The Bold and the Bitten.

So I signed up to get text summaries of news articles from the local newspaper, Correio Brasilense, which is both informative and helpful for my Portuguese.  Not surprisingly, I get articles about Covid counts, political happenings, the approach of the dry season, and lottery results.   All things I expected.  What I didn’t expect was the ongoing real life soap opera about the veterinary student bitten by a snake that popped up in my feed.  I gave it a quick read, got hooked, and have been anxiously awaiting every update.  It has become a real life soap opera and also a welcome break to find this quirky little story shoehorned in between all of the serious articles of the day.  Clearly someone at the newspaper is as desperate to spice things up as I am to read about something other than politics and Covid because new articles about this story have been published almost daily for several weeks now.

Now, a couple things before I share my cliff notes version of As The Snake Bites.  

First, this is my retelling of my translation, so well, you know.  And it is also the kind of story that really just calls out for some exaggeration and literary license.  All known falsehoods and attempts to fabricate a back story will be designated in italics.  Everything else is the truth as far as my Portuguese knows it.  

Next, the student bitten by the snake is ok, and getting better.  

Last, the Portuguese word for snake is cobra, which takes some getting used to.  It helps to realize that there are no cobras native to Brazil, but it does still get your attention when someone says to not step on the cobra over there.

Lead Off Article: 22 year old veterinary student shows up at hospital having been bitten by snake.  Concerning, yes, out of the ordinary, I don’t know.  It’s the first snakebite I have heard of happening here.

Second Article: Snake in question is a cobra, which the article explains does not live in Brazil.  This flies in the face of my understanding of Portuguese until I read on and see that it is not just a generic portuguese “cobra”, but a “cobra naja” which is the real deal cobra from Asia.  So it’s the “naja” part you have to pay attention to.  Note to self to open with that question when I next meet a snake.

Third Article: Police cannot find said cobra and open an investigation into the origin of the now missing snake.  What? How do you lose a snake?  Is this like the boa constrictors who have been released into the wild in Florida and are running rampant?  Are there Asiatic Cobras running amok in Brasilia?  I am assuming that the student who was bitten is in no shape to tell them where to find the snake.

Fourth Article: Cobra is mysteriously and anonymously delivered to a shopping mall nowhere near where the student lives.  Oh, now it’s getting good.  This is like cloak and dagger, electronically altered voice stuff.  “The snake you are looking for is behind the Orange Julius at the mall.  You have thirty minutes.”  My guess here is that the friends of Mister Snakebite were smart enough to know that the hospital can’t really do much until they know what kind of snake bit their buddy, but were also still hoping to avoid trouble.

So the police apprehend the snake, which amounts to finding the clear rubbermaid the snake calls home.  According to the article, the snake is quite pleasant and not at all aggressive, showing clear signs of being someone’s pet: asking to be let out to poop, drinking from the toilet, turning it’s nose up at canned rat, etc. 

Fifth Article:  This one is about Mister Snakebite’s social media accounts, which show him with not only the apprehended snake, but other illegal and exotic snakes.  Seriously, you couldn’t come up with a better hobby than photoshoots with illegal venomous snakes?  Interestingly, the police cannot locate any of those other snakes now.

Next Article: Mister Snakebite is now in a coma awaiting anti-venom, of which there is only one dose in Brazil, located a flight away in Sao Paolo.  I am actually impressed there is a dose somewhere in country considering the snake is not native to Brazil.  Somewhere there is someone in a procurement office telling a buddy, “see, I told you we would need that.”

Next Article: The police interview the victim’s friends and began a citywide search for the other snakes from the social media posts that are now suspected to be in the area.  Through one source or another,  the police locate an entire illegal snake breeding operation where they think that the original Mister Bitey Snake came from, eventually finding 16 other snakes hidden in a horse stall in a barn.  It becomes like one of those massive drug busts where all the confiscated drugs are on display like a trophy, except it’s a pile of clear rubbermaid bins.  Somehow them all being stashed under a pile of hay in a barn just makes it all the better.

Next Article: The snake breeding ring collapses, and the defendants claim that all the snakes were being kept for scientific observation.  That is the herpetologist’s version of “I didn’t inhale!”  Meanwhile, the victim wakes from his coma, thanks the hospital staff for saving him, and has a curious craving for cuy.

Next Article: With help from the herpetologists at the zoo in Brasilia, it is found that ten of the sixteen snakes are not native to Brazil.  So now, perhaps just to increase readership and curb appeal, the group of friends under investigation gets designated as an international smuggling operation, sadly without the additional even sexier “with ties to organized crime” status, but we will take what we can get.

And just because, while the expanding police search is unable to locate any more snakes, it does manage to find three illegal sharks.  So now we have an illegal shark operation too?  What fifth grader made up this story? The sharks claim not to know any of the snakes in question.

The author of the most recent and final article I have seen decided it would be important for everyone to know the going rate to illegally purchase a venomous cobra, which is about R$7,000.  And just so you know, with the current exchange rate, there really is no better time to buy.  Thankfully the author also saved their journalistic integrity by including the legally available list of snakes for purchase, reputable locations for said purchases, and which snake is trending right now, which apparently is the rainbow boa.

And so Snakes of Our Lives has come to an end.  As serious as wildlife trafficking is, it was sure nice to have something to read in the newspaper that made me smile more than it did cry.  No matter where you are, and no matter your situation, it is my genuine hope that you can still find small moments that make you smile.

With heads down and hopes up from Brasilia,

Be safe, be well, and be happy,

Adam

Limbo in Brasilia

                                            Limbo in Brasilia.   

I started writing this blog entry about a month ago, and I have come back to it several times, but it has been a hard one to write.  I think maybe it is because what is happening in our lives pales in comparison with what is going on in the world right now.   It feels strange to put out anything right now, but my intention has been that this will be a record of our time down here, and so this is our life.  

We find ourselves at the half way mark of our “summer”, such as it is, and it isn’t easy.   Our glorious plans of family and friends coming to Brazil,  and visits to Peru, have evaporated and we find ourselves, like so many others, facing an uncertain moment.  When it was clear that we weren’t going to be having the summer we planned, we started working on the summer we didn’t plan, and part of that discussion was whether to return to the United States.  We chose not to, which may sound weird if you are only catching the headlines about Brazil, but we are feeling good about our choice and are trying to make the best of it.  Brasilia proper is still doing pretty well right now in managing Covid 19.  We have space in our hospitals, lots of testing available, and a community that for the most part is taking precautions seriously and wearing masks and giving space.  You can’t leave your home without a mask here, and many stores also take your temperature before you can walk in the door.  Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the outlying satellite cities around Brasilia.  Like the US, we are facing a rise in cases in new areas, and no one is sure where things are headed.  It is strange to watch masks be so political back home while living in a place, as localized as it is,  where people generally accept and support them as a part of the greater good.   To sum it up, we are healthy, we are feeling safe here, and we are just living in the global limbo like so many others.

The end of the school year is already a long time ago, and ending it without being together was hard for all of us.  Our school did everything they could to make the end of year special for every student.  Our graduating seniors had their ceremony at a drive in movie theatre with the videos of the speakers projected on the big screen.   Hannah and the rest of the 8th graders got to do a car parade where they all lined up and drove laps though the drop off loop at the front of school with music, balloons, gifts, and lots of smiles and tears behind masks.  Lila and the fifth graders had their own similar car parade the following day, and it definitely helped.

Lila has continued her maracuja (passion) project about running on into the summer, which is great for her, and me.  We are running four times a week.  Three short runs of different types and then one longer run on the weekends.  She ran 12k on trails around Brasilia last weekend, her longest run ever, and ended with enough energy to consider doing a few more kilometers just for fun.  Hannah has been doing everything she can do avoid running, but is doing just fine with online workouts, bike rides, and paddle boarding. 

A fortunate part of making the best of it was two weeks house sitting for a family from school who did decide to go back to the US.  We spent two weeks in their home in Brasilia, which includes a pool, a yard, amazing views, and great wildlife.  We had families of marmosets using the fence line as a primate highway, toucans hanging out in the yard, leafcutter ants putting on a nightly show at the pool’s edge, and daily flights of blue and gold macaws overhead.  The girls enjoyed all that, but not nearly as much as they did taking care of our friends’ puppy.  Pepa is a snuggly, goofy, big eared, floppy, chew anything in sight, sleep on your pillow, snore like a grandpa,  French Bulldog puppy.  Not surprisingly, the girls couldn’t have picked a better way to spend two weeks.  

We have also managed to find a little hidden gem of a natural area just outside Brasilia where we have spent at least one day a week for the last month hiking, swimming, and exploring.  It is called Poco Azul, the Blue Well, and it has a reputation for being crowded and boring.  Which it is, if you only hike to the single waterfall the area is named for.  Brazilians, like Americans, tend to go the closest attraction they can and stop there, which is an interesting trait, but totally fine with us because that means a little more work can give you a waterfall to yourself.  On our second trip to Poco Azul, there were forty or so people gathered at the main spot, and only four people at an equally gorgeous waterfall just ten minutes further down the trail.  Granted, if you want to leave the “highway” you do have to do some route finding and the trails are rugged and not well marked, but it has been worth it.  The girls potentially would disagree a little bit with that statement since our first attempt at exploring the area might have led to scrambling up some near vertical cliffs and possibly almost having to hike out in the dark, but really, who’s counting?  The new system of hiking to a known waterfall, and sending me out to scout ahead before the next leg, has led to a much higher success rate, and we still have areas to go back to we have not seen yet.

We now have two paddle boards, and have ordered a third, so we can all spend time out on the lake looking for caiman and herds of capybara and enjoying a bathtub temperature swim on a hot day.  Being on, around, or just in sight of water continues to work its magic for our family in every way.

So here we are. We have all had a quarantine birthday.  No one has had a haircut.   We are watching the news from the US with a mix of horror, shame, and sadness.  We are having conversations as a family around class, race and privilege that we never have had before.  We have more days of thriving than surviving as an isolated family unit.  We hold out hope that real change is possible for the US.  We worry more than normal about everything, and we also are thankful more than normal for what we have, knowing that even now we live such fortunate lives.  We have a month of break left, and beyond that, we really don’t know what lies ahead.

Be safe, be happy, and be well,

Adam, Sara, Lila and Hannah

Yes, that is Hannah and Sara, and yes, Hannah is now taller.  Don’t let Sara’s heels fool you.

Lila in her fancy graduation dress keeping some distance with a friend at her event.

This is Lila on her 12k run around the lake.  This is the first of three groups of capybara we saw.
Don’t let the cute fool you, the biggest of those rodents can push two feet tall at the shoulders and go well over 100 pounds.

Not a bad spot for a staycation.

Sunset, Sara’s favorite time at the house.

The infamous Pepa.

Lucky to still be able to go places like this.

Every waterfall area has a Bridal Veil falls, and. this area is no exception. 

My hair is even longer than this now, but sadly the mustache got vetoed by the family.
Magnum P.I. would have been proud.