I”ll consider that bluff called

Ok, I really did consider posting this last night as it reads in the blog.  But then I showed it to Sara and she, having the modicum of taste I clearly don’t, encouraged me to give it one day to make sure Lila was really feeling alright.  And after losing the gamble you’ll soon read about, doubling down didn’t seem wise.  So, with Lila fully on the mend, I take you back 24 hours . . . 

I’ll consider that bluff called.

I don’t know if there are as many different kinds of tired as their are Inuit words for snow, but we are trying to find out.  All schools in the capital have been closed since March 12th, and not counting the two days we had to get ready,  we find ourselves heading into Day 8 of Distance Learning tomorrow.  And yes, by “distance learning” I do mean delivering instruction to five year olds over the computer.  So now I finally get to answer the age old question of what could possibly be harder than teaching kindergarten?  Ding, ding, ding, correct! The answer is . . . teaching kindergarten over the internet.

So, at nine o’clock tonight when we are finally getting the girls to bed and Lila comes out of her room for the third time saying she doesn’t feel well, I will admit to feeling less than fatherly.  Sara had gotten her settled, I had gone in for a snuggle, and we both just wanted five minutes to respond to the 97 Seesaw Notifications that had come in since dinner.  That being said, I gambled.  I called her bluff.  I told her that if her stomach was really feeling that bad, she might as well go ahead and throw up because it might make her feel better.  Granted, it was not incorrect advice, but clearly poorly timed.  In a future situation, I might decide to deliver that advice when she is sitting next to the toilet, not next to Sara on the couch.

I don’t know if you know this, but Brazilians mop differently.  They tend to prefer what you see in the photo below, which is sort of a giant squeegee on a broom handle.  

They either soak a rag in a cleaning solution, twist it around the squeegee part and push it around, or they splash that same solution on the floor and kind of chase it around with the squeegee head.  Either way, this device is very adept at moving liquids on hard floors.   

I now insert into your imagination all of the previously shared information, plus a squeegee, a dustpan, and a bucket.  Got it?  I certainly did.  And so while I wait for Lila to fall asleep, the floor to dry, and for the fan to clear the air in the apartment, I thought “why should I have all the fun” and grabbed my keyboard.

We are confident that Lila’s upset stomach is just regular old sick, but it is strange to be living in a moment where you worry about those kinds of things.  We hope everyone is doing as well as can be expected, and that there are still some little moments in your life where ordinary things happen, no matter how gross.

Love to all of you from all of us.  Be well, be safe, and be happy.

Mikey the Marmot

This is Mikey the Marmot. He used to go by the name Chuck, but when I moved to Brazil it was easier to have a puppet whose name starts with a common consonant, not a digraph (that’s for my teacher friends).  He has been part of all my classrooms for many years and is probably as fondly remembered by former students as I ever will be.  He is a bit impulsive, rather shy, but he has the ability to perform magic with kids.  Every time Mikey brings a new book for the class to read, chews on their pencils, writes them a letter, or creates a Mikey Mystery for them to solve, it is classroom gold.  So of course when our principal here told us to start bringing home our teaching materials every night just in case, I packed my laptop and Mikey.  Well, it happened, the governor of the Federal District closed all schools for a total of 20 calendar days, and Mikey is now living at home with us.  Friday we were looking at Mikey and all his fur and thinking about all the hands and hugs he gets every day and I started to see him more as a fuzzy little petri dish than as my sidekick.  So, not wanting to throw him into the washing machine, we did the next best thing and took him outside to soak up some nice Brazilian UV rays in hopes of doing a little corona cooking.  The girls and I bumped a volleyball around and moved Mikey from sun patch to sun patch, rotating him like a rotisserie chicken on the bag he was laying on.  Suddenly Hannah looks up and shouts, “wow, that bird is low” and we all look up and see a caracara finish what looks like a dive and start climbing back up to the sky.  

Caracaras are birds of prey from the falcon family and are really common in Brasilia.  There is even a nest we can see from our apartment window.  As common as they are, it was still really exciting to see one that close, until we realized why he had gone into a dive.  Mikey!  Like the bidet drinker, there is no absolute evidence, but the girls and I are pretty darn confident that Mikey almost got scooped by our local bird of prey.  Luckily Mikey survived the near miss and is happily living on our couch where he can just get a peek at their nest if he feels brave.

And you read that correctly (if you read Portuguese), the Federal District, our state, has cancelled all schools and public events for twenty days.  Which we fully support, except that we now are transitioning to a distance learning program, which means that our kindergarten team will be attempting to entice five year olds to do school work at home.  Day one is Monday, so I am sure updates will be added to the blog as we really get into the process.  So far, we are starting slow, just getting everyone set up and doing an activity or two each day as we ramp up.  The part that I have yet to wrap my head around is the “office hours” I will be holding twice each day for thirty minutes on a Google Hangout.  Yep, I am going to sit there while as many five year olds as want to log into the chat room and attempt to wait their turn quietly so the program does not think they want to talk yet.  And if they start pushing buttons, they can mute any other person in the video conference, or even just remove them entirely.  Should be a really interesting experiment.  I wonder if they will guess what is in Mister Adam’s juice cup, because I am going to need it.

So far, everyone is healthy with no signs of COVID-19, but we are wary.  We had lots of families traveling to Europe over the Carnaval break in late February, and other families coming back from Italy trips in the last few weeks.  We have one confirmed case of a parent of a 5th grader.  The 5th grade child, who is one of Lila’s classmates and friends, luckily tested negative. Still, at times it feels inevitable.  I was getting hugs from students whose parents had just come back from Italy, so who knows.  And you try telling a five year old that we don’t hug teachers any more, and don’t touch our faces.  I can’t even get them to not touch each other’s faces!  

And although the governor made the brave decision to cancel schools, the majority of the people in Brasilia are currently doing nothing different.  Restaurants are packed, people are hugging and kissing, and you would never know that a pandemic is sweeping across the world.  We were on a bike ride today and happened by a political rally with an endless stream of cars and people all gathering to show their support for the president of Brasil.  We checked that out from afar.  We are doing what we can, keeping our distance, keeping a low profile, and just waiting and wondering what will come next.

The two tall identical buildings way in the background are where people are actually gathering.  This is just a shot of the traffic to get there.

As a family, we have also had birthdays, and gotten driver’s licenses, and gone on mountain bike rides, and lots of other good old regular stuff, but we are definitely feeling the shadow of COVID-19 over everything we do right now.   We know that lots of others are in a much tougher place than we are right now, and our inconveniences feel minuscule by comparison.  Right now, we are thankful for every healthy day we have. Positive thoughts and energy to everyone, everywhere, from all of us.

Carnaval week through Hannah and Lila’s eyes.

Since it has become increasingly clear that I may be the primary writer for our “family blog”, I have decided to take a different tact with this entry and share our Carnaval Week through Hannah and Lila’s eyes as much as I can.  So I’ll share a quick, for me, update about our latest adventures and then let the pictures do the talking.

In a nutshell, Carnaval is bonkers crazy on a level that puts anything the US calls a party to shame.  The entire country shuts down and cuts loose.  The images of the giant floats and dancers in Rio you may have seen are just the beginning.  We had a moment where we considered going to Rio for one night of the samba school parades, and I even started researching things and found that they went from 8:00 to 5:00 or 6:00, which is a really long time.  And then I read a little deeper and realized that it was from 8:00 PM to 5:00 or 6:00 AM.  So, as much as I love big crowds and loud music, we decided to stay in Brasilia through the Carnaval proper and head back to Chapada dos Viadeiros from Wednesday to Sunday.   Not that Carnaval in Brasilia is all that mellow.  We went to one party on Saturday afternoon around 1:00 and it was already busy with lots of folks dancing and enjoying themselves.  I was completely overdressed in shorts and a T-shirt.  I offered to take my shirt off and find some glitter for my chest hair and beard, but the girls decided I was fine as is.  There must be some sort of guideline around total square footage of clothing that is considered appropriate for a costume.  From a quick visual survey, I would say that the number is about two square feet, not counting footwear and capes.  It is also loud, like skull rattling loud, and we forgot earplugs, so we only lasted an hour or two.  In that short of a time, the line to get in went from 10 people to over 1,000 people in a line around the block.  And this is at 3:30 in the afternoon, at one of the multitude of block parties happening in town.  Been there, done that, and so we decided to keep a low profile for the rest of the weekend.  

Wednesday found us driving north to hike in the same area as we did in October, except this time in the rainy season.   Trickles had turned to torrents, dirt roads were full of puddles and potholes, rivers were at their banks, and the swimming options at the waterfalls were limited.  Luckily the hotel had a great pool.  We hiked in a torrential downpour one day and hot, blue skies the next.  Toucans, blue macaws, green parrots, and ibises were on the bird list for the trip.  We traveled with some new friends from school and even got to play a couple of board games.  

So, back to the girls.  Lots of swimming, some good hiking, and lots of eating.  It seems to be our family formula for a good time in Brazil.  They also got ahold of our waterproof camera and entertained themselves thoroughly at the waterfalls and in the pool.  I’ll add a few general pictures of the week, so you don’t get just funny underwater faces.

Lots of love from Brasil,

Adam