See you soon!

Life changes.

Macumba!

Last Thursday I went to the Champion for groceries. I was looking in one of the aisles when I saw a very petite woman trying to reach a container of saffron on the very top shelf. She turned to me and asked, in French, if I could reach it for her. I never felt so tall… tip-toed and zap, there it was, the jar with specs of the precious spice in my hands. She then complained that it was hard for her to reach to the tallest shelves (and I thought, observing, yes, they build these for tall people, probably a tall man’s perspective.) I recognized her accent and asked, “Ête-vous brésilienne?” And she answered yes, and I said “moi aussi” – me too, sou brasileira, switching immediately into Portuguese.

She explained she was cooking manioc she got from the African vendor at the Saturday street market and she liked to give it some color. Her husband knew which spice to get and she thought this one would do the job. I told her it probably wouldn’t, but by then we moved on to how had she--Denise--ended up in Ferney-Voltaire with two daughters now teenagers, Simone and Nathalia. We exchanged phone numbers.

The next day we met at the Gare Cornavin in Geneva and went to the Brasseur, a bar across the busy train station. I had the best beer I had ever tasted there, I am not kidding, something with agave and lemon, light, with a delicious flavor. Denise connected with the young Englishman across the table and the three of us moved later to Mr. Picwick, an English bar along Lausanne Street, at her invitation, “They always have music there!”

That’s how I indulged my new frequent activity--bar hoping with an English accountant on assignment and a bubbly Brazilian woman. “My husband and I are taking some time off and I need to go out so I do not get depressed,” she explained. She wanted to stay longer at the Pickwick. I wanted to come home on the 11 p.m. bus and have time to call my brother in Brazil for news about my father. But I had had a good time. The Swiss blues band was quite good. Even if the players were a bit stiff, they did a good American impersonation. I also got to dance.

The next day, Saturday, I met Denise at the street market. It was a beautiful sunny day, many vendors came out, I loved walking and seeing everything and bought some hot olives in a stall where they had all manner of olives from around Europe and Africa. Diversity is really, really a blessing… it is taking us human to long to really accept and enjoy that. Long live olives of all colors and shapes!

Denise invited me to meet her daughter Nathalia (Simone lives with her boyfriend and was not home). She got manioc and cooked for us. Nathalia of course was lovely, with an impeccable French and French demeanor on her beautiful petite Brazilian self. I asked her many questions about school and encouraged her to keep on studying because she would have so many opportunities to work internationally in this region.

I left after lunch to write but I took another break later and went for a great swim. I worked some more and at 9:30 p.m. I was picked up by Denise and her Italian friend, Angelo, whose wife does not go out, to go to another part of France on the other side of Geneva. After the border, we passed a Cassino and then we arrived to Macumba.

Macumba is a popular name for Umbanda, one of the branches of Brazilian African religion people know as Voodoo. So, technically, this nightclub was named Voodoo in Brazilian Portuguese. This was not your run of the mill nightclub (I speak as I have known many, far from the truth—I have never been a “clubber”, though it looks like from these two days that I might soon…) Well, let’s put it this way, I do not think Macumba is a run of the mill because it was a club “plex”. I certainly had never been in one!

It is a huge building like a casino. There are all manner of bar, restaurants nightclubs inside. You pay a couvert fee on regular days (10 euros, ay!) The price of drinks and food let’s put it mildly… exorbitant (15 euros for a small beer and a coke!!!!) But the fun… worth it.

We visited all of the rooms first; we were early by being there before midnight, so the place was empty. We settled in the rock-&-roll room, a dancing room where they played classic rock, oldies. There were quite a few couples on the floor. They were excellent. My dorky self complimented each of my favorites, telling how beautifully they danced. My dorky self also danced by herself after observing a man doing the same. It was a weird feeling, something like autistic dancers… more women joined later… Fun, fun.

We got tired and went next door, the Karaoke English pub, manned by gay boys! (Cyn, I thought of you! You would be in heaven! The equipment was excellent! When they ran out of romantic French tunes they play Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean or “I will survive!”)

Meanwhile, downstairs the techno room started filling with thousands of youth dressed to the T, both girls and boys, a diversity of hairstyles and outrageous outfits, expensive sneakers, high boots and high heels, lots of sparkling jewelry. The room was smoky—not cigarettes, some machine pumped smoke so that besides not being able to hear but the beats and the sounds-gone-mad of electronic music, they could not see anything or at the very least think they were in a fire. On second thought, they were on fire, jumping and moving, moving against each other. On one side of the dance floor there was a bird jail with a lot of young people inside moving orgiastically. On the opposite side there was a boxing ring but nobody was in it. Aggression, control and surveillance all over the place, one of my images of hell… We were out of there to go back to old rock…

By 12:30 Angelo was pooped out, afraid of going home too late, so Denise told me. Denise told me she had put the wrong pair of boots on, this one hurt her feet. I could have waited for the salsa that was about to start, and perhaps gone home at 5 a.m. when Macumba closes. Oh, well, back to Ferney we went.

Two last details: the women’s (girls’?) restroom—many real Barbie dolls and similar European doll models on the pink walls in plastic boxes. See the first picture above. Smoking is no longer allowed inside the nightclub. Tent like rooms were provided outside of the downstairs rooms where people would go to smoke but still be protected from the cold.

In your next trip to Geneva, 10 km away, or perhaps even to Paris, only 530 km from Macumba, stop by!

Spring/Printemps

Spring seems to come slowly
to Ferney-Voltaire where
there is still snow on Mount Jura.
The rains were plentiful this week
and cold.

Still, flowers have poked the ground
They shiver but stay put
growing a bit brighter
when the sun comes
out of hiding in the clouds.

Aspargus and strawberries
are in the street market.

Spring in
Ferney-Voltaire:
Are the birds
singing in French also,
delicately announcing
‘amour’ around the corner?
Clouds are
more elegant—can this be?
Passing over my head...
Au revoir!

I have so enjoyed
My journée en France
in the Pays de Gex.
I will never forget
this Spring
ce Printemps
d’espérance.



P.S. I took this photo in Teresinha Rey's beautiful old garden. Primroses are everywhere in the fields in this Swiss/French region.

"I hope I am wrong"

The writer of this blog was out of commission due to an earthquake in her life. She has survived the tsunami.

It was a beautiful morning today so I worked a bit and then went to the health food store beside the Champion in front of my apartment building but on the other street. (There is a parking lot, a green area, and a small stream in the area right in front of the building, which I cross to go to the other street. Big enough for the circus… gives us space to see the Alps at a distance.)

I needed oatmeal and soy milk. I came home with these plus a stash of raw almond butter which is not available in London… organic fat free yogurt, organic Chiapas coffee, and some kind of “bio” red wine made by priests…( It sounded good, I trust priests making wine. Usually communion wine, when served as it is at least during the Anglican masses I have attended, is quite good.) There were also the most beautiful whole wheat breads at the check out. The check out lady was serving morsels of the enormous whole compacted wheat with nuts and raisins bread (at least half a meter by 30 centimeters in size). She offered me a thin slice and that was my breakfast for the morning. (Here I am talking about food again!)

Had some coffee and worked a bit more until 11:30 when I went swimming at the local public pool. The building is simple, attractive and all of the materials carefully chosen to last. I take the card to the desk; the attendant gives me a magnetic key and a card. I use one Euro for the locker and close it with the card and take out the key. I take a shower and go into the seven lane pool, two of which are reserved for school kids who come all throughout the day to swim or for classes. I am up to 21 laps, not bad for someone who sort of learned to (inefficiently) how to swim at age 50 and has not swam regularly for a couple of years. My next project is skiing. I WILL conquer that one…

After swimming I went into the hammas. That is the steam room. I absolutely love being in a steamy room. The more steam the better. I smuggled eucalyptus oil in and was in total heaven, sweating and smelling the scent of Australian forests. After 5 minutes I leave, shower and rest outside on wooden beds, using the time for yoga positions. After some of that, another shower and more steam.

During the second time around I met a Frenchman who I had talked with in the hammas before. He speaks fluent English and as a young man taught swimming at Jewish summer camps in the Catskills. The conversation first started when he was doing yoga positions in the hammas. I asked if he practiced yoga and observed that his twists and back relaxation poses were excellent. He said he had an inflammation on his side, so he used the steam and the poses to help the condition. Of course I found out that his 18 year old daughter was coming to NYC to study and we became best friends.

This time around I asked how his pain was, and then used the opportunity to ask about the medical insurance issue. He said that (horrors!) with the new changes he only can go to one GP, not to as many as he could go before. Some people have to pay a small co-pay to go to the doctor. The whole French social security is being overhauled. He thinks it needs to be but it needs to be done correctly (I almost wrote right instead of correctly, but I fear the Right handling SS.)

Two more people entered the hammas and got involved in the conversation. One very nice older woman, retired from UN peace keeping missions, doesn’t trust the SS changes. She thinks that now many people cannot see doctors who say they are full, or have the lower paying patients wait for months. She blames the infiltration of insurance companies for the medical insurance issues and of American TV into France for idiocy among youth.

Like every person I have talked to, this woman is hopeful that the US will change with the election of Obama or Hillary. To everyone who says that, I reply, “Do not bet on it! I hope I am totally wrong, but I do not think that either is electable due to racism and sexism rampant in US society, not to mention election corruption... It is going to be the “good o’l White soldier boy” again…” The answer is usually a gasp and “Oh, No!” And I nod my head, upset at myself for being so cynical, and say, “I could be wrong…”

Politics in the hammas is steamy too.

No Nukes! At the Red Cross/Red Crescent Museum

Today was one of the saddest days of my entire life. I am not going into details. Those of you who are close friends know I am in a process of reviewing and revising my entire life and, at almost 62, this is certainly NOT EASY.

What do you do then when you mope so low that the floors never get dry from tears and dampness of abject thoughts? You go to Geneva’s Red Cross/Red Crescent Museum!

I took the bus into Geneva. This was my second time on the bus. Yesterday I went to visit a friend of a friend of my mother’s. Yes. That is a story in itself that I am not telling now. This woman is the widow of Andre Rey, a psychologist from the University of Geneva who was a contemporary and professional nemesis of Piaget himself. (“No one takes Piaget’s theories seriously now, at least not in Switzerland!” was one of the first things she told me yesterday, before she showed me the plaque commemorating the centennial of her husband’s birth on the front of her three hundred year old farm house.)

I took the bus today into Geneva. I knew where to get off, at the Croix Rouge stop. All the stops have names. They are within three zones. You buy the ticket for the zones you want to cross in a machine at the stop, with exact change or a card. You validate the ticket once in the bus to show the time—they last one hour you can travel with that ticket. It is unlikely anyone will ask to see your ticket. The company believes you do have one, with the right time, and you will not cheat. All of this knowledge I acquired in the last 24 hours.

I have visited the museum another time when in Switzerland almost ten years ago. I wanted to see a special exhibit, “Un-security”. This is about the dangers of nuclear power. The exhibit is short and to the point. It starts with the ideas and scientific discoveries related to radioactive materials. A documentary at the beginning shows the history of nuclear power and weapons and the men associated with them (Marie Curie, exception). They are entirely Western, European and Euro-American. They are what we call “White” civilization ideas and scientific discoveries.

Then there are pictures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors and objects photographed after the explosions. One watch, found years later in a river bed, shows the exact time of the bombing, 8:15 a.m. The US bombed these people. Almost 75 thousand instantly dead, some vaporized, and the same number of people horribly injured. We still want to do this to others. We may do it if we do not really change the minds of the people who grab power here.

Then there are pictures of Chernobyl’s disaster: those who died instantly, the ghost city that remains so contaminated; the children born mentally retarded or with physical deformities; the old people who returned to plow contaminated land because they preferred to stay in their homeland rather than to be nothing, feeling alienated somewhere else. The Russians are to blame for their carelessness towards people and the environment.

Then there were pictures contrasting ordinary activities going on around "monster" nuclear power plants in Europe. People swimming and sun bathing happily on the beach right beside a nuclear power plant, in France. Two old ladies talking to each other, overlooking a British nuclear power plant. Grapevines and fruits grown on land besides a nuclear power plant in Spain.

There were no pictures of Scriba. Or Oswego. I looked.

Germany is the first Western power to decommission all of its nuclear power plants by the year 2012. I did not know that. Do you know about it? Yeah!

The last part of the exhibit showed all manner of nuclear missiles that the US owns to deploy if the nuclear warmongers decide that it is time to experiment extinguishing human beings somewhere else to just show them who’s the boss. The photographer is an American who decided to visit silos to learn more about them and to document, at the time, the dawn of a new anti-nuclear era. He has concluded since that he was wrong thinking that things were about to change.

The biggest point of the exhibit is that there is a lot of talk again about nuclear energy and renewed effort to create even more potent nuclear weapons. It shows how the two efforts are related. It calls for us, from a Red Cross perspective, to think long and hard about these options. They are awfully destructive.

I almost stopped my personal whining after watching “Un-security” and revisiting the permanent Red Cross exhibit downstairs, documenting all of the wars that have taken place from 1863 to 1990, and the founding and efforts of the Red Cross/Red Crescent towards alleviating the plight of the wounded. Having lived in New Mexico, the cradle of nukes, however, I have become sort of immune to greater feelings about them. I feel only a little better after looking at the impact of real mushroom clouds outside of my very own, home grown inside my heart and soul.

Surprise!

I am leading a fairly quiet life mostly entirely alone. I welcome this opportunity daily. At the same time, I am in such a strange place that I am with all that surrounds me, the buildings, the places of commerce, the gardens, and the brook that gurgles by the building going in the direction of Lake Leman… My attention goes from the computer screen to the window and what lies beyond, the Geneva airport with its airplanes coming and going in the distance, as well as the oh blessed mountains.

Total silence. I am writing at the desk yesterday when there is unusual noise coming from the road. It is not quite the sound of horns, but it is too… just noisy, annoying like any racket that disturbs the peace, going on for a few minutes. I finally stand up, go to the window to see at the roundabout (I think that is what we call the circle where cars go around in different directions) a huge truck, actually a truck connected to several trailers. I think “How unusual to see such huge truck here in Europe; we see them in the US. It must be making noise to indicate that it wants to turn left without going around the circle.” Curiosity thus satisfied, I went back to work.

During lunch, which I eat in front to the glass door to the veranda overlooking the mountains, I notice that the truck is now parked behind the Champion supermarket. “It must be making deliveries… Such a huge truck to bring the food…” I finish eating and go back to work.

Late in the afternoon I am ready to go swimming. I need it because I have been grumpy today and suffering from self-pity. I gather towel, goggles, cap, ear plugs, soap, shampoo, the entrance card all in my backpack and put the suit on, dressing myself warmly because it is about 33 degrees. I go down the elevator, to the trash bin, and then outside.

Here is what I see: camels, tiny ponies, and a strange bull with long, long pointy horns. Besides the menagerie are the many parts of the truck, more trailers and a tent going up. The Circus of Rome is in town and right behind my building. A big smile grows on my face, my heart beats a tiny bit faster, and I feel the rush of joy and expectation, surprised.

I have considered 1) Going to the performance today, Wednesday, at 6 p.m. as the loudspeaker on one of the circus’ vehicles announces all over Ferney-Voltaire. 2) Asking at the office if they need employees and volunteering, thus fulfilling a lifelong dream of running away with the circus and perhaps a strong vocation as a clown.

First day in Ferney-Voltaire, France

The first day in Ferney-Voltaire
Jorgen picked me up from the Geneva airport with his adult son visiting from Sweden. The two drove the five minute ride to Ferney-Voltaire, which from now on I will abbreviate as F-V. Très bien. I had a hand drawn map and it was not difficult, in the small town, to find the apartment building. We carried the stuff through the lobby and unthinkingly got into an elevator.

We got to the last, the seventh floor. “I thought Sachiko lived on the eight floor!” I said. We looked puzzled at each other. I took out the keys that the Portuguese concièrge, Mr. Carlos Martim, had given me in an envelope with “Ms. Tania Ramalho” in Sachiko’s handwriting. I tried to fit these keys in the seventh floor apartment while talking with the men. Jorgen’s son tried to read the names of residents on the other doors. Suddenly, the apartment door opened and I immediately saw my mistake—out of excitement and mindlessness. I did have the wrong floor. A tall French man came out and told us that there were two elevators, one for odd and another for even floors. I apologized, and we decided to walk up the stairs carrying the heavy suitcases.

There it was, “my” apartment for one month! The key to the security iron front door fit, opening all six of the protective locks at the same time with one simple turn. The first thing we noticed, to Jorgen's big, big laughs, were post-it notes all over the place and a long note “for Tania” on the back of the front door. While we had gone over many details about how the place worked, Sachiko decided to make sure that I had everything in writing. It was thoughtful of her. After all, as the first event of not finding the right door shows, I can be extremely absent minded. (I take a moment to beg the pardon from all who I have injured with annoying distractions and forgetfulness. I am working on this terrible habit because I do not want to go to hell for it.)

Ok. Just one of the notes on a cupboard over the stove, in neon green paper:

You may use salt & pepper here, but I prefer that you do not use the olive oil here (as it’s a very special one I bought in Italy & cannot buy it in Geneva or France). Thanks.

I laughed. Truthfully, I understand Sachiko very well. I have a thing for good olive oil. I hoard it too. Hands off her Italian oil…

After the men left I got one of Sachiko’s specially strong grocery bags everybody uses to avoid the environmental curse of plastic bags and went to the Champion, a store in front of the building but across from its parking lot and on the next street, so it is not like I live right in front of a supermarket. Still, it is convenient. As a diehard shopper of food (once I am, hopefully, a recovering… overeater…) I was in heaven. It must have taken me more than an hour and a half to go through the aisles of French food, examining everything, checking prices and converting Euro into dollars, trying not to feel overwhelmed. I bought salmon and turkey (dinde), bio (meaning organic) broccoli and cauliflower, onions and garlic, soy milk, oats and olive oil!

I had the first meal I cooked myself for a long time and was grateful for it. (In London, besides breakfast, lunch of peanut butter on rice cakes and apples, I was eating out once a day, with prices being twice as much…)

I started to establish a routine of exercise, meditation, journaling, reading and writing the next day. I also break for cooking; a walk, and now that I found the local public pool also to go swimming. My first walk in town led me to find a HEALTH FOOD STORE just beside the Champion! I got a French SIM card for my cell phone. I went to the Tourist Office for maps and schedules of the buses to Geneva and Gex, the next French town. I found the pool, the apartment complex where the poor—Africans and older French people—live, and a Moslem grocery store with reasonable prices and lots of spices.

I promise not to bother my readers anymore with meals and food details. I just meant to give a picture here of what is available in F-V.

Did I mention the view of the Alps?

London March Against the Wars

Saturday (samedi) March 15 there was a call in London to people who are indignant about the wars against“Orientalism” as Said would call it, naming one of the West’s principal constructions of the “Other”, Islam. The wars are supposed to be against what the powerful call “terrorist” fundamentalist movements and against particular countries that have greater geopolitical interest for the expansion of economic and political influence. There are “ally” exceptions, of course, like Egypt, but even that relationship is marked by condescending disrespect.

Educated people know this and are horrified by the greedy aggressive monsters who go into wars and sacrifice civilian and young soldiers’ lives to secure great profits for industries related to the military and war destruction. Don’t ever for a second think that Iraq and Afghanistan wars are useless; just ask the contractors and the investors. It is bounty to them. It is misery for those directly involved, mostly the young—for most cannon fodder soldiers are barely adults—and children, women, and their men who die, suffer from dislocation, or have their livelihoods destroyed.

You cannot imagine the immense flow of disgust that overtakes me when I write these words. We, part of the masses who are suffering only indirectly through continuously increase in prices and the decay of our standards of living, corresponding decrease in our peace of mind, and the auctioning of our future to the military related debt—we must feel, we must think, we must act.

The people met at Trafalgar Square. Rain threatened but Saint Claire kept it away until the next day when it was wet, cold and dreary. The rally lasted about one hour. Then we marched for two hours to Westminster, across the Thames, back on the other bridge that leads to Parliament Square near Downing Street. There were between a quarter to half a million people there of all ages and backgrounds.

I marched with my long lost childhood friend Francesca (see the blog Finding Francesca for the story). She is active in the Palestinian Liberation Movement. As a photographer, she has visited Israel and the Occupied Territories. She took photos and has exhibited them. We marched carrying “Free Gaza” posters behind the group’s banner. A group of drummers was just behind us in the beginning of the march. They played Brazilian rhythms. But it stayed behind as we went along and we got serious about chanting.

“No blood for oil!” “One, two, three, four, we do not want your bloody war.” “Bring the troops home.” And an interesting call: (Caller, very slowly and after each response from the crow increasing speed) “Geor-ge Bush!” (Crowd responds in the same pace.) “Terrorist!” In five minutes we are going very fast calling Bush and the Prime Minister of Britain terrorists, alternatively.

The two things I saw for the first time in this march were pictures that we do not see in the US, of people—particularly children--hurt and defaced by US bombings, and acknowledgement of the use of depleted uranium ammunition. Aptly hey were calling the Iraq and Afaghanistan wars NUCLEAR WARS. They are

The Apartment in Leloc (with pics to come later)

My friend in Switzerland had to rent a place near her new job, a good hour and a half commute from her exquisitely appointed house in Geneva. She found an apartment in an traditional old Swiss farm house, the kind I had expected Sachiko to have. This is a calendar picture-perfect romantic place, with a cabin feeling. All the walls and ceilings are covered in old wood and the kitchen floor is made of big slabs of old stone. With large, deep windows overlooking the top of the Jura mountains, pinewoods, fields, and the town of Leloc beneath, the place is enchanted, especially the way it is now, covered in fresh snow.

The young couple Rachel and Sebastian Schmid bought this place and live on one side of the farm house on two floors. The apartment is on the back. They shopped at IKEA to decorate it with taste and simplicity.

The bedroom has an almost double bed covered with a duvet, two night tables with lamps, and an Oriental print of flowers on the wall above the bed; it has also a wicker long chaise by the window.

The living room has a sleeper sofa, a table, lamp, two chairs and a steel bookshelf. Both the living and bed rooms are carpeted in grey-moss tone. There is a quaint wood stove covered with royal blue tiles to warm the room. Otherwise the apartment is (almost!) heated with water filled heaters that don’t quite do the job here at the top of cold mountain.

The kitchen has a large wood cabinet fully furnished with dishes, pots and pans and what not, including an expresso machine, much common in Swiss households. (I do not know how I have lived without one until now! I will look for one in thrift stores when I return for sure…) There is an old fashioned wood stove for additional heating and a electric stove for cooking, and a table with four chairs. The bathroom is tiled in beige-brown small tiles, and has a shower, toilet and sink.

The town of Leloc is near the French border. All major watch and clock makers are here, including Cartier. There are other precision instruments industries here also. The Horlogerie Musee, museum of time keeping machines, is the main attraction. Le Corbusier* was born here. The town is located in a narrow valley surrounded by the Jura mountains. It is much colder and snowier here than in Geneva.

The Leloc farm house apartment has a few decorative pieces about. The motif of most is the stylized human heart, the symbol of love, in wood, wicker, and red cloth embroidered with tiny edelweiss. This is how I have felt here, sleeping to the sound of a woodstove burning and the crackling of the wood and fire inside, preparing a meal, cleaning, reading and writing, and reflecting about life: heartfelt, loving, grateful.

***

*From the Online Encyclopedia:
Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris, who chose to be known as Le Corbusier (October 6, 1887 – August 27, 1965), was a Swiss-born architect, designer, urbanist, writer and also painter, who is famous for his contributions to what now is called Modern Architecture. In his 30s he became a French citizen.

He was a pioneer in theoretical studies of modern design and was dedicated to providing better living conditions for the residents of crowded cities. His career spanned five decades, with his iconic buildings constructed throughout central Europe, India, Russia, and one structure each in North and South America. He was also an urban planner, painter, sculptor, writer, and modern furniture designer.

Sachiko's Generosity

On Monday March 3, I went to visit Sachiko in the afternoon. She picked me up to go to her apartment in Ferney-Voltaire in France, just outside of Geneva. I had met Sachiko at the dinner Terri offered to a group of women of GWIT, one of the associations that sponsored the panel about the upcoming BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries where I was one of the speakers. She had asked a question directed at me during the Q & A period. I recognized Sachiko (not her real name, for privacy) at the dinner and sat with her to escape the noise and confusion of the party.

Sachiko retired last year after 25 years with the International Labor Organization. Because of my long time interest in labor, a minor of my doctorate, we had a lot to talk about. It was my turn to ask questions from her who was quite disgruntled with what she saw as corruption of ILO’s principle of neutrality. (By the way, Osama Bin Laden has written about this kind of corruption.) ILO is supposed to be an intermediary between governments, the private sector (capitalists) and workers. The power imbalance is just too great. Principles are corrupted when capitalists and governments that represent them want to control labor conditions—a classic!

Besides social justice, another love of Sachiko’s is her cats. We hit it off here. She told me about Malice, her male cat with just a tiny almost no tail because he comes from an island off the coast of England where this breed lives, and Tomi, her elderly female cat. Of course I told her about my own companion, Whitney, and her caretaker, Carol, and their loving relationship.

I was interested in visiting Sachiko’s apartment because she said it was in an old building. I imagined a French or Swiss centuries old building and was curious about its charms. (I see myself taking many pictures of houses I find particularly attractive.) I wanted to visit her cats also, as I miss Whitney and certainly enjoy meeting other people’s cats. We made the arrangement through email and Sachiko picked me up in her Toyota at 2 p.m.

The drive was not far. Ferney-Voltaire is perhaps 15 minutes on the highway from Coppet-Founex when traffic is clear. To my disappointment, the apartment was in an older but modern, built after the war, a run of the mill apartment building; except that it was in France, and in the town where Voltaire, quite an aristocrat and a man of all trades, had lived over 20 productive years before his death.

There was one good thing about the flat , the view. The apartment had a far view of Lake Leman and the Alps, including the all present Mont Blanc. It had a large balcony, living and dining rooms, large kitchen, two bedrooms and lots, and lots of closet space. The bathroom and the toilet are separate rooms; there is no toilet in the bathroom. Different.

Sachiko served Japanese green and rice tea, and rice crackers. We talked while the cats, especially Malice, came and went, sometimes looking for caresses behind the ears and sometimes just jumping on Sachiko’s lap to make sure I understood who was the boss. Tomi was shyer than Malice, so I could not establish a relationship with her. She kept to herself, napping. I learned about Taro, Tomi’s companion and Sachiko’s favorite cat who had died a few years ago. Taro, which in Japanese means “first son”, was Sachiko’s first cat. He was a beautiful tabby. There are many drawings and paintings of Taro and Tomi on the walls of the apartment. One of them is especially sweet, Taro embracing Tomi, a position that they often took, Sachiko revealed.

As I asked so many questions about her life, impressed with her being an American educated Japanese woman who worked internationally most of her professional life, I found out that Sachiko has been dedicating her retired time to writing. She first gave me a book of stories about Taro and Tomi, with a subtitle My Feline Son and Daughter. Then, she brought out a semi-autobiographical novel which I read practically nonstop. I was enchanted with Sachiko’s “go get it” attitude, one that I have to work a bit more in my own life… The story is very interesting but I will not go into details here.

She brought me back home before dinner and after we walked through the town of Ferney-Voltaire, very charming, of course, in particular because of its adoration of their “patriarche”, Voltaire. I loved the outing and the setting.

That evening I kept thinking about Sachiko leaving in a week to go to Japan for five weeks. I sent her an email on Tuesday morning, March 4, my sister’s birthday, with a proposal. I would take care of Tomi and Malice when she would be away. I would pay expenses of electricity and phone, and if she wanted it also some rent.

Instead of writing back, she called me on the phone. She said I could have her apartment but that she preferred to leave the cats on the farm as already arranged because there was a vet on premises. (Taro had become sick under the care of a cat sitter and never recovered.) This was an even better deal, I thought, less responsibility and more freedom to travel about. I was stunned. I could not believe my luck: an apartment in a small French town, with a Saturday market and a view of the Alps! How generous and trusting of Sachiko!

She came on the same day to pick me up yet again. At her apartment she went over everything, giving me detailed instructions of how to handle the steel door with multiple locks (do not lose the keys because they cannot be replicated and it would cost a million euros to open it…), appliances, windows, the sun on the electric piano, etc., etc.
For three hours we did that and she brought me back to Founex.

The next day was Sachiko’s birthday. I found a perfect e-card to send her, a Japanese fan with a pond with swimming carps motif, and wrote “May life reward your generosity with health, love, and happiness.” She thanked me by email and sent more instructions.

I will spend a week in London and will be back to live in France from March 17 to April 17. For sure, I will have a great birthday celebration on April 18, thanking the marvelous gift from an almost total stranger. Thank you, Sachiko!

Borough Market, London

Sunday, February 24, 2008

I must have snored quite a bit last night. I was sorry for my six roommates, three of which I had warned about the snoring. I am so self-conscious about it! Two pairs of earplugs that I left on top of the mirror were gone by morning… At least two of them slept well, I believe!

At any rate, yesterday, Saturday, I walked around the beautiful large market right in front of the hostel, Borough Market. Being Saturday, the market was booming with crowds and vendors of all sorts. I took my camera to delight in the unique scenes my eyes happened to fall upon. (It takes too long to upload the pictures to the blog, so I am sorry for the absence of images…)

Of course there were all manner of foodstuffs, starting with vegetables. We are talking all manner of vegetables, the ones green being really green, and the reds, well, red, and so on, with picture-like vegetables to completely delight the most respectable vegetarian: cabbages (for some reason cabbages come first when in England), carrots, potatoes, Swiss chard, beans… It could have been summer by this market’s standards. These veggies did not look imported either. Yes, there were flowers on the ground and on trees, even though this is the end of February… Something’s wrong with the weather, for sure, it is too early for Spring but Spring is here in Southwark, London, and certainly it is here in this market.

Fruits of all manner. In flesh and dried. Dried nuts, mountains of them. I tried some apple chutney—no doubt I have never thought of this simple, down to home thing, apple chutney! I talked with the chap offering chutney to the pleased crowds on pieces of dry toast. He said that England is losing its orchards because supermarkets only want perfect apples to sell. Orchards with less than perfect apples get closed off the market. This man is creating value for the crooked apple, the apple with scars, the ones with imperfect curves, waists even, those that are not correctly heart-shaped apples with no bruises. He chops them and mixes them with spices and nuts. I tried the apples and cumin recipe—delicious (perhaps the chap had a neighbor from India, or just a taste for Indian food…) India saves British orchards! Whatever… apples and spices, like mango and spices, the traditional recipes for chutney now. I thought, “Oh, Northern NY produces apples… maybe we too can market our excluded apples into savory chutneys…”

And then there were cheeses… Big round wheels of all manner of cheesy cheeses! And soft cheeses as well. Sorry. I do not remember their names, just the tastes of the three I tried, praying for cholesterol forgiveness. It was such a feast of cheeses. And then fish—fleshy fried things ready to be eaten with chips. Meats in abundance too, particularly processed into sausages, loaves, and links. I took a picture of three dead small animals, a small deer and two rabbits, hanging just like in old European drawings and paintings… Weird and offensive but authentic in this market.

The most interesting part was the people, though, from all walks of life, individuals, couples and families with babies and children, white and of color, buying stuff and, more so, EATING stuff. There were many stands and restaurants around the market. Everywhere people were eating everything imaginable. Chomp! Chomp! Chomp! There goes the ten inch long sausage sandwiches… and the fried fish with chips… It was a feast! Next to the market there was the Wineland, an old building turned into wine cellars and stores and places for wine tasting. No, I did not go in there… No time, otherwise I would have missed everything else outside.

I ended my visit to the market by just walking away toward the Southwark Cathedral—complete with a chapel for the founder of Harvard University who was baptized there. I took my power nap in that chapel after prayers…I was still carrying my backpack with wheels so that I had to be extra careful with not rolling it over the many graves on the floor of the cathedral… I was proud of my caring for the ancient dead, most of them distinguished males, sometimes their wives…

Then I walked in the direction of the Shakespeare Globe Theater and checked the beautiful iron gate with so many decorations, falling in love with each one of them, the mouse eating cheese, the mask of a monkey, flowers, the owl, of course, one of my favorites. I love iron gates… What dreams of representations of things that are part of the lives of humans! I did not get into the theater, though. I am controlling my money for now, maybe another time I will go to a play and will get the whole experience.

I was getting tired and time was coming to check in at the hostel. I went onto the London Bridge—yes, it was rebuilt recently because as we all know it was falling down… I took a long look at the Thames, at the fancy tall skyscrapers all around, as well as a good look at Saint Paul’s Cathedral on the other side, near to where I was standing, and I planned to go to services the next day. It made sense. I went to mass at Notre Dame once. Service at Saint Paul’s to follow.

Checked in with my heavy suitcases to the third floor of the Saint Christopher hostel for the young of age and of the heart… Slept my jet lag away and went to dinner at a respectful Indian restaurant across the road. Back to the room later for some syrah and to sleep among college students and recent grads…

To be slowly continued, without continuity.

The roof

When I arrived in December to my father’s house, it was the rainy season. And what a rainy season… Actually it wasn’t that bad compared to the one time that it rained for my 30 day vacation… nonstop. Then, I thought I was going to become moss.

It rained only for a week straight this time. It was just enough to see the maid get the pail hidden somewhere in the living room and place it on the marble table in front of the sofa just under the iron chandelier. “What’s that for?” I pretended not to know. “It leaks here through the chandelier.”

In this particularly comfortable room a window opens on one side to a small garden of cocoa and banana trees, and a double door on another side to the miniature rain forest in the yard. My father keeps both window and doors closed. With the infiltration, the room becomes an even better environment for the growth of black mold, so prevalent in the tropics I thought it was normal until I moved to the U.S.

It was time to do something about it.

First of course, I had to have the house rewired. A refrigerator, a TV set, and a stereo had all broke recently because of the poor quality of the aged wiring. Lights flickered. I talked with Salvador, his name being Portuguese for “savior.” To make a long story short, he is a Black man, father of the young maid Ciane who works for my dad on weekends. We know Ciane since she was born, and, of course, Salvador has many stories to tell about his work as construction handyman. With little formal education, he knows everything that needs to be known about how to build a house. “I have built three houses for your relatives in Sao Pedro da Aldeia,” he told me on a bus ride to buy roof tiles.

Salvador and his son worked on the rewiring while I was working in the Northeast of Brazil. I paid the bills to buy the new wires and cement, and they changed everything, always pointing out the areas where the wires were so corroded that we were a just a short circuit away from a house fire. Actually, my brother, who has been going though a terrifically mean-spirited phase, so mean I actually tried to exorcise him, said that it would be better if the whole thing, meaning the house, caught fire. Oh, well. New wiring.

That paid off, Salvador gave me a new estimate for the roof. Better, half of the roof. The house has two parts. He gave me an estimate for the one on top of the living room, dining room, downstairs bathroom, kitchen and service area. One very rainy day we went with my sister to buy tiles and wood. These were delivered the next day. They waited through another week or maybe a few more days, all during Carnaval, so that the men could have sun to start their work.

I was at my sister’s during Carnaval. Dennis Parsons was visiting and I wanted to be free to take him places as well as to experience Carnaval myself, something I had not done since my youth. When I returned to my father’s, construction had started in the first sunny day!

My brother was visiting and said something nice. “I admire you for doing the roof. If it were me, I would let the whole thing collapse. I would move the old man to the little house until that too collapsed. By the way, have you seen all the stuff he collected under the roof?”

I was amazed. “No, what stuff. I thought all the stuff was in the small rooms outside.” I was wrong. Indeed, there was a hole under the said roof where over 40 years my father collected all manner of useless things, old furniture, many, many pieces of wood of all sides, old doors, wires, my mother’s old sewing machine taken apart, metal lamps, ceiling lamps, toys, scrap metal, tools, cart wheels, tire, and part of its body, pictures. I found an old picture of mine that used to hang in my grandmother’s house… “OK, I thought. Time to clean and let go.”

“Salvador! Give me the additional estimate to clean this stuff.”

Salvador said nothing and to my surprise dedicated a whole day to clean the mess. It occupied the entire carport. The trash was so much that it could have been the continuation of Carnaval and its trash on the streets of Rio. What to do with the stuff?

“Salvador, you did the work without contracting a price! Now what?” Salvador had worked with two sons from morning to late evening. He had taken a shower in the little house so he could be clean and cool from the hot sun and the effort. He was sitting on the varanda, looking at me and putting his eyes down alternatively as he usually does, talking very, very, very slowly and quietly, in a manner that I have learned to respect and be patient. He finally looked at me and said, “$250 reais.” Dirt cheap, about $150 weak dollars.

I was relieved and feeling guilty at the same time. They had worked inordinately hard, up and down the ladder, under the new roof, with ropes and pulleys for the heavier stuff. They carried it all through the yard to the car port. Slaves. I am part of a slave system, still. Minding my money too, pulled between social consciousness, personal relations with the workers, especially Salvador (we are the same age and have birthdays on the same month), the immense distance between me and them, the desire to pay them a million dollars and three million in gratitude. The old bourgeois (me) agrees and thanks him, asks how we are going to get rid of the stuff, he talks about renting a truck.

“There is stuff here that people can use, fix, sell,” I thought to myself. I asked the guard in the watch house of the gated community where my father’s house is located. He said a car comes twice a week looking for stuff. I asked him to flag them. “Don’t give it for free” he said. “They make money out of it.”

Yesterday Salvador said we were missing tiles to finish the roof. My sister was coming around in the morning and I thought about asking her to take us to by tiles again, saving a bus ride through the favela Rio das Pedras into the Anil district. She couldn’t come in the morning, she was taking care of her office. I asked Salvador to go with me. We talked, bought the tiles from a man named Mundo Libre, the grandson of a Spanish anarchist (seriously, I am not kidding. I am not making this up). The sun was very hot and for the first time I bought a Skol beer at the Tia Vera Bar in the corner from my father’s, just to the right of the gate, where our smaller favela starts.

Later in the day an old man with a hand pushed cart rang the bell with the guard, who introduced us. “Gente boa” he said, “good people”, meaning I could trust the old chump, Jose. Senhor Jose talked about himself, that he works with scraps, looked at all the stuff with big eyes, as if he had seen heaven itself. “My father and my contractor are out shopping, I need to wait for them to make sure it is OK.”

While we waited, Senhor Jose told me he was from Pernambuco (Paulo Freire’s state I had visited recently), though I did not recognize the name of his small town. He had been married but his wife had passed away in 2005. He started crying while telling me this. “I am so sorry,” I said. He continued to tell me she did not want to die in Rio. She wanted to die “in her land” as we say here. He took her by bus, the whole of 900 miles or more. She died the next day. “She only wanted to die there. We had ten children, five men and five women. I am in good standing with all my children, thank to God.”

Senhor Jose was going to tell me more, in his manner of oral historian traditional in the Northeast. But Salvador and my father arrived from buying trash bags and we moved to contracting, “among three respectful men and one lady”, as Senhor Jose put it. He would remove all the stuff, the good and the bad by Monday. For free. We gave him the spoils.
My bourgeois consciousness is almost relieved. Jose is going to make some money. But, after all, I do not know where he is going to dispose of the trash part of the spoils…

The roof is almost ready. Tiles come Monday, the day of my departure. It is a sunny Sunday today, and perhaps rain is not coming this week. Children have started in schools and fall is coming this week too. Even the time changed today, back one hour.

Carnaval 2008

Dennis arrived about 8 p.m. on February 2. Mause, my sister, Elisa, her daughter Joana and her boyfriend Vinicius, and I were sitting at a bench on Visconde de Pirajá Avenue in front of Mause’s apartment building waiting for him. We waited for about 2 hours since his phone call from the bus depot. I was getting a bit anxious, imagining scenarios which I would tell the others: “Pehaps de cab driver saw the gringo and is taking him all over Rio with the excuse that certain streets are closed for the Carnaval parade. It will cost a fortune to get here.” (This was the most benign of the reasons…) Someone said, “Better than the bandits kidnapping him and taking him up the favela hill to ask for ransom…” And so it went, with each minute counting, with all of us minding the hundreds of yellow taxi cabs passing by, hoping that the next one would stop with Dennis, his smile and his backpack in it.

Well, as we know now, the people at tourist counter in the bus station had told him it was much better to take the bus into Ipanema because it would be faster, given the condition of the city. When we saw Dennis, he was just walking toward us with his backpack. We were happy to see him. There was the obligatory group hug, I took pictures, hugged him and introduced him around.

This was a perfect day to arrive. February 2 celebrates the sea goddess, Yemanjá. It was also Saturday, the first official day of Carnaval, an auspicious day to come to this crazy city, Rio. Welcome to a country that, according to many, because its contrasts and contradictions, “doesn’t exist”!

Sunday February 3 was raining. The rain let go a bit in the afternoon just for us to go to the “concentration”--as it is called—of the Carnaval group, “bloco” or block named Que Merda é Esta? I beg your pardon to translate this, “What Shit Is This?” Concentration is people coming together to a pre-determined place to meet for the event. This particular bloco, meets in front of the restaurant “Peace and Love” just around the corner from Elisa’s apartment. Hundreds of people, most in costumes, gather to drink (a lot) and sing along with the musicians the one song written for the bloco for this year’s celebration.

I do not know about other years, but in 2008 the song ended saying that the question, “What shit is this?” is always pertinent, especially in politics. The rest of the song discussed public scandals involving celebrities such as athletes, artists, and politicians. Some people where carrying political signs. One said, George Bush, por que no te calas? (Why don’t you shut up, GB?} Another told several leaders, including Lula, Brazilian President, and Chavez, the Venezuelan, to shut up also.

In summary, while it is Carnaval, an opportunity to dance, sing, drink and be merry, the bloco also provides an opportunity for political voice, for dissent. The crowd is multiage, of course, from young children to older people, though most who attend are young people, teens and adults. Whatever you dress, whatever you do, you are welcome and perfect for the occasion. Anything goes, just about, though there is also some comportment…

There are musicians up on a truck with sound equipment. The sound is loud and the music repetitive. (Dennis, like many of us, was getting tired of it.) But the bateria is something else. This is a large group of percussion musicians playing the rhythms of samba. The crowd gets to our feet as soon as the cadence starts…

One pair, man and woman, carries the bloco’s flag. In this case, it was an older woman and a young man, perhaps mother and son (though it could have been her lover, you know, this is Rio…) Another man carried a large tray with a big piece of molded (artificial, of course) SHIT. He danced around with this tray, exhibiting it to everyone. This was the symbol of the bloco, after all.

Mause, Elisa, Joana, Vinicius, Dennis and I stayed for about 2 hours, observing the crowd and practicing some steps. When the bloco left to dance through the streets to Ipanema beach, we left to go to another bloco, this time one where Paula plays. Dennis and I were so very uncomfortable with the mass of people there, no space to breath, really, that Mause guided us out to safety. The only other Carnaval related activity that day was watching the schools of samba parade on television. We had enough of noise and crowds… Went on to a great meal prepared at home, and caipirinha, of course…

Today is Fat Tuesday, last day of Carnaval. Yesterday, because of the rain, we just watched the beautiful schools parade… I still want to dance, and today is the only chance.

Better laugh than cry

Poem (sort of): Party Dress and Carnaval Picture

Only today I have had faster access to the Internet. I can post! I wrote this poem from a conversation with Dulce Maria. The Carnaval picture has a title, "An image conveys more than a 1000 words" or "At least I can laugh about it" or, finally, "Brazilian culture at its best with humor". Finally, "Better laugh than cry."



Party Dress

Dulce Maria
Sweet Mary
does not know how to drive
Her husband never allowed it
through their marriage
“Never learned it.
I do not know why I was like that…”

Only after the divorce did she get her first job
Now she’s retired
with social security
receiving
a small pension every month
“My husband never allowed me to work,
he was jealous…”

She had a modest occupation
a friend with connections
helped her get
“It did not require a diploma.
My husband would not allow me to go to school.”
No studies for Dulce Maria

The husband
many years her senior
died from diabetes
soon after the divorce.
“A gentleman, during courtship.
But he drank,” she said.

“Driving drunk one day he almost killed us!
Four children, three boys, and a girl.
I told him to stop the car and ordered the children out.
We walked home.
The one with the mental problems today
refused to leave his daddy in the car by himself.
He never came with us.”

“Another time he drank so much
I took a cab home and saved my life.
He ended the night in the hospital,
banged up
his dream car totaled, smashed right on the
passenger’s side.
“He didn’t believe in insurance,”
…

Divorce and death freed Dulce Maria

Now she loves to design clothes
sending fabric and patterns for the seamstress
to sow her dreams:
details in crochet
lace to adorn
intricate designs with subtle twists,
weavings,
knots
like the lives of women.

“This used to be my wedding dress, the lace is French Chantilly.
It was white, of course.
I had it cut and dyed black
after the divorce.”

She clipped the top off,
bought some black taffeta
for the new skirt
inserted the dyed lace in the front
to resemble a Flamenco dancer’s.

From the virginal gown
Dulce Maria got herself a new party dress.

Three Schools

Pilar County is located by a very large lagoon. (In fact, the name of the state, Alagoas, means lagoons; in the capital alone there are two huge ones that meet at the channel that connects them to the bright turquoise waters of the ocean.) To reach the town of Pilar, one takes a road that winds down into town from the top of a mountain. The view is magnificent with lots of coconut trees swaying in the wind. (The lagoon has been polluted and there is trash along the margins.)

Pilar has money from natural gas. This money has not reached the population yet. Most people are poor. Unemployment is high. One can guess from the number of people on the streets during the day who seem like they have nothing to do. There is a contingent of fishermen. People also sell food and trinkets on the streets. And there are simple stores, restaurants, and other service places.

During my first day in Pilar I was “given to” an officer of the Secretary of Education, a young woman named Simone. She was tall, fleshy and very curvaceous, with a beautiful tanned skin. She wore tights, a shirt, and high heels. Something! She was quiet and spoke a lot on the phone. She was very busy and left me to mind my own business until after lunch. She was in charge of ordering lunch for all teachers and for us, the presenters. When she came searching for me, we still sat doing nothing while we waited for the driver. It was an unusual situation but I did my best to be in good spirits. The driver came and we hopped on for a two block ride. We visited a K-1 school.

The ugliest Disney and other children’s characters were painted on the walls. All of the first graders were rehearsing for graduation the next day. There were about 50 of them, each one clean, dressed neatly, hair combed, and front baby teeth missing, a complete cutie pie of a group. A patio with dirt floor, dusty, separated the two buildings. The building on the left had classrooms, all with a few desks and chairs in terrible shape. Dirty walls. The building on the right had the principal’s office, a couple of classrooms, the kitchen and a storage room. The principal was proud of the food stored, ready for when classes start again.

The teachers were preparing paper baskets with goodies to give to the graduates. The principal, a woman in her forties, said to me that she absolutely loved her work.

After the visit, Simone and I walked to the church right in front of the school. She kneeled and prayed. I was respectful to Our Lady of Pilar. It is a very large church, 150 years old, painted bright sky blue, the color associated with Mary.

Back to the car and to school number two, a 5-8 school housed in a very old building, with tall ceilings and doors. The coordinator accompanied us. We looked into the also run down classrooms. The yard, also dirt, had lots of holes and left over construction material strewn about. I thought that kids could be hurt or hurt each other in such a place. Simone made sure to take me to the kitchen because she said it also has a good storage place. The cooks were serving chicken and rice soup to a group of kids.

Beside this school there was a covered gym. There were kids from another school rehearsing for a presentation that was going to take place. There were lots of posters about reading on the walls. I took pictures of a group of girls who were going to present about a very serious book of Brazilian literature, O Cortiço.

Back to the car, all the way up the mountain again into a part of town where the population at risk lives. The school had a huge entrance way with trees and patios. The doors were iron gates. There were three sectors of the school all separated by iron gates. There were iron gates outside the classrooms that opened to smaller inside patios closing the children in. There were also long, dark corridors. I really felt like I was in prison.

There are 3,200 children in this school from hell. Yes, I double checked the figures. They come in turns, morning, mid-day, afternoon. Three hundred in K-1, three hundred in 2-4, three hundred in 5-9 in each turn. With this level of usage you can imagine the state of the desks and chairs. (I started imagining a different kind of school desk for kids made from indestructible material such as the new materials made from recycled plastic and coconut fibers. Something that kids could not break and that would be truly comfortable.)

The principal was a very nice man with a beautiful brown skin color. He explained that his main problem was teachers missing work on a regular basis. There is no substitute teacher system. Children are distributed among other teachers or sent home when a teacher misses work. Public employees are allowed to miss up to 30 days with not consequence. After that, they can be fired. Of course some teachers miss 28 days, for example. There is no accountability. Nothing the principal can do except beg.

Yes, we went to the kitchen; Simone made sure that we visited the industrial grade kitchen. In fact the school was spacious and had many rooms, even a library (complete with iron gates) and cafeteria. It just had that drab feel to it, and the prison like atmosphere. At the very end of the compound there was also a covered gym.

The principal showed me the walls surrounding the school to separate it from the community. “People from the community would come and go through the school. We had to build the wall. It was very expensive.”

I talked to a girl who was playing with a friend in one of the rooms. I asked her what does she want to be when she grows up. She said, “A model.” I said, “Good. Do you have other options if it does not work?” (I was not very fortunate in this exchange…) She said no. Then I went on to say that models like the Brazilian Victoria Secret supermodel Giselle Bundchen studied a lot to be model, nutrition to know what to eat, clothes design to know how to choose what to wear, foreign languages, and that I hoped that she too would study a lot. I don’t think she believed me.

My heart was heavy after visiting these schools. When my co-presenters dropped me at the B&B, I left my bag and went for a walk along the beach. Had tapioca crepe with coconut for dinner and drank fresh coconut water while pondering about school desk material and design, and how important physical space is for young people who are learning to enjoy and believe they deserve beauty. Someday!

Arrival in Arapiraca

We arrived in Maceió 3:30 a.m. local time. The Northeastern states do not adopt daylight savings so it was one hour earlier than Rio. Lima was waiting for me with a bag full of documents about the Future Scientists project, as he usually does. He introduced me to a man, the driver who would take me to the city of Arapiraca two hours away. He had brought his wife along to shop in the capital city, Maceió and keep him company during the trip. I thanked them for their sleepless night and followed them to the car. I did not expect to go on a trip right away, I thought I would stay in Maceió on Sunday.

I dozed most of the trip. Two lanes, two ways, dangerous road as I remembered travel conditions throughout Brazil generally speaking but more so in the poorest state and in the interior. He was an OK driver and I was too sleepy and tired to care.

They left me at the San Sebastian Hotel, right in the middle of town. Arapiraca is a large, typical crossroads town in the Northeast of Brazil. I am fascinated as I am able to see much more than before given the fact that I live in a different place. Everything is like new and much is interesting.

For example, the architecture of the houses is very simple. The brick houses are relatively small, built wall to wall, most with one floor, few with two floors. The rooms inside are dark because there are no windows; only the first and last rooms in the corridor-like setting has windows and doors to the outside. I miss light very much. I cannot imagine why houses are built like that, though I can think of two reasons: 1. They are built without a plan, things are just put together without much forethought, or following requirements; the builder, usually a man with very little education, if literate, even, will just work away in the space allotted. 2, Windows are expensive, so holes in the wall are better if the wall allows. 3. It is so hot that no windows will add to protection from the sun.

Whatever reason, the result are rows and rows of little houses, not very tall, one next to the other. Many houses in Arapiraca were painted in strong colors, oranges, blues, greens, purple, a veritable rainbow of colors. There was a lot of iron work as well, gates, protection for front windows and doors, with nice designs on them. A lot of simple tile work as well. In fact, everywhere I went the floors were in tile, simple to wash and keep clean. Much cheaper than wood, of course.

My hotel room was dark, no windows—what’s new? I had to use the air conditioning despite a very pleasant cool breeze blowing outside. When I stayed in my room Sunday evening, I opened the door to bring in the breeze…

I slept part of the morning and received a phone call informing that Professora Adriana would be picking me up to go out to lunch. I made plans to eat later in the afternoon and decided to go for a walk in search of the feira, the fair or street market. I found it about half a mile away. What a feast to the eyes to see the hundreds of booths selling everything, lots and lots of fruits of all kinds—fresh cashews, mangoes, oranges, acerola, pineapples, the sweetest and fleshiest bananas ever, nanica bananas that grow on short trees. And beans, cassava, pumpkins and squashes, meats, clothes, shoes, you name it you can find it in the feira, a Portuguese tradition. In fact, the names of the week days in Portuguese are first feira/fair (Monday), second feira, etc. till Friday, sixth fair. Only Saturday and Sunday are the same, sábado and domingo. I bought a bag of freshly roasted cashew nuts for about 2 dollars.

When I returned from my fair adventure I showered and waited for Professora Adriana, a spunky round 34 year old who came on a Honda motorcycle. A total hoot, Math teacher, Adriana is working on another degree in systems analysis. She told me her life story, including that she had her stomach stapled two years ago and has lost about 60 pounds since. “I was dying with diabetes, high blood pressure. I could not stop eating and decided to do this to save my life. My mother did not want me to do it, but the doctor convinced her!”

This was my first meal. I have to confess that I indulged in goat churrasco (barbecue), a specialty of the region that I am very fond of. Goat meat is drier, strong scented, and delicious. The meal comes with tropeiro beans, another specialty made with chick peas and farofa, a dried caçava flour, with parsley, cilantro and onions chopped into it. Also green salad, mayonnaise salad, rice, salsa. I had banana compote for dessert.

This food description is dedicated to all the friends who think I write too much about food. I did talk with Adriana a lot about eating habits and nutrition, mentioning my life long struggle with overeating and history of bad choices in food.

The evening ended with Adriana taking me to her house on her motorcycle to meet her mother, a retired teacher, Dona Berenice, her young sister Tatiana, and their yappy dog, Bali.

Flying to Maceió, Alagoas

I was supposed to fly to the capital of the state of Alagoas in the Northeast of Brazil on January 6 at 1 according to Lima, who made the official arrangements through the Secretary of Science and Technology. I made my plans: I would wake up early, go to an 8 a.m. spiritual service near my dad’s house, return to be picked up by my friend Sueli who had volunteered for airport duty at 10 a.m.

Fortunately, in a second message, Lima wrote January 8 arrival date and, a bit confused, I was already dreaming with two more leisurely days before going to work when I decided to check to see if he had made a mistake. “Yes,” he said, “you are coming tomorrow at 1 and that means you get to the airport today at 11 p.m. to check in today. It is 1 in the morning, not 13:00, 1 p.m.”

Of course I am so conditioned to a.m. and p.m. and I would not have thought that a plane would take off domestically at one in the morning to take humans somewhere so I was going to miss my flight. But I did not, thanks to Lima. I had to rearrange my plans, pack in a hurry, and ask my brother to take me to the airport.

It seems simple but it is not. There’s family trouble. My brother and my sister had a big fight (details someday, but it involved my father and the maid). As we say it in Portuguese, “I got the leftovers” or “Something was left for me.” This is an interesting expression, meaning that one actually does not have anything to do with the fight directly but by extension one or both fighters involve you. My brother involved me, and has refused authentic communication since. He has also said hurtful things to me. He is very angry.

A complicating factor about going to the airport has to do with the fact that it is relatively far from the city. One has to take an urban highway know as Linha Vermelha or Red Line. This thruway is notorious for the number of assaults. Bandits come in cars armed to the teeth, stop traffic, and make drivers leave their cars to rob them under the guns. Then they jump into their cars and disappear into one of the roadside favelas or shanty towns. Late at night is one of their preferred times, though it happens in broad day light as well.

Only my brother could take me to the airport. I could not submit Sueli or any other woman to the dangerous duty. I also would not trust a cab; I did not know the details of when and where to take a bus. Just too complicated.

I called my brother. “Sergio, I did not want to do this, but I will have to ask.” I heard a couple of breaths before he responded: “You want to oppress me.” Acknowledging his critical, cynical tone I said, “Yes, sorry, I need you to take me to Galeão between 9 and 10 tonight.”

Truthfully I gave him an early time because the later it gets the greater the chance for violence on the road. I would not mind waiting for longer hours at the airport. He acknowledged the danger but said he would take me. I was relieved.

He picked me after the nightly soap opera, at 10. It rained cats and dogs, bats and elephants as well, a terrific summer storm after days of hot sun. We made it to the airport without problems, except of a zigzag of a drunk driver that he passed quickly. We had a great chat as we always have done when he is not this mad at life. He took me inside the airport, made sure I was OK; he gave me a big kiss goodbye, totally unexpectedly.

I am hoping his anger is melting. He has been such an important man in my life, a good friend, a sweet brother. I pray hard for him to be well. I love my brother.

I waited for the one a.m. flight. More of the trip, next time.

P.S. Yes, there were storms on the way, the plane shook all over but I was medicated!

Finally, the pictures

1. Flávia changes her high heels for Havaianas flip flops.

2. Carol is surrounded, from right to left, her grandmother Zélia; Nereida, Sergio's wife; Sergio, her grandfather; her uncle Fábio and his wife Dany.

3. Here Fábio helps Carol with her cap while Carol's boyfriend Rodrigo looks at her.