Feliz Ano Novo

 What other professions besides teaching are there where missing work takes more time and effort than going to work sick?  Has anyone ever gone to the doctor and had a sub?  Can you imagine a doctor leaving detailed histories, medical notes and treatment plans for all of the patients that their sub will be seeing when they are out sick?  Maybe some do.  I just get the phone call asking me to reschedule.  And clearly for those of you who know my wife and I, you know that I am talking about her.  She woke up this Sunday morning not feeling great, decided that it is smarter to stay home for a day to make sure it isn’t anything serious, and has worked most of today just so she can be sick tomorrow.  And right now thankfully she is just teacher sick, which usually means an extra cup of coffee, a long day at work, and an early bedtime, but with Covid, she has to stay home.  We are on campus this week, and everyone has to fill out a questionnaire on an app every morning asking if we have had any symptoms in the last 24 hours, and she would get the big red stop sign if she tried.  And it makes sense.  We got back from traveling to northern Brazil seven days ago, which puts us in the incubation window.  We are 99% it is just another case of Ghost Covid, where every cough makes you wonder, but it’s not worth risking.

It is 2021 now, and as much as I was hoping it would bring changes for the positive, that does not yet seem to be the case.  Covid is rising again here in Brazil.  It is not on the level that it is in the US, but there is really nothing keeping it from going that way.  The first person was vaccinated in Brazil today, and while we are way down on the list of people to receive it ourselves, at least that process has started.  Like so many folks, we find that Covid is still step number one in everything we do, from grocery shopping to getting on an airplane.  It is sad how normal it has become to begin all discussions with can we do this safely?  Or at minimum, can we do it at a level of risk we are comfortable taking?

And it still remains weird to share anything happy during all of this, especially with the amount of suffering that is happening right now all around the world.  We have always lived a very fortunate life compared to so many, and that divide only seems to be increasing the longer the pandemic lasts.  We try to give back in our own small way, but it definitely feels like a drop in an ever expanding bucket right now.  That is my disclaimer in an attempt to assuage my guilt before sharing our latest adventures.

We have been back from our big holiday break for one week, and as much exploring and enjoying as we did, one of the hardest things has been not being able to share Brazil with as many folks as we had hoped we could.  Every place we go seems to connect in our minds to friends and family back home.  “So and so would love this.  This would be the best place to come with so and so.”  And there have been a lot of places and a lot of so and sos. Fingers crossed that maybe we will be able to show some folks around in June or July before we leave, but we will be sad to keep Brazil all to ourselves if that doesn’t happen.

And we feel so lucky that Brazil is open, because as sad as we have been not to be able to explore the rest of South America, Brazil is an incredible country all on its own.  We started this vacation by taking a quick four day trip to our most touristy destination yet, Foz do Iguazu, which is an incredible waterfall in the southern part of Brazil on the border with Argentina.  It is kind of like a combination of Niagara Falls and Victoria Falls, and well worth the hype.  One bonus of the pandemic is that there were only about 10% of the normal amount of people there, so it did not feel crowded like it can.  Imagine Yellowstone with 10% of the regular amount of people.  And we stayed at a hotel with a water park, which is still kid heaven for Hannah and Lila, especially since it was virtually empty which means you could go down the slide as many times are you were willing to climb the stairs.  We also got to visit a conservation and education organization who is working to preserve the Atlantic Rainforest, which means we got to see up close some of the amazing species of birds, like macaws and toucans, that we have been loving seeing on our journeys.

We then turned right around and went back to Chapada dos Veiadeiros, our local national park, to spend time with friends hiking and exploring more of the waterfalls we have not seen yet. The running joke for most of our time here in Brazil is that Hannah has somehow developed the ability to affect the weather and cause rain to stop, no matter the forecast.  It began last Christmas when we went to the Amazon in the middle of the rainy season and the rain stopped the day we arrived and restarted the day we left.  It has continued in so many ways that it has become laughable.  One day, Sara and Lila went on a bike ride to one part of town, and Hannah and I went to another, and they got soaked in pouring rain and we got sprinkled on for two minutes.  When we were hiking on this trip, we would see rain clouds all around but somehow always end up in the clear spot.  As we were packing up on our day heading back to Brasilia, it rained so hard streets were flooding and we could barely see out the windshield for a while, but then when the sun was back out for the hike we did on the way home.  

We spent the middle week and a half of our break back home in Brasilia.  Brasilia really has become home for us, and it was exactly where the girls wanted to be for Christmas.  We had a whirlwind four days of baking and decorating before Christmas Day.  Baking is no small feat down here.  The apartment ovens here are really not much bigger than a toaster oven, so the assembly line of Christmas cookies was a little slower than in the US.  Luckily, they were a dedicated team of bakers and I supported by washing dishes and sampling the different varieties.

We ended our break by spending ten days up in Salvador, which included some new stops and a return to Surf Camp.  When we made the decision to come to Brazil, we made the girls a deal that they could each choose one of our vacations while we are down here.  After last Thanksgiving up in Salvador at Bahia Surf Camp, that decision was made.  So, we found ourselves spending our last chunk of vacation back on the beach for round two of learning to surf.  We did add on a couple of days in the city of Salvador itself, which is full of amazing architecture, history, and people.  We also added a day on the end to go check out a sea turtle sanctuary, but we devoted a week to just the beach, swimming, surfing, eating, napping, and relaxing in a little slice of Bahian paradise.

And so we find ourselves in January of 2021, only five months from our adventure here coming to a close.  We are starting to have discussions and to make plans for when we return to the United States, and it is a little sad.  Like so many things, time has flown and stood still at the same time.  We have lots of adventures remaining before we leave, and with luck and some vaccinations, maybe some of you can come down and share them with us.

Be safe, be well, and be happy,

Beijos,

Adam