The Amazon

It has been a few weeks since we returned from our trip to the Amazon and we still pinch ourselves that we got to spend time there.  On our family scale, it ranks right up there with any trip we have done.  On one hand, the Amazon basin is so huge in scale that is hard to fathom.  On the other hand, every square meter of ground holds enough life to be fascinating for years.  The back and forth that is part of switching scales from the immense to the minuscule means that everywhere you look could just possibly be the coolest thing you have seen on the trip.

One moment you are feeling like you are sailing on the ocean as it takes you seven miles just to cross from one side of the river to the other, and the next you find yourself mesmerized by a two inch wide line of leaf cutter ants on the jungle floor in the middle of the night.

That our family likes rivers is not exactly a hidden secret, so when our guide said that getting a houseboat would be the best way to see the Amazon, we were sold.  Sara’s parents were even brave enough to join us on the adventure, which made things even better.   It was a quirky, wooden, thirty year old boat that was by no means luxurious, but it had an amazing top deck with a covered patio and a walkway all the way around the boat, beds for everyone, and great Brazilians taking care of us.  The Comte Shaloom was our home for six days, and it was river living at it’s Brazilian finest.   Most mornings you were up before dawn to take a motorized canoe out to watch the jungle wake up.  Amazing birds, monkeys, sloths, caiman, dolphins, and insects galore were all part of the daily agenda.  Then it was typically back to the “big boat” for breakfast and then a few hours of motoring to the next spot.  Lunch, another side trip to something else amazing, another round of motoring, and then the evening event of a sunset canoe tour or a nighttime jungle hike.   Some of the days stretched to fifteen hours, but there was always time for a nap in a hammock and a good book.

Being on the boat also let you see life on the river as you cruised along.  It was nice just to spend time passing by all the small villages and the floating restaurants.  It was teacher interesting to see the school boat parked outside the regional boarding school.   A normal moment on the river would be where one minute there’s a family motoring by in a dugout canoe, the next the whole boat is rocking in the wake of the giant ferry boat making it’s way upstream during a thirty hour journey to some far away town with the top floor full of hammocks. You pass by too many rivers to name or keep track of, and when you finally do go by something as small as the Deschutes, it probably isn’t even on the map.  We went about 200 kilometers upstream and back during our six days, and on any map of Brazil that shows the whole Amazon basin, our route would look like we barely left Manaus.  It was just a small taste, but one we will remember.

Once again, I end with a montage of moments from our trip.  No explanation, just the best I could put together to convey the moment.  

Cheers, 

Adam

I Heart Brasilia

 Eu ❤  Brasilia

It is kind of hard to believe, but we are one quarter of our way through our time here in Brazil.  Tomorrow we head back to school to start the second half of our first school year down here.  In some ways, it has been an incredibly long six months since we arrived.  In others, it is hard to realize how short our time down here will actually be.  Ah well, just pondering before I get started on the story of our last month.

Our first official visitors arrived the weekend after school got out.  Sara’s mom and dad made the journey from Massachusetts to spend the break with us.  They had some travel adventures on the way down, but landed just in time to turn around and head to the beach with us.  The beach this time was just south of Porto Seguro in the town of Trancoso.   Lots of good food, beach time, and a chance for me to practice my Mario Kart driving skills negotiating narrow, old, one lane cobblestone and dirt roads with the rest of humanity.  It was a minor miracle that we finished the trip with both mirrors.  Apparently when there are no lane markers, there are no lanes.  And we found out that a car, a van, and two motorcycles can fit in one lane if everyone holds their breath at the same time.  

Like every beach we have seen, the ones in the Trancoso area were amazing.  My favorite was the one we found by accident while trying to go to a completely different spot.  A local told us the beach we wanted to see was closed, but if we drove four and half kilometers, we would go down a hill and see a small road to the left.  He told us to turn there, park before the sand got too loose, and walk towards the ocean.  And it worked.  We popped out over a sand dune to find a spectacular beach with only two other people on it.  Palm trees for shade and sea turtles just offshore only made things better.  Just another beach day in Brazil.

Slightly sunburnt and with more than a little sand stowed away, we made it back to Brasilia in time for Christmas.  It was nice to have family here for our first Christmas in Brasilia.  There were definitely cravings for snow, family, friends, and Bend around Christmas time.  You will notice some completely unnecessary sweatshirts and jeans worn in protest in the Brasilia photos.  This was the girls’ first “warm” Christmas, and while we are quickly becoming accustomed to the Brasilia uniform of shorts, t-shirts, and flip flops, it was different.  We had the tree and lights, and some of the normal routines, but just with a Brazilian twist.   Santa brought popsicle makers instead of his annual warm, cozy clothing gift.  We went for a sunny family stroll on the closed highway instead of through the cold and snow like back home.  We ate pao de queijo instead of cinnamon rolls, and potato leek soup instead of posole.  But there were children up at dawn, full stockings, and time with family, so we did just fine.

I think I’ll end this blog entry there.  The second half of our break was centered around our trip to the Amazon, but that is just too big an event to shoehorn into this blog.  So, enjoy some pictures of Brasilia and Trancoso, and I’ll start working on the Amazon post soon.

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