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