tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-233225912024-03-07T03:39:29.002-03:00Lovely Dharma - Life in Brazillovelydharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16512055599650919939noreply@blogger.comBlogger117125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23322591.post-62525963190317782242009-05-05T21:36:00.010-03:002009-05-05T22:22:37.435-03:00Meanwhile Back on the FarmSome days are just perfect.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/38109733@N03/3505345809/" title="DSC_0967 by lovelydharma690, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3353/3505345809_34b0007dae.jpg" alt="DSC_0967" height="500" width="332" /></a><br /></div><br />The air is crisp and the dry leaves smell a little dusty and the mid-afternoon shadows are long and the light falls just so.<br /><br />Overhead, the <span style="font-style: italic;">João Graveteiro</span> has finished his nest.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/38109733@N03/3505355373/" title="DSC_0969 by lovelydharma690, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3611/3505355373_6ec3872770.jpg" alt="DSC_0969" height="500" width="331" /></a><br /></div><br />The sticks he used still have green leaves clinging to them. Clever fellow, he knows how to build, but doesn’t seem to know when to stop. Lucky for him all those extra rooms confuse would-be thieves while he stays nicely hidden.<br /><br />The neighbor’s horse heard me walking on the road and came galumphing down the hill looking for sweets or possibly a hairbrush.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/38109733@N03/3505358575/" title="DSC_0911 by lovelydharma690, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3634/3505358575_ae40e4d441.jpg" alt="DSC_0911" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br />Poor baby. Somebody really ought to tell him to stay away from the sticker burrs.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/38109733@N03/3505350097/" title="DSC_0976 by lovelydharma690, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3402/3505350097_c262ac9e8f.jpg" alt="DSC_0976" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br /><br /><br />Dharma gets a wild look about her on afternoons as pretty as these.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/38109733@N03/3505356845/" title="DSC_0951 by lovelydharma690, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3598/3505356845_fe6895e4ce.jpg" alt="DSC_0951" height="331" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br />And who can blame her, when air is so thick with the sweet smell of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Bella Cruz</span>.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/38109733@N03/3506193368/" title="DSC_0949 by lovelydharma690, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3317/3506193368_56b91dd5c6.jpg" alt="DSC_0949" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br />Sunday was the <span style="font-style: italic;">Festa de Santa Cruz</span> – the Feast of the Holy Cross – and the <span style="font-style: italic;">Bella Cruz</span> takes its name from this day because it blooms at the beginning of May. The hills are covered in it.<br /><br />I love how many of the plants in the countryside get their folk names from the Catholic holidays. Every medicinal herb is seems to be named after a saint. And then there are the plants that bloom in season with the liturgical events, like <span style="font-style: italic;">Bella Cruz</span> and the <span style="font-style: italic;">Quaresma </span>tree.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/38109733@N03/3505362617/" title="DSC_0938 by lovelydharma690, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3321/3505362617_a46339f698.jpg" alt="DSC_0938" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Quaresma</span> means Lent, and the trees, flush with royal purple blooms, dot the forests in the months of March and April. Lent is over, but I guess the trees on our farm are still feeling particularly repentant…<br /><br />And then there is this plant. Vicente pointed it out to me.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/38109733@N03/3505360363/" title="DSC_0940 by lovelydharma690, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3628/3505360363_306262bbb3.jpg" alt="DSC_0940" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br />It’s called <span style="font-style: italic;">Conta de Lagrimas</span>. (The Rosary of Tears). On the <span style="font-style: italic;">roça</span> they use the seeds to make rosaries. In English its called Job’s Tears or Chinese Barley even though it isn’t related to barley at all.<br /><br />Sometimes I wonder if the early missionaries didn’t come to Brazil and see all of its wild, fecund abundance and perhaps feel a stirring in their chaste loins, and think:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/38109733@N03/3505366575/" title="DSC_0896 by lovelydharma690, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3603/3505366575_ac7f63e86e.jpg" alt="DSC_0896" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br />“Oh Brazil, you shameless hussy! You unbridled temptress! We have to give all your plants proper Christian names to quell your wanton ways!”<br /><br />And the butterflies laughed and said, “Whatever man. You go your way, we'll go ours.”<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/38109733@N03/3506172072/" title="DSC_0907 by lovelydharma690, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3599/3506172072_e316f7bc9c.jpg" alt="DSC_0907" height="332" width="500" /></a></div>lovelydharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16512055599650919939noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23322591.post-3390692304176400952009-04-22T17:12:00.009-03:002009-04-22T17:56:12.758-03:00Celebrating Earth Day on the LooIn honor of Earth Day, I’d like to introduce you to our new best friend (on the left).<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3465846155/" title="biodigestor by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3575/3465846155_74fc8d7df7.jpg" alt="biodigestor" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br />Anyone know what it is? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?<br /><br />It’s a Bio-Digestor!!!!<br /><br />We’re so excited about this we could just… well…. pee!! And with this, we'll finally no longer have to do it behind the <span style="font-style: italic;">bananeiras</span>.<br /><br />So what is a bio-digestor you ask? Well, it digests biological stuff. At least at the end stages of that stuff.<br /><br />In carving out our little spot of paradise (petulant, bratty and trying as it can be), we have done our best to keep it as sustainable and low-impact as possible. Not too hard so far, given that we don’t even have electricity.<br /><br />But a suitable arrangement for our plumbing and septic had us a bit flummoxed for a while. The traditional way on the <span style="font-style: italic;">roça</span> is either the afore mentioned <span style="font-style: italic;">bananeiras</span>, or if you’re lucky enough to have running water and a porcelain <span style="font-style: italic;">vaso</span>, you build a septic leech field. Well, behind our house and a level down is a large swamp. A beautiful one actually, full of lilies and cattails and birds. It is home to all sorts of animals and plays a very important role in the ecosystem, one that we didn’t want to upset with possible contamination from a nearby septic field.<br /><br />Enter the bio-digestor. This little beast can handle organic waste of up to 600 liters. After it does its digesting job, it releases from one end water that is tested 99% pure. And from the other end, into a small casement box the effluent gathers which once every 4-6 months needs to be cleaned out. It comes as dry as ash, clean and uncontaminated and can be buried or sprinkled about as fertilizer. Cool, hugh!?<br /><br />(Here's C with his internet instructions trying to work out with Vicente how to install it.)<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3465847989/" title="biodigestor by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3587/3465847989_67ec72fe17.jpg" alt="biodigestor" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br /><br />But wait, there is more…<br /><br />Do you know what makes this grand process work? You’ll never guess….<br /><br />Soda bottles.<br /><br />Yes indeed! The bio-digestor runs on PET plastic! We were totally blown away when the guy in the store opened up the top to give us a tour and out tumbled chopped up Sprite and Coke bottles. We though they were just in there for packing material, but no! They are actually the filter that enables the anaerobic process to take place. Don’t ask me how, I haven’t quiet figured it out. It’s a design invented by some clever Brazilians (they are very good at coming up with ways to reuse PET plastic) and I think patented as well.<br /><br />Up until now, bio-digestors have been mainly used for recycling livestock waste. But there are a number of efforts being made, especially in areas where poverty and sanitation are real issues, to bring them into residential/community use. Many bio-digestor designs allow for the methane gas they produce to be reclaimed and used for heating, electricity and cooking gas! How cool is that?<br /><br />We’re very excited about our newest addition. I was really hoping that we’d have it installed and ready to be inaugurated by Earth Day, but alas, as usual, things are moving slowly. So for the time being, we’re still roughing it in the great outdoors.lovelydharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16512055599650919939noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23322591.post-78254555360272681392009-04-20T17:40:00.008-03:002009-04-20T21:23:42.285-03:00Life Less LargeWe’ve all been hearing a lot lately about how people are cutting back, economizing, living more frugally. “The Crisis! The Crisis!” my nightly NPR broadcast screams. Even people who are comfortable and haven’t been laid off or foreclosed or even had their hours cut (although they may have seen their 401K disappear) have been trying to spend less and cut out extravagances. Of course this isn’t doing anything to help the economic recovery – there are a lot of people who have the same paycheck coming in now as before – but fear and uncertainty and also a certain solidarity that “we’re all in this together and it just isn’t fashionable to indulge” have cause a lot of people to reign it in. I think it’s good in one way because the American culture of excessive consumption could use a little balancing. But on the other hand of course, people are going to have to unfreeze their wallets eventually if any promise of recovery is to be realized. They will, we can all be sure of that.<br /><br />In some ways, principally psychological, Brazilians haven’t felt the full impact of the global meltdown. The middle class was just starting to stretch its wings into the buy-more-spend-more areas. They were just beginning to dip their toes into those shark infested waters alternately known as “Living Large” or “Spending beyond your means.” So now that they’ve had to scale back, it feels more like business as usual than the sky is falling. For most part, that is. Certainly there have been layoffs and people are feeling the pinch in very real ways. Retail sales are down, wallets are closed, people are complaining. But given all the economic upheaval Brazilians from the age of 25 + have had to weather in their lives, I think for many this just feels like one more spin around the economic merry-go-round that has once again been manically and recklessly pushed by the invisible hands of greed. So they heave a big sigh, put their heads down and trudge onwards.<br /><br />Anyway, all this talk got me thinking about the ways that living in Brazil has caused me to live less like a pre-crisis American with swagger in my pocketbook and more like a Brazilian, cautious and frugal. And although these changes were initially made out of necessity over choice, I’ve come to appreciate how it often translates into a less impactful way of life.<br /><br />Here’s a few things I noted that have changed about my lifestyle. And I think they hold true for a large swath of Brazilians down the middle as well.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">1. No clothes dryers:</span><br />Clothes are hung up to air dry. Electricity is just too expensive for the great majority of people to run them. A very small market for them also makes it a very expensive appliance to buy.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">2. Lights on timers:</span><br />All the public spaces in our building have light switches that you flip when you come into the area and that automatically shut off after a few minutes. This is largely a hold over from Brazil’s energy crisis in 2001. Energy saving compact florescent bulbs have also been omnipresent since that time.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">3. Conscious car use:</span><br />Gasoline is expensive, although the reasons for this are confounding. Brazil is now 100% fuel independent yet gas prices remain nearly double than what people pay back home in the States. (Someone’s Petrobras pockets somewhere are nice and heavy). Current gas prices are hovering somewhere around R$2.55 a liter, which translates into USD $4.70 a gallon. Remember when gas prices hit that high in the United States? People were freaking out. For Brazilians it’s just another day at the pump. What that means for many is more carpooling, public transportation (when available) and smaller fuel-efficient cars.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">4. Less packaging:</span><br />I’ll never forget buying a small bedside lamp at a behemoth home improvement super-store back in Brooklyn. It had a tiny stem base and a small square paper lampshade. The whole thing wasn’t bigger than a breadbox, but it came with more plastic, Styrofoam and cardboard than my Imac. The added cost of producing and shipping goods with useless, unnecessary packaging doesn’t make any fiscal sense in Brazil. Packaging on everything from ketchup to dry cleaning to the new printer we just bought is lighter, leaner and minimal. Thinking about this, the line from that <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdB7GDZY3Pk" target="_blank">fake Trader Joe’s commercial</a> keeps playing in my head – the one about 4 Fuji apples in a plastic box. Is there anything more pointedly indicative of unnecessary packaging than that?<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">5. Fix it, re-use it, milk-it-to-death:</span><br />There are repair shops for everything imaginable in Brazil. Recently I stumbled upon a galleria in a poorer section of our downtown shopping district that has a line up of 4 stores that specialize in umbrella repair. UMBRELLA repair. Yes. You can fix that bent, broken five buck umbrella that flipped itself inside out not ten minutes after buying it on a street corner one rainy day you got caught out wet and empty handed. It seems they’ll fix anything here in Brazil. Blender on the fritz? There’s a fix-it store for that. Cheap boom box isn’t reading cd’s anymore? They can fix that too. Blew out your counterfeit Nikes imported from Paraguay? Yep, there’s a store on every block that will put a new sole on them. When things finally do grow worn and tired, they aren’t typically thrown out either. They’re passed down to the maid who proceeds to fix, re-use and milk-to-death whatever comes her way.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">6. Everything smaller:</span><br />And that applies not just to the famous bikinis. Not only are things less weighted down by unnecessary packaging, but the quantity, volume, general bulk of things is more diminutive. I’m thinking principally of items on my grocery list. You’ll never find a gallon of milk on the shelves here – 1 liter (1/4 gallon) is the biggest it comes. Gigantic tubs of mayonnaise? Not at the consumer retail level. Even the regular sized jars of things like mayonnaise are sold in a smaller quantity than they are in the States. Try to stock up on Tylenol – you’ll never find a big fat economy bottle, but instead will go home with a bag of pills in 8 count sleeves.<br /><br />There have been numerous studies done on our consumption habits that have proven over and over that we eat/use more when things are presented in larger quantities. Hand someone a giant bag of Smartfood and ask him to eat until he’s full and he’ll eat far more than the guy next to him who was handed a bag half the size. Talk to any Brazilian who's traveled to the US and one of the things they always marvel at is the portion size of food in restaurants – “and on top of that they give you breadsticks!” they always exclaim in disbelief. (Followed inevitably by a comment about American waistlines…)<br /><br />In Brazil things haven’t typically been sold in larger quantities, largely in order to keep retail prices attainable (with grocery items there is also the concern of spoilage in a tropical climate). But what it amounts to is that people end up using less and certainly wasting less of whatever it is – mayo, olive oil, turkey flavored potato chips (yes, they exist). And the end result being, they tend to look better in those tiny bikinis.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">7. Eating local</span><br />Yes, I went ahead and pulled out the buzz word of the second half of the decade. In Brazil it’s largely inevitable. A quick perusal of my kitchen, came up with less than 6 items that had been produced out of state. Now one big factor in this may be that I live at the crossroads of the agricultural and industrial part of the country. But even so, there are still far more local brands throughout the country than there are national ones. It just costs too much and the roads and railways are too undeveloped to go shipping lettuce from one end of the country to the other. (The last time I visited my father in Panama, we bought lettuce shipped in from Salinas California. Talk about a carbon heavy salad! Can tropical Panama not grow its own lettuce?)<br /><br />Local eating is not limited to just fresh fruits and veggies, but goes for a lot of packaged food too. In my kitchen I find corn meal, rice, beans, hot sauce, loaf of bread, frozen lasagna, pão de queijo and so on – all relatively local, produced in the state of Minas. I realize however that this may not hold true everywhere in Brazil, especially the Northeast where agriculture has long been based around a single crop economy of sugar cane. But there instead of importing what they don’t have, people historically gone hungry. That’s changed to a certain degree now, but there are probably still far more local products on the shelves than ones brought in from other places in the country.<br /><br /><br />Those are just a few of the thing I could think of. I’m sure I and my fellow ex-pat bloggers could come up with more. But while life and consumption habits are scaled back and simpler in Brazil, that doesn’t mean that Brazilians aren’t chomping at the bit to live large. Everybody wants the bigger car, the flat screen tv, the new house – even if it means that it has to be bought in installments at unreasonable interest rates. But those desires continue to be tempered by economic forces and at least for now, living the average day-today existence in Brazil feels more sustainable and a bit greener – without having to try at all.lovelydharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16512055599650919939noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23322591.post-84295972839908605502009-04-13T15:11:00.012-03:002009-04-16T12:47:10.294-03:00Up in SmokeWe didn’t burn any literal figures of Judas on Saturday night, but we did burn a lot of bureaucracy.<br /><br />My friend Juliana’s father recently passed away. It was very sudden. He was only 60 and it caught everyone by surprise. She’s now dealing with a mountain of legalities trying to sort out his estate. In emptying out his house, she collected 6 huge trash bags of paperwork dating back to the 1980’s. He had worked as a civil servant for the <span style="font-style: italic;">ferroviária</span> and a lot of the papers had his CPF (social security #) and other personal information so in the absence of a paper shredder and in presence of a cool fall night and plenty of red wine we decided to make a bonfire.<br /><br />It was good for her I think. People are buried very quickly in Brazil, usually within 24 hours and while Catholics hold a mass for the deceased 7 days later that tends to be as significant or even more so than the actual burial, there really does seem to be an absence of mourning rituals that help ease the transition for the family. We were up in the village when we got news in the morning that he had died the night before and that the funeral was being held that afternoon. We didn’t have time to get back for it. I asked if there was somewhere I could send flowers and the response was a bit confused. Flowers? For what exactly? They don’t do that here. Then we went to pay a visit to his house and I asked C’s aunt if there was any particular etiquette I didn’t know about - like do people bring a dish of food for the family? No, she said, we don’t do that here. It felt kind of strange not being able to do anything except offer words of condolence. But I guess death is like that. You can’t do anything. We are all completely helpless to the essential fact that every birth is eventually followed by death.<br /><br />Burning up years of bureaucratic accumulation I think was a good cathartic exercise. And I felt happy to have at least something practical I could offer her by in the way of help. We tore open bag after bag and sent the papers fluttering into fire. It took us until well after 3am to get through all the bags.<br /><br />Max decided to get in on the act and pulled out a box of papers that had been accumulating in his house for decades. He owned a video store back in the late 80’s and early 90’s and most of his papers were in relation to the store. For some comic relief, C started reading through some of the receipts for the store’s purchases and it sent us howling in laughter. Check it out:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://yogarobyn.googlepages.com/sc005a6a3e.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 550px; height: auto;" src="http://yogarobyn.googlepages.com/sc005a6a3e.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Yes, it really truly is a receipt for $18,000,000 <span style="font-style: italic;">cruzeiros</span>. Eighteen Million. The purchase of <span style="font-style: italic;">Imperdoáveis</span> (Clint Eastwood’s <span style="font-style: italic;">Unforgiven</span>) alone cost $5,600,000 <span style="font-style: italic;">cruzeiros</span>. And that's over 2 million for <span style="font-style: italic;">Pinocchio</span>! This receipt is from 1993, right before the <span style="font-style: italic;">cruzeiro</span> was flipped into it’s 3rd incarnation, the <span style="font-style: italic;">cruzeiro real</span> – which would be the 4th currency in 7 years. The currency changes didn’t do anything to stem the rampant inflation that was increasing at a rate of 30% a month. They just kept changing the name and knocking off zeros so that the calculators could handle it. Bus fare alone cost 16,000 <span style="font-style: italic;">cruzeiros</span>!<br /><br />In looking around for details I read that at the time the currency was considered such a joke the central bank had a hard time to find mascots to print on it. No one wanted to be associated with it – the family of author Guimaraes Rosa (considered the Brazilian James Joyce) turned the central bank down when asked for permission to reprint his image. On the 5,000 bill they ended up putting a traditional looking character of a <span style="font-style: italic;">gaucho</span> (a cowboy from the south of Brazil) on it framed by what were supposed to be mate leaves – although botanists protested that they were so badly drawn that they looked like weeds.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizu9w2MIf45uR3kOjbNGZBhzNptk1qauMN1T9lGKXEiCJjAS3qf97HSfmI8YT1xqNBjIuvRChty4HLOWnXwf-Z7PL37bNNdCXaq65wOCaprgEmJ7DuLv3utKHXPZRw4pIJ2lVE/s1600-h/150_5000cruzeirosreais.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 185px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizu9w2MIf45uR3kOjbNGZBhzNptk1qauMN1T9lGKXEiCJjAS3qf97HSfmI8YT1xqNBjIuvRChty4HLOWnXwf-Z7PL37bNNdCXaq65wOCaprgEmJ7DuLv3utKHXPZRw4pIJ2lVE/s400/150_5000cruzeirosreais.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5324250839461344546" border="0" /></a><br />I also remember seeing in a exhibit at the New Museum in New York of Brazilian artists, one (I wish I could remember his name) painted on <span style="font-style: italic;">cruzeiros</span> because they were worth less than the paper he would have otherwise purchased.<br /><br />The <span style="font-style: italic;">cruzeiro</span> lasted until 1994 when they finally got things under control with the current currency, the <span style="font-style: italic;">real</span>. After scrounging around for some estimate on the exchange rate at the time – which was hard to pinpoint, with the inflation rising so rapidly on a daily basis – I did the calculations on Max’s movie purchases. In US dollars, that 5 million <span style="font-style: italic;">cruzeiro</span> movie would have been around $70 USD.<br /><br />We saved that receipt from the fire. If for nothing else then just to remember that crisis or not, things are relatively pretty darn good. But the rest we burned. Some things truly are better left in the past.lovelydharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16512055599650919939noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23322591.post-89253333253703391982009-04-10T20:51:00.012-03:002009-04-11T13:28:15.815-03:00Coisas da Roça<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3430431774/" title="DSC_0737 by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3398/3430431774_4cb043e0a5.jpg" alt="DSC_0737" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br />It’s Semana Santa, the Holy Week, the heart of the Catholic liturgical year and pretty much the lynchpin of the whole theology. It’s a very sacred week with many activities. Passion plays, processions, masses, music performances and over 25 tons (tons!) of fish were sold in my city alone. Many business and most restaurants are closed today in observance of Good Friday, Sexta-feira de Paixão.<br /><br />Geraldinha mentioned that growing up on the roça, you had to clean your house thoroughly on Palm Sunday and were not allowed to do any cleaning at all until after Easter Sunday. You couldn’t touch a broom or do any mending. That in addition to the <a href="http://lovelydharma.blogspot.com/2009/02/coisa-da-roca.html">ban on hunting and fishing.</a><br /><br />But as holy and austere as this all important week is in the largest Catholic country on earth, there is at least one tradition celebrated throughout the countryside of Brazil that involves a party: the burning of Judas - a tradition not part of the church rituals.<br /><br />I’ve never seen this ritual because, like Carnaval and Christmas, the Holy Week is a very expensive time to travel in Brazil. It’s a vacation week for most families, kids are off school, and prices on hotels double. So we’ve stayed home. Maybe next year if our house is livable, we’ll be up in the village and get to see the festivities, but for now I just get my stories second hand.<br /><br />On Good Friday, in many small country villages, an effigy of Judas is strung up, tortured and then burned the next day. Usually the effigy has the cutout face of a corrupt politician, or anyone else that the village may hold a particular resentment towards. He’s smacked around a little like a piñata and people are encouraged to yell at it and get their frustrations out. Children sometimes make their own Judas doll and go around with it bugging shop owners for candy, until they fork over the sweets. Then on Saturday afternoon or evening Judas is lit on fire and sometimes fireworks are even set off from inside the effigy. The burning is usually accompanied by music and followed by a party.<br /><br />The Burning of Judas started in Europe and is still practiced there in some places, although the celebrations have been toned down a good deal because of the obvious anti-Semitism involved. But I don't think that part of it enters into the countryside rituals here in Brazil. Most of the people who participate are simple, many illiterate, and probably don't have much inkling of a connection between their Judas effigy and the Christian dogma that vilified the Jewish people. Instead it’s about scapegoating their grievances for the year on the figure of Judas - particularly with politicians. Geraldinha tells me that they didn’t always even refer to the effigy as Judas – usually they called it by the name of whoever they have a gripe with and frequently it was more than one person. They’d chant, “Let’s burn Sr. João! And now let’s burn Sr. Marcos! And now let’s burn Sr. Henrique!” The poor Judas effigy was assigned many different roles.<br /><br />Winter is over for many of you, (you lucky tulip-tiptoeing northerners) and while Spring doesn’t play into the Easter symbolism here, it is still considered a time of renewal and rebirth. And as twisted as the roots of the Burning Judas ritual maybe, those countryside fun-loving cachaça soaked celebrations are held in in a the light-hearted spirit of letting let go of past hurts and grievances and starting fresh. While I don't think any of us are going to go around burning a Judas effigy, we could probably all use a way to metaphorically get rid of our grievances and move on from whatever is weighing us down.<br /><br />Happy Easter!lovelydharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16512055599650919939noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23322591.post-74861059401279475992009-04-08T12:49:00.008-03:002009-04-08T18:17:27.573-03:00The New World Order?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx1sb96KCR2wcSDD84xiQIoPk0KJGvcwpjIJGZGJwnU7DhBtBXsRMlpL1Lx52DfTqJBT8YzT7gYiv8ZBvU8XFuZpM-RzXvoL7ergj29HRe6aMfXipYdQ9y17g6HEKY_oe49ZUh/s1600-h/IBSA+Heads+of+State-Government+%2813.9.2006%29-II.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx1sb96KCR2wcSDD84xiQIoPk0KJGvcwpjIJGZGJwnU7DhBtBXsRMlpL1Lx52DfTqJBT8YzT7gYiv8ZBvU8XFuZpM-RzXvoL7ergj29HRe6aMfXipYdQ9y17g6HEKY_oe49ZUh/s400/IBSA+Heads+of+State-Government+%2813.9.2006%29-II.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5322432727520470850" border="0" /></a><br />Am I too idealistic to think that perhaps there could be a new world order dedicated to fighting poverty and improving human rights? One that would not allow its developing economic muscle to become corrupted by greed and a desire for dominance at any cost, be it social or environmental. Could that really happen? Or am I just naive. Yeah, that's more likely.<br /><br />But as we watch the United States and Europe melting down before our eyes, it seems that India, Brazil and South Africa are quietly conspiring to level the global playing field while keeping China at arms length.<br /><br /><br />Today's Wall Street Journal has an article about this coalition of three called the IBSA:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">IBSA is not a security alliance -- Brazil and South Africa, after all, are harsh critics of India's nuclear program. What it is, rather, is an alliance that seeks to use democratic ideals to effectively reshape the U.N. and other international institutions to serve poor countries better. In a strange way, IBSA is a community of democracies from hell -- a group of countries with impeccable democratic credentials who are using that common identity to challenge rather than advance U.S. interests. International relations scholars call this "soft balancing" because rather than confronting the U.S., they are simply trying to restrain and reorient it. The reason this may work is that, as democracies, these countries have the moral stature in the international system to achieve those goals. Indian and Brazilian diplomats in particular, already among the world's best, can advance the IBSA agenda because they share common ideals.</span><br /><br /><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123912571625797593.html#mod=asia_opinion" target="blank">Click here</a> to read the full article.<br /><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123912571625797593.html#mod=asia_opinion"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" target="blank""></span></a>lovelydharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16512055599650919939noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23322591.post-39822468516186391862009-04-07T14:24:00.016-03:002009-04-07T15:33:47.575-03:00Some thoughts on Cinema BrasileiroLast week Ray commented on the post about Roberta Sá and my complaints that it’s hard to find quality Brazilian cultural activities. He mentioned films and how directors keep coming out with these violent shoot ‘em up in the favelas movies. Well, he’s right to a degree – after <span style="font-style: italic;">Cidade de Deus</span> (<span style="font-style: italic;">City of God</span>)made such a huge splash both here and internationally, there have been a number of films that followed suit. The most notable recently was that abhorrent film (that everyone but me seemed to love) <span style="font-style: italic;">Tropa de Elite</span> (<span style="font-style: italic;">The Elite Squad</span>). If you haven’t seen it, it’s a violent film about a good cop fighting both the corrupt system and the drug dealers. The acting was pretty good (even the worst movies here tend to have good acting because there are so few options for the country’s actors.) Artistically however it has all the production values and creativity of a mediocre made for TV movie, and thematically it is tedious and unchallenging.<br /><br />The reason I really didn’t like it was that it seemed like bait and switch propaganda trying to use shock value to actually lull people into some sense of security and distract from the real roots of the problems. It’s message seems to go something like, “See folks, we have heroes saving us from the bad guys. Don’t worry about a thing, just don’t buy drugs (cause drugs are bad and it gives money to the bad guys) and the police will take care of the rest and all our problems will be solved.” If only it were that easy.<br /><br />I have some friends who are very well-educated, dedicated Spiritists, meditation and yoga practicing pacifists – who <span style="font-weight: bold;">loved</span> the movie. I gave up trying to talk people out of it after running into a wall with them.<br /><br />But just because violence and drugs has been the overriding theme in the Brazilian movies that have gotten the most notice recently, that doesn’t mean that other movies aren’t being made. They just aren’t getting much attention or distribution - so not many people know about them.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Casa de Areia</span> is a good example of this. Directed by Andrucha Waddington and staring the country's two most famous actresses, Fernanda Torres and Fernanda Montenegro, it got little attention here in its home country. We were living here in 2005 when it came out and the first time it crossed my radar screen was when I read a pretty <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/2006/08/11/movies/11hous.html?scp=3&sq=House%20of%20Sand&st=cse" target="_blank">glowing review in the New York Times </a>a year later. It's a lovely film.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMBoHHswA0YS9I_zRv9iUw8b7c18PYqDDyQ0CNNeqtPFUNYCwvWQOO_OGXNYN3c5jLwhQEOsu4Cl1GmxzNODTjh641aIAuc4lqQfMqyZ7AkT_i2ioEFN63wOjkIawR6oswEdfP/s1600-h/casa-de-areia-poster02.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 268px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMBoHHswA0YS9I_zRv9iUw8b7c18PYqDDyQ0CNNeqtPFUNYCwvWQOO_OGXNYN3c5jLwhQEOsu4Cl1GmxzNODTjh641aIAuc4lqQfMqyZ7AkT_i2ioEFN63wOjkIawR6oswEdfP/s400/casa-de-areia-poster02.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5322003064946191522" border="0" /></a><br />Another perfect example is <span style="font-style: italic;">Linha de Passe</span>. Directed by the biggest name director in Brazilian cinema, Walter Salles, it won a bunch of awards in film festival circuits, including Best Actress at Cannes. It was released here in Brazil last September and I don’t ever remember seeing it shown or advertised at the movie theaters. It’s coming out on DVD now so we’ll finally get to see it.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtBrRhoDGajxcKjPfoSzFHOQu3FLR6NwcJfLRbpsieDMrIuhnXVZAbpsxLCaAXcysIssxQjlHIEX-Z-yNP0zKf1wEVuHcn8R727djfE9Jrq2TquhGoUSZcaJjOYIizrscPlm5Z/s1600-h/linha-de-passe-poster01.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 274px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtBrRhoDGajxcKjPfoSzFHOQu3FLR6NwcJfLRbpsieDMrIuhnXVZAbpsxLCaAXcysIssxQjlHIEX-Z-yNP0zKf1wEVuHcn8R727djfE9Jrq2TquhGoUSZcaJjOYIizrscPlm5Z/s400/linha-de-passe-poster01.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5322003072539461810" border="0" /></a><br />So the problem isn’t that Brazilian film directors aren’t making nuanced, sophisticated films. They are. The problem is that they aren’t getting distributed. In 2007, Brazilian made movies accounted for only 10% of films shown in Brazilian movie theaters and although there has been a bit of a push by Brazilian filmmakers to change this, the number hasn’t grown much. And this isn’t because Brazilians aren’t making movies, or that there isn’t an audience for them. But rather the movies that do get made can’t even begin to compete with the marketing machine that backs American made films. So the films don't make any money and the national industry continues to struggle.<br /><br />One estimate has a whooping 65% of the total revenue earned by the American film industry made in markets outside of the United States. Here in Brazil, the movie theater franchises that monopolize the market are multinationals. Companies like UCI, Cinemark and Hoyts General Cinema with their surround sound digital technology and stadium seating, show predominantly American films – which bring in the revenue to keep the cinemas operating. How can the practically non-existent Brazilian film industry, which struggles to raise the money to get even a few films a year into production, even begin to compete with the marketing power of Hollywood?<br /><br />Naturally Brazilians have had little chance to develop a taste for their own movies. They earn very little money, are poorly marketed, weakly distributed, and do nothing to further the Brazilian cineasta’s dream of developing a national cinema industry. If there were money behind it, there is certainly no shortage of talent. Show up at any one of the country’s film festivals and you will see a number of very good, original feature length movies as well as documentary, shorts and animation, that apart from the festival circuit receive very little, if any, screen time.<br /><br />A few years ago we spent ten days at the <span style="font-style: italic;">Mostra de Cinema de Tiradentes</span> (an annual film festival in the city of Tiradentes in Minas Gerais). C had gotten accepted to a digital filmmaking workshop that ran as part of the festival.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2dDQoV73HqHyWgWhrB6kqK6GPnOgD2pKxhL00mLRvCeTD9jOpoXA5JKDATTs09nRbAwMqaQT9TKWhXpcOMF5siawGEZ-E0j61pLQybVHrgDuHVTBmbKoRIEQ22H-NLr5POyAw/s1600-h/film+festival.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 319px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2dDQoV73HqHyWgWhrB6kqK6GPnOgD2pKxhL00mLRvCeTD9jOpoXA5JKDATTs09nRbAwMqaQT9TKWhXpcOMF5siawGEZ-E0j61pLQybVHrgDuHVTBmbKoRIEQ22H-NLr5POyAw/s400/film+festival.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5322008626196015682" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFPMw7FgVj-SsuJcBvHXsv08hNVgV3kAaGD_aEAFCW1gpNq3GJyfBUcGH4aUuXonK9wmMJNlKdDddM8Ss4OLBB5RoNZ7Sv4GEb-R_Vu0ReMmly24Nw_WnePZ3XuxECS32h3q9S/s1600-h/Tiradentes+Film+festival+workshop.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFPMw7FgVj-SsuJcBvHXsv08hNVgV3kAaGD_aEAFCW1gpNq3GJyfBUcGH4aUuXonK9wmMJNlKdDddM8Ss4OLBB5RoNZ7Sv4GEb-R_Vu0ReMmly24Nw_WnePZ3XuxECS32h3q9S/s400/Tiradentes+Film+festival+workshop.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5322008618511997442" border="0" /></a><br /><br />I spent the afternoons watching movies and sightseeing around the historic city with Dharma and eventually was roped into participating in the short film the workshop produced.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio2b3_GaEIF6LC-MqNQU4Tr3jde2z_Gq870nmOKkUrPwNHMfS4iDp3HyUjJrN_gTIc60poVi1uCtF2TYg6n2Ee1dlACerYrqRar9HnkIYcD0YxffDiU7-V6EUn_b8faT8qkMtF/s1600-h/Film+festival+workshop-2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 285px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio2b3_GaEIF6LC-MqNQU4Tr3jde2z_Gq870nmOKkUrPwNHMfS4iDp3HyUjJrN_gTIc60poVi1uCtF2TYg6n2Ee1dlACerYrqRar9HnkIYcD0YxffDiU7-V6EUn_b8faT8qkMtF/s400/Film+festival+workshop-2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5322008614220672642" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6qeExdDkoGPOCZdykjv1MOH0J36sSb7ys5n0HM299WpmbD33hq4slg9vsNRly8KHu4YTncmvXH0R3dBI39EXwIEq1GgPrNU5qmlTkENDnIUTenP0rYtJjGzNozyo8sQPKaIXQ/s1600-h/film+festival+workshop.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6qeExdDkoGPOCZdykjv1MOH0J36sSb7ys5n0HM299WpmbD33hq4slg9vsNRly8KHu4YTncmvXH0R3dBI39EXwIEq1GgPrNU5qmlTkENDnIUTenP0rYtJjGzNozyo8sQPKaIXQ/s400/film+festival+workshop.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5322008618315256946" border="0" /></a><br />It was a disastrous little 5 minute short – exactly what you’d expect from 25 students trying to collaborate on everything from script to costumes to direction in ten days. The only thing that turned out decently were the opening credits which were filmed by the guy who was assisting the director of the workshop. But it was a good and sometimes hilarious learning experience.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij_vg_-DA7setsl5KJDzuY-vYhydsbVdIBYKb9P2BrWoeWUKZc4wry-2oIpyPVGjrPqFSuCYyYGN0nxg8y9nnB2a9IRUULLzFyvC3byCdBMMe8YCLD1QF7uaCfElg9tHx5B6Ib/s1600-h/Tiradentes+film+festival.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij_vg_-DA7setsl5KJDzuY-vYhydsbVdIBYKb9P2BrWoeWUKZc4wry-2oIpyPVGjrPqFSuCYyYGN0nxg8y9nnB2a9IRUULLzFyvC3byCdBMMe8YCLD1QF7uaCfElg9tHx5B6Ib/s400/Tiradentes+film+festival.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5322008621150838066" border="0" /></a><br /><br />While we were there we did get to see a few feature length films that definitely proved that there is a lot more being explored in Brazilian cinema than violence. Here’s a short list (in no particular order) of some good recent Brazilian cinema. Check these out – if you can find them…<br /><br /><ul><li><span style="font-style: italic;">Sonhos de Peixe (Fish Dreams)</span></li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">Crime Delicado (Delicate Crime)</span></li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">O Ano em Que Meus Pais Saíram de Férias (The Year My Parents Went on Vacation)</span></li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">Anjos do Sol (Angels of the Sun)</span></li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">O Concepção (The Conceptualist)</span></li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">Baile Perfumado (Perfumed Ball)</span></li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">O Veneno da Madrugada (The Evil Hour)</span></li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">Abril Despedaçado (Behind the Sun) </span></li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">Lavoura Arcaica (To the Left of the Father)</span></li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">Olga</span></li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">O Quatrilho</span></li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">Linha de Passa </span></li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">Casa de Areia (House of Sand)</span></li></ul><br />One thing that ties almost all of these movies together is that their funding took years and years to raise -- 14 years in the case of Ruy Guerra’s <span style="font-style: italic;">Evil Hour</span>. Anyway my list is not nearly complete – I’m sure there are Brazilian cinema lovers out there that know a lot more than me, so feel free to add suggestions!<br /><br />Oh, and in a funny anecdote, while we were at the Tiradentes Film Festival, the movie <span style="font-style: italic;">O Concepção</span> was being shown and one of the actors, Matheus Nachtergaele was in attendance. But much like his character in the film, he’s a bit of a drug fueled lunatic. One evening, C and I were sitting in the garden of one of the nicer restaurants in Tiradentes, conversing with the owner, an old friend of C’s. He brought us over to some benches in a quiet corner of the garden next to the hot tub he had just installed. (I know, a hot tub in a restaurant seems weird, but it was very tastefully done and had a bamboo screen around it). Anyway suddenly Matheus and his boyfriend came charging through. He was clearly high on something and he started tearing off all his clothes right there. We were trying to get up but were trapped in the corner between the building and the bamboo and couldn’t get past. The owner kept saying, wait, wait, hold on a second. But the crazy actor got stark naked and jumped in and then called to his boytoy to join him. We were tripping over chairs but managed to get away, barely containing our laughter.lovelydharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16512055599650919939noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23322591.post-43885375920016997512009-04-05T16:31:00.004-03:002009-04-05T16:52:32.130-03:00We're off to see the WizardWell, we may be battling poisonous caterpillars out there in the woolly wilds of our sitío, but at least the nearly finished Yellow Brick Road (that isn't yellow) has brought some order and semblance of civilization. We can now drive up the final stretch without choking on dust in the dry season. Or making the necessary prayers to all the saints in the rainy season.<br /><br />Civilization does create other worries however. Like traffic jams.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3350655638/" title="DSC_0758 by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3455/3350655638_4e65a513a1.jpg" alt="DSC_0758" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br /><br />And road rage if you accidentally cut someone off.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3350657072/" title="DSC_0759 by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3578/3350657072_99877b6086.jpg" alt="DSC_0759" height="331" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br />But I'm pretty sure most everyone agrees that these are a small price to pay. Except maybe the horse. I bet his hooves preferred the dirt.lovelydharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16512055599650919939noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23322591.post-19059360794379219122009-04-03T19:21:00.008-03:002009-04-03T23:09:09.522-03:00Deadly Bug!I'm having a little freak out right now.<br /><br />If bugs send you screaming out of the room, be advised, this post may NOT be for you.<br /><br />Personally I have no issues with bugs. Except cockroaches. I totally discriminate against cockroaches.<br /><br />But right now I'm absolutely freaked out by a bug encounter I had today. I wasn't at the time, but now that I've come to realize what a close brush I WILLINGLY had with a very poisonous caterpillar, I'm in total heebie-jeebies mode.<br /><br />So why am I going to inflict this upon you? Consider it a PSA. I know I have a lot of people living in Brazil who read this - so I am making it my civic duty to inform any other curious, nature loving thrill seekers, so you don't make the same mistake I nearly did.<br /><br />But first I'll write a little more to give you a chance to click away if you don't want to get freaked out. I'll leave the pictures for closer to the end.<br /><br />My father is a naturalist. Not by profession, but he has since his boyhood possessed a tremendous love and curiosity for the natural world. He loves all animals - and all creatures great and small, sometimes more than human race I think. He instilled this in me when I was very young. He would take me on nature walks where we lived at the foot of the Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming and teach me about the animals. He would show me things like how the red-winged black bird will pretend she has a broken wing and flop around on the ground to lead you away from the nest. How if you spook a beaver it will slap it's tail in the water to warn other beavers. He taught me how to fly fish (although I've long since forgotten.)<br /><br />He lives in Panama now with a menagerie that includes 3 sloths (two two-toed's and one three toed) dogs, cats, turtles and monkeys. There are actually more sloth's, but the three that he keeps close are ones that he rehabilitated after they had been hit by cars in their slow trek to find food.<br /><br />Here's a picture of him and one of his "babies".<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3409820923/" title="Roger and Lightnin' copy by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3385/3409820923_9b85819967.jpg" alt="Roger and Lightnin' copy" height="432" width="324" /></a><br /></div><br /><br />Another thing he taught me was not to be grossed out by bugs, but instead appreciate them for their beauty and diversity. I rarely kill them. (Cockroaches and mosquitoes being the exceptions.) If I find them in my house, even spiders, I do my best to capture them and toss them outside.<br /><br />I have a total respect for nature. And I know not to go picking up things that I am unfamiliar with. So when I came across a spiny caterpillar today, I knew I better not touch it, but I wasn't the least bit afraid of it.<br /><br />I took a bunch of pictures and even grabbed my pen and poked at it to try to get it out from under the leaves. It was about 8 cm long (3-4 inches) and just fascinating. I noticed greenish goo on the end of the pen and I tossed it into the dirt to be cleaned off later.<br /><br />I went and got C and Vicente to show them and sure enough, Vicente confirmed that this wasn't a guy to be messed with. He's poisonous. But that was about all he said.<br /><br />Then he picked up the pen and went to hand it to C who reached his hand out to take the end that had the goo on it and I screamed, just in time, "No! No! No!" They all kind of laughed at me, and C even said, "Oh, come on." But I took the pen and washed it in running water and dried it in the grass. I thought maybe I had saved him from a nasty sting. Maybe something like poison ivy.<br /><br />Little did I know that I had saved him from a trip to the hospital and possible life threatening complications!<br /><br />All right, are you ready to see some pictures.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3409802049/" title="Lonomia - Taturana Assassina by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3088/3409802049_7288e06b4d.jpg" alt="Lonomia - Taturana Assassina" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br />I looked him up and it is a species of Lonomia. In Brazil they call them <span style="font-style: italic;">taturanas assassinas</span>. They are a group that develop into Saturniid moths. Their venom is as deadly as a rattlesnake bite with just a fraction of the quantity. They are responsible for several deaths a year in Brazil. Most of the time the deaths are due to multiple contact - not just one - like brushing up against a cluster on a tree trunk, or reaching your hand into some leaves and not seeing several hiding on the backside of the foliage.<br /><br />The immediate sensation is described as violent burning pain. But worse, the toxin is a type of anticoagulant that causes internal hemorrhaging, destruction of blood cells and kidney failure. It's like the Ebola of bugs.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3410609346/" title="Lonomia - Taturana Assassina by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3625/3410609346_26f099e591.jpg" alt="Lonomia - Taturana Assassina" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br />And there I was poking it with a pen.<br /><br />Which my husband nearly put his hand on!<br /><br />ARRRRRGGGGG! See I'm totally freaking out. I wanna go back to the concrete jungle! I'll take cockroaches in a New York kitchen any day! Man, take your pick in Brazil - shoot outs in Rio, kidnappings in São Paulo, or kidney failure after coming in contact with a little bug. (Sorry Brazil, you know how much I love you... but sometimes you are more than challenging.)<br /><br />I let it crawl away without killing it. But damn. I wish I had. We do NOT want an infestation.<br /><br />All right, and in wrapping up my PSA, please note that there are over a dozen species and they have different colors. They also change color as they mature, from light green to reddish to black. You can google them to see more varieties. The distinguishing feature is their Christmas tree-like spines. There are other burning caterpillars that just cause a nasty sting and nothing more, but they do not have the horny "branches" that these guys have.<br /><br />Okay, are you all thoroughly skeezed out? I for one will be having nightmares...<br /><br /><br />Update:<br /><br />Okay, while I'm being a bit silly and freaking out here on the page I thought I would just add, that while doing some more research on this critter, I continue to be impressed that there is absolutely no joking about it. <br />A Canadian woman was killed last year after stepping on one and returning home without seeking medical treatment. If you get stung, the symptoms may not come on for a day or two, but you have to get to a hospital ASAP to get an anti-venom. And if possible kill and put the caterpillar in a jar (without touching it) so they can better identify the species. Also, if you're visiting Brazil, get treatment here because your home country probably won't have access to the anti-venom. That's what happened in the case of the Canadian woman.lovelydharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16512055599650919939noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23322591.post-34568996770817719772009-04-02T12:35:00.007-03:002009-04-02T14:11:58.844-03:00Changing a Light Blub for Minimum WageThey are fixing the road to the village. Not our semi-private road, but the main road that leads from Lima Duarte up into the mountains to the village, and then from the village all the way to the Park entrance.<br /><br />This is a project that has been in talks for over ten years. First the money was an issue, and then how to do it became the problem.<br /><br />Then the super rich guy who owns the huge <span style="font-style: italic;">fazenda</span> with the illegal landing strip wanted the city to buy all the materials material from him. This guy is a real scandalous character. He’s your typical extremely wealthy Brazilian who thinks and acts above the law. He chops down trees, plows roads where ever he feels like, going against all environmental laws which are actually well enforced throughout the region because with the park comes a hefty presence of IBAMA (Brazil's environmental agency). But Mr. Rich just does what he pleases and then pays the fines – they’re peanuts to him. (If <span style="font-style: italic;">we</span> however, happen to lay a finger on say… the dying tree that is about to topple over on top of our house… we’d be hit with a hefty fine that would really smart in our little pockets.)<br /><br />Mr. Rich owns a mining company that has operations all over the world. He flies in celebrities and politicians to spend the weekend at his <span style="font-style: italic;">fazenda</span>, housing them in a giant guest house replete with marble bathrooms and gold fixtures. He has continued to buy up land all the way around the park – essentially encircling it. He even bought an entire town on one end of the park. All the residents are packing up and moving on I’ve been told.<br /><br />Anyway, the mayor of Lima Duarte took a stand against him and refused to buy the material for paving the road from him. We are big fans of the mayor for this.<br /><br />Now, after nearly ten years of talks, the dirt road is finally getting it's make over. They are laying bricks by hand creating a lovely road that looks not at all unlike the one you’d follow, singing and skipping along, arm in arm, to see the Wizard.<br /><br />Actually I’m rather proud of them for the choice they made in materials. They could have cheaply slapped some asphalt down and called it a day. But it was finally agreed that it should be done in a rustic way to preserve the beauty of the area.<br /><br />We happened upon the work in progress:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3349831637/" title="Brazilian road work by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3575/3349831637_0d94d6a4b8.jpg" alt="Brazilian road work" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br /><br />Which naturally led to the question:<br /><br />“How many Brazilians does it take to change a light bulb?”<br /><br />Answer: 10 or more<br /><br /><ul><li>One to realize the light bulb needs changing.</li><li>One to drive to the store to buy a new one.</li><li>One to hand him the parking ticket as he enters the store garage.</li><li>One to push the buttons in the elevator as he exits the garage.</li><li>One to greet him/stand security watch at the store entrance </li><li>One to follow him around and help in find the light bulb.</li><li>One to write the receipt for the light bulb.</li><li>One to take the cash or debit card for the light bulb.</li><li>One to put the light bulb in the bag.</li><li>One to stamp his parking ticket.</li></ul><br />All right, all right…. You see where I’m going with this. (Seriously, it’s not an exaggeration.) And this is only if you have a ladder…. Just imagine if you have to go out and buy the ladder too!<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Mão de obra</span>, labor, in Brazil has been historically plentiful and cheap. Although that has been changing a lot in the last few years. Since Lula came to power in 2003, he’s raised the monthly minimum wage 46%, from R$240 in 2003 to it’s current R$465. On top of that, employers must pay into what would be the equivalent of unemployment and social security benefits. It has increased the purchasing power of many Brazilians, put more money circulating in Brazil’s economy, and helped raise a lot of people from the poverty line to a tenuous hold onto something resembling lower middle class.<br /><br />On the flip side however, the cost of living has also gone up. Food, clothing, basic necessities now cost more, making a minimum wage salary still very difficult to live on. This is further complicated by the fact that now small employers can no longer afford to hire as many workers. The yoga school where I worked was a classic example of this. In keeping their pricing structure on par with gyms and other yoga schools they have only been able to raise their monthly fee from R$63 to R$65 since 2005. This is a direct reflection of the lack of earning increase for Brazil’s struggling middle class. Without any way to raise their own fees without loosing students, the school has had to absorb the increases in all of their other costs - rent, electricity, water, toilet paper. And with the rise in labor costs, they can’t afford to have a full time secretary any longer. The answering machine now picks up the phone, and they scramble to fill out student’s registrations and take payments in between teaching classes.<br /><br />Similarly, C hasn't raised the hourly rate on his studio in 3 years. But we pay more for everything - including taxes. It’s the classic middle class squeeze, and just murder on small businesses.<br /><br />Lula remains enormously popular. Even Obama confirmed this today at the G20 (2? 29? whatever) with a handshake and a slap on the back he said something to the effect of “Now here’s the world’s most popular president. Because he’s a good guy.” Apparently the kerfluffle over the blue-eyed greed comment didn’t get under the brown-eyed, brown skin of ol’ Prez. O.<br /><br />Popular or not, Lula’s follow through on his promise to double the minimum wage salary is going to have a pretty big effect on the answer to the light bulb question. It’s my guess that in the near future, Brazilians will have to learn how to punch their own elevator buttons.lovelydharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16512055599650919939noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23322591.post-43420409410159380952009-03-29T21:03:00.010-03:002009-03-29T22:31:15.060-03:00Cigarettes and Cultural HegemonyThere is a reason we don’t go out much. Last night I was reminded why.<br /><br />I’m always complaining that we don’t have much social life. That there isn’t anything to do other than see a movie or go out to eat. That we live in a cultural wasteland.<br /><br />Now did I really just write that? I live in Brazil and stoop so low as to call it a cultural wasteland? <span style="font-style: italic;">Imagine</span>. Nothing could actually be farther from the truth. Brazilians have an incredibly rich, diverse culture. Music, art, dance, and film – they are incredibly innovative and creative. It’s just that most middle class Brazilians don’t seem to value it much. So good opportunities to experience Brazilian originality are few and far between outside of the hubs of São Paulo and Rio.<br /><br />And it’s because they haven’t learned how to value it, so honestly it's hard to hold them accountable. Several generations of Brazilians have cut their teeth on American music, movies, TV shows. They naturally aspire to a streamlined lifestyle of big cars and nice clothes, of blonde hair and blue eyes (yes Lula, even greedy ones) and of prosperity - all of which they associate with everything that the colossal cultural machine that is the United States churns out.<br /><br />I’m talking, of course, in generalities here, about the type of Brazilian, who subconsciously (or perhaps consciously) feels inferior and thinks that perhaps by bleaching their hair blonde and listening to American music that they’ll boost their self-esteem and feel more 1st world. I am aware that beyond this type of thinking, there are many Brazilian intellectuals and others who harbor a solid anti-American ideology based on what they call, and rightly so, American cultural imperialism.<br /><br />Now I know how sensitive Americans can get when their country is accused of shoving it’s culture down the gullets of the world, (I can hear my mom’s voice – “but we don’t force them watch our movies”) and certainly it is not the average American’s fault, and that anti-American sentiment is not personal. But what I think we often fail to appreciate is how aggressively the fruit of the American entertainment industry is marketed outside of the United States. Here in Brazil, multinational (read: American) multiplex movie theaters, showing 90% American films, monopolize the industry. You can see re-runs of Lost and Two and A Half Men on the television at any hour of the day. MTV Brasil pumps the sounds of America rock all day, the Black Eyed Peas sell over 15,000 tickets for a single show. Radio stations and clubs, record stores naturally want a piece of that action. They want more listeners, more patrons, so why not play the music that sells? Why not enter into lucrative contracts with multinational distributors to sell the movies, music and television shows that Brazilians have been consuming for so long that they have become habituated to and come to consider superior to their own.<br /><br />Money makes the world go round and it isn’t hard to sell the American dream, packaged in movies and music, for a tidy profit all over the planet. And, to quote the ultimate salesman of the spectacle, P.T. Barnum, “there’s a sucker born every minute.”<br /><br />Anyway, back to why we don’t get out much.<br /><br />Well other than the very rare, sparsely attended, poorly organized art openings or dance performances, the only other entertainment outlet outside of the afore mentioned stadium seating American owned multiplex, is music. Now you’d think that here in Brazil that wouldn’t be an issue at all. Most people who fall in love with the country do so first through its music. They might fantasize that out of every window drifts the soft <span style="font-style: italic;">jinga</span> of bossa nova. That the evenings are filled with samba and impromptu percussion jam sessions on street corners.<br /><br />Sorry, hate to ruin your afternoon, but sadly, you’re more likely to hear American style rock, especially classic rock, drifting out of those windows. Or you’re going to hear a band doing a cover of it, singing all the lyrics in English with a passable accent and likely not understanding anything they are saying. Or you might hear a Brazilian band singing their own original songs, but with a distinctively American sound and often with English lyrics thrown in. MTV shows a lot of Brazilian rap or hip hop (pronounced: <span style="font-style: italic;">happy</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">hippy hoppy</span>). And on any given Saturday night, you’re likely to hear the deplorable Carioca funk thundering out of cars and clubs. This "funk" they like to claim is something indigenous, but in truth it’s just a rehashing of electronic dance music developed in the northern hemispheres, that first gained popularity in Brazil in Rio’s favelas. (Again, there is that inferiority complex at work – if we throw dance parties with these foreign style electronic music, aren’t we stepping up and out of our position?)<br /><br />Most of the live music in our city follows these patterns. The bands label themselves as rock & roll (pronounced: <span style="font-style: italic;">hock e hole</span> which never fails to send me into the giggles) and for the most part are terribly uninventive, lacking in irony or self-reflection, and churn out, gig after gig, totally unmemorable, mediocre music that sounds like to my ears like a well rehearsed high school garage band from the late 80’s.<br /><br />But every 10th show or so, something distinctively Brazilian comes round. So last night we went to see this girl.<br /><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/KDAb_Z7fOuU&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/KDAb_Z7fOuU&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></embed></object><br /><br />Roberta Sá. She’s alright. She can sing (which is much more than I can say for some of Brazil’s more famous exports – ah-hem, Bebel…Astrud…) but she’s no Marrisa Monte – whom she’s getting compared to, more based on looks than anything else because she certainly doesn’t have the vocal chops or the originality. But she’s got a nice energy. Her set was actually a lot more upbeat than that droopy (annoyingly repetitive) clip above. But, what is to like about her is that she is actually making Brazilian music. She mixes in some samba rhythms, uses some traditional instrumentation like the <span style="font-style: italic;">pandeiro</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">cavaquinho</span>, and she didn’t go straight for the pop jugular. She’s getting a lot of attention and in a few years will probably ripen into a sturdy artist and make some good music.<br /><br />The club we saw her at was packed to the gills. Now I know I I’ve just spend several hundred words telling you about how your average middle class Brazilian doesn’t support their own culture – and now I must qualify that a bit.<br /><br />There are in fact a number of singers and bands singing in Portuguese and sounding somewhat Brazilian in flavor (although typically the American pop sound is dominant) that people get really into. They do show videos of these bands on MTV and they get radio play and people purchase their records. But they do not comprise the dominant taste or purchases of most upwardly mobile Brazilian consumers.<br /><br />And in the case of the packed club last night for Roberta’s show - I really can’t attribute the crowd to a desire to hear her sing and support a Brazilian artist. If this had been the case, 90% of the people would have been asking for their money back because you could barely hear her at all. It didn’t seem to matter to the crowd, in fact it didn’t appear that the majority paid their R$40 ticket to hear the music. They just came to hang out and been seen and shout over it. At least half people in attendance were yelling and drinking and carrying on the whole time as if her singing were nothing more than background noise.<br /><br />The acoustics were largely to blame, which is really appalling because the club has been open for just under two months and was specifically built to be a live music venue. One of the owners, who invested a bundle in constructing this very large multi-level, sophisticated space, consulted with C on the acoustics as it was being built. The plans had already been drawn up at this point and construction underway, but C pointed out very firmly that they were making a big mistake in constructing a two story vaulted space with a metal ceiling directly in front of and over the stage, while the majority of the spectators would watch the show either from the balcony or from the ten foot dropped space under it. He was right, of course. The sound shot up, hit the metal ceiling, bounced around a bit and got lost. Meanwhile from where we were, wedged in against the bar in the single story space under the balcony that comprises most of the club, it was hot, packed and the sound was completely muffled.<br /><br />But still, I have not yet arrived at why we don’t get out much.<br /><br />It’s the cigarette smoke.<br /><br />There are no smoking laws in Brazil (at least none that are enforced) and everyone and their mother smokes – at least when they are out in clubs and bars. We are not smokers. Most of the time we can tolerate a little – except in instances like at the sushi restaurant, when you are just about to dive into your plate of maguro sashimi and the guy at the table next to you lights up and starts blowing smoke rings all over your raw fish. But last night was just awful. Not only was the space an acoustic disaster, but there was absolutely no ventilation. We were crammed into a corner with no exit available until after the set finished and everyone around us was chain smoking.<br /><br />Today, I’ve washed my hair twice and I think it still smells and our clothes had to be tossed outside this morning because they were making the bedroom smell like the club. We both woke up with terrible hangovers, but not from drinking too much, because we didn’t, but instead from spending three hours breathing nothing but second hand smoke.<br /><br />And that, dear friends, is why we don’t get out much. I’ve said it before, but isn’t my Brazilian life so glamorous?lovelydharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16512055599650919939noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23322591.post-32266692688173602102009-03-28T00:51:00.008-03:002009-03-28T12:10:21.957-03:00You know you're Brazilified when...You <span style="font-style: italic;">finally</span> get around to labeling your spice cabinet and...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf8S6UBMMyza_UjlfgyvY2OeJqkK7igSi65dtMvHYsX2_wAhEyrcNa4uRjO2rPnd-fKE035o5SXQ5boNI2BUuEliCrvVUhV18xwy3OgsDFzIabV-E7XivCEFB2bP4ObchWInwg/s1600-h/DSC_0833.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 450px; height: auto;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf8S6UBMMyza_UjlfgyvY2OeJqkK7igSi65dtMvHYsX2_wAhEyrcNa4uRjO2rPnd-fKE035o5SXQ5boNI2BUuEliCrvVUhV18xwy3OgsDFzIabV-E7XivCEFB2bP4ObchWInwg/s400/DSC_0833.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5318254757107962818" border="0" /></a><br />you do it in Portuguese.<br /><br /><br />Well, in all fairness, I've been the only one whose sniffer has known what some of those spices were. And were I to have put it in English, that would have continued.<br /><br />When Ger cooks for us she doesn't often venture beyond salt and pepper. Although there was a period when she discovered the unlabeled turmeric (<span style="font-style: italic;">curcuma</span>) and put it on some chicken. C and I were both surprised at the change and commented that we liked it. Inspired and trying hard to please she went on a bit of a turmeric bender and put it in everything. One day C quietly asked me if I could perhaps tell her not to use it. I couldn't. She's so sweet and get's flustered and berates herself if she thinks she's done something wrong. I was afraid she'd take it as criticism of her cooking. So I hid it. When she asked where it was, I just said, "oh, I think we must have run out, but don't worry, a little salt and pepper will be just fine."<br /><br />I can't wait to see what takes place now that the spice cabinet is freshly armed with labels!<br /><br />And in other news -<br /><br /><br />Caqui! Caqui! Caqui!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhvb71De6CLVHeK4FgP94jO8cPAmE3VzxzYCbC4fZWheiReOrn8IRX1i3dFszY92Wy3BQG9Wpxcz5g3XO6xbBB8zsUtDk0V0r5Lt5Ve-Qy2lo1M2A1hioeeqqA_lDYyLvzIfjW/s1600-h/DSC_0841.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 450px; height: auto;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhvb71De6CLVHeK4FgP94jO8cPAmE3VzxzYCbC4fZWheiReOrn8IRX1i3dFszY92Wy3BQG9Wpxcz5g3XO6xbBB8zsUtDk0V0r5Lt5Ve-Qy2lo1M2A1hioeeqqA_lDYyLvzIfjW/s400/DSC_0841.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5318254764491822546" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Tis the season...<br /><br />Oh my dearest caqui!<br />How ever do I love thee -<br />your caramel sweetness abounds<br />in pushcarts all over town.<br />Just 4 for a buck<br />I am in such luck<br />we'll be sucking our fingers till dawn.lovelydharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16512055599650919939noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23322591.post-873548118382145342009-03-24T17:46:00.006-03:002009-03-25T13:13:29.632-03:00Transportation OptionsThe other week we were up at the <span style="font-style: italic;">sitío</span> when D’Artist stopped by to say hi.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3382498315/" title="DSC_0673 by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3585/3382498315_ff88f62394.jpg" alt="DSC_0673" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br />He’s back from some adventure somewhere on the globe. He brought news with him that our <a href="http://lovelydharma.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-to-woo-mayor.html">strategic lunch with the mayor</a> is yielding some results.<br /><br />There are two serious problem spots on the road into our valley. One day a spring just sprang -- right in the middle of the road. The southern part of Minas reaps the rewards of sitting on top of the Guarani aquifer and is full of towns with natural springs and healing waters. Our area is no exception although the waters frequently create more consternation than healing. I say that on one hand, but on the other, we have two springs on our property that run all year round, one of which will be channeled into the house as our water supply. We are very grateful for them. Just not when they decide to pop up in the middle of the road and make it an impassable muddy sinkhole (there's Mother Nature again, having a riotous old time...)<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3383317358/" title="DSC_0677 by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3541/3383317358_e070f78e2a.jpg" alt="DSC_0677" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br />We left the car as usual up top and walked down, while D’Artist, astride a most sensible form of transportation, showed up to informed us that the mayor was sending workers to dig a drainage ditch and install some drain pipes to direct the water off to the side of the road. It’s a start, but it’s going to take a lot more in the way of sand, gravel and cement to really get things going.<br /><br />Here we have an example of the two more practical ways the locals have come to deal with the muddy roads around the village.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3349823151/" title="DSC_0727 by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3463/3349823151_dbe11db3c5.jpg" alt="DSC_0727" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br />The horse and the Fusca.<br /><br />Fuscas are what old Volkswagon bugs are called here in Brazil. In some ways I think they are the true work horse behind the means of production in this country. They are cheap, easy to repair and the inexpensive spare parts can, in most cases, be carried around in the trunk – practical indeed, because they break down all the time. Even better, because they are so lightweight, they can get around on all sorts of terrain and perhaps should be celebrated as the original off-road vehicle.<br /><br />A friend of ours who owns a <span style="font-style: italic;">pousada</span> in the village loves to tell the story about driving up in the rain and seeing a bunch of wealthy Juiz de Forians who had gotten their R$200,000 Mitsubishi 4x4 stuck in the mud on an uphill. They all pointed and shouted in disbelief when he puttered past in his 1976 Fusca right up the mountain.<br /><br />The only downside – they are loud, have no shocks and really hard to shift. Even so, I’m pretty smitten with them. I've been on a campaign to convince C that we should seriously consider getting one. We love our <a href="http://lovelydharma.blogspot.com/2008/10/sugar-craving.html">bio-diesel beas</a><a href="http://lovelydharma.blogspot.com/2008/10/sugar-craving.html">t</a>, and we actually do need its size and space for C to lug music equipment around, but we’re beating it up pretty badly every time we drive it to our land and I wouldn’t mind the adventure of a thundering, bouncy little punch buggy.<br /><br />Its either that, or we get horses. They eat a little more, but there are no spare parts to carry.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3383318924/" title="DSC_0690 by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3624/3383318924_8b29b8927e.jpg" alt="DSC_0690" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /></div>lovelydharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16512055599650919939noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23322591.post-63983021676511037392009-03-23T12:08:00.006-03:002009-03-23T17:15:38.673-03:00Plans and projects<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3378664145/" title="DSC_0730 by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3626/3378664145_9af4dbed38.jpg" alt="DSC_0730" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br /><br />I just love these whimsical little recycled plant holders that someone painted and nailed on a bamboo fence in the village. They even threw in a sardine can. The plants look like they might have seen better days though.<br /><br />I used to be crafty. I don't know what happened as of late. My finished projects were never very accomplished. I'll never be clever enough to have an Etsy shop. But it was the experience of completing something I always found satisfying. Now my knitting basket sits gathering dust (I actually never have finished any knitting project - I always unravel them half way through) and my sewing machine hasn't been out from its hiding place under the stairs in ages. Jars of acrylics have dried up and I have no idea where the paint brushes have gone off to.<br /><br />But I saw this and started saving cans. We'll see how long C remains patient seeing them stockpiled in the corner of the kitchen. Before long they will probably get accused of being just like that bag of scraps I'm saving for a quilt (the one that was stashed in a closet in Brooklyn for years and got shipped all the way across the equator) or the eggplant I am always buying with promises of making babaganuche that eventually rots in the crisper drawer.<br /><br />But it is Monday and Mondays are good days to dream up new things. Like a cooking blog about an all thumbs adventure in a Brazilian kitchen. It has been sitting there for a while now, that one. Let's see if it gathers as much dust as my sketchbooks.lovelydharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16512055599650919939noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23322591.post-38273764745194361382009-03-17T13:05:00.011-03:002009-03-18T10:07:49.293-03:00A few of my favorite things<a href="http://daniellebrazil.blogspot.com/">Danielle</a> and I exchanged a few emails recently and she asked me what were some of my favorite things in Brazil, things I couldn’t live with out, and conversely what are some of the things I miss most about the United States. I thought it would make for some good blogging, so I suggested that we try to come up with a post for each.<br /><br /><a href="http://riogringa.com/">Riogringa</a> has a knack for making lists of 10. I love nice round tidy numbers but have never been very good at getting to them. My life is a little haphazard, if you hadn't guessed, and I frequently don't know where I am going until I get there, so I thought I’d feel a pretty good sense of accomplishment if I could manage to come up with a nice list of five (and not say, four or seven.) Small roundish numbers are sometimes the best we can hope for.<br /><br />Actually, four years ago, when I was under the spell of a greater degree of culture shock I probably wouldn’t have been able to scratch out five Brazilian things I couldn’t live without. But time it seems has softened some of the edges of cultural disparity, much like a developing tolerance. It takes me a bit of thinking to remember what’s changed, what I'm flush with and what I'm lacking between my former life and my Brazilian one, but here goes:<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center; font-weight: bold;">A Few of My Favorite (Brazilian) things:<br /></div><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">1. Dama da Noite</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3362455959/" title="DSC_0785 by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3659/3362455959_30d185af72.jpg" alt="DSC_0785" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br />The other night as we were walking home from that savage gluttony known as the ice cream buffet, we got enveloped in a cloud of fragrance hovering around a small flowering tree. We stopped and dreamily breathed it in, drunk as Dorothy in the poppy field and I sighed and said, now this has to be one of my favorite things about Brazil. I think it is called Night Blooming Jasmine in English. It’s fairly common in my city and will stop you dead in your tracks when you come upon it. As the name suggests it only blooms and releases its perfume at night making it even more seductive and magical.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">2. Carrinhos de Pipoca</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3363270148/" title="DSC_0777 by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3639/3363270148_6ffc41ac98.jpg" alt="DSC_0777" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br />The popcorn pushcarts. There is just nothing better than the 5 o’clock hour when the street vendors come out to satiate the snacking hunger of people after work and students on their way to night classes. You can get all kinds of street food in the evenings from pushcarts, from fried dough stuffed with dulce de leite to meat-on-a-stick, but the best by far is the popcorn. It is popped fresh and hot right there on the street and usually served with small cubes of fried parmasean cheese. And unlike the ridiculously sized, mystery-oil, movie theater popcorn, it comes in a perfect small portion (R$1) and smells fresh and sweet.<br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">3. Agua de Coco</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3362455291/" title="DSC_0781 by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3636/3362455291_51f5506e1c.jpg" alt="DSC_0781" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br />Actually now that I think about it, I could easily make a list of 20 food related Brazilian things that I couldn’t live without.. There are so many delicious healthy choices here (and more than a few delicious unhealthy ones), so suffice it to say, food in general is high on my list here in Brazil, and fresh green coconut water specifically. Cold coconut water (the clear water from young coconuts, not thick coconut milk) is probably the most refreshing thing you can drink on the beach or in the summer heat. It is also apparently a miracle cure for everything. It is high in potassium, low in fat, carbs, and sodium and has the same electrolyte balance as our bodies, so it is nature’s perfect sport’s drink. Apparently it is also sterile and can substitute for blood plasma in emergency IV field dressing (which would come in handy if you ever had to go into battle say, on Copacabana beach). It also has the same lauric acid that is found it mother’s milk and is really well tolerated by babies. And the best thing is it tastes really good. On a hot day nearly every corner of the city has a vendor. You can get a plastic bottle of it for R$2.50 (about a buck).<br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">4. The Communal Beer</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje3Ya75Wedrv0X8B-rCFc4Ee7FTujOQWTQJCgx-lrLchcZInaU6SgquG2K2V4YHZaVBKqxPOLR7uwYOaD3PBsyK9a2Jy8AgfnhP85AfsGrvYmSGKE8WHHlpZdZ2DIsz8-NYMFg/s1600-h/taberna-gargom-cerveja.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: auto;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje3Ya75Wedrv0X8B-rCFc4Ee7FTujOQWTQJCgx-lrLchcZInaU6SgquG2K2V4YHZaVBKqxPOLR7uwYOaD3PBsyK9a2Jy8AgfnhP85AfsGrvYmSGKE8WHHlpZdZ2DIsz8-NYMFg/s400/taberna-gargom-cerveja.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5314189705168525314" border="0" /></a><br />And yet another food related item on the list. This one is actually no longer applicable for me however because I’ve been on a gluten free diet since November of last year. But prior to that, I really loved the thermic-sleeved 750ml bottle of icy cold beer that is served at every <span style="font-style: italic;">butiquim</span> throughout the country. I used to be a beer snob. I especially loved thick, dark, nearly room temperature, micro-brewed stouts. Brazilian beer is lighter than Old Milwaukee and it took me a while to accept it and understand its popularity. But on a hot night sitting at plastic tables on the sidewalk, cold and light is exactly what you want to be drinking.<br /><br />One bottle is brought out at a time – occasionally two if you’re in a larger group – and dropped down into a plastic thermal urn. There is usually someone who takes on the unspoken role of the designated pourer, whose job it is to continually make the rounds, topping off everyone’s small glass. Large mugs or pints are nowhere to be seen. Child sized glasses that hold maybe 6oz are standard because otherwise the beer would get warm and flat before you could get to the bottom. When the bottle is up, it’s slipped out of the plastic jug and set on the side, a signal to the waiter to go fetch you another from a big refrigerator that carries the brand name of the beer and always has the internal temperature digitally displayed on the outside – usually -3 to -5C. Just at the freezing point.<br /><br />At a lot of sidewalk bars, the empty bottles are laid down next to your table so you can keep a count on them in case there is any discrepancy with the bill. So many of these extra light cold bottles will be consumed on any given night that it is easy to loose track. If you’re in a slightly more upscale place where you don’t thrown the bottles on the ground, there are other techniques to keep track, like breaking toothpicks or tearing small notches in the white butcher paper on the table.<br /><br />Anyway, I guess even more than the taste, what I like best about the beer is it’s communal nature. You and your friends decided on what brand, (not that there is any significant difference between them – actually that is a sure sign you’ve gone native, when you start discussing the essentially non-existent merits of Skol vs. Antartica) and then you share the experience of emptying the bottle. In the United States and elsewhere where the pint rules supreme, drinking is a very individualized experience. My tab, my giant mug of my beer to sink into, my choice to change to something else, my job to get the bartender’s attention to get me another. In Brazil having a beer in a bar is all about the group – and in many ways I think symbolic of the culture and it’s underlying solidarity. (Now I know I just skipped right over the famous individual <span style="font-style: italic;">chopp</span>, but that is a drinking experience more associated with the upwardly mobile - and I guess we tend to stick more with the <span style="font-style: italic;">povão</span> way of doing things.)<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">5. Government Support for Artists</span><br />Isn’t a country only as rich as it’s cultural life? Doesn’t fostering individual creativity actually inspire a higher degree, in the country as a whole, of innovation, flexibility, problem solving and entrepreneurial spirit, all of which are key factors in a keeping an economy dynamic? Brazil is spread pretty thin trying to solve its problems of poverty and growth but somehow still manages to throw artists a bone. C’s first record was made with a government program that encourages corporations to fund cultural projects for tax write offs. Last year he would have been awarded another project with direct government money were it not for a ridiculously small technical error in how he budgeted the project. It was par for the course really, because what would government support be without arcane bureaucracy. This year he’s working with a professional grant writer to make sure he doesn’t get bogged down for silly reasons again. But just because he didn’t personally get awarded a grant doesn’t mean we haven’t benefited from the cultural laws. A good amount of recordings he does in the studio are with musicians whose projects received funding. One of the arguments I often hear in favor of government funding for artists in the United States is that it’s the only developed country in the world that doesn’t provide such support. Well, apparently not only developed, but also <span style="font-style: italic;">developing</span> countries recognize the value of artists. I hope the US dusts itself off, (right after it trusses Edward Liddy up and stuffs him into a locker), straightens out its financial messes and then does a serious reexamination of its cultural policies.<br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">6. Ibitipoca</span><br />It’s the reason I wanted to move here to begin with. I find it funny when I talk about our “land in the country” because it sounds so bourgeois and snotty. Especially because we rarely get things right – that is, end up at the right place at the right time. Like, if only I’d pressed my family for a loan right out of college for a down payment on an apartment in my relatively undiscovered Brooklyn neighborhood, I’d be a millionaire right now. But with our <span style="font-style: italic;">sitío</span>, we nailed it. Or at least C did.<br /><br />He bought it – although he says he bought it for me. We were on what was essentially an extended first date. We’d only been seeing each other a few weeks, since a little after Thanksgiving and he was on his way to Brazil for a month. I had a week of vacation days to use or loose and a lot of miles racked up on the company credit card. So even though we were still a very new couple, I decided to jump right in and fly down to Brazil. It was a romantic whirlwind vacation. Sort of like a honeymoon right at the beginning of the relationship. He had planned to bring me up to Ibitipoca to show me the park when we ran into a friend of his who had just been through a divorce and was trying to sell the land her and her ex-husband had bought nearby. She needed money quickly, the dollar was really strong, and while the area was sort of popular, there hadn’t yet been the goldrush, landgrab that five years later would gobble up all the land around the park and drive property values sky high.<br /><br />So at his friend’s urging, we saw the <span style="font-style: italic;">sitío</span>. It was my first trip to Brazil, my first time in Ibitipoca and we were in the throws of romantic, new love and we found ourselves looking at this fantastical paradise with a waterfall and orange and banana trees and butterflies and hummingbirds and wild flowers growing everywhere. We stood there slack-jawed and I said, “you have to buy this.” And he put his arms around me and said, “only if you’ll be here to share it with me.” (I know, all together now... ahhhhhhh...)<br /><br />I went back to the states and a week later he called me, still in Brazil, and told me he bought it.<br /><br />Our courtship continued, engagement, marriage, we lost work, lost the lease on the famous Gowanus apartment, we moved around, tried to rebuild studios and careers and homes and all the while, the <span style="font-style: italic;">sitío</span>, our little slice of paradise, hovered nearby, lulling us to sleep at night, calling to us. Those last years in New York, broke and shivering in our drafty Red Hook apartment, we would hold each other late at night, especially when the bills and the frustrations of never keeping up, and never getting ahead would overwhelm us, and we would fantasize over and over about the <span style="font-style: italic;">sitío</span>. We would dream about building a house and gardening, about planting an orchard and making a corral for a dairy cow and a chicken coop. About getting a dog (the only thing on that list we have actually accomplished). Those fantasies were a big driving factor in finally bringing us to Brazil.<br /><br />Although we still continue to find ourselves proverbially land-rich/cash-poor, and although our fanciful dreams are regularly smacked down by reality, we still are incredibly grateful and giddy and astounded by our luck that we actually have this place we can call our own. It is certainly my #1 favorite thing about living in Brazil – I probably wouldn’t be here without it.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3362460159/" title="Ibitime by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3445/3362460159_3361224b47.jpg" alt="Ibitime" height="500" width="375" /></a></div>lovelydharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16512055599650919939noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23322591.post-3967675408130506552009-03-15T16:58:00.005-03:002009-03-15T17:20:30.771-03:00Life with a Dog<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguKslDMoPFyLwpO3K_2kgmpb90UtmKDm1qnQV9ZbDzFFEh1tLdMirkPDm6PhQdAz0Rn95_zIRpwoBdiP9rtaQ7nkgKrsmhgTjbjkGrgiGIx_Yc6RaOqNrf-pxNwiH16I9Vt8cA/s1600-h/DSC_0801.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: auto;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguKslDMoPFyLwpO3K_2kgmpb90UtmKDm1qnQV9ZbDzFFEh1tLdMirkPDm6PhQdAz0Rn95_zIRpwoBdiP9rtaQ7nkgKrsmhgTjbjkGrgiGIx_Yc6RaOqNrf-pxNwiH16I9Vt8cA/s400/DSC_0801.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5313508046774165986" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Preciso dizer mais?lovelydharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16512055599650919939noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23322591.post-84709813126055607472009-03-13T15:54:00.011-03:002009-03-13T18:17:20.363-03:00Little Reminders<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3350634030/" title="Ipê tree by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3543/3350634030_ddbb878890.jpg" alt="Ipê tree" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br />Whenever we walk down the road to our land I feel an immediate sense of gratitude for nature's abundance. Its tenacity, its relentless overwhelming growth that makes it easy to forget what a perilous state our planet is in. I feel like every time we get frustrated with the overgrown fields that need tending to, the weeds that crawl up the back door of the house, the invasive banana trees that sprout up the day after you cut them back, that Nature is there, standing off to the side, laughing at us. She points her finger and doubles forward with the giggles, saying:<br /><br />“Don’t you get it? I own you. You people are so deluded. You think you can infest the planet, chewing it up like termites, but I’m stronger. And in the end, I’ll <span style="font-style: italic;">will</span> take you down. So go ahead, cut back the brush, plow under the field, burn down that wasp nest. It doesn’t matter, you might as well go on tilting at windmills.”<br /><br />And then she commands the weeds to grow faster.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3350648596/" title="DSC_0725 by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3472/3350648596_88ed87a21f.jpg" alt="DSC_0725" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br />But some days I’m grateful for her displays of prowess.<br /><br />Like on Wednesday. We walked down our road in the late summer sun, the air thick with blue butterflies and end of the season smells. Those fecund smells that radiate out from the underbrush where the sun can’t get through the trees that have grown top heavy and weighted down with flowers. The smells that drift from cool shadowy places, where dry leaves mix with wet earth and dying vegetation and over-ripe raspberries.<br /><br />We were stuffing ourselves on those raspberries as we walked down the road, and seeing more just out of reach, I started digging my way further into the brambles when suddenly, I came upon this.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3349816043/" title="DSC_0669 by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3604/3349816043_7b94740960.jpg" alt="DSC_0669" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br />So perfect, so delicate and so beautifully necessary. A completely self-contained miracle.<br /><br />I called to C and our friends and we stood there in awe before quietly backing away so as not to upset the mother. We were grateful, beholden, and a little more hopeful than before.lovelydharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16512055599650919939noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23322591.post-1483685125188839142009-03-12T21:03:00.009-03:002009-03-23T12:36:27.747-03:00Rain and SaunasI've been up in the country and away from the internet - such a blessing sometimes - but it means I've been a bad blogger. At least I came back with a story to tell.<br /><br />This is the one where I almost kill my friends in the park.<br /><br />Luckily it ends well, although I did catch a cold.<br /><br />We drove up with two friends who have been living in JF for 6 months and are leaving soon but hadn't yet had a chance to know Ibitipoca. I got to play tourguide while C stayed on the <span style="font-style: italic;">sítio</span> to work the land (so to speak) with the newly repaired weedwhacker. As it turns out though, there wasn't much whacking to be done. Vicente had already gotten to most of it with a sickle. Our fancy technology is frequently not worth the trouble.<br /><br />Meanwhile I took our friends on a hike. The afternoon started out so hot and sunny, I managed to still get a burn while slathered in SPF 50. It was about 3pm when I decided we still had time and sun enough to make it to one of the bigger swimming holes on the border of the park called the Monkey Waterfall - <span style="font-style: italic;">Cachoeira dos Macacos</span>. I've had bad luck with this particular spot before. It seems every time I go there the sky clouds up and a storm comes through. I was hoping this time would be different.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3349808171/" title="Cachoeira dos Macacos by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3563/3349808171_b478ddfaf0.jpg" alt="Cachoeira dos Macacos" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br />The swimming hole is actually perched midway in a series of waterfalls that step down several hundred meters before finally plunging off a cliff into oblivion. To get there you have to make your way down a rocky path then wade through the river on some slippery rocks and hope you don't mess up and slip and go tumbling over the afore mentioned oblivion. That part is actually easier than it sounds because there are lots of rocks jutting out and you'd likely get caught up on them before you had to say goodbye cruel world.<br /><br />On the way down the path it seemed that I just might get lucky for once and avoid the rain. But no. Cursed as usual. We had just arrived when the sun disappeared into black clouds. At this point on previous trips I've played it safe and said, okay, we've seen enough, let's get out of here before the sky opens up.<br /><br />I've actually never swam at the Monkey Waterfall because of the afternoon showers, and this time I decided rain be damned, I was going swimming and not only that, I was going to stick my head under the waterfall. Take that Mother Nature. It was worth it. Cold and exhilarating, especially with no sun. I happily doggy paddled around until the first loud crack of thunder hit, and my friends started nervously clearing their throats and saying, "umm, shouldn't we be going soon?"<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3349811599/" title="Minas Rain by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3562/3349811599_873d0a610b.jpg" alt="Minas Rain" height="331" width="500" /></a><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />We quickly got our shoes on, waded out through the rocks and the river and started up the path that led back to the park entrance, which took us back up several levels and 200 or so meters over the top of the waterfall. But the time we huffed our way up, the rain was coming down in sheets, there was lightening all around and nothing between us and the sky. We were soaked and out of breath, but kept running. We scrambled down the other side where luckily (almost as if I planned it - which I'd like to take credit for, but really it was a happy accident) we were able to take shelter in a cave of sorts. It's actually where the river over thousands of years has carved through the mountain and created a natural bridge complete with underpass. We had just crossed over the top of the bridge and now like a bunch of wet vagrants we holed up under it, wrung out our clothes and waited for the storm to pass.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3349809939/" title="Ponte de Pedra by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3542/3349809939_00e49a6383.jpg" alt="Ponte de Pedra" height="500" width="332" /></a><br /></div><br /><br />Fortunately the inn we stayed at has a sauna. (Much better than <a href="http://lovelydharma.blogspot.com/2008/08/first-night-in-our-house.html">sleeping in a tent</a> inside our unfinsihed house.) It's late summer and the days still hot, but up in the mountains it always gets cold enough in the evening to really enjoy a hot sauna and build a fire in the fireplace. Especially after getting a soaking like we did. I think my friends forgave me for the advenutre once their bones were warmed up.<br /><br />It took some cajoling, but C finally discovered the joy of sweating it out in the sauna until you can't stand the heat anymore and then running out and leaping directly into the swimming pool. He didn't believe me at first, but after doing it once he was so hooked he tried to convince us that we should keep going until we'd done it a total of 15 times. We managed to get to five times and then told him he'd have to carry on by himself or get dried off and come inside for soup and poker.<br /><br />Happily, he chose poker.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3349835857/" title="ibitifire by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3594/3349835857_c518542113.jpg" alt="ibitifire" height="332" width="500" /></a></div>lovelydharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16512055599650919939noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23322591.post-55087518176495669752009-03-05T23:32:00.003-03:002009-03-23T12:36:40.262-03:00What it has come toWe’re wimps. It’s too hot. We’ve been stuck in the city and I’ve got nothing to say for myself.<br /><br />Since Sunday every day has nearly hit 37º (that’s 99º for you Fahrenheit folks) and we’ve allowed ourselves to be held prisoner by it. We’ve got a top floor apartment on a hill and still we are without a breeze. I can’t imagine how miserable it must be in the afternoon in the depth of the canyon of main street with the sun baking down on all those buses and cars and bodies packed together. So we’ve stayed home. Bunkered down like characters in a Ray Bradbury story.<br /><br />Except on Tuesday. C was working and what better way to spend a hot evening alone than with a bottle of Chardonnay. So I ventured down the hill and to the Emporio, our snotty little upscale grocery store. They put in a fancy walk-in, temperature controlled wine cellar. But for whatever reason, they had no white wine in it. Just over priced reds. Go figure. It’s apparently as useless as the untouched grand piano that sits in the café up front. But okay, okay, no problem. I picked a Chilean off the shelf, swung by the chocolate aisle, checked out and schlepped home, crawling up the hill like a survivor making his way out of the desert. (It’s a miserably long, steep hill, that grows longer and steeper when it is still 90º at 6pm). I stripped down to my underwear and decided that because I was all alone, I could be tacky and put an ice cube in my wine glass. So I opened the warm bottle poured and …. It was vinegar. It fizzed like cider. Argh.<br /><br />At least I still had the chocolate.<br /><br />On a side note, this heat has been made especially unbearable by the smell leeching its way up from the broken sewage containment box in the garage of our building. Apparently the wall was crumbling and infiltrating the fresh water reserve for longer than we had realized. (Oh! So the water filter <span style="font-style: italic;">isn’t</span> supposed to turn brown the same day we change it? oh… ooohh... Ew.) The problem has been fixed by by-passing the lower reserve and running the water straight to the rooftop cisterns. But given how bad the problem was and how long it was apparently going on, there is talk of a lawsuit against the building construction company. That’ll be interesting. Saturday they’re shutting our water off again so they can re-cement the containment boxes. Oppressive heat, no water -- this is starting to feel apocalyptic.<br /><br />The only good news this week is that on a subsequent journey to have a little tête à tête with the manager of the useless wine cellar, I discovered a new ice cream shop has opened, directly in my line of fire. It’s like manna from heaven, and made even more so by the “self-service” buffet style, pay-by-weight set-up. You scoop (all you want) they weight it. Amazing. Dangerous, but amazing.<br /><br />Wine, chocolate, ice cream. The weather has turned me into a hedonist.lovelydharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16512055599650919939noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23322591.post-20509122532991073472009-03-01T17:22:00.005-03:002009-03-01T17:52:54.337-03:00Stories da roça<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3319525877/" title="Igreja by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3555/3319525877_d12dd68a43.jpg" alt="Igreja" height="500" width="375" /></a><br /></div><br />Carnival, the carnal festival, the gratification of desires, the indulgence in <span style="font-style: italic;">carne</span> and all things flesh, is over. It ended last week with <span style="font-style: italic;">quarta de cinzas</span>. All good Catholics are now repentant, and starting last Friday are diligently attending mass, doing penitence, and reflecting on their sins.<br /><br />I’m not Catholic, so I don’t quite know how these things work, but our neighbors are, and the smell of fried fish is prevalent.<br /><br />On Thursday Geraldinha was here to do the housework I’m too lazy to get around to and, as usual, she was indulging me in her stories. It started off because I was explaining <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoGYx35ypus">this hilarious clip</a> to her about what a spoiled generation we have become ("we" meaning me and my peers, not her) and it got to reminding her of the journey her family would make for the first mass of Lent (<span style="font-style: italic;">Quaresma</span>). Her stories are so wonderful I decided I should make a new category and post them here more regularly.<br /><br />Although she would later convert to an evangelical church, after sneaking out of the house with her sister one night and attending a tent revival meeting, for which her parents nearly disowned her, she was raised a strict Catholic. As such, attending the first mass of Lent held on Friday was very important.<br /><br />When she was a child her family worked for a time on a plantation far from the nearest town. In order to arrive on time for confession and mass, the family had to leave the plantation at 3:00am. At the time there were seven children, although her mother would eventually give birth to ten. They only had one horse, so her father would ride, securing two small children on the withers in front and one on the rump behind, while her mother, holding a baby, and the three other older children, including Ger, walked. (You know it didn’t occur to me to ask why her mother or one of the older children couldn’t have secured the younger children on the horse while he walked. Hmmm…)<br /><br />Each of them owned only one pair of shoes and they walked barefoot carrying their shoes around their neck so as not to ruin them. After a while they began to get tired and didn’t have much energy left to make it up the many hills on the windy dirt road so they would divvy up the horse’s tail in three parts and each of the older children would grab on. When they reached a hill, her father would give the horse a slap on the butt and holding on to the tail the kids would get a tow up the hill. That poor horse! Talk about a beast of burden. She said it was great fun.<br /><br />When they got to town, the family would go first to her uncle’s house so they could wash their feet and put their shoes on. Then they would hurry to the church in order to have time to confess before the start of mass. After all that, what more penitence could the priest possibly ask of them?<br /><br />But Geraldinha tells me that she and her siblings would look forward all year to this journey and the night before they were so excited you might as well have told them they were going to Disneyland. Although of course at the time, she confessed, she’d never heard of Disneyland.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3319527497/" title="window confessional by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3638/3319527497_e1e53c6a84.jpg" alt="window confessional" height="500" width="332" /></a><br /></div>lovelydharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16512055599650919939noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23322591.post-31227535604863650482009-02-28T14:38:00.004-03:002009-03-03T11:26:06.103-03:00Radio ArtThings come slowly to Brazil. Not just flat screen TV’s and social change, but ideas too. I think it takes a while for international concepts to filter down through the tropical haze. But once they do and are given time to be “devoured” (as the Tropicalistas say) and assimilated by the cultural machine, they are spun back out on the world with a distinctive style – and frequently as a befuddling non-sequitur.<br /><br />On the flag it is written "Order and Progress." But it doesn’t make mention of any timeline. Brazil seems to move along according to its own internal measure not unlike the unclassifiable samba whose subtle rhythmic bending makes it impossible to program into a computerized drum machine. Ideas in the rest of the world may fly by at the speed of a sound bite while Brazil’s response seems much more looping and intuitive than reactionary.<br /><br />Modernism is a perfect example of this. It came relatively late to Brazil and came all at once so that it was essentially swallowed whole. The result was the country gave birth to its own fully-formed movement that has never entirely gone out of style.<br /><br />I found these wonderful postcards in a junk shop. They are announcement cards for AM radio stations. I love their populist mid-century look so I was surprised when I saw the dates on the reverse that put them in the early 80’s. In the final years of the dictatorship whoever designed these was still having fun with the look of Soviet style propaganda. Perhaps it was intentional, trying to convey the onward march of progress. Or perhaps it was subversive, using a style that was popularized as a way of promoting labor unions and workers rights.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3316899750/" title="Radio station advertisment by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3297/3316899750_ac4fa7c0ee.jpg" alt="Radio station advertisment " height="349" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3316900186/" title="Radio station advertisment by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3466/3316900186_0cc5af3ddf.jpg" alt="Radio station advertisment" height="353" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3316900724/" title="Radio Station advertisment by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3373/3316900724_15b94479da.jpg" alt="Radio Station advertisment" height="285" width="500" /></a></div>lovelydharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16512055599650919939noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23322591.post-55001331240200618882009-02-26T12:38:00.007-03:002009-03-04T00:59:02.830-03:00Behind every good blogger is a patient husbandI don’t talk enough about my husband here. And I really should. We’ve been married for 8 years and he still makes me feel like the luckiest girl alive.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3311864698/" title="Carlos in Bahia by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3489/3311864698_608f81ff8f.jpg" alt="Carlos in Bahia " height="375" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br />Isn’t he handsome? And you wouldn’t believe his age. He’s ten years older than me, and looks 5 years younger. I sometimes wonder if he didn’t make a pact with the devil. He doesn’t have a single gray hair and his skin is totally smooth. A lot of it I think comes from his attitude. Even for a Brazilian he’s remarkably easy-going. His personality is the total opposite of my fiery hot-headness. He rarely gets stressed out or angry and somehow manages to take everything in stride, with a smile and a positive attitude.<br /><br />He’s a musician and a composer. A very good one. He really should have 100x the recognition that he does. He’s far too modest and could just a strong dash of presumptive audacity. He’s just been quietly plugging away for years, which has earned him a lot of respect among the people who do know his work. But I think this might be a very good year for him. I don’t know why I think that… just a hunch.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3311865220/" title="Carlos at Promusica by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3402/3311865220_d1abb9d2e5.jpg" alt="Carlos at Promusica" height="375" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br />I haven’t figured out how to post a music clip so please go listen to him here, you won’t regret it:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.myspace.com/carloshenriquepereira" target="_blank">http://www.myspace.com/carloshenriquepereira</a><br /><br />People are often surprised when I tell them that I’m married to a Brazilian musician and that he isn’t a sambista or a bossa nova player. When he was 18, he moved to Paris with his best friend Max, a flautist. They had a huge repertory of their own experimental jazz compositions worked out. They had planned to take Europe by storm. But whenever anyone heard that they were Brazilian, they were expected to play the "Girl from Ipanema." They had to quickly learn a traditional Brazilian repertory just to get enough gigs to support themselves.<br /><br />Here’s a picture of him from the 80’s taken sometime around those Paris days. One of his wedding vows was that he would never grow his hair like that again.<br />(Okay it wasn’t <span style="font-style: italic;">really</span>, but it should have been.)<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3311865734/" title="Bad 80's Hair, Good Music by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3615/3311865734_1bfcd5e89c.jpg" alt="Bad 80's Hair, Good Music" height="500" width="338" /></a><br /></div><br /><br />I once heard the joke:<br /><br />What’s the difference between a jazz musician and a pizza?<br /><br />A pizza feeds the family.<br /><br /><br />Funny, in a sad sort of way. But fortunately for me, far from the truth. Other than being a loving husband and a wonderful musician, he’s also a good provider. For the last 20 years of his life he’s worked as a producer/engineer. He owned a recording studio for 14 years in Brooklyn where he built a great reputation and worked with all sorts of big named musicians.<br /><br />When we moved, he brought the studio with him (a nerve racking adventure, fraught with potential disasters – we shipped a ton of sensitive equipment and a grand piano, rolled on its side, in a metal container, across the equator!) He has since been building a steady reputation and now has people coming in from São Paulo and Rio to record with him. Recently he got a recording that was done in one of the most expensive studios in Rio. But the studio botched the mix so badly the client thought the project was lost. Someone suggested my husband and in a week he was able to re-mix it into a wonderful record. The client was stunned – who is this guy and what is he doing out there in Minas?<br /><br />You can click here: <a href="http://www.navestudio.com.br/wpg/index.php" target="_blank">Nave Studio</a> for more info on the studio. If you know any musicians, there isn’t a better deal south of the Equator.<br /><br />So that’s all I have to say for now. Just a gratuitous plug from the luckiest girl in the world --- and one more photo to thoroughly embarrass him.<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3311034719/" title="Carlinhos by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3560/3311034719_d6b2f6fa8b.jpg" alt="Carlinhos" height="500" width="391" /></a><br /></div>lovelydharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16512055599650919939noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23322591.post-47302319738203985872009-02-25T11:39:00.004-03:002009-02-25T11:54:44.108-03:00As spotted......in the supermarket:<br /><br />A marvelous display of product placement ingenuity.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3309351098/" title="Milk &amp; Tires by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3569/3309351098_9313f5e018.jpg" alt="Milk &amp; Tires" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br />You know, because you have to <span style="font-style: italic;">drive</span> to buy the milk.lovelydharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16512055599650919939noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23322591.post-60759619625138154962009-02-23T17:17:00.004-03:002009-02-23T17:48:14.438-03:00Carnival breakdownsI've always read about the importance of keywords if you want to drive traffic to your website or blog. I've never put that much in the front of my mind given that this isn't a commercial venture. I'm happy when people find their way here but I'd probably be just as likely to do it in a vacuum.<br /><br />In the past few days however, I have learned that if I really wanted to drive traffic here, the keywords to use are:<br /><br />Carnival<br />Sex<br />Nude<br /><br />There, see I said it. Again. And now all you perverts who dropped in can just move along. Nothing to see here folks.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3304739700/" title="oxcart by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3575/3304739700_853b042570.jpg" alt="oxcart" height="375" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br /><br />Still with me? Oh good, you're the ones I wanted to hang out with. Not <span style="font-style: italic;">those</span> creeps.<br /><br />Carnival for me this year has turned out to be a royal pain in the *@!%!!<br /><br />Last week we started to notice a funny smell in our water. When I got into the shower on Thursday morning it had developed into a funky eggy-sulfery smell and I did a quick "french shower” but wasn't brave enough to get my head wet. By Friday the smell was vomit inducing. So our water was shut off, phone calls were made. It's the big national holiday, so more phone calls were made. Saturday someone showed up to drain and clean our rooftop cisterns (<span style="font-style: italic;">caixas de agua</span>) and it was discovered that sewage had infiltrated the fresh water underground pipes at the point where they enter our building. Ewww, blech! We spent the day without water on Saturday. It was 90º. I hadn't showered since my half attempt on Thursday. It was miserable.<br /><br />The building super finally managed to jerry-rig a garden hose-type system up to the cisterns, by-passing the broken pipes, and by Sunday morning the water was turned on again. But the water pressure is terrible and we have to be very careful not to over-do it until Carnival is over and we can get someone in to fix the problem.<br /><br />Then yesterday afternoon we had a huge windstorm that knocked our power out. A few phone calls yielded half-hearted responses from the power utility company that were none too reassuring. On this account we got lucky however, and the power came back on right before the Oscars started at 10pm.<br /><br />This morning we were without internet.<br /><br />Why does everything conveniently fall apart when the country is all out drunk in the streets?<br /><br />All right, I'll stop with the kvetchn.<br /><br />Instead I'll ply you with some photos I took at the Sambadrome a few years ago. That's much more entertaining, right? And I aim to be entertaining!<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3304694982/" title="porta bandeira by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3552/3304694982_6238650fff.jpg" alt="porta bandeira" height="396" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3304693286/" title="bahianas by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3555/3304693286_21c8028fc3.jpg" alt="bahianas" height="375" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3304694328/" title="Carnival 2007 by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3317/3304694328_c72a98f948.jpg" alt="Carnival 2007" height="375" width="500" /></a><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3303864099/" title="Sambadrome by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3473/3303864099_324c0d846d.jpg" alt="Sambadrome" height="329" width="500" /></a><br /></div>lovelydharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16512055599650919939noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23322591.post-52725189562402106822009-02-21T18:36:00.004-03:002009-02-21T19:35:24.816-03:00Carnival NostalgiaThis has got to be one of my all time favorite photos:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3298666660/" title="Carnival 1939 by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3318/3298666660_16fcfe7140.jpg" alt="Carnival 1939" height="500" width="322" /></a><br /></div><br />It is my mother-in-law, Dona Clá, and her three sisters. She's on the right. As you can see it was taken in 1939.<br /><br />This one was also taken at Carnival. There isn't a date, but they look a few years older so it must be the early 1940's. Her grandfather was a pioneer in the textile industry in our city. He had one of the first and largest factories in town. They were also the first people in town to own this new fancy model of car. A photo of her father posing with it even appeared on the front page of the paper. They look so proud.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelydharma/3297838965/" title="Carnival 1940's by lovelydharma, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3328/3297838965_8a626f9d7d.jpg" alt="Carnival 1940's" height="500" width="310" /></a><br /></div><br /><br />Dona Clá tells me Carnival in her childhood was a much simpler affair. Children in costume danced and played on the streets. When they were older her family would go to a club across from the town square and watch the Carnival parades from the rooftop.<br /><br />Today is so different. Everyone with money has left town and the commercial center is deserted except for a few random stragglers from the marginalized <span style="font-style: italic;">blocos</span> whose attendees are too poor to have traveled. A couple of years ago we did walk down to the <span style="font-style: italic;">praça</span> where the <span style="font-style: italic;">concentração</span> for one of the oldest and biggest <span style="font-style: italic;">blocos</span> takes place. But the scene was much less about foolish revelry than angry self-destruction. People weren't just drunk, they were high and strung out and a bit violent. We were too uncomfortable and left before the band even started.<br /><br />There is a movement afoot however to move the date of Carnival in our city. The local business really suffer from being shut down for a week (Carnival officially ends on Tuesday, but no one returns until following Monday.) So our new mayor has proposed moving Carnival to May to coincide with the anniversary of the city, which is an official holiday with no official celebration. The idea is it would generate revenue because neighboring towns would come it to enjoy the parades and festivities and spend money. Carnival wouldn't be canceled in February, it would just get a second act. Personally I think it is a great idea. Carnival part II will be much better organized and attended, and who doesn't want another excuse for days off and a party!lovelydharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16512055599650919939noreply@blogger.com0