What I'm Taking From Brazil (besides flip-flops)

This morning, after I dropped off my kids for their last day of school, I went to my favorite spot-an outcropping of rocks in between Ipanema and Copacabana. I like to stop there halfway through a run , turn off my Ipod, and just sit and enjoy the beautiful scenery while contemplating life.

Brazil's been a tough place for me. I've spent a lot of my time feeling lonely and like I'm just not quite apart of things. That's not to say that I don't like it here, it was just hard. On the upside, I feel like I've gained a perspective that I didn't have before-one of what it must feel like to be an immigrant far from home; that will make me more sensitive to people in those types of situations in the future. I've also used my free time for running, piano, and reading, so that's been good.

I was sitting on those rocks thinking if I had to live permanently in one of the 4 places we've lived out of the United States, I would choose Mexico City, but if I had to choose one of the places to actually be from, I would choose Brazil. Does that sound strange? I felt like I personally fit in better in Mexico City, but if I were a Brazilian, I would love Brazil and find it very hard to leave my country for another because the culture is so rich here.

Some things that will stay with with me through the years about Brazil and Brazilians:

...I appreciate how much Brazilians love children. They have a patience and affection for kids that I haven't seen anywhere else.

...I love that no matter what problems they may have in their lives, they are for the most part very happy. They seem to know that there is much more to life than a paycheck.

...They spend their free time with their extended families.

...Speedo's aren't just for swimming.

...There's an ageless attitude here-people are physically and mentally active from childhood until death-there's less of an "I'm too old" attitude.

...They smile easily and are very inclusive.

...They LOVE, LOVE, LOVE soccer! It's different than with our sports teams in the States-it goes almost all year round and there is always some tournament going on that people are excited about. Rio has 4 teams and you must be affiliated with a team-that's sometimes the first question you are asked when meeting someone for the first time. And once you have your team-there's no switching, that's a cardinal sin around here. I've actually had a conversation with a seemingly reasonable woman about how her son actually changed jobs and moved his family out of their town and state just because his wife's family was putting pressure on their kids to join "their" team!

In the States you'd say, "I'm a Bronco's fan" but here you'd say "I'm a Bronco"-there's a lot more ownership.

Soccer adds a dimension and diversion to their lives that we don't have.

Speaking of the which, today's Brazil's first game in the World Cup. It's practically a holiday. The kids are getting out early from school and Guapo's 7:40 am doctor's appointment was cancelled due to the game at 3:30. Everyone (with a capital "E") is dressed in yellow and green, including the dogs:

A couple of Brazilian customs that will stick with me:

After living here, I will never be able to allow a departing guest in my house to open the door for themselves, it's considered very rude and a guest will wait all day until you open the door for them.

And I will never be able to set my purse on the floor (it makes me uncomfortable just looking at this picture:

Purses and bags must be placed upon something, otherwise you are destined to lose your money. If you, without knowing this, put your bag on the floor, believe me you, someone will move it for you in a jiffy!

On the other hand, I won't miss feeling uncouth when I grab french fries or pizza with my hands instead of using a fork, or when I drink directly from a can of soda instead of using a straw. :)

In conclusion...

I'm ready to go. I'm happy about the change we're making- my kids will get to experience living in their own country and won't have to worry about moving anytime soon, and we'll be near family (and a million other things I'm looking forward to-let's not forget about Target). I think having observed the richness of Brazilian life as an outsider has increased my desire to be back in my own country, enjoying everything life has to offer there.

Life is really good.

Time to pick up the kiddos.

More tomorrow...

What Was I Just Saying?

Yes, I realize how hypocritical this post is so quick on the heels of the last. But, allow me to clarify. I'm not so much "anti-stuff" as I am "anti-useless-stuff-that-takes-up-too-much-space". I'm all for useful stuff. And what's more useful than shoes? I mean, you've got to have them, right?

And Brazil's Havaianas are the hands-down best flip-flops in the world. (So what if they offer little to no arch support and after 3 years of using them my foot is a size larger, requiring me to buy all new shoes (dang it! ;)? ). And, they are so cheap here-just over $10 USD a pair-compared to close to $30.00 in the States. Let's not forget I'm leaving next week, and I probably won't return to Brazil for years, if ever. And, did I mention Margarita and I have the same size foot right now, so we can share shoes? So when I buy 2 pairs, it's really like I'm buying one for me and one for her? And, flip flops take up hardly any space at all.

So what's a girl to do?

I love them. All of them.

La Dee Da

For the first time in weeks, I have nothing to do. The movers are packing, the kids are at school, so I'm just hanging out.

After all of my work and stress (that I just discovered gave me a cold sore-boo-h00, and made me lose 5 lbs-yay!) I was sitting here this morning at 10:15 waiting for the packers to arrive.

10:15

My kids will all be coming home in 6 short hours and they haven't arrived yet.

So I call and they tell me that they don't normally arrive until 10 because of "traffic" (??? Really? You can't plan ahead for something like that?), but if they hadn't shown up by 10:30 to call back. I had to leave to go to book club (what will I ever do without my maid to hang around the house so I don't have to?), but they did eventually show up around 10:30. When I got back at 12:15 they were just starting their hour long lunch break.

Can you see the smoke coming out of my ears?

Oh, Brazil, there are some things I just won't miss.

So, now they are working again until, I dunno, 3:30-4ish? They'll put in a hefty four-hour work day.

Anyway, I wanted you all to get a look at, and say goodbye to, the worst car we've ever owned:

We bought it when we arrived here from the guy who was in Guapo's position before him. Over the three years I don't know how many thousands of dollars we put into it and then we sold it for a whopping 40% of what we paid for it. In it's final months with us, whenever we were stopped at a traffic light you would have sworn you were sitting in one of those massage chairs because it vibrated so bad. And about once a day during the last week, the fuse that was over the air conditioning and turn signals would burn out.

Awesome, awesome car.

And poor Ballerina Girl's driver bought it. Oh well, he'll probably sell it for parts and do pretty well. Whatever, as long as it's not my problem anymore.

Here are me and Sergio the driver spending our final moments with the van:

We look pretty sad, eh?

If I lived here all my life, I would never tire of this...

...seeing awesome animals in the wild.

Last week when I was going to lunch with my boys at school, Juan Carlos pointed out this beautiful toucan to me:

He was eating these red berries:

How totally cool is that?

...and on a recent walk to the helicopter pad with Pedro, we ran into this little guy, just hanging around:

My kids are too cool for monkeys now-they thing Guapo and I are weird for wanting to go places just to look for monkeys.

I don't care what they say, monkeys and toucans are way more exciting than squirrels and the occasional robin we see in CO. (I'll admit the raccoons are cool though...and the prairie dogs-I do love the little prairie dogs.)

Trapped in My Apartment with Three Hyper Boys and One Novice Trumpet Player

We had our first school cancellation due to weather in nearly 3 years today. It started raining buckets late yesterday afternoon and is still raining. School has already been canceled for tomorrow.

Sadly, this incident has coincided with Margarita's first opportunity to bring home a trumpet from school. (the perfect storm, if you will) She is to master playing "Hot Cross Buns"; after today, I'm very confident she will achieve her goal. As if things weren't acoustically trying enough around here with her latest piano piece, "The Entertainer" and Julio's 5th Symphony by Beethoven.

Of course, Guapo was able to make it to work (even though he has the flu), he's like a postman-"neither rain nor sleet" or however that little saying goes; it was just him and one other guy who lives a block away. He called me on the way to the office, "I'm the ONLY car on the road, can you believe that?" Yes. Actually, I can. He had to do some fancy maneuvering (driving on sidewalks, on the wrong side of the road, crossing over dividers, and passing through small rivers) to make it to his office.

I don't blame him for the Herculean effort, being stuck in the house with the boys and the trumpet is enough to do most people in.

So, are you wondering how our house is holding up after all of that work (read: overpriced paint job) we had done in November?

Not so well.

Let's have a little look-see, shall we?

Here's part of the family room:

Another part of the family room:

Margarita's bedroom, this is dripping right down on her bed:

This is right above our TV and DVD player in my and Guapo's room (notice the washcloth on top of the DVD player):

And this is a new one, right above my side of the bed (ugggh!), bringing the percentage of bedrooms with water leaking directly onto the beds to 75%:

But poor Julio has it the worst.

He came into our room in the middle of the night to tell us it was raining on him. We told him to push his bed out of the way and go back to sleep (poor kid, we were still recovering from our sleepless Saturday night). He wasn't kidding; here's just a little part of his ceiling that is leaking:

and the remedy:

I actually had to add more containers as these weren't doing the trick, but I am too tired and lazy to take a new picture. (and just to clear Julio's cool name, he doesn't play with that little ride on car with the blocks; that belongs to Pedro. I have to store toys where I've got the space.)

Here's how much water they collected after only a few hours:

Finally, here's a picture of the lake this morning, you can see the huge amount of runoff water:

But even with the leaks, the restless kids, and the trumpet, I am very grateful to be safe, (relatively) dry, and with electricity and water and Internet service (knocking on wood). This is a storm that has caused landslides, serious flooding, and many deaths, and it just continues to rain...

What Brazilians Do When It's Cloudy

I'm not actually sure what they do do when it's cloudy (yes, Margarita, I know I said "do-do"), but I know what they don't do, and that's go to the beach. Even when it's sufficiently warm out.

Compare my heading picture, or the first picture from my last post to these photos, taken today:

It's amazing.

It seems the only people there were a big group of gringos playing baseball...:

...and running from the waves:

It was my kind of beach day!

Giving School Lunch A Good Name

Before we get to school lunches, I am very happy to report that after more than 5 weeks of this:

...which is all fine and good except for when your struggling air conditioner can only cool down your bedroom (I won't even go into the common areas of the house) to a balmy 85 degrees...

it's nice to get a little of this:

Ahhhh, so refreshing. It may have even dropped into the 80's outside today which felt downright chilly after our recent heat wave. One of my friend's kids were asking for hot chocolate on the way home from school today. No joke.

Anyway, on to the cafeteria of my kids' school.

When we leave Brazil (if we ever do), one thing I will really miss about my life here is the lunch situation. I don't have to pack lunches. EVER! I hated packing lunches in Mexico City-what a pain in the neck. So boring. So thankless. So never-ending.

Here, the kids are provided (for a healthy fee of course; thank you, Guapo's company) a great buffet style lunch everyday. The wide variety of food is prepared fresh each day and the kids get to go through the lunch line and pick what they'd like. Younger kids have their teachers helping them to make sure the eat a balanced lunch. They generally have 2-3 main course dishes, rice and beans (always), and several sides:

In addition to the hot foods, they have a lovely salad bar that always has a lettuce salad and a couple of other salads to choose from:

I eat there with my boys every Thursday after I help out in their classrooms and I really look forward to it. Here's what I had today:

Beef stroganoff over rice, potatoes (remember? Brazilians LOVE their carbs and don't care about mixing them), beets and a nice mixed salad.

And my favorite part is the dessert cart that always has fresh fruit (today was papaya-yuck), jello cups and some other desert, today's was flan- yum. On Friday's they can get a popsicle, ice cream, or chocolate cake.

Sometimes (ok, most every time) the desserts are so good, and so little, that I have to have two. Like today:

I usually send one of my kids up for the second round, so I don't look like a pig.

I haven't ever had kids go to school in the States, so maybe the school lunch situation has improved, but when I was a kid, school lunch was really icky. And I remember that buying school lunches was not a very cool thing to do. A lit-tle-bit nerdy. Maybe that was just my school?

So, what's it like now in the States?

Carnaval 2010

We survived our 3rd year of Carnaval here in Brazil.

It was a long, blistering week. We attended the parade last Monday night. In contrast to other years, we only stayed for half of the parade this year. Instead of crawling into bed at 7:30 am, we were tucked in at a much more respectable hour this year: 3 am. We were totally refreshed the next day, comparatively speaking.

Another difference was that this year, we didn't have front row seats; we had 2nd row seats. Having front row seats that last two years kind-of made me a Carnaval snob. Since I don't drink* (ever) and I only attempt to fake samba occasionally, taking pictures is what I really enjoy doing at the parade and it was much harder from the second row. After a few frustrating minutes of getting other people's heads in my shots, I handed over the camera to Gaupo who's a good 10 inches taller than me. (Here are the Carnaval posts from 2009, and 2008. Just in case you're interested.)


*That reminds me of a random story from the evening. We shared our box with a customer of Guapo's company. As she was opening her second beer for the evening, she offered me one and I declined; she looked at me oddly and asked if I ever drank and I said, "no" and she said, "Never?" and I said, "Never." Then she said, "Me neither," and continued to drink her beer. ???

These were the people who were sitting in my seat (the nerve!):

Grrrrrrr.

I love seeing the happy, festive participants all decked out in their amazing carnaval costumes. Here are some of my favorite shots of the night (that Gaupo took while I was feeling serious pressure to bust a move since I wasn't hiding behind the camera):

"Have faith, buy your spot in paradise":

Awesome street sweeper/samba dancer:

Everyone got really excited about this famous woman, we have no clue who she is. Fabiola?

Big cat:

My least favorite float of the night:

See that silver "arm" on the right side of the photo? It belonged to a robot that looked like it was about to check her cervix.

Ewwww.

The dancers were "pregnant" with plastic fetuses:

Ewwwww.

This girl's platform wasn't secure, so she chose to just sit down for her own safety. This was, of course, totally unacceptable. (does she not know that you must be samba-ing and singing the entire 80 minutes?)

As the float was approached the final judges' station, this guy went out on the float and basically forced her to stand up and dance.

He then proceeded to supported her fanny with his face to keep her up.

Oh, the sacrifices people make for Carnaval.

This lady's name is Maria das Dores Rodrigues, she was the flag bearer of the first championship of her samba school, Portela, in 1935. 1935. Can you believe that? 75 years ago?

Pretty cool.

If you ever have the chance to go to the parade, I highly recommend it. Of course, if you're going to come all this way, I'd suggest the front row if you can manage it. :)

The Beach Today

It's the start of Carnaval here in Brazil-the week long party in the streets. I have to admit, the first year was interesting because it was all new and different; last year was fun because my parents were here, but this year I'm just kind of sick of it-too hot, too many people, and too many nasty smells in the streets. I guess I'm just not a lot of fun.

It doesn't help that it's been an oven here and has only rained once since we got back almost a month ago-it's making me pretty grouchy. We have sad little window units that can't nearly keep up with the heat. I sweat all.day.long. (and all night long, too) I'm trying to not be bothered by it because it appears that no matter how annoyed I get about the weather, it doesn't seem to care about what I think.

Anyway, we went to the beach fairly early today. We were lucky enough to get there when another group was just leaving so we got some much sought after water-front property. We had a little ridge in front of us, so now one could muscle their way in front of us. And we got two umbrellas just to ensure a little space:

It was pretty crowded, but nothing like what it was later in the day (after all the revelers awoke sometime in the afternoon):

Here you can get an idea of how close we were to our neighbors even with our little double umbrella trick:

Today's beach topic is how different Brazilian body image is compared to that of Americans. 99% of women here wear a bikini to the beach (the 1% being the freakishly modest Mormon who wears a one piece or a tankini; I've seriously had people say to me, "You're not from here are you? I can tell from your swimsuit"). A bikini is just what you wear. It doesn't matter if you are 200 lbs. overweight. It doesn't matter if you're 90 years old. It doesn't matter if you're 9 1/2 months pregnant. It doesn't matter if you're 2 weeks post-partum. YOU WEAR A BIKINI.

And nobody cares what you look like. There's no snickering or finger pointing. Although they do care about their bodies-they are a very active people, they don't seem to care about other people's bodies or if theirs is not perfect.

I took some photos of different bikini clad women, but I'm not going to post them for a couple of reasons. 1) the pictures of really beautiful women with almost their entire rear-ends showing doesn't seem like something that should be on a family friendly blog and 2) I wouldn't want anyone going, "Gross!" or laughing looking a picture of someone with a less than "perfect" body. That would make me feel like I was being mean.

I think it's really cool that people feel comfortable enough to go out with less than perfect bodies, and that other people don't seem to waste their time caring about what others look like. It's kind of refreshing.

(Mentally and emotionally, not physically. Physically I'm still really, really hot.)