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.

Zoom Magician

Oh, I hope you weren’t expecting that title because I work magic on Zoom, although I can understand the confusion.  I titled this blog that way because apparently the one skill that I have honed the most during “distance learning” is my uncanny ability to say something that will cause my students to drop everything and disappear.  Poof! Gone!  Abra Stinking Cadabra!  Lesson Over.  To be fair, they are kindergartners, so this also happens through no fault of my own quite frequently, but I think my current record for keeping everyone on screen is six minutes.  I know that as educators we are lifelong learners and that this moment in time is just another opportunity for us to grow as people and develop our skills as digital citizens as well as classroom teachers, but would someone please tell me why saying the word “bunny” would cause a child to run screaming from the room.  And no, she has no previous bad experiences with bunnies, nor does she own a bunny that she was suddenly worried about, and no she didn’t even return on screen excitedly holding her stuffed rabbit.  In fact, the world will never know.   After five long minutes, she simply reappeared on screen without a word and got back to work.  Whatever happened in that five minutes will forever remain a mystery.  So yeah, things are great.  Can’t wait for Week 10 to start!  And yes, that is tea in Mister Adam’s mug.  What else would it be at 10:15 in the morning?

I am kidding, mostly.  I have an amazing teaching team and we are back to clicking as well as we ever did in the physical building, so at least I am going through this with people I respect and enjoy.  Sarah’s fifth grade team is even more impressive, and now we are in the final push of assessments, report cards, and wrapping up the school year  without seeing our students in person, so it won’t be a boring three weeks.

The girls are surviving.  They both miss seeing their friends, but also like some parts of learning this way.  Add in the hormones and we have lots of tears and lots of laughter every day.  I just wish I knew which one was coming next.

Social distancing birthday.  A rare face to face moment for Hannah and friends.

Big picture, we are doing as well as we can be, and better than many folks around the world.  Brazil is a big country and there are many places where things are going very poorly.  Brasilia is probably one of the best Brazilian cities to be in right now.  Our governor took serious steps early and we are not seeing the same problems of full ICU Units, lack of tests, and shortages of basic supplies other places are experiencing.  We fully know that could change quickly, but right now, it’s a good place to be, healthy or sick.

Warm post-run churros not ten minutes after a downpour ended.  Top notch timing.

And there are some things we are enjoying.  Lila and I run almost every day, and she has worked her way up to running six kilometers.  It’s fun to see her reconnect with something she loves, and I’m lucky to be able to do all that running with her.  Don’t get me wrong, the age old family tradition of bribery is still in full effect.  Instead of candies in cross country ski tracks and gummy worms hanging from tree branches on hikes, we have graduated to running for milkshakes and churros and biking for acai and ice cream.  But yep, it still works.  It is amazing how far those two will go for a yummy treat.  We also have a near daily routine of heading outside to the field next to the apartment to play after school.   The official games include frisbee, volleyball, soccer, or basketball, but the other daily game is to see who can attract the cutest puppy.  We keep our distance in one little corner of the field and still end up with a fairly regular stream of canine visitors who run over to say hi to the girls each day.  It is a funny routine of pet the dog, clean your hands, pet the next dog, clean your hands, but it is a heck of a lot easier than trying to tell them not to pet them.  And now that the girls have made it clear that they don’t mind, the owners just wave and say hi, and we get fresh air and puppy time, which is a pretty positive combination with which to end the day.

Bike ride ending at an ice cream shop, shocking I know.

As I imagine most folks are dealing with, the summer we had planned is not going to be the summer that we have, but we are figuring that all out the best we can.  Our two choices are remain here in Brasilia and hope that we can eventually do some regional car trips in July, or fly back to Bend, quarantine for two weeks, social distance there for a month, and then fly back for two weeks of quarantine here before school starts again.  Even as I write that, the idea of spending twenty four hours on four or five different planes there and back, plus spending a month in quarantine does not sound great.  Really, we have been social distancing with everyone in the US since last July, so we were really looking forward to time in person with friends and family this summer, but we are not at all confident we would get that even if we came home.  Honestly, our “dilemma” is such a first world problem, and even though it is on our minds, we are fortunate to have such good choices.

The field outside our apartment, quiet on a very rare foggy morning.  In fact, our first foggy morning since arriving.

Random thought.  If your family needs a show to watch together, try Brooklyn Nine Nine.  Funny on a lot of levels, and the rare show we all are excited to watch.

As always, be safe, be happy, and be well,

Adam, on behalf of Sara, Hannah and Lila

Popcorn and Puberty . . . . . by Chanel

That pretty much sums up what you would get if you were able to bottle the primary aroma in our apartment during our semi-quarantine.  And let me tell you that unless you are trying to create a Covid 19 screener for possible loss of smell, you want nothing to do with it.  I love my daughters, but times, they are a changin’.  The only silver lining is that if loss of smell is a symptom of having Covid 19, then I am the healthiest man alive.  I feel like a wine expert somedays.   Today’s particular vintage began with just a hint of armpit, leading into a deep, rich middle reminiscent of the earthy tones of your local landfill, finishing with that slightly sour end that is so often associated with unwashed feet.  A solid score of 93, and available by the case.  And this is coming from the former champion of producing interesting aromas in the family, so you know it is serious.  It is like the movie Gremlins all over again, except the rule is “please, please get them wet, with soap.”

Now Hannah and Lila might take exception to this description, but since I am currently the only chronicler of our time in Brazil, they don’t get a vote.  I am sure they will find this funny someday, maybe.  Admittedly nasal shock and awe is not the only thing going on in our lives, so I will move on.

Our school has been closed since March 12th, which means we just finished up our fifth week of distance learning.   We are currently scheduled to remain closed until the end of May, which would give us one week of in person time with our students, if nothing changes, hah, hah.  And as much as I didn’t think it was possible, Sara is actually working harder than before.  She is the first one awake and the last one asleep, and her laptop is never far from her person.  She and her team are doing amazing things.  They have really made distance learning work and it feels almost like school for many of the 5th graders.  That is not the case in K5.  We are working our tails off, but the reality is that if you don’t have an adult at home who can help, learning just isn’t going to happen.  And it is so hard because it is not anyone’s fault.  We have lots of families where both parents work, and many of them in the medical profession, so how can I ask them to come home and help their child work on teen numbers after a twelve hour day.   To be fair, we also have some amazing families that are making it work.  They are watching our videos, helping their kids, and doing an impressive job.  But is a hard time for everyone, and hearing every day that your class just wants to be back at school together is hard because it is exactly what we want too.

On the pandemic topic, Brasilia is actually doing a good job so far of handling Covid 19.  There are no restrictions on people being outside, but most folks wear masks in stores and give lots of space when passing by each other.  Only grocery stores, pharmacies and medical offices remain open, and it’s working.  We have not seen a huge spike in confirmed cases, and grocery stores are actually overstocked with necessities.  The only shortages were for masks and hand sanitizer, and those were short lived.  We are starting to see cracks in the social distancing, with more people out and about and more cars on the road, but no official reduction of rules yet.  A neighboring state just reopened more stores, so we will see what happens here in the capital

Hannah has online classes every day from 9:30 to 1:30, with homework on top of that.  It is basically a regular school day for her,  just with 50 minutes classes instead of 80.  Lila has a couple of Zoom meetings every day, and then a list of activities to complete.  She is doing a pretty good job of getting things done.  It does make it harder to skip things when your mom is creating all your lessons.

We try to get outside every day.  The girls are learning to throw a frisbee in a manner acceptable to their mother, Lila and I do lunchtime runs, and walks and bike rides are still part of our family world.  Even though we are in an apartment, we have lots of green space and shady walking paths nearby,  which helps a lot.  And we have stopped taking the elevator unless we have a cart full of groceries, so daily stairs are part of our world also.

Despite our apartment smelling like quarantine spirit, we are extremely fortunate to be where we are.   Right now, we feel safe, we have more than what we need, and we are just waiting like the rest of the world to see what comes next.  There are lots of folks in much more dire situations than us, and we just hope we can come together everywhere to figure this out.

I’ll end with a few shots of our daily transformation from apartment to cubicle farm.  Sara gets the kitchen table.  I work in the bedroom at my coffee table standing desk.  Lila moved her desk into the back closet, and yes, that is an ironing board Hannah is working on.

Be safe, be happy, and be well.

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