Brazil Dispatch 27

Brazil Dispatch 27

Meanwhile, back in Brazil…the larger, scissor-tailed humming bird and the smaller, I mean 3” short-tailed humming bird vie for the bounty of our hibiscus bush. Whether only one makes a sound or they both make the same sound, I don’t know, but we wake up to a sound identical to – bear with me – one of those desk gadgets that has a row of metal balls suspended on strings that set off an equal and opposite reaction when one end ball is set in motion. Both birds are iridescent black, which looks like iridescent green in the sun. From the balcony I watch the chase flights into the neighbor’s yard, and later at breakfast on the front porch I watch the gathering of nectar by the tiny brave one or the larger one playing sentinel from a neighboring tree limb.

Except for a different sound that one morning when we were awakened at 6:00 by a dull hack, hack, hack. We needed to chop down a mostly dead tree to make room for a new flowering one our caretaker, Marcos, had grown in a pot from seeds. He knew someone we could hire to chop it down. Newton had not yet told him which tree it was since there were some dead areas on several of our “Brasileirinho” trees - so called because their green and yellow leaves are the colors of the Brazilian flag and the national soccer team. Marcos has complained to Newton several times that he doesn’t know why the previous owner planted these, as Marcos doesn’t like them. We have no idea why; they are lovely. So what was this hack, hack sound? The chopper had arrived and Marcos had decided that the tree in question was the largest, most beautiful, most privacy-producing Brasileirinho beside our front gate. Thank heavens we discovered the destruction after only seven limbs had been removed, so we still have the tall, if sparse tree. I will devote a dispatch one of these days to the wonderful, puzzling, non-linear workings of the Potiguar mind, of which Marcos is a supreme example. (Potiguar is the indigenous name of this region; it means, “one who eats shrimp.”)

The summer has come to us in doses around our two big trips. The neighbors arrived in January, bringing much animation, new sounds, bad music late at night and people-watching on the beach. January and February had an unexpected plethora of cloudy days and intermittent rain. The coconut field across the road is already green. Now that summer is in its last weeks, we’re getting sun, blue skies and heat with less breeze than we’d like. I woke up uncharacteristically at 4:30 one morning and caught the rare sunrise without clouds covering it on the horizon; then later, the full moon out our bedroom window:

We stopped over in São Paulo en route home from NY. A day at a water park with our two nieces, Mariana (25) and Mayra (21) was a highlight. I spent most of the time people-watching since I’m too cowardly for the rides. A circular waterway that strongly propels effortless swimmers in a clockwise direction was my speed! People-watching when everyone is barely clad is interesting in a completely different way than on the sidewalks of New York in winter.

The day we returned to Natal there was no Marcos to meet us at the airport, so we eked out a call on the dying cell phone and he told us the car battery was kaput. We took a taxi home, but then realized Marcos was at his afternoon job and had the keys. We actually managed to eke out a few seconds on the phone to get him home. Then we discovered that there was no electricity. Luckily, it was still daylight when it came on, but we then discovered there was no internet. We took a walk to the beach, only to discover that the end of the steps leading to the sand from our road had been torn asunder by the ocean. We followed a new route to the sand, regained the internet connection and bought a new car battery; we were ecstatic to be home again!

The silk rag rug and batik quilt from my favorite store in Nyack have been installed:

Our circle of friends in Natal has an international flavor. One Sunday afternoon on a lake, our Singaporean host who used to live in Sweden and is married to a Brazilian who modeled in Japan, had guests from the US, Canada, the UK, Malawi, Holland, Norway and Sweden. I get very spoiled by everyone speaking English, which means real conversations! And we just loved getting to know a great couple, Babac and Lola, who got stranded in Natal for a month when their 4 x 4 vehicle got stuck in the sand and overcome by the tide. A mechanic dried it all out, piece by piece, and rented them a small apartment for the month, to boot. Babac was born in Iran and raised in Columbia, Missouri; Lola is from the northwest corner of Mexico. They drove from the US and are making their way down Central and South America, ‘parking’ their 4 x 4 every nine months for an extended visit back to the US. They will arrive in Buenos Aires in October to be joined by relatives for their wedding! The Iranian dinner they cooked for us at Rossana and Cassio’s house was unforgettable. They carry the saffron around in their luggage. In the meantime, my American friend Mary has taken her 12-year-old son to India for four months at a sustainable living community called Auroville. She says he is sleeping through the caterpillars that drop from the ceiling all night better than she.

Glades has almost comically tragic reports about the fishermen’s boss from Nigeria trying to retrieve or sell the fishing boat here. She is serving as the interpreter through all sorts of surreal bureaucratic nonsense which, on his first trip resulted in the following: he would have to return to Nigeria to retrieve all originals of the boat documents because he had only copies; he would have to obtain power of attorney from the owner of the company/owner of the boat, as he was not the actual owner; the fishing company has to pay a naval engineer $50,000 to remove all the rust from the boat, repair it and have all the paper work in order; the boss was reduced to tears on several occasions. Now that he has returned with all the required documents and is determined to sell the boat, which is all he can afford to do, the bureaucracy has come up with a new one: he cannot sell the boat because that would be selling an illegal ‘import.’ He can render the boat a Brazilian boat by acquiring new Brazilian documentation at great expense. BUT…some clever agent working with him found a precedent where a used boat could not be considered a regular import subject to the legalities of importing. Some poor, handy tinkerer is repairing the boat – still stuck on the beach - in the meantime. The boss will not pay Glades or this repairman until he sells the boat, supposedly, but the repairman has already bought thousands of reais worth of parts and is receiving threats on his life for non-payment.

Williams, Glades’ boyfriend, was not able to accompany the boss because he has to reimburse the Brazilian government not just the amount of his ‘deportation’ ticket back to Nigeria, but his part of a $5,000 bill for the four policemen who escorted the fishermen to São Paulo, including their meals. Then he has to come up with the additional money for the flight back to Brazil. It may be some time before he has such an amount. Glades is suffering, but getting back to work and life as best she can.

Carnaval began for us with sunset on Rossana and Cassio’s commercial catamaran amidst traditional Carnaval music by a six-piece band. It was perfect! Here’s a sample, with Cassio on percussion and Rossana busy in the background making caipirinhas:

We managed a couple more nights of wonderful live samba music and revelry, plus a visit to Natal’s version of a Carnaval parade downtown. As I usually mention every Carnaval: Natal ain’t Rio. But it was fun seeing the kids dressed up in indigenous Potiguar attire, moving to a slow rhythm at an almost imperceptible pace down the street. The rich people abandoned downtown for the duration of Carnaval, showing up mostly in the next beach town south of us, Pirangi, where there is a January-plus-Carnaval overdose of everything. This makes us grateful for our much calmer spot. The neighbors to one side of us never showed up this year. Someone said they had rented an apartment in Pirangi, but their intensely loyal caretaker continues to show up twice a day year-in and year-out to water their small lawn and three potted plants.

Our routine is feeling back on track, which means I am feeling one with this place again. We have a little grace period before the rainy season requires the mosquito net, except for the one mosquito that shows up at night (not the same mosquito…we whop it with a folded T-shirt if we are lucky enough to find the little bugger). I love to wander over to the balcony every morning while brushing my teeth. I'm back to taking care of plants and beading and doing handwork on the front porch, yoga on the balcony. We now eat our Friday spicy buffalo wings on the grassy slope above the beach to avoid grit. We love to cook salmon on the grill, and Newton makes shrimp “Alho/Oleo” (fun to say – it means with garlic and olive oil) every weekend after returning from the beach. We sit in front of our computers too long, but have a good time watching movies on the living room wall with the new projector (I recommend The Visitor, Frozen River, The Namesake, The Hurt Locker, Grey Gardens, Julie & Julia, and Invictus) or following the best series I know of, HBO’s old series, The Wire. We’re on season 5, the last season, which we are trying to stretch out and make last. The depressing news about American cities in The Wire (Baltimore is the setting) is counterbalanced by the thrill of seeing that misery made into brilliant art. We watch it with English subtitles to better grasp the lingo of the drug sellers, the cops, the port of Baltimore unions, the school board, the city council, and the newspaper reporters.

I don't mean to overlook the difficulties of adjusting to the crazy-making stuff here. I'm not so fond of running errands and crashing into the reality of being a monstrous, frustrated, vocal, logical foreigner amidst the slow pace and mysterious thinking of the natives, who remain sweet, calm and unfazed by the idea that the hours posted on the post office should be the actual hours of operation, etc. I still have so much to learn from the Potiguars.

I read books by Salmon Rushdie and Alice Monroe while traveling. Since home, I’ve enjoyed a well-written contemporary book, The Adderall Diaries by Stephen Elliott. But what could be better than hammock time with Flannery O’Connor, The Complete Stories? I’ve just spent 550 pages on the morbid farms and small towns of the mid-20^th century gothic South, complete with a one-legged daughter in the hayloft with the Bible salesman, murderers roaming the countryside, a 14-year-old on moonshine, the annoying judgmental woman getting gored by a bull in the field, bigoted do-gooders felled by strokes…oh, but I risk ruining stories for you, and I definitely recommend this collection of dark genius!

We always seek out local live music and have several favorites. Local star, Geraldo Carvalho, was at our neighborhood Zen Bar last week with Cassio on percussion. He wrote my absolute favorite song about Natal, “Potiguarina.” He mentions several neighborhoods, including the industrial town outside the city, Parnamirim, which is our actual mailing address, even though far from the beach; Alecrim is the commercial neighborhood full of street vendors. I like the lilting rhythm and phrasing of the song best of all, because that’s what it feels like to live here! Enjoy:

Love,

Sandy

New York Dispatch

Newton has extensive business dealings with China. (His little company of five partners sells the logic inside of integrated circuit chips, in partnership with a couple of development companies in Europe.) These Chinese transactions translate into many headaches: exasperating negotiations, untenable support demands, pleas from the Chinese distributor - who functions as the go-between - for Asian deference to the customer. Then, after all the pain, will the money be paid fully…or not? Japan it is not. A recent negotiation was with a partnership between the Chinese government and a Chinese laboratory. One of the demands was that a representative from the US company appear at “the ceremony.” No one from the Chinese distributorship would qualify. Originally, Newton’s partner got his Chinese visa in order to attend in early January, but then “the ceremony” date was postponed. Now it was possible for “the ceremony” to take place just ahead of Newton’s scheduled trip to Japan, so he got a current Chinese visa and planned accordingly. At the last minute, they changed the day again, but just from a Sunday to a Monday. Now Newton would have a couple of extra days in Shanghai he didn’t really need, and he’s been there already for plenty of sightseeing. He had found a great itinerary that put him from Natal to Shanghai via Lisbon and Frankfurt in just 25 hours. A couple of days before departure day, his laptop stopped working. Since laptops are two times more expensive in Brazil than in the US, and since Newt was not interested in buying a Chinese one, he ordered a new laptop over the internet for delivery to a partner in NJ and re-routed his trip to Shanghai via São Paulo and New York… with an overnight in NY between the two overnight flights.

When Newton and I arrived in Manhattan, Elise had just returned to her upper west side apartment from a week’s tour around the northeast as the videographer for a band called “Honor Society.” She was tired but happy to have had not only employment, but rollicking fun employment with a really nice group of musicians and crew. The three of us had a restful day, a great dinner at a Brazilian/French restaurant near her, and laughed out loud at a surprisingly funny DVD, “Night in the Museum 2, The Smithsonian.” Newton flew off to China the next morning, and Elise and I had a stretch of time before us to enjoy before another job started for her.

Having time with Elise to either run around the city or hang out in her apartment was just heavenly, as was meeting up with so many adored friends and relatives. These included:

>Jeff and Desiree Greene for a performance of Jeff’s group, Port O’ Monkeys, playing instruments of Afghani and other exotic origins – just beautiful! They took us out for Mexican food afterwards. Here’s their link: http://evergreenemusic.com/portomonkeys.html

>My nephew Todd, his wife Jenny and their sons, Sam (12) and Ethan (almost 9). After an Italian brunch, we got to see Sam’s fantastic time machine inventions (a la Jules Verne) and hear about his birthday party plans with the time travel theme. Then I visited Jenny later at the boys’ school, The Studio School, a short walk from Elise’s apartment. Jenny is the Admissions Director – the same job I held at the Blue Rock School. The two schools are about the same size, share a similar learning philosophy and the honor of always having finalists in the Japan Society’s Haiku poetry project. The Studio School is in a new facility fashioned out of two adjoining brownstones and full of wonderful, open, light spaces.There is a state-of-the-art kitchen for Food Science and math via lunch preparation for the entire school! There may be some sort of ‘city mouse/country mouse’ exchange someday between corresponding grades at Blue Rock School (on three wooded acres in West Nyack) and the Studio School!

>And speaking of my beloved Blue Rock School, I bussed up the Hudson River to Nyack to have dinner with my beloved friends from Blue Rock, Lucia (kindergarten teacher) and Claudia (irreplaceable office person, etc.). I stopped by my favorite Nyack store, Maria Louisa’s, when I got off the bus. By the time I walked up Lucia’s front steps I was schlepping a new rug and a quilt for the wall that would have many more miles on them before making it to this beach house. After Indian food (!!!), I spent the night at Lucia’s and showed up bright and early for my day at Blue Rock School. I was introduced to the kindergartners by way of teaching them my old standard, “My Hat, It Has Three Corners” during morning circle. Then class visits and wanderings during recess afforded me the chance to recognize the changed, maturing faces of my old friends, growing and growing while I’m not watching! I chose the 6^th/7^th/8^th grades’ lunch assignment, which ordinarily means reading their current ‘lunch book’ to them. I decided instead to tell them the story of the Nigerian Fishermen who floated to our shore after losing power on their boat. After school I went for coffee with more beloveds, Caty (director) and two former teachers. I had just enough time to pull off a little shopping for the inevitable items from our US list and catch a bus to a club down the Hudson where “Blue Rock Rocks” was taking place that evening. This was a program of music offered by current families and alumni – just perfect timing to see more old friends. The teenagers with their rock bands included one kid that I swore was his older brother and the shyest kid I ever knew coming over with utter high school confidence to give me a hug. Actually, I can say that the day stood out for hugs alone, from a range of ages! I noticed that the winter temperature was dropping as I waited for the last bus back to Manhattan with my purchases.

>My college friend Linda Doyle “Doyley” Calder and her husband John drove in to Manhattan from Westhampton, Long Island to meet me for a Saturday lunch near Elise’s apartment. We had no trouble filling the time with non-stop conversation on this, my first acquaintance with John. Doyley’s smiling disposition and incredible intelligence are a combo that never wears out! I am indebted to the two of them for such generosity and accommodation.

>Our long-time friends Nancy Taylor, Joe and Guadalupe, and David, Helen and 9-year-old Amelia gathered at Nancy’s apartment for one of her (always) legendary dinners (Moroccan). Nancy had a trip to Lesotho in Africa to report on, Joe and Guadalupe have opposite takes on their recent retirements, and David, Helen and Amelia were returning early to Connecticut in preparation for Amelia’s solo with the county-wide chorus the next day at the Yale chapel. Joe and Guadalupe will now spend part of the year at their beaux arts apartment in Buenos Aires, so we’re looking forward to South American rendezvous’!

>My sister Donna and brother-in-law Larry greeted us in Lawrenceville, NJ with martinis and champagne. We brought the special ingredients for shrimp moqueca in our luggage from Brazil, adding the fresh ingredients from Manhattan and Newton’s skills in hopes of paying back Donna and Larry in some small way for years of outstanding feasts at their house.

The family was oddly cell phone-challenged on this trip. Newton’s cell was not working after getting doused by a salty rogue wave in Rio; he had ordered a replacement from eBay which did not arrive till mid-trip, but then, would not recharge after half-a-call. Elise had overshot her minutes by 100 for a tutorial download for work and couldn’t use her blackberry phone for four days. In the middle of this, Jake E-mailed that he had just run his cell phone through the laundry. Didn’t survive. Newton has permission from the seller to return his eBay phone next June when we return to the US; Elise paid up; Jake bought a blackberry, and Newton now uses a very old cell phone that was ‘mine’ for trips to the store in Brazil in case the car broke down. It doesn’t work in the US. Those old land lines were looking like a good idea for a bit there.

Elise and I cooked, went out to several of the neighborhood haunts, braved ever more frigid wind to shop for a promised Christmas jacket and purse. We went to the new Broadway show “Fela!” about the Nigerian dissident musician-icon, Fela Kuti. The production, headed by modern choreographer Bill T. Jones, was of the highest quality. It is hard to imagine that the mesmerizing music of Fela Kuti and the incredible story of his life could be superseded by anything, but in the end it was the pure talent on stage that left us speechless. This is one Broadway production that has not been dummied down one iota for so-called commercial reasons!

One of my favorite days was after I got sick with my first cold in three years. I decided not to take any herbs or homeopathy for it in order to give my immune system a much-needed workout. Elise joined me in an all-day, pajamas-on-the sofa, three-DVD, bottle of red, bottle of white sick day. I was only sad about missing the chance to see my great friend Carolyn this trip. Elise and I watched “The Notebook,” a lovely, definitely ‘chick’ flick; “Up,” the wonderful Pixar animated story; and “Whip It,” a women’s roller derby story with ‘Juno’ star, Ellen Page.

We also enjoyed an oldie with Newton when he returned from Japan: Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Outsiders” from 1983. I wished to revisit this film because my junior high reunion in 2006 after 42 years produced renewed friendships and endless E-mail threads with such topics as S.E. Hinton. It turns out that Susan Hinton, the author of the novel and co-author of this screenplay, was in the class ahead of us in junior high school. She started the novel about the ‘greasers’ and ‘socia's (“soshes”) in Tulsa as a senior at the high school half the class moved on to. Several people knew her and were familiar, unlike myself, with the fights and drama between the two groups. The film has one scene at a bus stop right in front of my old church, Boston Avenue Methodist, a famous example of American Art Deco architecture from the early 1920’s. The story really holds up well and the cast is amazing.

Newton had plenty to tell about “the ceremony” in Shanghai. The distributor had asked him before the trip if he had ‘gifts’ to bring. Newton threw in some company pens from a trade show. Upon arrival, he was escorted to a conference room bedecked with name tags bearing Chinese or American flags, an elaborate flower arrangement and flowers to attach to lapels, plus actual American and Chinese flags standing behind the signing table. After a presentation by the president of the Chinese lab and then Newton, the signing of the agreement took place in duplicate red leather-bound folders. Cameras were snapping and videotape running throughout. Then Newton was escorted to a corridor, where a curtain was parted to reveal a plaque on the wall commemorating the deal. Luckily, the distributor had shown up with leather-bound notebooks which greatly embellished the pen gifts. Newton received a 12” high, heavy black plastic multi-panel screen with a Chinese scene. This reminded us, once again, that China ain’t Japan. The distributor nudged Newton to now invite the customer to visit the company offices…except that Newton’s company doesn’t have any offices. Newton more or less invited him to the offices of the product creators in Athens, hoping against hope that this was just another formality. The guy responded that he definitely intended to do this.

Alas, the bitter winds had not subsided in New York City when we bid farewell to our wonderful, talented daughter, but we arrived at the airport for our flight to São Paulo without seeing any snow. Fast forward to sitting on the plane on the tarmac where we beheld the arrival of a white wonderland while waiting in line for the wings to be de-iced.

Love,

Sandy

P.S. It really sucks to be sick

Rio New Year’s Dispatch

Well, here it is past mid-February and I am behind on my record of travels and impressions, considering that we arrived in Rio for New Year’s Eve. Subsequent travels have impinged on my ideal writing conditions, so now that I am home and the craziness of Carnaval has passed (as of last night), I will start up where I left off:

OK. We left the dry, visual neutrality of the Nevada winter desert. The heat had been blasting inside Jake’s house, the extent depending on who mysteriously tampered with the thermostat last. My hair was so straight I could wear bangs. My skin was cracking and falling off. Now we arrive in Rio in summer. I have always described exiting the aircraft and walking the jet way into Rio airport as walking through pork soup, but this time it is pork gravy. The heat and humidity are a staggering shock, as are the damp, lush greens everywhere and the startling effort required to breathe. This is a dramatic change. My skin is happy, my hair is frizzy, and we are HOT.

Now that we have the 2016 Olympics in Rio on our mind, actually to be preceded by the 2014 Soccer World Cup all over Brazil, we look at the infrastructure and the shape of things in a new, panicked light. Luckily, we discovered a section of the battered airport under reconstruction, but the taxi ride through tawdry, graffiti-covered sections of the city overwhelmed us with the number of needed improvements. Will four years be enough?

We arrived at our friend Maria Candida’s apartment in lovely Leblon miraculously, as Newton had given the driver the wrong address. Ahhh – to be inside Maria Candida’s apartment is always a pleasure. It is beautiful, full of light, full of beautiful things, and cool. I can spend hours there just studying the objects, the décor, the collections of books and music, and the harmonious arrangement of all of the above. Without Elise in tow, our photo-taking diminishes greatly, but here are photos of a slightly more sparse version of Maria Candida’s apartment taken in 2005:

After a long nap to supplement our all-night flight, we faced New Year’s Eve with our friend. Maria Candida had a cod fish dish prepared for our dinner, and then we headed out the door with a bottle of champagne and walked the block to Leblon Beach – which is the western third of Ipanema Beach. Unlike my previous Rio New Year’s Eve in 1983 on Copacabana Beach, there were no fire crackers going off at my feet creating a war zone effect, there was plenty of space on the beach between scattered groups of celebrants, and the mood was very calm. Little ditches had been dug at intervals and filled with candles, cachaça and flower offerings to Yemanja, the African goddess of the sea. Everyone was in white, executing their jumps over seven waves for good fortune. I found this much trickier in those crashing waves than on our gentle Cotovelo Beach, but was determined. (My white leggings dumped out plenty of sand on the bedroom floor later when I changed into pajamas.)

Newton briefly joined a beach soccer game with some 11-12-year-olds, and then we selected the partying group we wanted to hang around according to music choice. The sand was very loose and deep in this spot, which afforded us a good work-out as part of a dancing circle. The champagne bottle made a perfect beach accessory.

New Year’s Day produced the same locale by daylight. There are new rules on the beach outlawing wandering vendors – “camelôs” – which I consider a staple of Ipanema Beach from way back - and pertaining to specific delivery times for supplies. I’m sure the organization of deliveries and established “barracas” for the sale of coconuts, beer, caipirinhas, etc. will pay off in less chaos, but one of my favorite memories is beer camelôs dressed in drag during Carnaval on this beach. For us, the change meant everyone was out of beer, except the fourth barraca we tried. I imagine the authorities will work out a balance of both supplies and orderliness, as odd as this concept seems to us for this particular culture, and as charming as the beach chaos has always been. Large groups of sunning celebrants had brought their own supplies, so a hot, sunny, happy New Year’s Day ambience remained. I downloaded this photo out of deference to Newton’s friends who always request this aspect of Rio’s beauty:We had a great Arabic lunch (this food is very popular all over Brazil, thanks to the Arabic immigrants –as in Newton’s forebears). Maria Candida started feeling sick to her stomach later in the day and went to bed very early. We had a Saturday planned in Niteroi, the “twin” city of Rio where Newton spent his teenage years.

We were picked up by Jorge or “Crazy Jorge” as I call him – Newton’s friend since age 13, who was a child actor in film and television and later became a surgeon and then later became a lawyer. He lives in the state of Paraná and was visiting his relatives in town. We met their boyhood friend, Moarir (this is nigh impossible to say: Mo-are-EER), who lives in Rio, Jorge’s wife and 16-year-old daughter, and Moarir’s ex-wife at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Niteroi. This was designed by – guess who? Oscar Niemeyer when he was 89-years-old. I always say he is the only working architect in Brazil since he has designed so much, including the entire city of Brazília. Even now at age 102, he continues. The boys were reuniting for a tour of their old haunts in Niteroi, as well some new ones, such as the museum and the old fort from the 17^th century, which the Portuguese built to defend Rio from the Dutch. Niteroi is across Guanabara Bay from Rio – one of the longest bridges in the world joins them. The view from the museum and fort area includes both Sugar Loaf and Corcovado:

A highlight was the boys’ favorite beach, Itacoatiara, with its wall of waves which were responsible in 1983 for my deciding, once and for all, that waves were not for me. (I drank a significant portion of ocean while gasping for breath “between” them, except there was no between.) I frankly missed most of their reminisces because the Portuguese was flying way too fast for me. High points were brought to me in the excellent English most of them speak.

As the day wore on, I became sick to my stomach, as well. Maria Candida was still suffering in Leblon, so I joined her in an endless sleep through the night and the entire next day. Newton met a friend at Leblon Beach with whom he had studied English at the School for International Living in Vermont in 1978. A rogue wave surprised the group and engulfed Newton’s cell phone in salt water. More on being cell phone-challenged in a future dispatch. By our last night, I was better and able to eat. Maria Candida accompanied us out to the lively streets of urbane Leblon, where we selected an open restaurant for dinner, even though she was still unable to handle food. It is highly unusual for me to have stomach problems at all, so I was grateful for a quick recovery. At least Maria Candid and I both had a partner-in-misery for 24 hours!

We bid Maria Candida and Rio a fond good-bye and made our way home to lovely, temperate Natal. The neighbors had arrived for their January at the beach, so we had screaming children playing outside the office window and night spotlights on the bedroom wall… but it is always good to be home!

Love,

Sandy