Living in the Present – the View from Four Feet

Houston, we have a problem. We’ve crash-landed into our non-holiday life back in Belo Horizonte and we seem to have lost our direction. It’s Monday and the roar of morning traffic filtered up to our sixth-floor apartment starting at 5:45. Cars, trucks, motos (motorcycles) were all revving their way up the busy street outside our apartment entrance, horns blaring by 7. The only thing missing was the city buses. It appears the drivers are on strike today which ended up having profound effects throughout the city’s businesses as a lot of the workforce was unable to get to work. I miss waking to the sound of birds.

We’ve been back since Friday night so have had the weekend to ‘re-enter’ normal life. The kids’ war cry has been how much they miss life in Florianopolis. Who can blame them? We spent the last two months living at a leisurely pace. We were a 5-minute walk from the local beach. We mastered various forms of the sand castle. The kids experienced pure joy frolicking in the surf. And we spent a lot of quality time together since Brian conducted no research and spent only half-days writing up his findings, leaving the rest of the day to play. But it’s back to work for Brian now and back to reality for Bas, Ginger and me.

We’ve been in Brazil over six months now, with a bit over three months to go. I can feel the pull towards planning life upon our return to the U.S. Lining up play dates. Re-connecting with friends. Visiting family. But a funny thing happens when you stop living life in the present. It disappears. And I need to be mindful that we are experiencing something life-changing for the kids, even though Brian and I have both lived abroad numerous times. We need to view life from under four feet and appreciate how to make our last few months here meaningful for Bas and Ginger.

Have you ever gotten down on your knees in the surf and seen how big the waves seem to a three-year old? Well, Brian and I did this and appreciated the view. Our kids have reminded us that what we take for granted can seem pretty daunting to a child. Speaking a foreign language, trying to make friends, trying to understand another culture to name but a few waves crashing down on them.

The kids have not had any formal education here. We have focused on learning about life experiencially which has been fantastic seeing Brazil through their wide-open eyes. But it’s time for Bas and Ginger to finally make some connections with kids their own ages. Tomorrow we have an appointment with the pre-school down the street to see if our kids can enter school for the last three months of their time in Belo Horizonte. Bas has been biting at the chomp to go to school and run around with a pack of boys. Ginger gets rather teary-eyed at the mention of pre-school so I’m not so sure she’s quite as ready as Bas. But until we try, we’ll never know.

So send some positive vibes our way as we try to keep our feet on the ground without getting stuck in the mud.

Get Into the Groove – Life off the Grid

OK. We’re not exactly off the grid but going for a month without household internet or phone makes it very easy to feel totally detached from the world. We’ve moved from our month-long house-sitting gig on the ocean side of the island to a house rental on the bay side of Isla Santa Catarina (Floripa). Ginger was absolutely thrilled when we pulled up to a little white picket-fenced yard and saw that the house had been recently painted pink. And one of the most amazing differences between the two houses is that there is no constant cacophony of dogs barking here. Not only do some homes here not have security walls, but apparently, dogs are trained not to bark but be more like pets.

Daniela is one of the newer areas developed on the island. The crazy patchwork of Lagoa stands in stark contrast to the four long straight streets that run parallel to the beach in Daniela. Each short cross street leads to its own entrance onto the long, skinny beach. This is particularly nice because it spreads the beach-goers throughout the length of the beach. The view is wonderful. We look west across to the mainland (or ‘continente’ as they call it) where the mountains stack one after another up to the ocean. The bay here seems more like a large lake, with the waves gently lapping at the softly sloping shore. It’s a great beach for kids to frolic in and out of the water.
We’ve discovered neat glimpses of sea life on our walks. There are lots of little crabs with beautifully tipped purple and blue claws scurrying in and out of their holes. Occasionally some small fish will wash ashore and I’ve been lucky to see a couple of what appear to be eels (lucky because they’re dead and not nipping at me in the water - those teeth are sharp!). Brian even saw a beachball-sized translucent octopus washed up on shore the other morning while out on a run. The one thing that continues to surprise us is when we actually see someone reading on the beach. That is truly a rare sighting!

Brian has taken a healthy step back from his research. He only works every other day (more or less) and is able to spend some real quality time with the kids who thrive on the attention. Brian is a fantastic storyteller and the kids hang on his every word as he weaves magical adventures starring Bas and Ginger (and sometimes guest appearances from friends from Boise or ‘literary’ characters such as Calvin or Spiderman). Brian has also grown his beard back, the first time in six years. We’ll see how long it sticks around once he’s back to his work life in BH.
This summer (like last year) has been unseasonably cool and rainy but it hasn’t slowed us down too much. We found the rhythm of the island with its huge influx of tourists and have been able to avoid getting stuck in rain or traffic thus far. On sunny or cloudy days, we spend a couple of hours at a go at any given beach. And we’ve finally switched completely over to the local tradition of having a large lunch and a small dinner. It was a little crazy during the transition when we were managing to eat both a large lunch and a large dinner.

We are thankful for our stay on the other side of the island but were ready to make the switch to the rental. We are now in a larger house with a great covered outdoor space that sports two hammocks. The mosquitoes seem to be leaving Ginger alone so her body is no longer riddled with swollen bites. The yard is dog-free and we are now ready for our first two rounds of guests. Tim and Amanda from Portland, Oregon are currently on a mountain bike tour in Santa Catarina and will be joining us at the end of the week and Brian’s parents will come down right before Carnaval kicks into high gear.

Baby Got Bunda

Bunda: the butt, the bum, the tush. Brazilian beachwear for women is all about the bunda. Women of all sizes opt for maximum butt exposure. The Brazilian bikini bottom, regardless of style or size, has one thing in common from the backside - its angle. It’s shaped like an architect’s crisp V. American bikini bottoms are reminiscent of a 5th grade girl’s handwriting -- the same kind of writing where there’s a heart over the i’s and the bikini bottom is the loopy and well-rounded w. An American friend described it more like a diaper – big and bulky. She’s right, but I’m still not ready to make the switch, even for a New Year’s resolution!

Brazilian boys and men still favor the tsunga, a Speedo-like bottom. I have seen (far too often for my own good) older men sporting only a tsunga with socks and sneakers while out exercising. Even under duress, Bas refused to make the switch to the tsunga at his swim lessons even though they required such swim wear. We compromised by getting him a biker shorts-version of a bathing suit. I’m a fan of the surf shorts the real surfer dudes wear around here. Ironically, these are the guys who could actually carry off the tsunga. Oh well!

(note: the photo was taken on a family-friendly beach. You should see the scantily-clad on the hip-happening beaches like Praia Mole!)

Feliz Natal from Floripa

We’ve changed venues for the summer. Now that Brian’s done with the first half of his research and team-teaching a grad course at UFMG, we’ve traded land-locked Belo for beach-lovely Santa Catarina, an island in the south of Brazil. The main city is called Florianopolis, the industrial half on the mainland, and the tourist-friendly half on the island, thus the island’s nickname, Floripa. The city and bayside look back on the mainland and there are calm (but not necessarily pristine) waters while the Atlantic side of the island is a surfer’s (and kite boarder’s and windsurfer’s) paradise. There are dozens of beaches to choose from and as we enter high season, the traffic to accompany them as tour buses pile in from around the country as well as neighboring Argentina and Paraguay.

We are fortunate enough to be house-sitting on the ocean side of the island for some of Brian’s friends from grad school days at UT Austin who work at the university here. When they return, we’ll switch over to a house rental on the bay side. The interesting thing about going from an apartment building in the heart of BH to a house here is that, unless you are in a gated community (quite normal here), Brazilian houses stand alone, are surrounded by a high fence, including one across the driveway, and almost always have one or two dogs for protection of property.

The house where we’re staying comes with two dogs, one of which the kids aptly renamed Magali for a character who can only think of eating from the comic book “Monica” series. We’re within walking distance of a surfer beach that hosts the Brazilian surfing championship next month and a long hike straight up over a ‘mountain’ (at least to Bas’ little legs) to a secret beach (funny that they should name it the ‘secret beach’ if they didn’t want to attract attention). We can also walk a different direction into the little town along the lagoon. Oh, and there are sand dunes everywhere. You can even rent snowboards to ‘board’ or sled down some.

In theory, Brian will dedicate several hours each morning to putting his research into preliminary book form while the kids and I explore and play. In practice, only the play part has happened so far. I think Brian was a bit burnt out from an intense semester and is reveling in these non-work moments. (Is this what sabbatical is really supposed to feel like?) We’ve tried out four different beaches in four days, spending a whopping 1 ½ hours at a go. Once Christmas and New Year’s travelers arrive, we’ll have to be much more strategic in when and which beaches we visit as to avoid sitting in traffic longer than on the beach.

So now we are just waiting for Santa (or Papa Noel) to find our new address in time for Christmas Eve and enjoying a little concentrated family time. We truly miss our family and friends and with you the happiest of holidays, y’all.

a late note: turn's out those 'mosquito bites' the kids suffered from the first couple of nights turned out to be flea bites. And the biting hasn't stopped. we're madly trying to find a way to rid the house of the fleas and enjoy the rest of our stay!

Gooooooooooooooooooollllllll!!!!!!!!

There are a few countries out there that absolutely shut down during the month of World Cup play. Brazil is one of them. Brazilians take their soccer very seriously. You could say Americans treat their sports as religion, but it gets watered down when there are so many sports competing for attention…baseball, basketball, football, let alone college and professional teams. There is an acute focus on the professional and the national level of futebol here and it’s contagious.

Belo Horizonte has two soccer teams in the top league, Atletico (Clube Atletico Mineiro) and Cruzeiros (Clube Cruzeiro Mineiro), and they just so happen to share a stadium in the third largest city in the country. Like the cross-town rivalry of the Yankees and the Mets, you are born into a life-long allegiance to one or the other in this city. No matter who you marry or where you eventually live will change this loyalty.

As we close in on the end of regular-season play, the rankings are still a bit up in the air. Brian and I had the opportunity to attend the last home game of 5th place Cruzeiros. With one more game to play, both Atletico and Cruzeiros are vying for a top-four space. The stadium, which holds 55,000 people, had a mere 40,000 in attendance, but with a majority of people decked out in the royal blue jerseys of their hometown team, it was hard to tell if there was anybody cheering for the visitors from Curitiba.

It was a bit unnerving to see the three referees escorted onto the field by five police officers in full riot gear. But it was sweet to see that entrance followed by little kids escorting each home player onto the field before kick-off.

After a great opening 10 minutes then a quick score by the visiting team, it was hard to imagine that 40,000 people could be so quiet. But life pulsed through the stadium when hometown Cruzeiros scored twice in stoppage time. I was a bit shocked when the fan I was sitting next to gave me a huge bear hug after the first goal. I was more prepared the second time and by the third goal, I gave him a hug amid all the jumping up and down by everyone. Although Cruzeiro ended up winning 4-1, it was the feel of the jubilant and totally engaged crowd that I’ll remember. It was so easy to get caught up in the team songs and chants, the amazing percussion section, the unifying movement of the crowd to the songs. I loved being part of it.

If you can’t get enough of soccer, there are several options here. There’s the professional outdoor leagues (Divisions A, B, and C), professional futesal (indoor soccer, but with out-of-bounds), professional ‘showbowl’ (indoor soccer where you can use the wall), futevole (beach volleyball but with a soccer ball and no using your arms or hands) and a million types of pick-up games in every park, grass field, hard court and dirt field you can imagine.

I can’t wait for World Cup 2010 in South Africa!!

Thanks Giving for Every Wrong Move

Hindsight is supposedly 20/20. How convenient to be able to look back on the choices you have made and learn and grow (and hopefully not repeat the worst of them). I am also thankful for the mistakes I have made. Without them, I would not be where I am, nor the person I am without the combination of the good and bad that came of them. But what about the choices we are making on behalf of our children? I’m curious how Bas and Ginger will see things when they are older, when they look back on their time here in Brazil.

As adults, we are thrilled to be sharing this experience of living abroad with our young children. But as parents, it is hard to accept that you have shaken your kids’ world up so thoroughly, taken them away from the things and people they love and know, and set them down in a new and unknown world, friendless except for each other. Some days are better than others. Some days are definitely worse. It’s hard to say if the kids are truly glad we uprooted them for the year. We probably should have taken the plunge as soon as we got here and put them in a ‘regular’ pre-school where they would have learned the language quicker and made some friends their own age. But we didn’t. We took what we thought was the kinder, gentler route of acclimating them to Brazil, attending what turned out to be the equivalent of after-school care but in the mornings a few mornings a week.

On the plus side, Bas and Ginger are forming what we hope is a life-long bond that does not always develop just because you are siblings. We also hope that their friends back home remember them and welcome them back with open arms and invitations to their houses for lots of play dates upon our return! But we are also thankful to the Brazilian kids who have gone out of their way to include our kids in playground and poolside fun.

It will be interesting to see how this time abroad affects Bas and Ginger in their personal growth and development. Thanksgiving is not celebrated in Brazil, but that doesn’t mean that our little family won’t be taking a moment to say our special thanks for what has brought us to this point.

You Can Have Your Cake and Eat Your Words, Too

You’d think after two children that I’d learn never to say ‘never.’ I’ve lived in rural Japan and slept in a tent across eastern Africa, so I never thought I’d go to an all-inclusive resort before I was well into retirement. I was wrong. After an outbreak of bacterial meningitis left 10 people dead in the beach town where we were scheduled to have a family holiday late last week, we did a quick scramble and found a place just north of Salvador, Bahia.

The resort spreads grandly between 5 km of gorgeous sandy beach (nothing between it and the coast of Angola) and a huge pool with various depths for all ages. It is a very family-oriented place. It was nice not to have to carry a wallet around and have to keep track of expenses or have to decide where our next meal would be. The scale tipped from self-indulgence to over-indulgence pretty quickly. I had a hard time resisting the all-you-can-eat buffet they offered every meal, especially when I could have filet mignon or some yummy seafood option, oh, and then there was the dessert table. Alcohol was free as well. Brian and I occasionally imbibed but not nearly to the extent of everyone else around us! The pool’s wet bar opened at 9:30 a.m. and the other bars didn’t shut down until well after we were all in bed. No wonder the pool was no deeper than an adult’s chest.

The kids loved having their dad around non-stop. No meetings to attend, classes to teach, people to interview, conferences to present at, emails to send. Just play and eat and play and eat some more. Bas and Ginger were like fish. Bas practiced his newly honed swimming skills and Ginger (literally) just dove right in. We really had to keep an eye on her since her free-spiritedness might have ended in drowning. We eventually bought some floaties that you put around kids’ upper arms to put our minds at ease when our backs were turned about our attention-seeking daughter.

There were green parrots in the palm trees around the pool, tiny monkeys hanging out at the kids’ club where they knew bananas could be had, cashew trees full of ripening cashew fruit and accompanying nut hanging off its tip just outside our door, a walk along the beach resulting in a pocketful of cool shells. The one time we went ‘off site’ was well worth it. We ventured to Praia do Forte where there is a sea turtle institute (Projeto Tamar). It was pretty amazing to see how large some of these sea turtle species grew, especially when you got to see how small they started in those eggs. It’s great to know that places like this exist to help these endangered animals make a comeback.

We were blissfully cut off from the world for 5 days. We had no idea that 40% of the country was without power for 4 hours since Bahia was one of the few states that was on its own power grid. Too bad we didn’t realize that Bahia outlets were 220 volts before blowing out our white noise machine! The only other unfortunate thing is that both kids came home with ear infections. I guess that’s the price you pay for having such warm pool water and practically living in it for the entirety of our visit. Overall, it was well-worth it all for the happiness and relaxation we all felt on this vacation.