CSI Brasilia

How does one catch a criminal?  Good cop, bad cop?  Lie detector tests?  Surveillance cameras?  Urine samples?

Guess which one I’m almost ready to resort to?  Yep, I’ve got a Mystery Pee-er in my room who is apparently incapable of landing his business in the bowl.  Granted, the bowl is kid sized, so I would expect more than your average amount of secondary splatter, but we are talking puddles here people.  Whoever Billy Bad Aim is, they are not even trying.

Yes, I know I could institute some sort of tracking system, but the bathroom is in the classroom so they are allowed to go without asking any time I’m not actually teaching them, which is quite a bit of time because that teaching stuff is hard so I avoid it by pretending to do small groups as often as possible.  Don’t judge me teacher friends, I know you do it too.

I’ve tried to watch who goes when, but most of my class have bladders the size of thimbles and go about ten times a day.  I did start to think about tracking who doesn’t go very often, because I am convinced that Little Mister Pee A Lot must have a giant bladder based solely on puddle size.  He must be storing it up for a while because I’m not sure I could make a lake that big.  We may have to consider that we are dealing with a mastermind here, the way they are plotting and timing their movements to avoid detection.  Yes, we did consider that it could be multiple perpetrators, sort of Peed Piper situation, but we think this person is acting alone.  

Oh yes, my old friend the Bidet Drinker was tops on the list initially, but he really is a clean water sort of kid, so we only drag him in for questioning when the splashes are non-urinary in nature.

In reality, we only have a day and a half left to catch him before break, so this may go unsolved for now.  But considering we only have a day and a half before our break begins, I’m not that worried because very, very soon,  I am going to stop caring for an entire glorious month.

And in other news from the last month. . .

About three weeks ago, we were lucky enough to be able to attend the semi-finals of the U17 FIFA Soccer World Cup here in Brasilia.  Just like the normal World Cup,  teams from around the world were here in Brazil playing matches all over the country, but the semi-finals and finals were about 30 minutes from our apartment in a town called Gama.  Amazingly, at least when you think about tickets to sporting events in the US, the tickets were so incredibly affordable.  We spent about $5 each for seats on the “fancy side” of the stadium.   The two games were Netherlands versus Mexico and Brazil versus France.   With a full school day and a decent drive, we didn’t arrive until half time of the first game.  Luckily, the second half was where the excitement was at.  The stands were probably about 30% full when we arrived, which was actually pretty good considering neither team was the home team.  The actual supporters of Netherlands and Mexico were a tiny contingent in amongst the green and yellow of Brazilian fans who were slowly trickling in.  The game was intense and went to penalty kicks.  Like them or not, penalty kicks are exciting and Mexico’s goalie saved three of the five shots to lift Mexico into the finals.  Because there was about ninety minutes between games and not much more than beer, popcorn and hot dogs, we left and found some dinner outside the stadium.  Shockingly, said no one ever about my family, we were late back into the stadium and missed the kickoff for Brazil v. France.  By the time we made it through security and into the stadium, it was a world transformed.  Every seat was full, 99% of them with Brazilian shirts on.  We made it just in time to watch France score two goals in the first fifteen minutes and silence the crowd.  Strangely, at least to me, France then pulled back and started playing a total defensive game.  I guess that might work in some places, but in Brazil with a home crowd screaming at every chance for a goal, it may not have been the best choice.  France did keep the shutout through the first half, but Brazil scored a goal in the second half and it was earplug decibel from then on.  When Brazil got the goal to tie, the roof blew off the stadium.  It was only 13,000 people, so not large by any real scale, but the intensity per person was as high as any event I’ve attended or seen.  And like every good fairy tale, Brazil scored the go ahead go in the extra time after the regulation 90 minutes had run out.  To say there was some excitement would be quite the understatement.  It was pandemonium.  Happily our seats for this game were up higher, so we were above most of the insanity, but still in a place to enjoy every second.

During that same week, we bought a car.  The used car buying process down here is a whole blog entry of it’s own, and crazy in so many ways, but not worth the space right now.    But, we have wheels and it has been nice.  Give me a call and I’ll share the rest of that story.

Hannah has been doing great. She is finishing up her first semester and has been getting better grades than she thought she might, which is great news to us, because we had absolutely no clue how she was doing in any of her classes.  Top notch parenting, I know, but we figured someone would let us know if she was failing.  Hannah also got her second athletic award for basketball when she was named MVP for her JV Girls Team.  You know, no big deal, just up on stage in front of everybody at an assembly.  She also got to play the flute at the holiday concert with both the middle and high school bands, so she was excited about that.

Lila also had her winter concert, where she got to be front and center playing the ukelele with three friends.  She is thinking about playing soccer in January, which would be cool because it would be outside of school and all in Portuguese.  She is in the midst of multiple Secret Santa events and Spirit Week, so school is as fun as ever.  Oddly, she has started to develop a new aversion to bugs, which is strange because she has never cared particularly before, and there are not any more bugs here than in Bend during the summer, so we’ll keep an eye on that.  The rainy season starting here in Brasilia and a trip to the Amazon to spend six days on a boat  this break will probably show us just how bothersome she really finds them.

Our big adventure was Thanksgiving spent at Bahia Surf Camp, which is this idyllic little resort on the northern coast of Brazil.  It is secluded, quiet, and ready made for the perfect combination of sun, surf, and sleep.  The basic itinerary for each day entailed being served three fresh meals, swimming in the 82 degree ocean, taking a two hour surf lesson, taking a one hour yoga class, napping in a hammock, more swimming in the ocean, swimming in the pool, and collapsing into bed.  We had grand plans to spend part of a day in Salvador, the big city just a half hour from where we were, but got sucked into the complete relaxation vortex.  And we learned how to surf, for real.  And it’s hard, humbling hard.  It reminded me of skate skiing because there is so much technique and people who are good at it are effortless and make it look so easy.  Thankfully, the instructors were great and we were all standing up by day two, and Hannah and I were out in deep water catching waves on our own by day three.  Anyone who spent any time watching me learn how to cross country ski can imagine just how spectacular my wipeouts were, but I was getting the hang of it and managed to come back with just a few bruised ribs and some sunburn.  The girls are ready to go back, and have a long list of folks they think would like to join them, so if surfing ever is on your list, we know a place.

Ending the semester means report cards, and they take them very seriously here. That can be good, but it also means we have to write three different sets of comments for each student, one for math, one for literacy,  and one for overall.  That’s fine if you don’t mind writing, but if that’s hard for you, then this has been a long couple of weeks. But, we are whisper close to four weeks off of school, so we will suck it up.

Love to everyone, Happy Holidays if we don’t hear from you, and good luck making it to whatever version of a break you have ahead of you.

Tchau, tchau,

Adam

A little bit of everyone.

A little bit of everybody.

Well, we got Hannah back in one piece from her tournament.  In classic middle school style, she moved right on past any of the actual struggles with a quick shoulder shrug and is focusing on the good parts, which is just fine with us for now.  We have four months before we have to deal with this again, so we’ll just be happy that she’s happy.

The tournament was called Little 8 and it was eight international schools from around Brazil meeting at a dedicated sports facility outside Sao Paolo for three days of basketball.  I don’t really know how to describe the facility except as some sort of kid sports heaven.  It is out in the middle of nowhere on its own beautiful property with a lake, horses, kayaks, and soccer fields, basketball and volleyball courts, and as we found out, masseuses that the kids can go to for their aches and pains in between their three off the chart meals each day.  It was kind of like an all inclusive sports resort designed for middle and high school kids.  Yeah, not exactly roughing it.

The basketball itself was challenging for Hannah and her team.  They were only able to field a team of seven, two of whom were recruited just for this tournament, so there was not a lot of depth.  They definitely gelled as a team, played hard, and had some great moments, which was encouraging, but had to settle for eight place.  Hannah played all but six minutes of the five games and came back limping and sore.  She also almost forgot to mention that she won a Sportsmanship Award for the tournament.  At the end of each game, the teams presented a mini-award to a player from the other team that they thought showed the most overall “good stuff” and Hannah won that award three times and so was given the award for the team at the end.  She was acting pretty ho hum about it with us, but it did happen to end up on her bedside table, which is prime real estate, so we were glad that she was as proud of it as we were.

Lila ran her first 5K here in Brazil with her school running club and it was called the Insane Race.  Insane mainly because it was around a mall, through a parking garage, and involved at least 10 different inflatable obstacles, with water, and bubbles,  and 100 people starting a new wave every 10 minutes.   So, Insane was a good description for it, but she loved every step.

Lila also got to spend Halloween at the American Embassy with a friend, which is a big deal.  You have to be invited to attend, and the embassy staff go all out.  Every office creates their own miniature station for trick or treating, with decorated hallways and some legitimately scary spots.  She came back sugared, spooked, and happy.

Sara continues to work her butt off at school.  Her teaching partner is amazing, but is also driven, so I wouldn’t say they complement each other as much as fuel each other.  There are glimpses of things slowly getting easier, but it is teaching, so we know where that’s headed.  

I continue to provide endless entertainment for the kind people of Brasilia with my Portuguese.  I am improving, which may not actually be helping me.  I can now plan and speak a pretty decent sentence or two, but then there comes that sticky moment when the person responds, and then everything goes to hell.  I went to buy a beard trimmer, because apparently I have a beard in my ear that needs attending, and realized after buying it that it was missing some parts.  So, I busted out my Dick and Jane vocabulary, spiced things up with a little Google Translate, and bravely forged back into the store to say, “excuse me fine people, I just purchased this razor and it is missing some parts.”  And knowing that the next question would be whether or not I had my receipt, I proudly busted it out and handed it over.  At which point, I get the sad head shake and finger wag, which is the universal signal for “sorry, you don’t have the correct document.”  My joy at being understood quickly faded as I started to wonder what I was going to do?  Not knowing the words for, “what do you mean this isn’t the right receipt” and not yet wanting to appear frustrated, I simply said,  “what is it then?”  Now let me explain that you only have about 72 hours to return anything in Brazil to the store that sold it to you.  After that, you deal with the manufacturer, which is even more fun than in the US.  I was there less than 4 hours after buying it, so I was confident I was correct. So keeping calm, I turn to look at the clerk and ask him what the paper in my hand is if it is not my receipt?  In return, I get a big smile, a look of pity, and an extremely good view of the back of the receipt, where it clearly says, Dunkin’ Donuts.  I can only imagine how many laughs the story of the American who tried to return something with a Dunkin’ Donuts receipt will provide, but I that’s fine.  I long ago surrendered any dignity I have around my Portuguese, and at least I was able to produce the correct receipt and leave with the right item. 

Unfortunately, any small ember of accomplishment that may have started to ignite from surviving the mall was quickly snuffed out when I attempted to use my new beard trimmer.  No, it wasn’t broken. In fact, it was working exactly as designed, maybe better than expected.  Once I knew the trimmer was working, I decided to take it out for a test drive and tackle those ear beards.   Job done.  And like with any new toy, I wanted to keep playing with it and so I looked around to see what else I could trim up.  

The following is an excerpt from my brain:

Well, the barber always cleans up the stray long hairs on the eyebrows, let’s do that.  That looks like the tallest guard, let’s start with that and see if we catch anything.  Ok, snapped on and fired up.  Wow, that really cuts easily.  Hmm, that’s not the noise my trimmer at home makes when it knicks off a couple of long hairs.  That’s much more like the noise the barber’s razor makes when it’s cutting off a whole bunch of hair.  Interesting, I’ve never seen that much hair in the sink.  Those are kind of long.   Oh sh#t, are those all from my eyebrow?

Turns out that the height of the guards might have been misread by a certain currently buzzcut eyebrow someone in our house.  Apparently, the heights of the plastic pieces don’t correspond with the cutting height, so instead of the 1/2 of an inch tall eyebrow shaping, I got the 1mm tall golf green mowing eyebrow.  Yeah, that’s no good, and now I have to buzz the other one so they match.

That’s all for now. I’ve got to go find a Sharpie and see if I can not make things any worse.

Love to everyone, pictures below, 

Adam

When will they thank me for this?

I don’t know what idiot dressed as an adult first attempted to pass off some hare brained self improvement scheme to their child with the brilliant quote of “someday you’ll thank me for this”, but they should be drawn and quartered.  I know I’ve thought it many times, like when we decided to have both girls go to school in Spanish, or other little things like uprooting them from everything they know to go live in Brazil, where it turns out they don’t speak Spanish, but I avoid that phrase like the plague.

Mainly because I don’t need to.  Wonderfully well meaning people seem to want to say it to my children all the time.  “Oh, isn’t it wonderful of your parents to do this for you?  You’ll thank them some day.”  Which is the world’s politest way of saying, “Hmm, you don’t look happy today, hopefully it won’t suck forever”.  They don’t need to hear how great it will be to have done something.  They need to enjoy it now.  It’s like hearing,  “I know you lost that leg and all, but think of the money you will save on shoes and socks.”

This is spinning through my head because I’ve spent the night texting back and forth with Hannah because she’s having one of those “growth moments” and would do anything to not be “learning some valuable life skills” right now.  She is with her middle school basketball team at a four day tournament, that she flew to, on an airplane, without us, far, far, away.  In our infinite wisdom, which was also part of the communal decision, we thought that (hold on, another text).  Sorry, where was I . . .we thought that if she went on an overnight trip without any chance of return, she might be able to get beyond that part and just deal with being nervous.  Well, one drained phone and five hours later, the discussion of possible scenarios around ways of getting her home is finally over.  It sounded like a bad improv skit where the topic was, “Can I come home?”, “No” and the goal was to say it in as many ways as possible.  While her requests even included monetary bribes, my same answer every time of “I love you, no, you can’t come home” finally won the day, and afternoon, and evening.

So amidst the tens of I Miss You So Much texts, which are just direct shots to the heart, (hold on, Hannah again) we are slowly working towards ways to relax.  Our favorite technique is to try to remember every little detail of any one happy place or adventure, like the ranch in the Tetons, the Grand Canyon trip, or where we found checkpoints on adventure races.  Here’s to hoping it works tonight.

Does it matter that she is surrounded by friends?  

Does it matter that every kid whose has ever gone to this sports camp has loved it?  

Does it matter how crazy excited and proud she has been all week about this?

Does it matter that there is a pool, pizza, movies, and basketball?  

Does it matter that she knows and I know she will feel better tomorrow?  

Not tonight it doesn’t.  

Tonight it matters that my daughter is very far away and sad, and I can’t fix it, which makes me sad.  Maybe it’s me that is learning the thing that someday I’ll be happy to have learned, but I don’t believe that either.

Herding Pirnahas

In another homage to the Friday we are all facing, I present to you some highlights from my last couple of weeks.

Here I am, helping monitor kids on their way to PE, high fiving them as they walk by.  First kid, great, second kid, cool, third kid, awesome, fourth kid. . . - now I have a dripping wet hand.  A la bidet drinker, I don’t really want to know, I just want to go bathe in hand sanitizer. 

I was feeling that fleeting moment of teacher success as one of my kindest students, and strongest writers, was taking my lesson on adding a surprise ending to pattern books to heart and writing a new last page furiously.  He was switching from multiple pages of (_______) is my friend to finish with a flourish by breaking the pattern. Interestingly, the gem of a last page he came up with after listing multiple friends was I don’t like Carol.  “So buddy,” I ask, “tell me about your ending.”  “Well,” he says, “all of the people on these first pages are my friends, and I don’t like Carol”.   Well, ok, I did ask.

Ah, there’s nothing like finding the lovely little girl, who just might have an enormous lice problem, joyfully sharing her multiple headbands with all the other girls at recess.  

A cool part of our school is that we have K3 and K4 classes, which means my five year olds feel mature, occasionally, in comparison to these 3 and 4 year olds.  It also means I have a snowball’s chance in hell of understanding the littlest of littles who are Brazilian.  Even though my Portuguese is toddler level in vocabulary and grammar, it is not in the same linguistic galaxy as three year olds.  You know how cute and funny kids sound, with their silly lisps, and missing sounds in words, and the goofy way they pronounce things.  Well, that’s cute in your native language, but verbal hieroglyphics to me in Portuguese.  Try as I might, conversations with Brazilian three year olds are always hysterical, and generally unproductive.  Luckily, it goes both ways with our Brazilian staff listening to three year old English.  Yesterday, one of the Brazilian staff was wandering around the K3 classroom with this little three year old boy who is crying unconsolably and looking desperately for his “clock”.  The teacher is pointing at clocks and watches and getting absolutely nowhere.  She asks him to describe his “clock” and he says “small and red”.  Again, absolutely no help, and things are not getting any better, for either of them.  Moments later, in walks another K3 student and the crying immediately stops.  Meet Clark, the normally sized for a three year old, redheaded “clock”.

There is this cute little girl in my class from the middle east who is absolutely fearless in her use of English.  If she can think it, she will say it.  She tells me on a regular basis that even though I have the strength to open her toothbrush case (which is trickier than it sounds), I have no muscles.  Well, not in those exact words, she expresses that entire thought by giggling and saying, “You don’t have any muscles.  I can’t see them.”  And although I lobby every time for some credit for actually having used my non-existent muscles in opening her case, she just laughs harder and repeats, “you don’t have any muscles!”  Today, as a sort of aperitif to our normal lunchtime banter, she followed up an in depth inspection of my head (more common than you think) by informing me that, “you have a beard in your ear.”  I might use the term “stray hair or two” but regardless, it looks like I need to talk with Edward Scissorhands at the barber shop and let him know he missed a few stragglers.  Clearly my grooming is not up to Brazilian standards.

And I finish with my favorite, a conversation I got to watch and enjoy between two five year olds and the Principal.

Principal to Boy 1:  So, did you hit him?

Boy 1: Yes, but I don’t do that anymore.

Principal: Ok, when was the last time you hit him?

Boy 1: Yesterday! (in a tone that clearly said, “didn’t you hear me when I said I don’t do it anymore”)

Principal: (silence)

Point to Boy 1

Principal to Boy 2: So, did you hit him?

Boy 2: Yes, but he should have dodged it.

Principal: (stunned silence)

Point to Boy 2

Principal: Zero 

Five Year Olds: Two

Game, set, match

Thanks for reading and bjs para todos!   

Water, water everywhere.

So, in a nutshell, our long weekend was great in all the ways it needed to be.  We got to hike, swim, and then hike and swim some more, visiting seven waterfalls over the course of three great hikes.  Water and exercise took care of the needs of the Carter half of our family, and the Swedlund half was happy because we found some surprisingly good restaurants to eat at, so we pretty much covered all the bases.  Hannah and Lila, landing solidly in the middle of both camps, enjoyed everything and even got to sneak in some shopping and ice cream.  A win for everyone.

We are home (yep, we call it that now), tired in the right way, and happy to have had a break.  Things at school have started to mellow in their intensity a little bit, and the long, slow process of grieving and healing has begun in earnest for many.  We often find ourselves on the edges of things, but it’s something the whole school will be feeling for quite a while.

And so I present to you, in no particular order, the joy of waterfall hiking in Brazil.  And yes, you do need to come see this for yourself.  It’s that amazing.  We were planning our next visit back before we even left this time.  Thanks for the love, our best to everyone, and we (as in me) will write again soon.  

Different sort of week.

I’ve spent the last hour or so drafting other blog entries; trying to write about the funny parts of the week, or Lila’s latest art project, or Hannah’s big basketball tournament coming in a month.  It hasn’t been working, and so I guess I’ll write this instead.

About two weeks ago, two ninth graders at our school were very seriously injured in a boating accident.  This Tuesday night, one of them passed away.  

It’s been a tough week.  We are a small school, and everyone knows everyone.  Principals know every student’s name.  Security guards greet every student every morning.  It’s two classes per grade level from preK-12, so it’s a family in more ways than it’s a school.  Hannah only knew the student in passing, and the younger brother of this student is in Lila’s, and Sara’s, grade and has not returned to school since the accident.  I guess I am saying that as a way of framing this for our family.  With all that, it is still a loss we are all feeling.

I don’t want to compare losses when I know that there are equally sad, or worse, tragedies occurring daily around the world, but moments like these can’t help but strike close to home.  I remember talking with my grandpa when my aunt died of Lupus when I was in college and him saying that no parent should ever outlive their child.  Now as a parent I truly understand his words and can’t imagine the loss being felt by this family right now.

I don’t really have much more to say.  We are sad, but ok.  We want to hold onto our girls and never let them out of our sight again, but that too will change.  

Sorry if you were hoping for something lighter.  I didn’t really know when I started this blog if I would mean it to always be an honest representation of our time down here, but it feels untrue to write anything else right now.  Feel free to pass out a few extra hugs to those around you.  We would share them with you if we could.  

Abracos e beijos (hugs and kisses) to everyone.