew in a book that had me in stitches in Porto Alegre. So much so that my friend managed to call him and get me a copy. Mind you, no one here is making fun of the way she spoke; we're just madly in love with her hilarious dialogs with him. In his small volume, Mr. Decker also briefly tells the story of German immigration (1824) in Rio Grande do Sul and compiles a vocabulary of the Hunsrück dialect, which has died out in Europe, but still survives in hamlets in the mountains of Southern Brazil. Side by side with what he calls "tialês" or Portuguese as spoken by his favorite auntie.

For me, traveling around this area of Italian and German immigrants was also an emotional journey back to the days when I studied at the Deutsche Schule (which at that point had switched to Portuguese, just as aunt Lucila had to, all of a sudden, because of WW II), bought schwarzes Brot, and ate polenta with radicci, drank red wine, and fell asleep in "nonna's bed." What a childhood that was...

This photograph was taken at our inn in the Valley of Vineyards (part of the region colonized by Italians starting in 1875) and features a tender moment between the owner, Mr. Sant'Anna, and his dog, Galileu.

Before I forget, I hope you've been enjoying all the popagens (bobagens, silly things) that I've been esgrefendo (escrevendo, writing) these past months. Brazil has a lot to offer and I'll be down here a little while longer...

Has anyone seen Franz?

2008-05-15T16:44:00.005-04:00

Kafka, that is. I'll explain: if you've been following this blog you're now sort of familiar with Brazilian bureaucracy. Well, it's risen to new heights in my estimation ever since I read the following story in the paper: A theater director in Rio applied for official financing. A few months later, not having heard a peep from the government foundation, he decided to call them. The reason his paperwork was gathering dust on someone's desk? One of the applicants had not signed the form. Who could it be? Yeah, you guessed, Franz. The play? You've probably guessed again: The Process.

Come on, Franz, leave boring Prague and Czech bureaucracy! Coffee is better in Rio, anyway...

Speaking of absentees...I've been on the road in the interior of Rio Grande do Sul (see next post) and will be trekking again as of this coming Saturday to a more urban destination: my favorite city in South America, São Paulo.

With deepest thanks to my friend Sergio for saving the paper for me while I was gone...

Evolution and a Singer in Rio

2008-04-14T15:19:00.011-04:00

It has become a (good) habit of mine to go downtown every Saturday. There are plenty of reasons: museums, churches, restaurants, antiquarians, traditional Portuguese desserts (your sweet tooth's got to be ready for these, though!) at Casa Cavé, the perfect draft beer at the centenarian Bar Luiz, Art Déco buildings, and rodas de samba. Oh, I'm forgetting the promise of increased security all around...This past weekend a friend and I saw the Darwin exhibition at the splendid Museu Histórico Nacional. I've been reading a lot about Charles Darwin and his travels, which brought him to Brazil and Rio de Janeiro, and Alfred Russel Wallace, for whom the Wallace Line and a lunar crater are named. Apparently, being quite content to leave all the credit and glory surrounding the evolutionary theory to his contemporary, Wallace is commemorated in other sciences. At least, Wallace's bones are resting in peace, unlike Darwin's, which must have turned a few times at Westminster Abbey recently. I'm talking about Florida's new science teaching standards and the controversy surrounding the theory of evolution in our beloved United States of America. I remind you that this is going on in the most scientifically-advanced country in the world in 2008, NOT in some backward nation, and NOT in the Dark Ages of mankind.

Anyway, we finally get to the best part of my weekend. Friday evening (weekends DO start with TGIF, right?) I went to a recital at Sala Cecilia Meireles, a temple of classical music in Rio. The program, mind you, were popular serenades from the 1930s and 40s, the kind that were (and perhaps still are in small towns in the interior) performed below a woman's window. Voice and guitar, no more. You don't need anything else when the voice and interpretation belong to Marcos Sacramento and the guitarist is his "partner-in-crime," Luis Flavio Alcofra. Where does this concert tie in with my musings on evolution and the state of things in our country? It's simply that I rejoice in the thought that at least some members of our species have evolved to the point where they're able to really contribute to the happiness of others. That some people are able to write such great songs and others to sing them with so much talent and sensitivity. This was for sure one of the best shows of my life! And I, like Charles Darwin, am glad that I came to Rio for a while.

By the way, this was part of a series that will culminate with a concert by Italian jazz pianist Stefano Bollani in December. Can't wait!

The City and the Mosquito

2008-04-01T15:06:00.005-04:00

Should I give you the good news or the bad news first? Well, let's get this part over with: For someone who's a mosquito magnet like me, these are not the best of times. I've just read that 1.4 new cases of dengue fever are diagnosed in Rio every minute! The outbreak has sickened over 45,000 people and caused 67 deaths, mostly children, mostly poor; so far, six people I know came down with the infection. Squabbling federal, state, and municipal authorities are pointing the finger at one another. Apparently, no one but the tiny, striped mosquito is responsible for this public health disaster...Meanwhile, as far as I'm concerned, Off is literally that: suffering from chemical sensitivities, I've armed myself with citronella candles and Burt's Bees Herbal Insect Repellent (which I brought from the U.S.), and some homeopathic pills that promise to strengthen my immune system. I keep the air-conditioner on, avoid leaving the apartment during certain hours of the day and evening, and have limited my outings to areas with low infection rates. I check the papers every day for news that the epidemic is tapering off. What else is one to do, except perhaps pray, as Rio Mayor Cesar Maia reportedly did, during a recent trip to Salvador, Bahia? (I'd bet people here are praying that he and his party lose the upcoming elections!)

OK, now on to the good news: For the second time this month, I've spent Saturday afternoon in the City, which translates to Rio's downtown. I wanted to see an exhibition dedicated to Debret, the French artist who documented life in the burgeoning capital of the Portuguese Empire between 1816 and 1831. The arrival of D. João and the Portuguese court in Rio in 1808 had dramatically and permanently transformed what was then a rather backward tropical city, along with the habits and lifestyle of its inhabitants. (By the way, my favorite watercolor depicts a little girl, all dressed up under an enormous hat, on her way to the "Escola de Senhoritas" (Young Ladies' School). Big changes, indeed!)

I've decided that one of the best things about being in Rio is wandering through the old cobblestoned streets. Especially when you get to sit down to lunch at a place like this!

Back Under the Christ's Armpit 2...

2008-03-24T09:44:00.010-04:00

I arrived around 11 p.m., exhausted after the usual TAM equipment change in São Paulo, and happy to be back in Brazil, but immediately got a reality check when:

1. There was no one at Immigration and Passport Control, even though this is a daily flight;
2. The young and dapper TAM employee that showed up after a few minutes didn't know what was going on;
3. When he finally showed up, the official responsible kept telling us (and the TAM employee) that we should have gone through Immigration and Customs in São Paulo, even though no one ever does, since this flight terminates in Rio and our luggage is always checked through;
4. The nonchalant young lady who checked my passport was more interested in carrying on what seemed an amusing conversation with her friend(s) or colleague(s) than in paying attention to a rather frazzled, perplexed, and obviously dead tired middle-aged passenger;
5. The airport in Rio is a total mess and getting worse every time I go through it;
6. I won't speak a word about anything else I observed that night...

Meanwhile, the weekly news magazine Veja tells me that the Minister of Tourism refused to have her hand luggage x-rayed at the security point on boarding a plane to Paris (but the captain wouldn't take off because of that, so she was forced to do it after all).

Wouldn't you agree that it's impossible to take this place very seriously, if you are to keep your blood pressure under control?

The photograph today is to let you know that we are celebrating the 200th anniversary of the arrival of the Portuguese royal family in Brazil, on the run from Napoleon and his troops. Whatever evils D. João and his court brought along that survive in Brazilian society and politics today, he was also the founder of one of my favorite places on Earth, Rio's Botanical Garden...

Sad News Here...Great News There!!

2008-03-07T09:57:00.006-05:00

Remember the lady who owns (rather, owned) the newstand across the street? She has decided that enough is enough and closed her business a few days ago. I stopped by to say goodbye and chat a bit. She's tired, she said, and it's not a healthy way of life: she's been there from dawn to dusk, seven days a week, for years on end. She doesn't eat well, doesn't exercise, and tends to drink Coke and smoke, because of job stress. I never thought of her line of work as stressful, but I could see that she didn't have much of a life. She says she'll open another business at some point, but she doesn't want to work 12 hours a day, everyday, including holidays. We exchanged mobile numbers and e-mail addresses and hugged. I told her I'd miss her enormously. She was one of the first people I met here and certainly one of the nicest.

I took her photo as a souvenir. I'm flying back to the U.S. tomorrow and I feel a bit melancholy. Perhaps opening up my Store.Barack Obama package (one t-shirt size small) will cheer me up? Considering the sad state of politics in Brazil and the alternatives at home, Mr. Obama's candidacy is the best thing that has happened to me (on the public sphere!) in the past few months...Hey, everyone! Let's go to the polls in droves. He could be the best thing that has happened to our country in a very, very long time!!!!

Imagina!

2008-02-15T07:45:00.008-05:00

This title refers to the way people in São Paulo respond to your "thank you!" As you may well have guessed, it's the Portuguese equivalent of "imagine!" It's accompanied by smiles and very strong body language that tells you that "there's absolutely no need to thank me, I'm here to be helpful to you, and I enjoy doing it." This pretty much defines the megalopolis in my opinion. Spending a few days wandering around a few neighborhoods doesn't make me an expert, but I got a general feeling that the city is considerably better managed than Rio and that people are better educated and have a more professional attitude, from the Japanese ladies at the Saturday market to museum guards and uniformed (and polite) taxi drivers. Their cars, by the way, don't seem to be falling apart, and neither do police vehicles. This makes you feel like you can ALMOST trust the officers driving them...

São Paulo also managed to eliminate outdoors and other obnoxious visual pollution and this made such a huge difference. I sampled Middle-Eastern food at Arabia in Jardins and had a grilled salmon at Sushi Lika in Liberdade, the Japanese neighborhood. Both were excellent and I'm told there are countless such great places to eat in this tropical New York City. I also found some heavenly shops in Vila Madalena and Liberdade...Next time, it's on to the Italian and Jewish neighborhoods and on and on...

If you look carefully, you will, for sure, realize that you are still in Brazil, but it's one that we wish was more the norm than the exception.

The first photo was taken outside the Pinacoteca, which has a magnificent Tarsila do Amaral show on right now. Question for you: Why is all this great art practically unknown north of the Equator?

The second is a picture I took of Melona popsicles from Korea, which are all the rage in the Japanese neighborhood. I chose melon, which seemed (and tasted) delish, but had I been a bit more adventurous, corn, rice, and even fish were among the available flavors that afternoon.

And Carnaval Came to Me...

2008-02-03T17:04:00.000-05:00

Night is falling, the rain has finally stopped, and a bloco is going by...impossible to resist! As they don't move very fast, I've been downstairs dancing a couple of times already. I also called my daughter in Miami a few minutes ago, so she could hear the singing outside my windows.

This is one of dozens, perhaps hundreds of groups that form spontaneously all over Rio. I can't find it listed anywhere in the so-called official lists...If you can't go out in search of carnaval, it'll come to your doorstep. So, you just step outside and follow them for however long, singing all the great marchinhas of old. Life is good!

I took these few shots about an hour ago as they were approaching the square where I live. This little girl's grandfather kindly let me take her picture. A lot more people were willing to pose, but there was too much going on!

The other wonderful detail about this bloco: a lot of women percussionists! Actually, they have slowly and quietly taken their long overdue place in drumming sections everywhere, even in the large samba schools. More power to them!

See You on Ash Wednesday!

2008-02-02T11:22:00.001-05:00

Carnaval is in full swing. So, we're allowed to forget what ails this beautiful place...at least, til Ash Wednesday! The streets have been taken by clowns, ballerinas, hula dancers, pirates, and lovely butterflies. Drums, assorted percussion, bands...leis, masks, hair adornments, and confetti for sale everywhere. Mercifully, someone thought of prohibiting those awful cans of white foam. But, since there aren't any chemical bathrooms for the thousands of men drinking beer on the streets...you know what's going on behind every tree, bush, and on car tires...Women manage, of course, somehow...

I've been going out and checking a few blocos, the neighborhood street dancing groups. They all have hilarious names that reference a landmark, like Sovaco do Cristo (Christ's Armpit, because the statue is right up there from us); a profession, as in Imprensa Que Eu Gamo (Squeeze Me And I'll Fall in Love With You, because imprensa happens to be also the word for "press" and the group was founded by journalists); or a favorite bar. Some are now so gigantic, it's become impossible to join them. Others are still more or less limited to people in the general area and I tend to favor these.

One of my favorite carnaval songs is called "See You on Ash Wednesday." It's about a couple that last year didn't go out dancing in the streets, and their costumes, which were left hanging, unworn, in the closet. This year, though, they're taking a different approach: each one is going his or her separate way and they'll be back together on Ash Wednesday, no harm done. The last verses go something like this:

If my bloco runs into yours, by chance
No harm done, no one has died...
There are three days of fun
You there, me somewhere else
See you on Ash Wednesday!

Well, that's it, then: See You All on Ash Wednesday! Have a great Carnaval everyone!

PS - That's my Simpatia É Quase Amor t-shirt from 2005, maybe, and my necklaces from Mardi Gras in New Orleans...quite a few years ago, for sure!

PPS - I found out to my dismay that women don't manage, actually. Thanks to a young lady with her panties down, crouching next to my building, peeing behind a parked car.

Through the Looking-Glass

2008-01-20T13:25:00.000-05:00

Well, a week later and I'm still not 100%. Nor is Rio...far from it, actually. Now there's a bit of civil unrest: people fed up with paying high real estate taxes while they watch their property value take a dive, due to mushrooming favelas, widespread drug traffic-related crime, and non-responsive city agencies, are actually refusing to pay their bills and putting the money in escrow. Who knows if they have any chance of success; the Mayor's reaction, so far, has been to thumb his nose at the citizenry. The city is indeed suffering from years without a decent administration, both in the municipal and the state spheres. All you need to do is walk around and you'll see what I mean: signs of neglect mar the cityscape everywhere. On top of that, officials seem to be incapable of curbing unlawful activity, from illegal utility connections for water, electricity, and cable, to unlicensed and unregulated transportation. And don't get me started on the number of people living on the streets, parks, and squares. Everything seems to be the reverse of what it should be, if there was someone good running the show! Sad state of affairs...

Meanwhile, Carnaval is fast approaching and there's dancing in the streets everywhere. Music is one of the things that keeps this place from becoming a complete disaster, I think. A couple of weeks ago, I went to hear an all-female band called Orquestra Lunar. Boy, do these ladies rock and, as my friend Ellen says, how cool can they be? Here's a picture taken at their CD release concert. Enjoy!

Photo Credit: Ana Paula Oliveira

Surreal Rio!

2008-01-13T13:47:00.000-05:00

I have been sick with a flu for a few days now and catching up on my reading. The pile in the living-room includes several past editions of the daily O Globo. And what do you know? For the first time, (and I can mentally hear a collective "DUH!" from my Brazilian friends), it has struck me that Rio is totally surreal. I offer you a couple of examples only, because I need to go lie down again:

A musician from a popular Brazilian rock band came across an illegal street vendor hawking pirated copies of his work downtown. He picks up all the copies this guy has and walks away. The guy shouts: Hey, come back, you've got to pay me for those! He walks back and gives the man a lecture on piracy and so on, telling him, so should he, the artist, be paid for these, and leaves!!!

Second instance of seemingly widespread insanity: A series of car robberies, assaults, and attempted murders are committed by young men on (mostly stolen) motorcycles. The solution proposed by the state governor: to prohibit bikers from carrying passengers (the reason being that they're the ones carrying the guns). I kid you not! And, on top of that, he was totally peeved when the public and assorted authorities objected on grounds that his fix just might restrict civil liberties, constitutional rights, and so on.

I can imagine you'll be as baffled as I am or, not having spent time in Brazil, perhaps considerably more so. I must tell you that I have been talking over these topics with my carioca friends, asking why didn't the musician call the police or why don't they increase police presence in the streets and take other repressive measures to protect life and property? The almost universal answer is "não adianta!" or "what's the point?" Which inevitably leads to further discussion about a corrupt police force and crooked politicians and...I could go on, but I really must rest and recover!

Color Coding My New Year's Eve

2007-12-30T12:00:00.001-05:00

I live in a city that takes New Year's Eve extremely seriously! By now, store windows are chockful with everything from evening dresses to shorts to shoes and accessories in white, silver, and gold. Florists are stocking up on white, yellow, and red flowers for Iemanjá. Street vendors are popping up here and there offering all manners of souvenir T-shirts (in white, silver, and gold, again) and noisemakers. My wine seller greeted me with a glass of champagne as I walked by his shop this afternoon. There are tons of superstitions or simpatias, as they're called in Brazil. Here is a short list of things to do when the spectacular fireworks show on Copacabana Beach rings in the New Year (you can pick and choose, of course!): eat a pomegranate (for money); eat a spoonful of lentils, ditto; eat seven grapes (for prosperity); jump seven waves in a row (for good luck); throw white flowers into the sea (choose your wish or prayer). Also, for the ladies: wear brand new panties in white, yellow, or red. Are you wondering why? O Globo, Rio's major daily paper, recently published a list of colors and their meanings. Here is a summary (you still have time to go shopping tomorrow morning!):

Blue - Power, action, force.
Pink - Love, understanding, conciliation, attraction.
Gold - Wisdom and prosperity.
Yellow - Same as gold; it also stimulates creativity.
White - Harmony, peace, stability.
Red - Passionate love, desire.
Green - Vitality, positive energy. Green also brings health.

They didn't mention silver, by the way, but my friends tell me it's supposed to mean the same as gold, at least as far as prosperity goes.

This year, I'm avoiding the beach (and a couple of million people) and spending a much quieter New Year's Eve with a friend watching the fireworks by the splendid floating Christmas tree near where we live. Ah, before I forget: I'll be in white, gold, and blue (2008, here I come!). Happy New Year, everybody!

And a Merry Christmas to All!

2007-12-24T07:57:00.000-05:00

What does one wish the world on a holiday such as this? I pondered this question for a while and decided we could start with a healthy dose of solidarity and common sense. That should take us all a long way!

What does one give a person who has it all (meaning I, me, myself, who need very little these days!)? This one was easy! I got on a taxi and braved a spectacular traffic jam in Copacabana to enjoy a show by singer Marcos Sacramento at the Hotel Sofitel. A savvy, gifted, elegant performer, Marcos embodies the undying spirit, wit, and charm of Brazilian music. Equally irresistible whether performing a swinging samba or a romantic, plangent serenata, this gorgeous guy in dreadlocks (I couldn't resist this one!) is a superlative interpreter, who makes every song his own. What a Christmas treat!

On this happy note, quite literally, I leave my best wishes for a very joyous and prosperous 2008!

PS - You can see Marcos on YouTube, of course.

Squeeze Me!

2007-12-01T07:52:00.000-05:00

If you've seen "Wayne's World," you know what this title means. Otherwise, go google it! I'm writing about something that I find incomprehensible in Brazil, namely, the widespread use of (bad) English. Reading the paper this morning, I came across (for the nth time!) the word botton. No, it's not bottom misspelled. It's a Brazilian version of button, you know, the little round thing we wear to advertise our candidate or opinion or whatever. The question that comes to mind is, if you're going to use a foreign word, why not spell it correctly? Beats me. Just like the T-shirts and tops. I went shopping the other day for one to take with me to the U.S. as a Christmas present. I was looking for something very carioca, obviously, with sayings in Portuguese, but was only able to find stuff displaying very incorrect English phrases. Why is that?

The article I mentioned was titled "Cool," just like that, in English. Now, since this word has a perfectly serviceable equivalent in Portuguese, I assumed that they were trying to be, well, cool, by using American slang. I thought: How totally uncool to make a mistake like that. But I suspect it's one that's so entrenched in the urban culture here that it's become impossible to eradicate.

My Green Haven

2007-11-27T15:39:00.000-05:00

A couple of times a week I take refuge at the Botanical Garden down the street, armed with a few reais and my digital camera. I'm trying to escape the high decibel levels of this tropical metropolis and looking for clean air to breathe, but every leisurely walk comes with a bonus: monkeys up on the jackfruit trees, bromeliads galore, an occasional lizard. This particular morning I went in search of the abricó-de-macaco, a longtime favorite of mine. A native of the Amazon, this is one of the strangest and most beautiful trees in Brazil.

Dogs, of course, are an absolute no-no, unless they're leading a visually impaired person. I did come across this snoozing beauty, though, at the very back of the arboretum and concluded that he must belong to one of the homes there.

Pretending to Be Me

2007-11-21T15:27:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving is tomorrow and I'm in the midst of (yet another) identity crisis. This particular one was brought about by a remarkable film I saw the other day called "Jogo de Cena," in which filmmaker Eduardo Coutinho (see my post on Brazilian documentaries below) goes quite a few steps beyond merely recording the daily lives of ordinary people. This time around he combines real interviews with fake ones, except that the actresses are playing the roles of the women he's talking to (who actually responded to a newspaper ad looking for women who would like to tell their stories on camera). I got quite dizzy and with two exceptions could not tell who was who. The only clue was given by a famous face I recognized: according to her, if the woman is trying to hide her tears, if she's constantly wiping her face, then she's the real thing, because actors will let the tears flow for everyone to see. The stories are all very dramatic and even traumatic at times and there's plenty of crying (but they also make you laugh). I left the theater deep in thought. To what extent do we play-act in our daily lives and am I playing the part of the expat gringa? Who am I really, a stranger in a strange land trying to fit in or a prodigal daughter making an effort to remember what it is like to be Brazilian?

While I ponder this question (and I'm not sure I'll come up with an answer anytime soon) you all have a very happy Thanksgiving!

The tree pictured here is the very fragrant manacá. Its sweet-smelling flowers in hues of purple and periwinkle have again become part of springtime for me. I miss the lilacs at the Arnold Arboretum in Boston, but not all is lost, as you can see!

This Little Piggy Goes to the Market

2007-11-06T16:57:00.001-05:00

I live kitty-corner from a large market called Cobal do Humaitá. Or you could say I almost live IN this conglomerate of vegetable and fruit stalls, flower shops, cafés, restaurants, bars, supermarket, crafts store, clothing stores, and the best DVD rental store in Rio (over 9,000 titles and growing, including rare, obscure, and alternative genres). Any day of the week, I'll be coming and going, toting fresh papayas, having breakfast with Rio's daily O Globo for the latest corruption scandal, picking up a documentary I've been wanting to see for ages, buying lunch, or having a caipirinha and gossiping with my neighbors. This whole thing comes with outdoor tables and first row seats to Corcovado Mountain and the Christ statue. The other day the smell of gardenias next to my table almost drove me to distraction. I came running home to grab my camera and here's one of the culprits.

Also pictured here is the lovely young lady who serves my daily espresso and pão canoa. This expression translates to a small French bread basically reduced to its crust, lightly buttered and toasted to perfection (well, most days anyway). She arrives at work at 7 a.m. from across town and was greatly inconvenienced when a huge landslide recently shut down the tunnel that slices through Corcovado Mountain. This is the main connection between Rio's northern and southern "zones" and its closing for several days caused the city to basically turn into a parking lot (and her bus to take a roundabout way that forced her out of bed almost two hours earlier). I was talking to her about it the morning I took this photo. We were discussing a comment from Rio's inept mayor to the effect that the disaster had only affected people who owned cars. She shook her head, laughed, and went back to work. I hope they all remember this come election time.

Hanging Out in the Neighborhood

2007-11-06T09:21:00.000-05:00

It's been pouring rain in Rio for the past several days. When that happens, I tend to stay closer to home. This makes perfect sense: I avoid massive traffic jams, while still enjoying some of the best food and entertainment this city has to offer. Some of Rio's top movie houses are a short bus ride (or a healthy walk) away. This area also boasts, together with Jardim Botânico down the street, quite a few of my favorite restaurants and botequins. This wasn't the reason why I chose to live "under the Christ's armpit," but it's a huge plus.

I'm very fond of walking up the quiet streets behind my building that dead end at the forest. Especially when it drizzles and the mountain puts on a white, wispy shawl, it too, probably, relishing the cooler weather. These two photos were taken this morning. The jackfruit, which are as big as melons or even watermelons at times, were all over the cobblestones, too. Peaceful strolls in the neighborhood are not entirely without peril and excitement around here!

The Mysogyny Tango

2007-10-29T16:41:00.000-04:00

This title is, for those of you old enough to know what I'm talking about, a tip of the hat to Tom Lehrer, author of the absolutely hilarious "The Masochism Tango." Except that there's nothing funny about "El Pasado," the Hector Babenco film I saw today. The nicest thing you can say about his female characters, with one exception, is that they are all emotionally-disturbed; other words that come to mind are rapacious, pathetic, self-destructive, and Black Widows. At least, he was equally cruel to his male protagonist: good-looking and spineless, his existence seems to be justified solely by his ability to satisfy the ladies' voracious sexual appetites.

Another movie that is causing a stir everywhere is "Tropa de Elite" or "Elite Squad," by José Padilha, the acclaimed director of "Bus 174." "Elite Squad" picks up where "City of God" left off and it's not a pretty picture (either literally or figuratively), depicting massive police corruption, violence and torture (not only in the hands of the police), and hopelessness as a way of life. Apparently, it innovates in pointing the finger at the upper classes and their drug habits. The most sympathetic character in the film is a black officer called Matias (seen here in regular uniform before joining the special forces), who at a certain point unloads his frustrations on his college mates by telling them that everytime they snort a line or smoke a joint they're helping kill little kids in the favelas (Rio's slums). Of course, it's obvious that the (very) young, skinny, heavily-armed, and doomed traffickers up in the hills are NOT the ones really running the show. If someone truly wanted to put an end to the drug wars in Rio, they would need to follow a trail that most surely leads to the wealthy and powerful.

Image credit: David Prichard

Back Under the Christ's Armpit...

2007-10-24T08:14:00.000-04:00

...And what are all those grinning pumpkins doing in Rio? Yesterday, I walked past one of my favorite dessert shops at the market and noticed a string of bright orange paper lanterns hanging on the window. I suddenly realized Halloween is upon us. Say what? Isn't that supposed to be an American thing? Brazil has an abundance of fascinating native/indigenous festivals already...Wouldn't you say that American music and movie blockbusters, MacDonald's, and Starbucks are enough? I've no idea who's responsible for this stupidity, but must say that I find it all very ridiculous and infuriating!

Also, an update on the previous post: said younger lover of said older politician has posed nude for the Brazilian edition of Playboy, causing waves of heavy breathing and extra salivating amongst his colleagues in the Senate. Is he quitting? Is he not? It's quite a real life soap opera in a country that has perfected the genre. Life is never dull in the tropics!

Flying North

2007-09-10T18:46:00.001-04:00

I'm flying back to the U.S. tomorrow and will be away from Rio until mid-October.

So, I will be out of the country this Wednesday for what Brazilians hope will be the final chapter in the latest political scandal here, involving the President pro tempore of the Senate, a lobbyist, and child support payments made to a young lover of said politician. Do you want to read about grossly improper behavior by public officials? Buy a Brazilian newspaper any day of the week for the latest corruption and abuse of the public trust stories. They go on for months and the details are lurid and revolting.

But I want to leave you on a cheerier note, so here's a photograph I took in the lovely colonial town of Paraty a couple of weeks ago. If you'd like to come down for a visit, perhaps the place to start is here at the Academy of Cooking & Other Pleasures, owned by chef Yara Roberts of PBS fame. A few years back, Yara and her husband Richard left Boston and the rat race to open a cooking school in this old house they had bought two decades before. They couldn't be happier!

A Hug for my Birthday

2007-09-02T20:27:00.000-04:00

Every time I see a mention of Rio in an American newspaper I cringe. I know it's going to be bad news and, I must admit, there's plenty of that down here, what with the drug traffickers terrorizing the poor areas, police corruption and...and...The list goes on and on.

So, I've decided that I will post here stories about ordinary people that touch my life in a very different way. Like, for instance, the woman who owns the newsstand across the street. I've known her for almost three years now. I buy the papers every weekend (for the entertainment guide, fashion supplement, things like that) and, occasionally, a magazine. Not what you'd call one of her best customers. But I do stop by and chat every day on my way to the market. Last week I was walking back with my shopping bags loaded with papayas and other goodies when she stopped me. "It's my birthday," she said with a huge smile. And went on: "I want you to give me a hug for my birthday. I want some of your positive energy on my birthday." So we hugged and kissed and laughed together in what I know was an actual exchange of good vibes.

And then there's the guy who delivers bottled water. He's a short mulatto transvestite who straightens his hair and sports long, fake nails painted white. The other day when he came I was puzzling over my tabletop dispenser. I had opened it up to clean it inside and wasn't sure if I had put it back together correctly. He checked it out patiently and concluded that it was all right. And added: "If anything leaks, call us back immediately and I'll come and fix it for you."

In spite of what the newspapers want you to believe, acts of random kindness abound here. And before you ask, I do wonder about his nails, too. How does he manage to keep them so perfect?

The Remains of the Days

2007-08-30T13:22:00.000-04:00

No, it's not a typo, if you've read the book or seen the film. This is about a different kind of butler, in every sense. Santiago (1912-1994), the real person in the documentary by João Moreira Salles, was an Argentinian of Italian descent who worked for his family at their modernist home in Rio. The film, which is also a reflection on documentary making, reveals as much about the relationship between the director and the former employee as it does about this highly cultivated, flamboyant character. I don't want to give away too much, so I'll stop here.

The elegant residence, which Salles filmed empty, now houses the photographical and musical archives of the Instituto Moreira Salles (IMS), a cinema, several exhibition rooms, and a café. For obvious reasons (just look at these photos!), it has become one of my favorite spots in Rio. A self-confessed voyeuse, I walk down the hallways and look toward the pool and Burle Marx gardens and try to imagine what it must have been like to be wealthy in Rio in the Fifties! Those were the days, I'm sure.

Heaven and Hell Part 2

2007-08-28T15:24:00.000-04:00

This is an update on documentaries and Brazilian passports. We must have our finger on the pulse, so to speak, because soon after we published the two posts below O Globo ran a couple of related stories. A new Immigration/Passport Office will open in October at Rio's International Airport and cariocas will be able to make appointments on their website. This should kill the lines, but not the red tape, unfortunately. People will still need to make the trip out there and bring along the interminable list of documents we mentioned. As far as documentaries are concerned, filmmakers were lamenting the fact that the number of people interested in going to the movies to see them is very limited. I hope they (and their distributors) will not be discouraged by this small detail! It doesn't look like it: this past Friday, four more opened at cinemas nearby; we rushed to see "Santiago" by João Moreira Salles (he is the brother of Walter Moreira Salles, director of "Central Station" and "The Motorcycle Diaries"). More on this later.

...And Bureaucracy Hell

2007-08-20T18:13:00.001-04:00

That Brazil has one of the worst official bureaucracies in the world I already knew. But my friend's story about how she got her passport the other day I find really scary! We went for a walk around the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas and she was trying to comfort me about my trials with my Internet provider by telling me what she had to go through at the Polícia Federal downtown. The PF, as it's informally known, seems to be Brazil's version of Home Security: FBI, Border Patrol, Immigration and Passport Control, they are everywhere. In other words, a gigantic banding together of very efficient (crime investigation) and badly-managed (passport issuing) departments.

Not content with demanding that you bring along a list of documents longer than my wish list at Amazon.com, they only see a small number of people every day. This means that you have to get there at three a.m. and have a bit of luck, if you want to be among the chosen few. She didn't, of course (get there in the middle of the night), and wasted her trip. Well, not entirely. She asked a group of guys standing around what the story was about been admitted into the inner sanctum and one of them told her he would be happy to hold a place in line for her for 80 reais. She replied that he was insane to ask so much money and he came back with a final offer of 50 reais. At this point, she was really annoyed with the fellow, and finding him to be a bit creepy and untrustworthy to boot, she walked away. Further down the sidewalk, she met a nice young man who said he worked nearby anyway and would be happy to hold her place in line for 40 reais (getting there at, read this slowly, one a.m. to guarantee that she would be at the head of said line). So, next morning she arrived at about 8 a.m. to find him sitting on a small stool holding her spot: number eight in line. She got inside, was seen by a lovely young lady, and is waiting for her passport to be ready. When that happens, she has to go pick it up at Rio's International Airport. I suggested that she might want to take a packed suitcase and leave Brazil that same day to save herself some money and another trek out there.

What I find really maddening? The fact that officialdom's ineptitude generates corruption at all levels!

And if you find this unbelievable, O Globo, Rio's major newspaper, recently ran a similar story of passport woes.

The cutiepie above is NOT a Brazilian bureaucrat, but a urubu-de-cabeça amarela, photographed in Brazil's Pantanal by Felix Richter.

I Live in Documentary Heaven...

2007-08-20T13:58:00.000-04:00

People in Brazil complain that it's very difficult to get their documentaries distributed. I'm amazed, because in the past three years of extended stays in Rio, I've seen more of them than in all my life in the U.S. I did some research and confirmed my suspicion: this country has become an important center for documentary movies. Every year since 1996, Brazil has also hosted It's All True, the international documentary film festival. I've decided to post a list of my "do-not-miss-this-one," in case some of them eventually find their way to a cinema or a DVD rental place near you. Besides the one mentioned in an earlier post, here they are (in no particular order, except that the first two are showing in Rio right now):

1. "Fabricando Tom Zé" Intimate interviews with the "mad genius" of Brazilian music, interspersed with scenes filmed during his 2005 European tour.
2. "Três Irmãos de Sangue" The lives and times of three extraordinary Brazilians who fought against the military dictatorship and for the country's redemocratization: hemophiliac brothers Betinho (a sociologist), Henfil (perhaps Brazil's greatest cartoonist), and musician Chico Mário, all of whom ended up infected with HIV during blood transfusions and ultimately died of Aids.
3. "Ônibus 174" A former street kid hijacks a bus in an expensive neighborhood of Rio and it all ends in tragedy.
4. "A Pessoa É Para o Que Nasce" The story of three blinds sisters who are coco singers in northeastern Brazil.
5. "Morro da Conceição" Interviews with the inhabitants of the oldest neighborhood in Rio.
6. "O Rio de Jano" Follows French cartoonist and artist Jano as he immerses himself in Rio's lifestyle and draws its inhabitants and scenery.
7. "O Fim e o Princípio" Famed director Eduardo Coutinho and his crew went to the interior of Paraíba (a state in northeastern Brazil) looking for a story to tell. In meeting the aging inhabitants of a remote rural area, they got much more than they bargained for.
8. "Vinícius" The biography of the great poet and bossa nova lyricist Vinícius de Moraes told through interviews, archival material, and musical numbers (I found the latter a bit disconcerting).
9. "Sou Feia Mas Tô na Moda" Focuses on Brazilian funk's major female stars from Rio's favelas. This is a love it or hate it kind of film, be forewarned.
10. "Carnaval, Bexiga, Funk e Sombrinha" A loving tribute to the traditional carnaval groups from suburban Rio called clóvis.

There are also some wonderful ones that I missed and hope to find on DVD around here, such as "Edifício Master," where Eduardo Coutinho documents the daily lives of people in a huge building in Copacabana, and "Paulinho da Viola: Meu Tempo é Hoje," about the samba songwriter and singer.

Last, but not least, two DVDs about Brazilian music: "Nasci no Brasil" and "Brasileirinho," already available in the U.S.

The photograph is a scene from "Brasileirinho," the documentary about Rio's musical genre, choros. It's all there: the magic, spontaneity, and sophistication of the music; the open air classes and performances; the intergenerational musical brotherhood of choro musicians and their bond with the audiences.

Where Do Dust Bunnies Come From?

2007-08-19T12:27:00.000-04:00

Did you ever wonder where dust bunnies come from? I found myself thinking about it last time I looked under my bed while cleaning the apartment. Housecleaning chores the Brazilian way involve (in my case) using a broom and an implement called rodo, which looks like a giant squeegie. To these I add a super absorbent flour sack I bought for one real and a pail of water. I use the broom first and as I vigorously sweep the beautiful dark wood floors, the dust bunnies take flight and swirl in the air and gently land somewhere else. Meanwhile I try to anticipate where they're going to end up and position the broom to start again. A losing battle, hence the need for the wet rag wrapped around the rodo afterwards.

Here I must take a break and tell you about a dialog with a couple of friends yesterday morning. Every Saturday I eagerly partake of a Rio ritual, breakfast out. Sometimes it's at a dingy coffee bar at the market - which I actually prefer because I find it very democratic - other times at the fancy coffeehouse where I meet these oldtime buddies of mine. Anyway, they asked me what I missed most about the U.S. Funny they should ask, I said, because I had been thinking about this very subject and names like Dyson and Swiffer WetJet had sprung to mind. And now we can get back to dust bunnies. Once a month I take a break and surrender the task of getting rid of them to my cleaning lady who, if she ever saw what those American appliances can do (the asthma-friendly, never loses suction vacuum and the all-in-one mopping system), would doubt my sanity ever after.

This adorable fuzzy thing here is my friend Ellen's REAL bunny, Nibbles.

Going the Way of the Dodo

2007-08-15T15:51:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking a lot about the dodo and other extinct creatures lately. First, there was this hilarious quote from a makeup artist in Revista O Globo this past Sunday. According to him, thin eyebrows are "going extinct" in Europe. That made me laugh really hard because so are mine (thin and vanishing rapidly).

Second, there is a documentary playing at a movie theater near me called O Fim do Sem Fim (something like The End of the Endless). It is about occupations or professions that are disappearing in Brazil. The directors (there are three of them) spent months traveling through several states to interview and film, among others, a lighthouse keeper, a movie theather usher, a diamond prospector, a former railroad employee, a cordel writer, an elevator operator, a church bell ringer, and my three favorites: a prophet, a rooster maestro, and a or, shall I say, THE, master of masters. The prophet, well, you know what they do. The rooster maestro teaches roosters to crow and the master of masters knows everything there is in the Universe and was writing a book about it when the documentary makers appeared at his doorstep. In case you're wondering, the usher was discovered at a porn cinema downtown Rio that happens to be one of the loveliest old buildings in town (I've only seen the lobby, I promise). The film is at times a bit confusing, the camera work often irritating, but the subjects are eminently likeable. I found myself rooting for the prospector and his wife to find the biggest rock on the planet. And for all the others to be able to keep doing whatever it is that they still do until we all reach the end of the endless.

Thirdly, and a propos of this documentary, Brazilian railroads: this enormous country has, unfortunately, let them die in favor of, you guessed, roads and automobiles. One of the saddest scenes in the film has the former railway man walking amidst rusting and rotting locomotives and boxcars in an overgrown train yard, talking about the good old days.

As for the dodo...I think he was the cutest thing and he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But then, think of the Chinese river dolphin. Have we learned anything since then?

Image © Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

Killing Me Softly

2007-08-15T10:01:00.000-04:00

No, it's not Roberta Flack who makes me want to curl up on the couch and cry. It's NET, my Brazilian Internet provider. I'll explain. It's been a comedy of errors from day one; we set up an appointment for the afternoon. The next day someone calls to confirm "between 8 a.m. and noon." The same woman tells me I'll need a Xerox copy of my ID and CPF (Brazil's Tax ID Card). It's Saturday afternoon, they're coming tomorrow morning, how come no one told me this before, and where do I get copies made in my neighborhood? My landlady's scanner, of course. Sunday morning: two technicians show up, hook me up, and there's no mention of documents. Phew...I don't really feel comfortable with the idea of handing out copies of my papers to anyone!

Chapter two: I signed up for a 4 MB connection; NET guarantees download at 400 KB/sec, upload at 600 KB/sec., they proudly assured me. A week later or so, I start to notice that the speed slows down to a crawl in the evening. I call technical support and we try the usual tests. No dice. A technician comes. Then another. This one stays for almost two hours. Then more phone calls (an average of one hour and a half on the phone every time). Finally, I despair and do what I should have done in the first place: I start asking around my friends and neighbors about their experience with NET. And guess what: it's the same thing. One tells me: "Oh, they're selling above their capacity, so at peak times (meaning, when everyone around here gets home around 6 p.m.), it doesn't make any difference what kind of connection you have." The other one says that it's useless to call them: "You're only wasting your time on the phone. Just wait until it gets better." So, I've been trying to beat the crowds and work at odd hours. The bills, of course, appear on time at my doorstep. I hurry to make my payment at the bank. God forbid that I should be late. Consumer rights is a concept that looks good on paper in Brazil. In practice, there's very little you can do, apparently.

And where does the softly come into this story? Everyone you deal with over there is so VERY nice, of course!

Three Old Ladies at the Movies

2007-08-08T14:17:00.000-04:00

In Brazil, it seems, rules are meant to be either bent or broken. Case in point: the other day I went to the movies at the gorgeous Casa de Cultura Laura Alvim (a combination of cinemas, cafe, and exhibition space in what seems to be the last mansion standing on Ipanema Beach). At the box office I found out that the seats were numbered. I didn't like the idea very much, this was just a film after all, but since I was already there and I was able to find a decent seat at the back, I went in. In the row in front of me there were three old ladies who had moved from their assigned seats much closer to the screen. In a few minutes, three more people arrived and sat down in that row, one of them also taking a seat that was NOT her own. Then, a young man came in and claimed that particular seat. They begged him to take another seat just behind (my row), because they were friends and wanted to sit together, and he finally agreed to do that. Of course, a little later a couple arrived who had the seat he had just sat in. They got upset and called the manager, who became a bit angry with the young man who, for some reason, wasn't saying much in his own defense. At this point, the woman next to me and I decided to get involved and started to yell: "It's not really his fault, someone in front took his seat and asked him to move."

To make a long story a little shorter: The three friends got separated and the fellow went quietly back to his own seat. But wait, there's more: When the movie was about to begin, another couple came in and obviously they had purchased two of the seats that the three old ladies had appropriated. So, two of them had to go back to the front of the theater, leaving the third one, looking (and sounding) very smug and proud of herself, in the seat in front of me. Every woman for herself and loyalty be damned!

I ask you: Why number the seats after all? Beats me!

Meet the Author

2007-08-03T13:04:00.000-04:00

The arara (macaw) got its name from the Tupi language of Brazil. The word a'rara mimics the sounds these large, colorful birds make. We have chosen the arara as the Brazilian correspondent for Maria-Brazil.org because to us the bird is symbolic of the country. And then, of course, she turned out to be a real prima donna...Arara has now decided that she needs her own blog and will be pecking at her laptop keyboard from the general vicinity of Corcovado Mountain in Rio. We must confess, though, that in view of the complete chaos reigning in Brazilian skies these days, we consider ourselves especially lucky for having someone able to fly under her own power.

Last, but not least: The bird is entirely responsible for her blog's content. No use complaining to us.