Gentileza Gera Gentileza

This is a bit out of the blue but something I have been thinking about for months. I just want to share how nice Brazilians are, that is to say, the majority have manners and are considerate of others. It's as though chivalry is not dead and the average person tries to look out for others, especially the old, the young, the sick, and yes, women. This is still in stark contrast to the inability of Brazilian society to truly care for those in need (heart-breaking poverty and homelessness), but this doesn't negate what people do try to do to be kind.

Rio had a local hero known as the Kindness Prophet who was reputed to be crazy and went around painting murals everywhere - freeway underpasses, empty walls, etc. The Prophet walked around in a white tunic, had a long beard, and had renounced material goods in his mission to promote kindness and simplicity. His murals are mostly words in green and yellow, phrases imploring people to be kind to eachother, embrace nature, and peace. The most famous, "Gentileza Gera Gentileza" means "Kindness generates kindness". After he died, many of the murals were painted over by the city, to the outrage of citizens, but an NGO has since repainted some of them. Lots of people in Rio have shirts with this saying on it.

So this gentileza shows itself in many ways, and does seem to be to have an infectiousness. People here are quick to thank you, say good morning, beg pardon, etc. Whenever you are forced to stand on a bus (they're crowded), people sitting will offer to hold your bag for you so it doesn't flop around while Sr. Busdriver takes turns way too fast. Colleagues at lunch will actually sit down to eat lunch together and wait for one another to finish. There are special espress lines at supermarkets for the elderly, mothers, etc. I could go on, but will go to bed instead. Just wanted to recognize the gentileza that's all around.

Itty Bitty Sailboats

*there should really be pictures with this post, but i usually don't take a camera to the beach so you must use your imagination...
A walk on two of my favorite (nearby) Rio beaches

People often ask me “how’s brazil?” enthusiastically (!!!). It’s a little hard to answer. It’s a large country, ahem, with a lot of people and a penchant for good barbeque...? I thought I'd share a little mini-portrait of Brasil with you, namely a sketch of two of my favorite close-at-hand beach(es) here, where I was walking earlier. I set out around 5 pm to Botafogo beach, which is about a 20 minute walk from my house, through streets that were uncharacteristically empty because the Rio city-wide soccer match was on (Botafogo vs Flamengo). The goal was to catch the remains of the day and beathe some fresh air since I had gone to bed at daybreak, got out of bed at 2 pm, and stayed inside on a gorgeous day in May. May is one of the nicest months in Rio, turning into “fall” which means clear light, lack of humidity and a lovely breeze

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I hopped a bus (only costs a buck) to the other end of Flamengo beach, which is next to Botafogo. Here's some orientation for you:
See how Botafogo is right next to Flamengo? Note that I live in Botafogo basically between the beach and the Lake that sits between Botafogo and Ipanema.




So, Botafogo and Flamengo, side by side. I’m surprised there was no blood in the sand at the point where the two beaches meet, for all the rivalry between the two neighborhood soccer teams. Starting at Flamengo and walking back towards home is a nice route when time is short, and hence the bus-hopping. There were plenty of beach-goers out despite the game, and plenty of sandy kids being hollered at occaissionally by their moms. Flamengo has a pretty view of Sugar Loaf, and other hills that I don’t know the names of but that make for an interesting skyline along the bay which Flamengo Beach essentially sits at one end of.

Today when I stopped to sit on some rocks (at a nice point where you see Sugar Loaf in one direction and the Cristo in the other) I saw two schools of itty bitty sailboats returning back to the harbor. They were about a quarter of the size of a normal sailboat, and no it was not a tromps de loil (however you spell that), because each school was led by a “grown-up” sailboat. They looked like ducks in a row. I don’t really know what it was all about, besides being ridiculously cute sailboats but I have two guesses. Perhaps there is a sailing school for (rich) kids that learn to sail on tiny sailboats. Or, they might have been some sort of undercover sailboat brigade that apprehends pirates..? (Who could suspect trouble from such a cute itty bitty sailboat?)

Walking along (almost back to Botafogo now) and next comes the little Praia (beach) dos Gatos.* This is basically a small park with awesome workout equipment where men lift weights made of cement poured into coffee tins and the like. There are sometimes a couple gatos there getting buff and always some gatos that hang around because they are interested in the fish guts left by fishermen on the rocks nearby. Mostly I enjoy the cute cats and the ingenuity of whomever made workout equipment from little more than some logs and cement.

Coming back along Botafogo beach to where I would turn inland and head home, I could already hear the yells coming from bars where everyone but me was watching the game. I passed the harbor, where the sailboats were nodding sleepily as dusk set in. Crossed the four large and busy streets that one must cross to reach Botafogo proper from the beach. I managed to watch the rest of the game outside a bar where there were a lot of fans who were yelling loudly and were far more excited than I will ever manage to be about a sports match in my life. It was, admittedly, very exciting because it went to penalty kicks in the end. Lots more yelling and singing team songs. Every time a kick scored, the crowd (well, half of it actually) burst out screaming, and I burst out laughing because it's just all too amazing.

*gato = cat, or also a cute guy - hence my name for the beach

Feijoada for a small army (Part Deux)

Nossa Senhora! Grace and I enjoyed an incredible birthday party last night, thanks to everyone who came and helped and enjoyed it with us!

The feijoada came out amazing, and well worth all the effort that we put into it (and when I say we I mean 65% Beto and 35% Grace and I). I am too hung over to think of witty things to write so I am just going to post some pictures of the process to tell the story... then its off to the beach!

Grace's face says it all... a lot of meat, some UFOs. Smoked, salted, and fresh. Mostly pork, also some beef.







The pots already filled with meat, beans, coconut, some bay leaves....








Nosso equipe (our team!) and yes that is a pot on his head...







Everyone stormed the table as soon as the food arrived...

Feijoada for a small army

To make a feijoada (the national plate of Brasil) you need a lot of beans and a lot of meat, among other things. This meat include piggy tails and other UFO's (Unidentified Flesh Objects), but it is so amazing when its done. This one, we shall see, its my roomate's recipe. I just cut about 50 cloves of garlic and bay leaves. We cooked all the meat tonight and it has to sit with the beans until tomorrow when all the seasonings go in. And make rice, and collards, and cut up a lot of limes for caipirinhas...

Happy birthday party to me! (don't worry you didnt miss it...)

It’s been a dry spell here at the ol’ blog, but I’m sick at home today and the only good thing about that is… this! There have been many great things going on down here so now I can tell you all and be happy about them all over again.

More on the apartment, definitely one of the best things to have happened to me thus far. Luck with housing seems to follow me with some regularity, but I wasn’t sure it would follow me all the way to Brasil. The apartment is in Botafogo, a neighborhood that is lovely and peaceful with small streets that get crowded in early evening when everyone is coming home from work and kids from school. There are two very busy commercial streets that run through Botafogo, and lots of smaller streets with apartments and trees lining them. The apartment has a beautiful view of the Cristo Redentor because the building was built before the others around it, so the architect had his choice, at least according to my roommate Beto. There’s a produce market two seconds away, literally across the street, that has fresh orange juice and anything else a person could wish for or be curious enough to try!

After a short period without gas in the house (who thinks to ask about those things when checking out an apartment?) we got it a couple weeks ago and I’ve been enjoying hot showers and cooking a lot. Happily, Beto likes to cook too, so we make a lot of messes and good food. Speaking of messes, the quest to get internet has been interesting and still without success. But the floor is all ripped up in an effort to change cables and whatnot! I’m not writing about this to complain, but rather because I have to explain this photo that I wanted to post of the construction site.
And the internet I was pirating last week seems to have returned, so I can sail the seven seas again.

Living with a Brazilian (see photo on left) who talks a lot (A LOT!!) is having the desired effect on my Portuguese, or at least I think so. I understand a good deal of what he says to me, with the exception of many girias (slang) that don’t make sense when translated directly. I still screw up tenses and verb conjugations a lot, but will probably have to take classes to fix that. Here are a select few girias that I love:

estou fritando: literally, “I’m frying”
= tossing and turning in bed, unable to sleep
(being the occasional insomniac I appreciate this!)

tomara que cai: “hopefully, it will fall”
= a certain type of bikini top…. Pretty self explanatory :P

Tem paraquedista: “you have a parachuter”
= if someone has a hanging booger!

Just a bit more on the subject of housing, I was interested to read that Lula is proposing a sort of a stimulus package for housing, that will build about 1 million homes for citizens of various income levels. About half of those houses will be equipped with solar water heating and the houses will use certified sustainable wood, according to the environment minister Carlos Minc. Rio has a huge problem with affordable housing availability, as anyone who has seen the favelas already knows.

Much love, gente!

Sao Paulo Elephants

As far as I can tell, the elephant I found was the best thing about São Paulo. This is an utterly unfair and unqualified statement given that I saw very little of the city, but I make it anyway because I think having a blog gives me license to do so. A lot of people compare SP to NYC, but the similarities are few. There are chique restaurants and bars in both places, true, but SP is really more the sister city of LA. Short buildings except downtown, sprawl, traffic, smog, more sprawl. No beach though.

ANYWAY! Whirlwind trips full of long meetings aside, I was tickled to return to my marvelous city. This return was made even sweeter by the fact that I moved into my new home in Botafogo. You can peek down at my house by clicking here.

I couldn't ask for a nicer roomate or a more beautiful apartment and location. This evening I sat on the balcony and ate dinner looking up at Cristo and listening to Beto play guitar... beleza pura. How on earth did I get so lucky? I must have been a saint in my last life, or a brahmin perhaps.

Carnaval

Happy Ash Wednesday. My new roomate Beto commented that he spent the day at home, "purifying himself like a good Catholic". I call that nursing a hangover. I love Ash Wednesday - it's a nice way to cap off Carnaval with another holiday where you don't have to go to work. So smart, those catholics..

I had no idea when I arrived that Carnaval here is such a popular (as in, of the people) holiday. One tends to see the big parades of samba schools in the SamboDrome on tv in the US. Indeed, that is exists - and is amazing - but more amazing are the hundreds of block-party parades that bubble up during these four days in part of the city. There is a "bloco" (block party/parade) for everyone. There are neighborhood blocos, kid-friendly blocos, blocos for fans of afro-reggae or any other type of music, lesbian blocos, a bloco put on by the nuns, tranvestite blocos, gigantic blocos in the Centro of the city (which as far as I can tell are for people who like to feel like a sardine). The photos are from one in Ipanema, dancing until and after the sun went down...

The generic recipe for a bloco is such: take a bunch of happy people dressed in fabulous costumes (more creative than Halloween), then add a band (samba and marching bands are popular). Now march around in the streets playing music, following the band, drinking, jumping, and singing. Everyone here knows the words to the songs, because they've been singing them all their lives. Observe in this video of the Boitatá bloco (the parade starts around minute 1:00). Do this every day for 5 days (or more) starting around 9 am! This is serious commitment. I had no idea it was such a daytime holiday but am a big fan of the party all day schedule. It does a body good to have time to sleep, too.

Last thing - I did go to the Sambódromo to see the fancy pants parades of the samba schools. Most of the local cariocas do not go to such "touristic" things, but the ones who do are big fans of their selected samba school. If you've seen the Lion King, I can compare the costumes to that in their fantasticness. Each school parades for about an hour, with the song and dances they have choreographed for this year. Each school's parade includes some 10 or so floats, with several groups of costumed dancers in between each float. This goes on from about 10 pm until 6 am! I couldn't see any real coherance to the themes of the floats - one school had an Egyptian one followed closely by a German castle riding atop a giant wolf (somewhat Vegas-like, but better). I even saw the Taj Mahal!