World Cup Dispatch

In order to write a dispatch closer to real time, I am interrupting my dispatches from our recent month-long trip to insert a quick one about the soccer World Cup. Brazil is always considered a formidable contender, having won the Cup five times.

We were on a cruise from LA to Mexico when the series began. Newton sat in Jacuzzi’s describing the rules and the points by which teams advanced in the series to ever more curious Americans.

Newton was able to slip away from his trade show in LA with a friend to watch the first game Brazil played against North Korea. Brazil prevailed 2 to 1.

He had the tough luck of missing the second Brazilian game, against Ivory Coast, because we were attending a wedding in New Jersey at that very moment. The wedding was sublime, so Newton got over it. Brazil won 3 to 1.

Back home in Brazil, Newton was donning his Brazilian team shirt and showing up at the local venues or taking breaks from his work to catch the games on the living room TV. Brazil tied Portugal 0 to 0, then joined the “round of 16,” which meant each team wins or is eliminated. Here Brazil beat Chili, 3 to 0. There was nearly always the sound of fireworks outside during this spell, as either a Brazilian win or a loss by another country that might improve Brazil’s chances would inspire celebration. I was not following the games very closely.

Our daughter Elise, the most Brazilian in the family, caught the Brazilian matches once she was back in New York City:

“I didn't make it to Little Brazil - I’m watching the game at a bar by my apartment with an Irish, Honduran, American, Albanian, Mexican and Slovenian - all guys ... Found my Brazil shirt!! Representing!”

The next game, she made it to ‘Little Brazil’ (45^th and 46^th streets between 6^th and 7^th Avenues) and watched amidst a crowd of Brazilians in a Brazilian bar, again in her team shirt.

The last, fateful game she watched at home, recuperating from a week of heavy video work for, are you ready? Not the Jonas Brothers or one of their teen cohorts, but Meatloaf! As I said to her, “Let’s hear it for the music of Mom’s generation!”

Our son Jake was otherwise engaged during this time with preliminary tournaments to the annual World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. This will be his third year to enter. Even though he is not a big sports fan, he did make a couple of World Cup bets.

Newton and I ended up last Friday at quite the spot to watch what turned out, sadly enough, to be Brazil’s last game in the World Cup. They were playing the Netherlands in the quarterfinals. Our friends, Monique and Roberto, own a bar called Bohemia in downtown Natal. Monique is Dutch and works at the Dutch consulate here; Roberto is a Carioca (from Rio). The bar was about ¼ full of Dutch people, forming a definite orange section in the room. The rest was filling up rapidly with an ocean of yellow and green. I believe all the guys in the room had on Brazilian team shirts…I even lost track of Newton going in and thought I’d never find him! Our friend Lorraine from Malawi who lives here was meeting us there. Her husband Tom was working in the UK repairing a deep-sea rig. We were able to secure bar stools in a corner with a great view of the large TV screen. The place was very loud with whistles, vuvuzela horns, all manner of noise-makers, and constant commentary - grumbling or celebrating - just about every minute of the game. Whether Dutch, who could make plenty of noise, or Brazilian, there was quite magnified reaction every play, every change of ball ownership, every foul and, of course, every goal! A local newspaper actually interviewed the three of us and asked our predictions for the score, but more serious media was videotaping an interview with Monique and Roberto and capturing the collaborative nature of the party happening there. (Update: Newton was recognized by the receptionist at the chiropractor today from his photo in that newspaper that interviewed us. We will buy one soon, as we discovered one cannot read it online without a print subscription.)

I predicted a score of two to one, Brazil. Alas, that was the final score, but in Holland’s favor instead. There was a burst of orange celebration and, fortunately, no hot heads getting too carried away with Brazil’s defeat; just some long faces. As Newton described later to Elise, “about fifteen minutes after the game was over, the Brazilians were dancing to the live music!” I think they had already become resigned to a loss when the team clearly lost its dominance in the second half.

We had a great lunch afterwards with Monique and friends, including a Dutch guy we already knew and a Spaniard. I could see sports fan potential for myself in such a fun event, though no one should take that too seriously!

Here is a sample of fans from both sides that day in quite larger venues: (Some of the Dutch guys at Bohemia had these large plastic hands in orange. It was hilarious watching them sing along to their national anthem at the beginning with these huge hands over their hearts!)

Fans watching soccer on a giant screen celebrate as Brazil scores a goal against the Netherlands during a South Africa 2010 World Cup soccer match, on Copacabana Beach, in Rio de Janeiro, Friday July 2, 2010. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Fans of the Dutch soccer team watch their team perform during the World Cup soccer quarterfinal match against Brazil, on a screen in the center of Amsterdam, Netherlands, Friday June 2, 2010. The Netherlands defeated Brazil with a 2-1 score and will move on to play the semifinal. (AP Photo/Evert Elzinga)

Brazilians were able to break out their amassed fireworks the next day when their arch-rival, Argentina, was defeated by Germany. Newton could overhear the carnaval of fireworks going off as he spoke to his father on the phone in São Paulo! The long-lost chances for all-South American semi-finals have given way to Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Uruguay. I was rooting for Ghana to make it so Africa would be represented (and because I met two Ghanans I adore last year – two of the stranded fishermen), but Uruguay prevailed by way of those heart-stopping penalty kicks that are used to break a tie at this stage of the tournament. It is here that I will include a fabulous link to the NY Times where a slideshow of photographs from various poor areas of Africa shows the young players and their handmade soccer balls – very moving: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/07/07/arts/design/20100708-afsoccer-ss.html?ref=design

We were pretty proud of the American team, who played very well this year. It seems the interest is growing in the US. As a lovely old guy on our cruise observed, “Soccer will never become big in the US because the game-breaks are too short to sell anything on TV.” Probably right, but as more and more kids’ leagues form, there is increasing interest.

See you in Brazil for the 2014 World Cup!

Love,

Sandy

Cachoeiras de Macacu Dispatch

Our month-long trip began in Rio de Janeiro. We were met at the airport by the sister of Newton’s crazy friend, Jorge, and her very sane American husband, Tom. They drove us to the family’s mountain retreat in a lovely place called Cachoeiras de Macacu. Friday night was the gathering in of the celebrant 50-year-olds, Newton, Jorge and Moair, and members of their families. A fourth celebrant, Luis Pureza Paixão, would arrive on Saturday. Yes, you got that right…his name means “pure passion,” and both Newton’s sister, Lilian, and I looked forward to seeing Luis – possibly the most handsome guy we ever knew – after many, many years. Lilian drove from São Paulo with her husband David, daughter Mariana, and Newton’s father, Alfredo, pictured here at left.  I loved having some time with my niece.

Crazy Jorge had devised a brief skit for us, which he enacted with Moair’s son: “What’s your name?” “Ton.” “NEWton” …and then, “What’s your name?” “Sandy…Sandy, Mondy, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday…” This one works better with a Portuguese accent, where Sandy sounds more like Sunday. I explain these details to give you the flavor of the weekend.  It was jokes, jokes and more jokes and plenty of laughter that belied the actual hilarity of the jokes. But then the laughter itself was pretty hilarious! Jorge and Moair dubbed Newton “Botox” immediately and kept it up for the weekend, as Newton has the smoothest skin of the lot. Moair, far right, works for a state of Rio technology agency, and Crazy Jorge is, get this, a former surgeon who is now a lawyer. He was also a child actor in television and film when the guys were growing up.

The mountain retreat is huge and lush, though we didn’t discover to what extent till Saturday morning. The daylight brought us all out of the countless bedrooms and guest houses for a walk up to Tom’s  sublime Zen garden. He had landscaped around a natural spring that runs down the hill, creating an incredibly beautiful spot in the middle of an old-growth bamboo forest. It was as if we were suddenly in ancient China.

Enjoy the sound here, especially:

 

 

 

Luis Paixão arrived with his beautiful wife and nine-year-old daughter. Alas, with some added weight and years, he is now merely handsome and possibly the nicest guy Lilian and I ever knew! His daughter Luisa is definitely one of the most disarming nine-year-olds we ever knew. Luis is an engineer who works on an off-shore drilling platform – two weeks on and two weeks off.

The day of celebration centered around a churrasco, which means a really big cook-out. Brazilians normally include many kinds of meat, sausage and chicken in this exercise. It was scrumptious with the cold beer and the fresh mountain air.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jorge had gone all out with party hats and wigs. I was assigned specifically the Statue of Liberty get-up, for which I was duly proud. My favorite memory will remain the Saturday night joke that set the four 50-year-olds laughing with tears running down their faces, including a short breather and an extended encore. I promise you the joke doesn’t live up to it, but the mood of the day, their youths together, and again - the mountain air – were indeed infectious!

After Sunday lunch with Luis’ family in Niteroi, Rio’s twin city where the guys grew up, Newton and I caught a short flight to São Paulo. We had a couple of days with all of Newton’s family there.

 

What is it right now about getting together with old friends? “Gold,” as the Girl Scouts always sing. There would be more old friends to savor in the coming days!

Love,

Sandy

Brazil Dispatch 28

Well, the days of our coconut field across the road are numbered. Now when I wake up and go out to the balcony to take in the sea and the field of trees, I see three workmen with a pulley and a bucket (and a distinctly mule-like struggle) to dig a big hole in the sand for some large round concrete thing. Now is when I appreciate the snail’s pace of progress in the Northeast…while I can still do my yoga unobserved on the balcony at night and change clothes upstairs with the doors open. The development will be houses or low apartment buildings, plus a wall, no doubt. Time will tell if our balcony view of the ocean will be partially obliterated or not. Who knows? Perhaps there will be benefits such as new friends and more restaurants nearby. We thought it strange that a bull dozer was not involved, though now we can hear the rumblings of one from behind the coconut trees. A flatbed truck delivered a huge stack of bricks, then knocked part of them over as it pulled away. Oh well. I thank the coconut field for its beauty every morning because I can.

The annual rainy season – which Marcos always calls “winter” – has been pretty sunny and warm. Most of the showers have been at night, a boon to sleep. Our poor steps down to the beach that had gotten ripped up by the ocean have been eroded further by rain and more pummeling by high tide.

One day while I was reading in my hammock, a guy came to the front gate and said hello. I realized after a beat that he was actually speaking English, and American English at that! Cleveland Thomas was here for a couple of months from San Diego. He rented an apartment across from our back door and was told by Stewart-the-Brit that an American lived here. We enjoyed a blues festival and a jazz festival with him, and introduced him to some of our friends at Newton’s birthday dinner. He spent much of his time here hanging out at a very local bar and with the caretaker Armano from next door. Before Cleveland left he threw a huge barbeque in the apartment building courtyard. I helped him shop…it was huge (whole fish, chicken, filet mignon, baby-back ribs, sausages, brisket). But what was the most interesting part is that Cleveland had bridged the glaring class divide here and invited everyone to his party! He never got to know our caretaker, so Marcos was not invited until Armano mentioned it to him. In the end, Marcos declined and we were somewhat relieved, not knowing exactly what that would feel like. Marcos knew he would feel uncomfortable. Despite being eternally democratic, I had no preparation for the extremely wide educational gulf that separates the classes here and am at a bit of a loss to know exactly how to proceed past small talk in two bad versions of Portuguese – theirs and mine. Cleveland didn’t speak much Portuguese, so actually avoided this difficulty while passing hours with them all in gesticulating communication! In the end, Armano and his friend and the local bar owners grilled, made caipirinhas and prepared food in the kitchen. They seemed to find their comfort zone in this approach, as well as the phenomenon that divided the classes by tables on either side of the grill. The common denominator was Cleveland himself and the kids all playing together in the pool. Here is Cleveland behind Rossana, Cassio and their daughter Olivia:

And here he is with Armano, Antonio, and the bar owner:

In the video below, I am just starting to trick the children into eating nutritiously by making them catch cucumbers, carrot sticks and grapes in the pool. The competition soon grew fierce when all the kids jumped into the big pool, frantic to catch what flew to them (only the oldest boy refused to put one bite of veggie in his mouth):

This all-day party and Cleveland’s farewell (he'll be back because he bought the apartment) were followed by a rash of parties with our international friends. Besides sharing dinners almost weekly with Rossana and Cassio – Brazilians who lived many years in the US, we attended a very youthful birthday bash at Bella and Michelle’s Ponta Negra house, complete with loud music, dancing, caipifrutas (caipirinhas made with grapes or kiwis or strawberries or passion fruit instead of lime) - from which we returned home at 4:45am. After Newton sent a quick Facebook comment to Elise before going to bed, he found this reply the next day: “What are you doing up at this hour Mr.???” Tom and Lorraine had a barbeque in their countryside spread. He is a Brit of Malawi heritage, and she is half Malawian and half English and Dutch. He specializes in deep-sea diving to repair off-shore rigs in the UK; she teaches English in a school here. They are just lovely:

Michelle from Montreal is pictured here with Lorraine:

Below at the table, left to right, Ana Paula-Brazil, Bella-UK, ?-Brazil, hidden ?-Finland, Julie-UK, John-Holland, Michelle-Canada, Jan-Switzerland, and moi: Soon after was a day at the lake house of Singaporean, Ian, and Ana Paula. It had a similar cast of wonderful characters – many the same. These events offer great fun and great conversation in English, wonderful food and loads of wine and beer! We really adore them.

We were able to see Glades before she took off to visit her family in the south of Brazil (Rio Grande do Sul). She and Williams in Nigeria talk less and less to avoid the pain of that big ocean between them. She has been working as a tour guide again; Williams still has little hope of garnering $5,000 plus airfare to get back into Brazil. If she is able to sell some valuable family land in Porto Alegre, perhaps they will one day be together again.

My hammock time has resulted in the recent completion of the 1,000+ page volume III of Robert Caro’s Pulitzer-winning biography of LBJ. I feel like I am now a senate scholar…a thoroughly disillusioned one, but with some reality about our US government under my belt. The fourth and last volume about his presidency will be out in 2012 (a decade after volume III). I can hardly wait for this near-sociopath to redeem himself at last with some real civil rights legislation. When this book ends in 1960, still only 15% of African-Americans are registered to vote in the South. Some of them lost their jobs (or much worse) for doing so.

We leave this week for a month-long trip. Newton and his high school buddies will celebrate their 50th birthdays at one’s mountain retreat outside Rio. Then we will spend a few days in São Paulo with Newton’s family. Newton will fly >New York to China while I fly >Houston to Tulsa. I will have 6 days with my mother and see many friends before flying to Jake’s in Las Vegas. He, his girlfriend and I will drive to LA to meet Newton and Elise for a 6-day cruise to Mexico. Then I return to Las Vegas while Newton attends a trade show. We will then meet in New York for storage bin downsizing, to see friends and to attend a wedding.

Elise has been assigned to video the South American tour of a singer named Demi Lovato. After Santiago, Bogotá and Lima, she will literally be in the São Paulo airport at the same time we will, though Rio will not coincide. We are very excited for her. Jake has his schedule in place to return this year to the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas in July.

Hence, with parties and travel interspersed, it is with continued pleasure that I ponder the golden, aura-framed full moon over the ocean, the accompanying stars that twinkle ever brighter for it; the rhythm of Marcos’ early morning sweeping, the rhythm of the waves, the rhythm of laundry day, grocery day, hot wings day; the clock-less, calendar-less nature of my Cotovelo Beach life. I had a palpable sense the other day that I could let slip more of my linear orientation to life. I still want the porch sofa to line up with the floor stones, but maybe the maid’s faster/shorter day doesn’t have to be what we agreed on initially if it works! It sounds like trivial adjustments, but I see that the letting go is big and can only happen incrementally. It helps being 60: I no longer care how I look in a bikini, and it is safe to flirt unabashedly with beautiful young men…something I learned from my mother!

Love,

Sandy