Brazil Dispatch 25

I end up observing insect behavior sometimes. What about the tiny ants parading along the vertical grout line in the bathroom, moving in two directions? After a couple of head-on collisions, I notice that the ants with headaches detour in an arc around the oncoming ants from then on. After down-moving ants encounter a transport party carrying a large dead insect up the wall, I notice they do an about-face and get on board, not wanting to miss the festival.

A wasp was busily building a home – apparently a bachelor pad – in the corner of Newton’s office. This looked like a red clay structure. It eventually had two horizontal cylinders, which prompted our question, “Is someone else moving in?” After a day and no evidence of a fellow tenant, Marcos removed the little duplex. We have yet to be stung by the wasps that buzz by regularly. I guess they leave harassing us to the mosquitoes!

Which brings me to our mosquito net. A nightly plague of mosquitoes for the first time to this degree cost us many hours of sleep when the rainy season began. Boy, were we getting cranky! It was probably only six mosquitoes at most any one night, but knowing they would continue buzzing and biting required smacking them all, and they can hide for good stretches of time. Wishing to avoid chemical sprays, I tried incense, vinegar spray, mint oil, citronella essence in an electric burner (no ready-made mosquito net for a queen-size bed existed), but we were still missing whole nights of sleep, waiting for the 4:30 daylight to finally get relief. When Newton threatened chemicals, I ran out and bought 15 meters (16.395 yards) of 3-meter-wide netting and made a mosquito net…with a bedtime deadline! The dining room table looked like someone was getting married, as I wrestled with the yardage until I had joined three sections by hand, sewing 20 yards of running stitch from 2:30pm to 12:45am, breaking only for dinner. Newton was already upstairs slamming mosquitos with a folded T-shirt, but was willing to install hooks in the ceiling to hang the billowing gossamer. We have been sleeping ever since! And we can watch TV through the smooth front, and the ceiling fan doesn’t catch. As you can see, it is quite elegant:

The rainy season has been pretty mild, though terribly hot when there is no breeze. One evening at dinner on the veranda the only moving thing in sight was the twinkling of a star. Palm branches and plants are beginning to stir more nowadays. I persist in considering this summer, even though the locals call every day that isn’t actual summer, “winter.”

We have seen lots of live music, which we thrive upon. The American blues guitarist, Larry McCray, had a fantastic performance here in a club; we continue to love full moon boat rides with guitar, percussion and vocals on our friends’ catamaran; our dentist happens to also be the concert master for the local symphony, so we attended and were thoroughly impressed; we are still loyal to our friends, Mad Dogs, who have extended their repertoire well beyond their formidable Beatles’ interpretations; and - at last – chorinho and chopps (‘shopes’ - draft beer) last night! Chorinho literally means ‘a little cry,’ though that is only its yin to samba’s yang. It is not sad at all. I would say it is a cross between Bach and Spanish guitar, with its own inimitable Brazilian charm added in. Enjoy this short YouTube example:

Our dentist said he’d discount our bill if Newton could name the music that was playing on the office CD while I was in the dentist chair, my mouth stuffed with cotton pieces and the dentist’s hands. Not being one to stay quiet when Newt didn't know the title, I shouted out “Aida” as best I could. At least this opera lent itself to the open, stuffed mouth pronunciation better than ‘Rigoletto’ would have. The dentist laughed so hard, he was happy to give us the discount, especially after I could add "Triumphal March" when my mouth was free!

I have yet to replace all my hand craft work with any specific activity since Christmas. I have had no interest whatsoever in picking up a needle, etc. I’m sort of waiting for a sign to indicate if and where I might volunteer, but I admit, I’m hesitant to begin a ‘clock’ schedule and obligations after all those years of working, volunteering, and raising my children in a constant state of nerves. As I was examining these inclinations in myself, the following quotes appeared in front of me by happenstance, for lack of a better explanation:

“Yet it is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth comes to the top.” — Virginia Woolf
“Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits.” — Satchel Paige

We’ll see where this leads. I could never have imagined that I would have such an opportunity in my life to examine the roles of busyness, productivity, sacrifice and meaning. I am so grateful for time.

In the meantime, I’m still in love with reading in my hammock. I tried a couple of current fictions, of which I’m always leery and often disappointed: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, a good Swedish murder mystery, though a little tacky; then a very funny first novel, A Fraction of the Whole. I finished the 700-page first volume of Robert Caro’s LBJ trilogy, which thoroughly disgusts one regarding Texas politics. I’m curious to see if LBJ manages to redeem himself with his landmark legislation later. Will be schlepping volume two back to Brazil from the US in July. Then I went from the ridiculous to the sublime with Marcel Proust, having never read his Remembrance of Things Past. I often dabble in short stories between other books as I really love the form, so I surrounded the historical novel about Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick, Loving Frank, with late-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century English short stories and Jeffrey Eugenides' wonderful collection of love stories, My Mistress’ Sparrow is Dead. Even though reading a book seems somewhat productive to me, I’m not willing to give up this activity for the sake of self-examination!

Well, not a dot of rain for two days and the sky is clear; leaves are fluttering away outside the office window. I could complain about the big iguana sneaking in the open door today and using our kitchen floor for a bathroom, but that would be entirely too much information. (As far as we can tell, he exited afterwards.)

Love,
Sandy

Brazil Dispatch 24 - Carnaval

Carnaval in Brazil begins long before “Fat Tuesday.” The official holiday goes from Friday night to midday on Ash Wednesday, though in Bahia, for instance – the folkloric capital of Brazil – a version of Carnaval starts in January.

The weekend ahead of Carnaval we went to our beloved Hellenus restaurant on the cliff by the sea for a masked Carnaval ball. Even though our masks ended up on top of our heads for comfort and safety, we loved the exquisite decorations, the three bands playing traditional Carnaval “marchinhas” (samba songs made famous over the years at the elaborate Carnaval parades in Rio and São Paulo), traditional samba, and traditional Bahian axé (very fast, festive dance music), not to mention the marvelous paella made by a visiting Spanish chef.

Our stay in São Paulo state over Carnaval weekend began with a drive down to the coast from the teeming, clogged city. The tropical countryside was a green haven of gigantic bamboo bushes, reforestation trees in bargello needlepoint patterns on the hillsides, unlikely evergreens along the highway, and endless configurations of luscious growth. One of my father’s ‘poems’ came to mind: “I’m glad it’s not my duty/ To identify the beauty.” Shots of color from yellow and purple flowering bushes and garlands of laundry at small settlements accented the sweep of green. (I actually read that there’s a local law somewhere in the US that prohibits laundry being hung out on a line. Laundry hanging on lines provides the art galleries of residencia! It is seldom not beautiful, not to mention that it is ecologically sound. Sad.) And some generous person up on a hill had lovingly painted the small pillars of a balcony balustrade in all different colors as an offering to us highway travelers. We stopped to pick up Newton’s aunt at a FREE health facility, where she rooms and boards during her chemotherapy sessions during the week. (I know – free.) After spending some time with her at her home in the beach town of Caraquatatuba, we wound up and down another mountain along the coast to the beach town of Bertioga. Here is the “vacation colony” where Newton’s parents met, where our children have visited every year since in the womb, and where my mother accompanied us in 1990. This place is run by one of several such organizations in Brazil, SESC (pronounced “seskee”), which takes a small pittance from each paycheck of employees of merchants and services in order to provide not only vacation colonies all over the country that offer cheap-yet-elaborate vacations, but wide-ranging educational facilities in most cities and towns, as well.

The SESC ‘colonia’ in Bertioga has continued to change and improve since my first visit there in 1983. The organization became very ecologically-minded in the ‘90’s, so the educational aspect of the colony focuses on the exotic flora and fauna of the site, good health and nutrition, excellent fresh food, sports, classes in yoga, shiatsu, doen, tai chi, etc. and endless live entertainment and educational presentations. The place seems to always have a surplus of money with which they continually add activities, renovate spaces, and consider just what would make the acres and acres of beauty more conducive to enjoyment and knowledge. I am in awe.

The days begin at the beach. This beach is flat and shallow for a ways, so the water is warm. While the beach area has morning aerobics, beach tennis, volley ball, fresco ball, bocci ball, and all normal beach digging, castle-making and wave-catching, it is possible to do my morning yoga away from the crowds under a coconut tree, drink beer and caipirinhas at the same little mobile beach bar and grill we’ve frequented for years, run by Pedrão (“Big Pedro”), and discuss the universe with Newton’s sister Lilian and her husband, David, a Carióca (citizen of Rio). Sometimes we go to lunch by way of the pool for some pool volley ball for Newt, crab appetizer, and more beer. After lunch, rest…though there are many classes, workshops, hikes, trips, and massages available. After dinner, entertainment begins in the big ‘social’ space. We usually pass this phase with espresso and philosophy outside the coffee bar. At 10:00pm the main entertainment begins. For Carnaval, the live entertainment included traditional Carnaval marchinhas (I am so proud that the one time I attended the famous Carnaval parade in Rio in ’82, I actually learned the chorus of a song that became one of the classics: “Tell me, my mirror, is there anyone on the avenue happier than I?”); traditional samba one night with all sorts of streamers and confetti provided; another night, traditional music of the coconut and forró from our Northeast (but performed in-key and in the classic style, which I prefer to much of what we hear up here); and - a definite highlight – a great reggae band the last night starting at 12:30am on the beach. Lilian, David, Newton and I strolled beyond the crowd and danced nearer the ocean, under the stars! But I cannot fail to point out the other BIG highlight of Carnaval, and that was playing percussion in a “samba bateria” organized at the colony. A workshop was held for several days, for which we only managed to show up for five minutes the last two days. Newton played the tambourine, which is not a tambourine in Brazil, (what we call a tambourine is called a pandeiro here), but is a small round drum played with a stick, and I played my favorite for years – a gonzá – usually a cylinder of metal filled with rice and shaken. (Sometimes they are made out of sealed beer cans at Carnaval events in NY.) I bought a metal one in Rio years ago, watched Brazilian musicians in Manhattan closely, practiced, and now play it in a gringa sort of way. This particular gonzá had metal tambourine disks attached to a piece of wood, which meant a tighter, more painful grip! Newton and I had to be very aware of our fellow players to know when to play and when to stop, not having received instruction regarding the whistle signals. Even though we were marching around the big ‘social’ room and not going down a street in Rio or Bahia, and even though my hand was falling off by the end, I wouldn’t have traded this heavenly march through a funnel of samba rhythm for the world! Can you spot us on the video?

Enjoy three minutes of Carnaval:



Newton’s parents - Alfredo and Jannice, Lilian and David, and Newton and I shared the two sets of bunk beds and a blow-up mattress on the floor in the one SESC room available this time. It was too hot to sleep sometimes, so afternoon naps saved me. We all managed the tandem bathroom routine beautifully, with only one wandering near-accident!

A few days in São Paulo afterwards afforded us a great dance performance by a modern ballet troupe, Stagium (such fantastic male dancers they have here!), ever elusive Mexican food in the trendy, rowdy Vila Madalena neighborhood, and a sweltering-but-beautiful photography exhibit at the Afro-Brazilian Museum at Ibirapuera Park (São Paulo's 'Central Park'). And we got to see our adorable nieces and nephews, ages 17 -24.

Our return to Natal, arriving in the middle of the night, was plagued by continuing Carnaval rain that persisted intermittently for the next two days. Our bed had that one - and it only takes one - pesky mosquito, and smelled moldy like a cheap motel, so I took any break in the rain the next day as a chance to briefly air out pillows and will the sheets to dry on the line. There was a short in the overhead light in our bedroom, and, despite the recent roof work, a new leak in our storage closet. Wet suitcases were hanging to dry off on doorknobs and chairs. The maid got mixed up and sprayed the water and vinegar solution on the living room woodwork instead of cleaning the bathroom with it. My trip to the supermarket followed a stop at the bank. One thousand reais do not fit easily into my small wallet, so the bills were folded over in my purse. As I reached towards the top shelf at the supermarket to put plastic bottles of ‘agua com gás’ into my shopping cart, a woman pretended to be reaching up beside me and put her hand in my purse instead. Suddenly bills were spilling out all over the floor, I was yelling at her and yelling “thief” in English generally, soon replaced by the more effective Portuguese for “her hand was in my purse!” As I grabbed at the bills on the floor, she strolled casually around the corner and apparently made a B-line for the door. The workers nearby who witnessed this summoned the security guy, who walked through the store with me looking for her, to no avail. I finished my shopping in a ‘ruffled’ state. Finally back home, I counted the money and was missing R$30 – only about US$12. But DAMN.

Nevertheless, the sun came out with a perfect breeze the next day, the field across the road is green, the marezia has been rained off my happy plants; and as I hung a load of colorful laundry luxuriously on the line – because I have time to do so – I felt as content as ever in my life. My home.

And just when we thought Elise’s job was ending, a bunch of work came in. Since receiving notice, she has videotaped the Jonas Brothers at the wax museum in NY, the CBS morning show, an MTV show in the Rainbow Room, and then off to LA for their movie premiere. She seems to be good at fighting her way through paparazzi for some great shots! Immediately after LA she went off to Detroit (“kinda ghetto”) to videotape Nickleback. She is in her third week without a day off as she edits and edits the footage. Tired, yet grateful.

Happy belated Carnaval, everyone!

Love,
Sandy

Brazil Dispatch 23

After that eternity since November 4th, Inauguration Day found its way here via CNN International on our satellite TV. I celebrated my re-embracing of the American flag, which no longer had to stand for nastiness, by printing out a small copy and attaching it to our mail box. My TV-less American friend Mary, who had joined us on election night, brought her 10-year-old son to watch the inauguration with us. Marcos, the caretaker, carefully masking-taped the Obama poster from the US to his wall, saving a second one for his mother in the interior. There were a lot of happy people down here that day.

Things really change around here in January. The three houses surrounding us (luckily, we still have the lovely field of coconut trees across the road in front) fill up with relatives and guests for a month-long party. Loud music erupts intermittently, often after midnight. Sometimes the music is good, sometimes we marvel that some of these off-key singers ever got a recording session. I will reiterate here that some of the regional music reminds one that the Northeast of Brazil is not Rio or São Paulo. Saturday night concerts in the next town blast into our bedroom till 4:00am. The children next door arrive at 7:30am with their nannies outside our bedroom window, chanting “ga-cheen-yo, ga-cheen-yo, ga-cheen-yo” (gatinho - little cat) to aggravate a small boy, who cries often. Popsicle vendors push their carts around these blocks all day everyday (does anyone really buy those before breakfast?) with microphones and very loud speakers to interrupt any conversation one might be having in the kitchen or any pleasant thought. A boy who looks about eight has a roaring dirt bike that has gone by our house with increasing velocity and flying dust as the month has progressed. Sometimes there are five buddies miraculously perched behind him. Despite so many affronts to my indulged senses, I do find January a wonderful interlude of animation around here. The fried pastry vendor plays the same nice catchy rhythm on a triangle that all fried pastry vendors play all over Brazil. It’s nice to have the beach more crowded for a month. Someone had the broken stairs extended all the way down to the sand again. We can monitor how one weekend the staircase doesn’t quite reach exposed rock at the bottom so we must maneuver and jump to the sand, and the next weekend the last eight stairs and the railing disappear into deep banked sand. Newton has never seen a beach that changes so dramatically.The little old man with the portable grill, tables, chairs, and large beer cooler sets up above the shore rocks if the tide is high and simply serves people by casually picking his way down the crags to the sand like a waiter in a (smooth and level) restaurant. And I always look forward to the quiet, tranquil aspect of my house when it is suddenly isolated once more on February 1st. The even tinier baby hummingbird that has joined the now ‘giant’ ones flitting around our flowers, and the plant that crept 6½ feet up inside the gesso exterior wall to emerge as a deterrent to closing the bathroom window remind me of the essence of ‘animated’ in this little walled patch by the sea.

In reference to my New Year’s poem, it is time again to prune the hibiscus bush, which is almost blocking the path to our door from the gate. You tell me how hard it would be to chop these beautiful flowers off!

Anticipating the bedroom and dining room puddles once the rainy season arrives, we engaged a handy man to replace all faulty terra cotta tiles on our roof. He employed two helpers – Marcos was one of them – to work every weekday for two weeks. What we discovered after the roof negotiations was that this project automatically includes a rice and black bean and meat lunch for all of them daily. Don’t you just love that good ol' American tradition of a lunch box with a big sandwich? That is what they call a snack here. We had just hired a new two days/week maid – in the nick of time – who left the kitchen dirtier than she found it, making all that food. The third roof worker jabbered and sang against the rhythm of hammers replacing rotten beams to support the tiles - while we were sleeping. We were reminded that the sun rises at 4:30 this time of year and people get an early start. After lunch, the men napped with full -fledged snoring, one on the stone garage floor and another on a too-narrow, leaning board. I bumped my head twice on the scaffolding that greeted one first thing out the back door, but marveled for two weeks at the nimble and sure-footed Nordestinos, bounding up the scaffolding like monkeys and balancing barefoot casually along the pointed eaves of the roof while bending in half to cement new tiles along the angle.

We noticed a new establishment just a few blocks away, Zen Bar Café, which already did not sound like a typical rustic, local name around these outskirts of Natal. We discovered a lovely courtyard and veranda decorated with items from the orient and with amazing trees. The owners are Maurizio, an Italian, and his wife Neuma, an indigenous native. He is from Sardinia (land of Newton’s great-grandfather) and has lived in Rome, Prague, and Thailand, traveled to Nepal and India, and lived here for 18 years. He is responsible for the incredible variety of world music playing at the bar, as he has his own Italian radio show twice a week (via the internet). Neuma is responsible for the wonderful international menu (two minutes from our house!?!) and the incredibly happy trees and plants in the courtyard. She looks like she was painted by Gauguin and is the most elegant and sophisticated indigenous native I’ve met. The Zen Bar Café will be closed during the rainy season and ‘winter’ here, and we will miss our new friends when they leave in May for their annual four months selling Brazilian bikinis on the pricey Costa Smeralda in Sardinia.

The 4 evenings around a full moon here are very special, for the dark night ocean is transformed into a shimmering blue glow. We started out last Saturday night with dinner at Hellenus restaurant on a cliff, then signed up for a Sunday evening sunset-and-full-moon ride on a catamaran on the Potangi River in Natal. This was for 25 people with hors d’oeuves, drinks, and live music. The boat went under Natal’s new bridge to where the river begins to mix with the ocean. We were surprised once again to see such unusual food in Natal, and soon discovered that the owners had lived in the US for many years. The wife, Rossana, worked at the Brazilian Consulate in both NY and LA; the husband, Cassio – who was the percussionist alongside the guitarist-singer on the boat – worked as a musician in LA. He toured and


recorded with the huge Brazilian star, Djavan, in the ‘90’s…until a scheduled tour was suddenly canceled because the superstitious Djavan had gotten word from his Mae de Santo (fortune teller) that it was not a good time to travel! Cassio then toured and recorded primarily with an Iranian and Spanish duo from LA. Since we had already invited Mauricio and Neuma to dinner Tuesday night, we decided to ask Rossana and Cassio to join us. It turns out that Mauricio had interviewed Cassio for his radio show, and Cassio has a recording studio that makes many of the local artists’ CD’s that Mauricio sells at his bar! We had a grand evening with the just-past-full moon, loads of champagne, and our “spread” with smoked salmon, goat cheese, and wondrous jars of Trader Joes’ concoctions. Now we are invited to dinner at Rossana’s this Sunday. Such instant and marvelous friends!!

Newton has been listening to old samba songs from the 1930’s on his i-tunes. He will suddenly start to chuckle in the office and translate some of the lyrics for me:

“…I’ll kill who stole my just-washed underwear to make a dishrag. It was a present from my girlfriend…”

“…Maria Sapatão (‘big shoe’ – expression for Lesbian), by day she’s Maria, by night she’s João (John)…”

Elise recently e-mailed both Newton and me a little survey. We each independently answered the query: “Where would you rather be?” with the answer: “No where.” For all my complaints, I’d rather be here than anywhere!!

My next dispatch will be about Carnaval 2009!

Love,
Sandy